Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 10:23:27 -0500
Subject: Re: [HAB:] What makes a human right universal?


I don't know what any of this has to do with the question originally 
proposed.  Perhaps the way to define your interest would be the question of 
the enforcement of human rights.  Some human rights have been spread by 
means of imperialism (as others have been trampled on in the same process): 
Napolean's emancipation of the Jews, western attempts to ban 
clitoridectomy, etc.  Or, another example would be the status of immigrant 
communities and conflicting collective rights, e.g. whether Muslim girls 
should be prevented from wearing veils in French schools, or whether they 
have the "right" to do so.  However, notice that the examples I give all 
pertain to conflicting norms of conflicting collectivities.  But the 
ultimate issue is the right of the individual to emancipate him/herself 
against the constraint of all collectivities.  (Spinoza as the exemplar of 
the Radical Enlightenment is pertinent here.)  The destruction of 
repressive tradition is always a good thing, and always becomes the 
prerogative of those affected to widen their sphere of autonomy and demand 
progress--i.e. rights--for themselves, no matter where the idea 
originated.  Once the question of a right can even be raised--by 
anyone--the range of possibilities has been conceptually expanded and the 
right under debate enters into a dynamic system.  The export of "democracy" 
may well be a sham, but the idea tends to be contagious.  In any case, 
democracy is not a term with unequivocal meanings.  It is a method of 
governance, but there are non-negotiable rights within that framework not 
subject to majority rule, as encoded in the U.S. Bill of Rights, for example.

At 11:35 AM 11/4/2003 +0000, matthew piscioneri wrote:
>Ralph,
>
>if we change things a little (in keeping with Habermas's approach more):
>
>
>>I would say that rights are a natural entitlement,
>
>but are natural entitlements ( for e.g. the species wide competence for 
>meaningful symbolically mediated communicative interaction) a basis for a 
>framework of human rights?
>
>I am still thinking about democratic *imperialism* (Iraq, obviously) not 
>so much the technical question "Can democracy be exported?" (and this begs 
>the question of how democratic the *export* is in the first place), but 
>rather the normative question "Should, and on what basis, democracy be 
>exported?"
>
>In the report of Habermas's Iranian visit at one point Habermas contrasts 
>communicative reason and the potential for the redemption of validity 
>claims with dogmatic theological reason and the circumscription 
>(proscription) of the uninhibited option for the validity claims of speech 
>acts to be redeemed.
>
>Today I have been tossing around the notion of a *dogmatic naturalism* 
>that problematizes any natural framework of ethics (ye olde is/ought gap). 
>Habermas gets around this by arguing for the always/already embedded 
>normativity of language games in a lifeworld/ in the Occidental modern 
>lifeworld. However, his comments in Iran reminded me that he is committed 
>to the species-wide potential to gain access to communicative reason in 
>all natural languages presumably. i guess this is the problem with all 
>structuralist approaches....holds onto the Kantian notion of a 
>transcendental nature.
>
>A funny tidbit on exporting democracy....T.V tonight a poll of E.U 
>constituents concluded that America and Israel represented the greatest 
>threats to world peace at present. What really cracked me up was the 
>Israeli commentator who firstly disparaged the poll for exhibiting 
>anti-semitic tendencies (yawn, yawn) and then ridiculed the results as 
>NONSENSICAL because Israel and the U.S were democracies. As if to say it's 
>impossible that democracies could pose a threat to world peace.
>
>Regards,
>
>MattP.



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