In Human Rights in Thick and Thin Societies: Universality Without Uniformity, Seth Kaplan embarks upon the formidable task of proposing a novel comprise between the polarised views long held by proponents of universal international human rights law, on the one hand, and legal pluralists and cultural relativists, on the other hand. As recognised in Michael Walzer’s Foreword, the book is likely to evoke disagreement. Nevertheless, the ultimate aim of Kaplan’s monograph is to enhance the acceptance and implementation of human rights in both ‘thin’ societies that value autonomous choice and individual rights and ‘thick’ societies that exist within complex hierarchical institutions and relationships that define communal or religious values. Utilising the contested dichotomy between ‘Western’ (European and American) and ‘Southern’ (African, Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American) societies, Kaplan observes that resistance to imposed Western values is growing in the South, while religious or cultural minorities within Western states feel increasingly threatened by the perceived imposition of liberal ideology. Kaplan posits a spectrum ranging from ‘hard-line Western’ universalism to ‘hard-line’ relativism, and proposes a moderate position of ‘flexible universalism’ that acknowledges the universality of human rights but simultaneously pays due regard to local socio-political realities, especially in thick societies. According to Kaplan, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) represents the (liberal) Rawlsian concept of an ‘overlapping consensus’ on a core set of human rights, based on thin normativity as opposed to religious or thick ideological conceptions such as natural rights. Kaplan further highlights the flexibility afforded by the UDHR in respect of the prioritisation and implementation of rights, with the exception of non-derogable ‘primary rights’ against torture, enslavement, degrading punishment and discrimination. The author further points out that major international human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) – as well as regional mechanisms – grant similar leeway to states as to how to go about prioritising and realising various rights. Kaplan concludes his first substantive chapter by pointing out the relational aspects of the UDHR, its recognition of duties in addition to rights, and the nature of human rights as legal – not moral – agreements, before setting out the contribution of cultural psychology in Chapter 3. After expounding research conducted by cultural psychologists that largely reflects positions previously expressed by cultural relativists, Kaplan focuses on one study that identifies the West – and in particular the United States – as moral outliers globally. Classification as ‘Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic’ (‘WEIRD’) is used to distinguish this group from other communities globally that adopt more relational worldviews, and

中文翻译：

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厚薄社会中的人权：没有统一性的普遍性

在厚重社会中的人权：没有统一性的普遍性中，赛斯·卡普兰开始了一项艰巨的任务，即提出一部小说，介于普遍国际人权法的支持者长期以来持有的两极分化的观点之间，一方面，法律多元化和文化另一方面，相对主义者。正如迈克尔·沃尔泽 (Michael Walzer) 的前言所承认的那样，这本书很可能会引起分歧。然而，卡普兰专着的最终目标是在重视自主选择和个人权利的“薄”社会和存在于定义社区或宗教价值的复杂等级制度和关系中的“厚”社会中促进对人权的接受和实施。 . 利用“西方”（欧洲和美国）和“南方”（非洲、亚洲、中东和拉丁美洲）社会，卡普兰观察到南方对强加的西方价值观的抵制正在增长，而西方国家内的宗教或文化少数群体越来越受到自由意识形态强加的威胁。卡普兰提出了一个范围从“强硬的西方”普遍主义到“强硬的”相对主义，并提出了“灵活的普遍主义”的温和立场，承认人权的普遍性，但同时适当考虑当地的社会政治现实，尤其是在稠密的社会中。根据卡普兰的说法，《世界人权宣言》（UDHR）代表了（自由主义的）罗尔斯关于一套核心人权的“重叠共识”的概念，基于薄的规范性，而不是宗教或厚重的意识形态概念，如自然权利. 卡普兰进一步强调了《世界人权宣言》在优先排序和实施权利方面提供的灵活性，但反对酷刑、奴役、有辱人格的惩罚和歧视的不可克减的“主要权利”除外。作者进一步指出，《公民权利和政治权利国际公约》(ICCPR) 和《经济、社会、文化权利国际公约》(ICESCR) 等主要国际人权条约以及区域机制都给予了类似的余地。国家关于如何优先考虑和实现各种权利。卡普兰通过指出《世界人权宣言》的相关方面、对义务和权利的承认以及人权作为法律而非道德协议的性质，结束了他的第一章实质性章节，在第 3 章阐述文化心理学的贡献之前。 在阐述了文化心理学家进行的主要反映了文化相对主义者先前表达的立场的研究之后，卡普兰专注于一项将西方——尤其是美国——认定为全球道德异常值的研究. 分类为“西方的、受过教育的、工业化的、富裕的和民主的”（“WEIRD”）用于将这个群体与全球其他采用更多关系世界观的社区区分开来，以及