Human Rights, Human Dignity, and Cosmopolitan Ideals

Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, Amos Nascimento

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317119708
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Essays in Politics & International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book makes a significant contribution to the on-going international dialogue on the meaning of concepts such as human rights, humanity, and cosmopolitanism. The authors propose a new agenda for research into a Critical Theory of Human Rights. Each chapter pursues three goals: to reconstruct modern philosophical theories that have contributed to our views on human rights; to highlight the importance of humanity and human dignity as a complementary dimension to liberal rights; and, finally, to integrate these issues more directly in contemporary discussions about cosmopolitanism. The authors not only present multicultural perspectives on how to rethink political and international theory in terms of the normativity of human rights, but also promote an international dialogue on the prospects for a critical theory of human rights discourses in the 21st century.

Chapter 1
The Idea of Human Rights and the Realities of World Politics: A Reflection on the Relationship between Ethics and Politics

Matthias Lutz-Bachmann

Developments in the field of international relations in the past few years have given me the opportunity to reconsider the relationship between ethics and politics. These developments are also related to the question about the importance of human rights amidst the changing realities of world politics. They are related to a series of events such as the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001, the impact of cross-border terrorism, the changes already observed in the structure of future military conflicts, especially the new recurrence of wars—which are not simply state-run but also initiated by private and non-state actors—as well as the mass phenomenon of suicide bombers with political motivations and, most importantly, the unresolved problem regarding the proliferation and global availability of weapons of mass destruction. These and other related factors lead to the assumption that the scenarios for action and the structures of international politics have experienced fundamental changes in the wake of globalization processes. All this affects political philosophy, which is no longer understood simply as a “philosophy of the polis,” that is, as a theory of a politically oriented individual State, but increasingly as a “philosophy of cosmopolis” or a “philosophy of international relations”¹ that needs to reflect upon its own foundations. My reflections on the relationship between ethics and politics and the role of human rights aim at contributing to a discussion on this state of affairs.

I would like to present my ideas on this topic according to three steps: First, I want to provide a brief survey of current debates confirming that the way in which the relationship between ethics and politics has been conceived in dominant contributions to a political philosophy of international relations is inadequate for various reasons and requires a different approach. Second, I want to propose a new perspective to justify the relationship between ethics and politics in light of new realities in world politics. Third, I would like to specify in more detail the implications this approach has for the question concerning the status of human rights.

Critique of Contemporary Political Philosophies of International Relations

The political theory of international relations developed in recent years continues to walk in the footsteps of the modern political philosophy inaugurated by Hobbes, Kant, and Hegel. One example of this trend is the very influential theory of realism which has been adopted by national political consultants and is now presented as a supposedly precise analysis of the international realm of action. This theory continues to follow those far-reaching philosophical premises that Thomas Hobbes once presented as the presuppositions to the relationship among individuals in the “state of nature.” However, because the realist theory does not postulate a new sovereign or Leviathan as Hobbes did, it remains limited by a mere directory of accounts characterized as “realist.” If this theory had followed Hobbes consistently, it would have had to conceive of the sovereign as a World State [Weltstaat] that claims all the power to itself while demanding and dominating the States of the World [Staatenwelt]. This evaluation consists of the view that the only possibility beyond the juridical order guiding the relationship within the state would be anarchy among competing states which, in principle, cannot be overcome. In the realm of international politics, realism recognizes only the action of individual states that defend their national interests, above all those for their own survival. This prompts them to follow a politics of national security and sovereignty.² Whenever one finds structures of public law, customary practices or comparative legal doctrines as well as global structures such as the United Nations, such structures are understood exclusively as a function of the individual strife toward national sovereignty and security. Based on this theoretical perspective of the politics of power exercised by individual states and their actions, practical and strategic maxims for action are derived in international politics which disregard the claims of ethical and normative principles. This does not preclude, however, that normative principles be demanded within democratic communities.

In opposition to the realist theory of international relations one finds the theory of political liberalism, which is inspired by John Rawls but has its origins in the practical philosophy of Immanuel Kant and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and represents a “cosmopolitan cognitivism.” The normative foundations of law, such as those deployed by Kant when he defines the public law of the individual state³ in his philosophy of rights, are then adapted by political liberalism and applied to inter-state relations. This results not only in the grounding of the universal validity of human rights in political liberalism—through which the anarchy among governments can be halted—but also in the normative justification of global institutions of law, where a more or less clearly articulated autonomy or independence is granted to national actors.⁴

This contemporary liberal concept of cosmopolitan democracy is, however, contradicted by the political philosophy of communitarianism, which understands itself less as a stand-alone program and more as a corrective to liberal theory. Communitarianism shares with liberalism normative concerns and a basic approach, but provides different answers in its account of reality. At the center of the communitarian critique of liberalism⁵ we find all those concepts that are inspired in Kant and represent a “covering-law universalism” which, as Michael Walzer once put it, implies “a global or universal state, if it is to be effective.”⁶ Against the supposedly abstract universalism of the postulates of global law, communitarianism suggests a resurgence of motives inspired in critiques of Kant by Johann Gottfried Herder and Georg W. Friedrich Hegel, in particular the idea of a “reiterative universalism.”⁷ This acknowledges more appropriately the reality of cultural differences among peoples both within nations and among them and takes into account their historical origins, their religious experiences, and their social forms of life which, for communitarianism, are reflected positively in the fact that there are many states. Political liberalism, in its theory of international relations, seeks to enforce global legal relations at the cost of suppressing differences, imposes the integration of states in international treaties by means of force, or pursues the formal equality of people on a global scale through an assimilation of cultures. Contrary to this tendency, communitarianism advocates a politics of recognition of existing differences between states, national boundaries, individual autonomy of national states, and the pluralism of state constitutions, which have their own moral quality.

What follows from this survey on the current debate and its relationship to our question, namely the relationship between ethics and politics in view of the problems and challenges of international relations? Within the limits of this chapter, I can only refer to a few general points. First, one can notice that the theory of realism neutralizes and separates the states and their direct connection with questions of ethical and normative justification of politics—thus agreeing with traditional approaches to political philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle through to the political philosophy of modern times in Hobbes. In contrast, the subsequent views represented by both a theory of political liberalism inspired in Kant and a communitarian theory that follows Hegel’s critique of Kant attempt to solve the problem of defining the relationship between ethics and international politics, albeit in different ways. Simplistically speaking, the theory of liberalism is committed to the fundamental principle of a robust normative legal theory, which is then adapted and applied to the legal relationships between the states. In this way, the normative postulate becomes a binding global or supranational legal order. In contrast, the theory of communitarianism consists of the view that this step should neither question the moral quality of existing national legal relationships among individual states nor disregard their cultural identities. In the heart of the debate between liberals and communitarians, one finds an old problem that is already present in the dispute concerning the basis for a moral or legal theory, that is whether and how it is possible to substantiate a normatively rich and at the same time globally valid general theory of a “just law” [Theorie des “gerechten Rechts”] in face of the fact of pluralism in modern lifeworlds or also in view of the global diversity of cultures and states. While the representatives of the liberal position see moral theory and positive law in a “complementary relationship”⁸ due to an “ethical formalism” that uses a “razor-sharp” distinction to separate matters of justice from matters related to what is good,⁹ the representatives of communitarianism, on the contrary, see the need to avoid detaching questions of political justice from questions concerning the good life. The different responses that political liberalism and communitarian give to the question concerning what is politically just reflect the difference between these two positions regarding what shall be the right normative order or structure for international politics. Yet, based on the background of recent developments in world politics, these positions of political philosophy are in agreement when it comes to a particular point which, despite the differences described thus far, cannot be overlooked. Precisely at this point there is for me the opportunity for questions and criticism.

Liberalism and communitarianism agree that, in principle, the philosophical justification of a theory of morality cannot be given in generally or universally valid terms because of a de facto pluralism within the modern societies and polities or in the broader field of different cultural realms and various individual states. From this axiomatic statement shared by both theories they derive different consequences: While political liberalism pleads for a strict separation of questions regarding what is “right” and what is “good” for the sake of the unconditional and universal validity of the legal principles they favor, communitarianism draws from this premise the conclusion that the validity of the rules of law needs to be limited to the context of a communitarian life.

Thus, the communitarian position falls into the problem of a legal contextualism that leads, at least in its radical variant, to a relativization of the law and its normative legitimacy. But even in its less radical variant, the communitarian contribution to a political theory of international relations falls into theoretical proximity with the theory of realism: Both are similar in their consequence, if not in their justification, that no general legal ethical principles or political institutions should be recognized in the realm of international politics which claim an independent right to establish or impose a binding global law. From this perspective, for example, Michael Walzer defends the moral justifiability of war in general, also in view of individual states and the politicians responsible for them.¹⁰

For various reasons, all three theories do not seem to be able to solve the problem of defining an appropriate relationship between moral theory and politics in the context of the new challenges in international politics. The theory of realism cannot solve it precisely because of its simplistic description of existing relations. Among the actual power relations between states there are also given institutions and structures that claim the general validity of international laws, but their real meaning are not adequately recognized by a supposedly realistic theory. Currently accepted international laws and institutions established by them, such as the UN, have to be understood as more than simply an instrument of the national security policy of individual states. A realistic theory of international politics fails also because it underestimates the influence of a global civil society in the wake of globalization and its resulting challenges. Finally, this theory also ignores the validity claims of human rights, regarding their scope, their priority within state relationships, and their ethical necessity.

However, the communitarian theory of international politics is exposed to a double challenge: It is either at risk of relativizing the validity claims of law as a whole through their contextualization of rights and, in this way, of rendering the content of human rights unclear; or it is confronted with the problem that normatively justifiable claims by states or individuals beyond the limits of national law cannot be solved in terms of their theory, except by appealing to the resolution of conflicts through the use of violence. Therefore, they simply repeat the Hegelian philosophical aporia at the end of his philosophy of right [Rechtsphilosophie], according to which the history of each country progresses necessarily (and, thus, free of the any taint of illegitimacy or immorality) as a military event.¹¹

Given these arguments, the position of political liberalism seems to be the only convincing one. But also here we run into unresolved problems:

First, in the classical version of this theory I identify an unexplained relationship between the claims to legal rights within individual states and the imperatives of a global law. In view of this same problem, Kant himself was forced to interpret the idea of a “cosmopolitan law” in a minimalist way, namely by limiting it to a so-called “right to hospitality” [Hospitalitätsrecht]¹² to avoid restricting the rationally and legally justified law of individual states and their sovereignty. The idea of global justice in this conception seems to be nothing more than pure international treaty law. Yet, we must ask further: What would be the status of those “legal principles” [Rechtsprinzipien] that underlie this international treaty law and, for example, provide the basis upon which accepted international law becomes valid and gains its character as “jus cogens”?¹³ If the representatives of political liberalism dispense with the jus cogens claim of international law, then their position seems completely unable to justify a course of action capable of responding to the challenges of international politics. Also, even if they do not accept this conclusion, another question remains: How could we put together national sovereignty and international or global law without contradiction?

Second, the classical theory of liberalism allows only an unsatisfactory response to the status and content of human rights. Kant had already arrived at the conclusion, later taken up by Hannah Arendt, that there is only one human right, that is the right to have rights. But exactly this provision has proved to be too weak in recent history. If we view human rights strictly as the fundamental rights of a ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 The Idea of Human Rights and the Realities of World Politics: A Reflection on the Relationship between Ethics and Politics
• PART I: HUMAN RIGHTS AND HUMAN DIGNITY BEYOND THE STATE
• PART II: HUMAN RIGHTS AND COSMOPOLITANISM WITH A HUMAN FACE
• Bibliography
• Index