Relativism and Human Rights: A Theory of Pluralistic Universalism

ISBN-13: 9781402099854 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 188 str.

Claudio Corradetti

Opis

When he nished writing, he raised his eyes and looked at me. From that day I have thought about Doktor Pannwitz many times and in many ways. I have asked myself how he really functioned as a man; how he lled his time, outside of the Polymerization and the Indo- Germanic conscience; above all when I was once more a free man, I wanted to meet him again, not from a spirit of revenge, but merely from a personal curiosity about the human soul. Because that look was not one between two men; and if I had known how completely to explain the nature of that look, which came as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds, I would also have explained the essence of the great insanity of the third Germany. PRIMO LEVI If this is a man, pp. 111 112, in, If this is a man and The truce, trans. S. Woolf, Abacus, London, 1987] If all propositions, even the contingent ones, are resolved into identical propositions, are they not all necessary? My answer is: certainly not. For even if it is certain that what is more perfect is what will exist, the less perfect is nevertheless still possible. In propositions of fact, existence is involved. LEIBNIZ Samtlic ] he schriften und briefe vol VI pt 4 Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1449A VI 4] We live in a rule-constrained world."

Recenzje

From the reviews:

"Claudio Corradetti's book is a thoughtful attempt to find an adequate theoretical foundation for human rights. Its approach is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing on issues in analytical philosophy as well as contemporary political theorists, and the result is a densely argued text aimed at scholars ... ." (Andrew Lambert, Metapsychology Online Reviews, Vol. 14 (3), January, 2010)

Spis treści

Introduction. PART ONE. 1. COGNITIVE RELATIVISM AND EXPERIENTIAL RATIONALITY. 1.1 Beyond Cognitive and Linguistic Relativism. 1.2 Epistemic Relativism Refuted. 1.3 The Experiential Validity of the Cognitive System. 1.4 Judgement and Truth. 2. BEYOND MORAL RELATIVISM AND OBJECTIVISM. 2.1 Forms of Moral Relativism. 2.2 The Two Horns of the Dilemma: Relativism versus Objectivism. 2.2.1 Harman's Inner-Judgments Relativism. 2.2.2 The Limits of Nagel's Objectivism in Morality. 2.2.3 Wong's Mixed Position: the Idea of Pluralistic Relativism. 2.3 Discursive Dialectic of Recognition: for a Post-Metaphysical Justification of the Ethical Life. PART TWO. 3. HUMAN RIGHTS AND PLURALISTIC UNIVERSALISM. 3.1 From Purposive Action to Communicative Action. 3.2 The Priority of Recognition and the Formal System of Basic Liberties. 3.3 The Exemplar Validity of Human Rights. 3.4 The Deliberative Constraints and Pluralistic Universalism. 4. THE LEGAL DIMENSIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS. 4.1 The Source and the Content Validity of Law. 4.2 The Structure and Function of Human Rights. 4.3 Transplantability and Legal Commensurability. 4.4 What is Wrong in the Democratic Peace Theory? A Defence of International Legal Pluralism. References.

O autorze

The First Chapter discusses the possibility of constructing a notion of linguistic and moral partial commensurability while admitting, contra Davidson, the relevance of conceptual schemes. This has guided me into the investigation of schemes and commensurability in an innovative way. I have made use of the most recent results coming from cognitive linguistics and the debate upon cognitive linguistic relativism in order to overcome the idea of radical relativism.
The second chapter is a transitionary chapter and it aims at critically discussing three contemporary normative models in political philosophy. If the first part criticises the relativism of Harman, the second reject the notion of a view from nowhere as developed by Nagel. It follows a criticism of Rawls notion of primary goods and a suggestion of how some of his difficulties can be overcome through a notion of fundamental human rights . This will then be developed along the third chapter.
The third chapter, develops a model of purposive agency by integrating the procedural Habermasian theory of discursive action with a revised approach to Gewirth s theory. A specific consideration is then devoted to the theoretical status of human rights judgements. In particular, there is a reference to Kant s Third Critique and a translation, into the political philosophical domain of the Kantian properties for aesthetic judgments. Several elements are derived for the understanding of the theoretical status of human rights judgments, so that from a combination of a priori principles and a posteriori synthetic judgments there obtain a rehabilitation of the notion of contingency within moral judgements. The third paragraph provides an ideal classification of the relation between law and morality. It analyses the central tenets of Aristotle, Hart, Fuller, Finnis etc. introducing my position of positivist inclusivism which will be fully developed in the fourth paragraph.
From the reinterpretation of the strict interlink between liberty and participatory rights, it is developed a new understanding of the functional role and of the normative validity of deliberative democracy. This paves the ground for proposing an institutional model of democracy by keeping into account the impact that different types of elections have on political representation. It follows an extension of the model of self-interested solidarity to the post-national integration of Europe though a commitment to human rights.

Blurb

Can human rights principles admit degrees of contextual variations? Are our cultures condemned to a formally rigid standard of universalist hegemony? This work provides an innovative contribution to the legal-philosophical understanding of human rights theory. While advancing a post-metaphysical reconstruction for the notion of human rights, it defends an original perspective on the relation between universal validity and cultural pluralism. By rejecting the challenges of relativism and classical abstract universalism, this model reinterprets discursive theory in the light of dialectical recognition and judgmental exemplarity. The result is an enriched substantive notion of universalism oriented to the safeguard of situated authenticity. Pluralistic universalism considers that, while formal filtering criteria constitute unavoidable requirements for the production of potentially valid arguments, the exemplarity of judgmental activity, in its turn, provides a pluralistic and retrospective reinterpretation for the fixity of such criteria. While speech formal standards grounds the thinnest possible presuppositions we can make as humans, the discursive exemplarity of judgments defends a notion of validity which is both contextually dependent and "subjectively universal". According to this approach, human rights principles are embedded within our linguistic argumentative practice. It is precisely from the intersubjective and dialogical relation among speakers that we come to reflect upon those same conditions of validity of our arguments. Once translated into national and regional constitutional norms, the discursive validity of exemplar judgments postulates the philosophical necessity for an ideal of legal-constitutional pluralism, challenging all those attempts trying to frustrate both horizontal (state to state) and vertical (supra-national-state-social) on-going debates on human rights.