Social Professional Activity: The Lowest Common Denominator in Difference

There is an ongoing debate on the question if professional activities in the field of the social do actually have a genuinely ‘own’ scientific basis or if their academic standing depends entirely on other disciplines as sociology, economics, administration or law. The present book offers an answer – by actually twisting the question into another direction: the question for the common denominator should not be employed by looking for the original disciplinary basis. Instead, it is more important to look at a common point of reference towards which activities – and research – can be geared. The editors propose human rights as such reference and make in their own introductory contribution clear that any contemplation on such rights cannot be limited on abstract moral and normative questions nor can it be left to the arbitrariness of cultural relativism.