Why is Burke Opposed to
Universal Human Rights?
"Government is a
contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be
provided for by this wisdom."(p. 92) People have rights to the advantages
of civil society. There are no other
rights.
Why does Burke oppose
guarantees of additional rights?
(1) Rights "
cannot be settled upon any abstract rule."(p. 92) Government is "an experimental
science, not to be taught a priori" (p. 92)
(2) Advocates of rights admit
of no compromise. Good government
requires lots of compromises.
(3) Rights are too
simplistic. Good governments are complex.
What is the test for a good
government?
"the
solid test of long experience and an increasing public strength and national
prosperity" (p. 90)
Why does Burke oppose
democratic rights? Is Burke a
paternalist?
To his credit, Burke opposed
the British colonial rule in
Why did the French Revolution
degenerate into a reign of terror?
Rousseau's fatal blindspot about individual
rights: Rousseau advocated the
elimination of all individual rights in favor of a social identity as part of
the General Will.
Why Does Marx Not Endorse Individual Human Rights?
Marx's criticism of rights to
religious freedom (the political emancipation of religious man) is
representative of his criticism of all human rights theories. "The question of the relation of
political emancipation to religion becomes for us the question of the relation
of political emancipation to human emancipation." (p. 127)
Marx's challenge: Political emancipation is not human
emancipation.
What is political
emancipation? Typically, it is a right
to non-interference in some realm (e.g,
non-interference in the practice of one's religion).
Marx's claim: "The state can be a
Why do
Marx's Objections To The Four Basic Rights Of Man
(1) Rights to liberty are the
rights of "an isolated ["self-sufficient"] monad, withdrawn into
himself".
They are not based on human association, but on human separation.
(2) Property rights are
rights to self-interest.
(3) Rights to equality are
understood as rights to equal liberty.
(4) Rights to security are
the assurance of egoism.
Marx's alternative: Human emancipation as emancipation from one's
individualistic, egoistic identity. True
emancipation involves becoming a non-egoistic member of a non-egoistic
community.
Not religious freedom, but
freedom from religion; not freedom to own property, but freedom from property;
not freedom to engage in business, but freedom from business.
Marx's solution: A revolution more radical than a mere
political revolution that aims at political emancipation. A social revolution to
achieve human emancipation, to transform egoistic man into communal man, a
species-being, not an isolated monad.
Why is Marx's political
theory paternalistic?
How would Sen reply
to Marx's criticism of political emancipation?
What is the History of the Development of Human Rights a
History of?
The Proof Paradigm: Self-Evident Moral Principles
The Moral Discovery
Paradigm: A Largely Bottom-Up, Fallible
Process of Improving Our Moral Principles
Richard Rorty's
Humean Answer (following David Hume): No Self-Evident Truths, No Process of
Discovery, Because Moral Judgment is Based on Sentiment not Reason (where
Reason is understood as the faculty for determining truth and falsehood.
What does Rorty
mean by the claim that human rights foundationalism
is outmoded?
Moral
development as "manipulating" feelings.
Moral
education as a "progress of sentiments".
Truth vs. Sentiment
Rationality vs. Sympathy
Moral Realism: Some moral statements are true.
Humean Moral Anti-Realism:
No moral statements are true, because they are expressions of
sentiment.
Two roles for rationality to
play in the theory of human rights: (1)
the ground of human rights = the characteristic possessed by another being in
virtue of which we judge that certain rights should be guaranteed to that
being; (2) the source of human rights judgments = the characteristic(s) in us
that enable us to make judgments concerning who should be guaranteed rights and
what rights they should be guaranteed.
Rorty believes that the sentiment of
sympathy is the source of human rights judgments.
What about their ground?
Rorty implies that sympathy grounds human
rights judgments in the sense that our sympathies determine the scope of human
rights judgments. There is no objective
basis for distinguishing how far human rights should extend.
These two different views
of human rights judgments lead to different ways of understanding moral
progress.
HUME'S DIVISION BETWEEN
REASON AND SENTIMENT IN MORAL JUDGMENT
|
REASON |
SENTIMENT/EMOTION/DESIRE |
|
|
|
|
Provides information to
be used to satisfy one's desires. |
Provides motivation for
action. |
|
Produces purely
descriptive judgments, which are true or false. |
Produces normative and
evaluative judgments, which are neither true or false |
|
Science |
Morality |
An alternative to the Humean view: No strict division between reason and
emotions. The emotions are part of
reason and help us to discern important social truths (Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought).
MORAL PROGRESS AND
MORAL TRUTH
Rorty's Moral Anti-Realist
View: The Development of Human Rights is
a "Progress of Sentiments."
Talbott's Moral Realist Proposal: Progress in Moral Discovery, Because There are Objective Moral Truths.
Discovery involves Bottom-Up, not Top-Down, Reasoning. Particular moral judgments involve
sentiments, but they are not merely expressions of sentiment. They are attempts to articulate strictly
universal moral truths. Progress depends
on getting closer to the truth.
Puzzle: How can there be moral progress if there is
no moral truth? Do our sympathies define
progress? The Example
of the Cockroach Beings.
The Two Senses of
"Top-Down" and "Bottom-Up"
(1) Reasoning:
In Top-Down reasoning, moral judgments about
particular cases are derived from moral principles.
In Bottom-Up Moral Reasoning, moral principles are
justified by their ability to explain moral judgments about particular cases.
(2) Social Process of Moral Change:
Top-Down: Moral
change comes from those in authority.
Bottom-Up: Moral change comes from ordinary
citizens.
Human Rights as a Discovery
What is the main discovery?
That paternalistic justifications for
oppression are mistaken. All human
beings—indeed, all beings with the relevant cognitive, emotional, and conative capacities—should have rights to develop their own
judgment about what is good for them and to use it.
History of the Bottom-Up Development of a Right Against Paternalistic Interference
(Note that all these
developments have occurred in spite of the fact that they contradicted
previously accepted religious and/or governmental authorities)
Expanding Rights:
(1) Rights to religious freedom. The most important right
against paternalism.
(2) Rights to freedom of expression, association, and the
press.
(3) Sen-Nussbaum: rights to development of the central human
capabilities. These are the capabilities
that enable a person to make her own judgments of what is good for her.
Expanding
the class of right-holders.
(1) Rights of male,
property-owners.
(2) Elimination of slavery
and extending rights to non-white males.
(3) Women's rights. (Note that the
(4) End of colonialism and
extending rights to indigenous peoples.
(5) Rights to gender and
sexual expression.
(6) Rights of the disabled.
Extending the scope of rights
against paternalism:
(1) Development of Constitutional rights to birth control,
abortion, and private sexual activity between consenting adults.
(2) A right to refuse medical treatment and to terminate life
support.
(3) A right to assisted suicide in some circumstances? (Example of Dr. Kevorkian)
(4)
Metaphysical Immodesty Again: Objectively Universal Particular Moral
Judgments?
The example of the Extra-Terrestrial
colonizers of earth.
The End of
History?
There is no goal or end of
history. There is no guarantee that
history will lead to expanded respect for human rights. What is surprising is that so much progress
has been made and continues to be made.
The process of discovery is Bottom-Up in an epistemic and a social
sense. You are a part of the
process.
What moral blindspots of ours will our descendants be
shocked by?