Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 18:04:27 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [HAB:] What is a right (as such)?


If we can't credibly ask exactly anymore: What is the
*nature* of a right? or: What is a right
*essentially*?, we *can* still ask that which those
questions sought to pursue, which one might pose with
quote marks that give a so-called or that-which status
to the key terms: What is the "nature" of a right?
What is a right "essentially"?

Can the notion of right be validly translated into the
notion of entitlement? 

Is any meaning lost by saying (2) rather than (1)?:

(1) I have the right to education, due to my potential
to benefit from education.
(2) I am entitled to education, due to my potential to
benefit from education. 

In either case, my potential to benefit may be the
real basis of the claim to right/entitlement, which is
*thereby* deserving of recognition. My potential
bestows on me the entitlement, not the other's
recognition (or better: the other's *appreciation*). I
am deserving of appreciation of my potential,
*because* my potential entitles me to the
appreciation. 

Can this kind of basis for entitlement be fleshed out
as the real basis of human rights---even the
*"natural"* basis of human rights? 

If so, then Habermas's assertion, at the very end of
_Truth & Justification_ (MIT Press, 2003) could be
shown to be misleading:

JH: ...subjective rights can be derived only from
antecedent, intersubjectively recognized norms
governing a legal community. [291]

G: The relevant kind of "norm" here is a *realism*
about human potential which, I would argue (and have
tirelessly claimed), gives primacy to the potential
for individuation, *by which* socialization is
possible, i.e., the real primacy of individuation in a
human development that *includes* socialization. 

Thus, it's false to say that:

JH: Legal persons in general [? corporations, too? -
G] become individuals only through socialization.
[292]

G: Not only do persons become individuals through a
development that is really both socialization *and*
individuation, but most importantly, for the sake of
the real basis of human rights, individuation is how
socialization is made possible and is *enacted*
(rather than merely *happening*)---and why results of
socialization never look the same with any two
persons. 

After all, to say that [JH] "every person is of equal
value precisely *as* [sic] a person" [ibid] (JH's very
last words of _T&J_) is *not* primarily a matter of
gaining recognition of oneself as a person generally
in some same manner equally among all, rather of
having one's individuality given fair opportunity for
appreciation, *because* THAT is the primary reality
that results from natural entitlement to opportunity
to grow well: *identity*, not precursory legal
personhood. 

I say this in light of another reading, today, of
"Rightness versus Truth," as well as reading JH's last
chapter that fascinatingly (in its second half)
revisits "the relationship between theory and
practice" in terms of "the role of the public
intellectual"---which is also, in JH's surprising
words, "a kind of untamed" [286] "polyglossia" [290]
that I want to return to in some detail. 

Gary






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