Subject: Re: [HAB:] What makes a human right universal?
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 11:35:53 +0000


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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