One significant new development in the debate on rights, going back as far back as the natural rights tradition of Grotius and Pufendorf down to John Rawls’s Theory of Justice , is the new approach and definition of what formerly-called ‘natural rights’ actually entail. Globalisation has highlighted the blatant social injustice prevailing between so-called ‘industrialised’ countries and ‘developing’ ones. The Lockean notion that ‘life, liberty and property’ summarise the legitimate aspirations of every human being, or possibly, every human being having access to property or already enjoying its benefits through farming or tenancy, is being questioned and challenged in the light of a third of the world population being reduced to scraping a living and hence effectively deprived of both ‘freedom’ and ‘property’. What Locke had in mind when he referred to the general concept of ‘life’ is the right for every individual not to be subjected to inhuman treatment in the name of political expediency. This is a politicisation of the originally Christian conception of ‘life’ as a gift from God to his creatures and the concomitant duty for everyone to protect and respect the life of others as equal members of the same species. Locke’s more mundane preoccupation was, in fact, to secure the rights of propertied white Englishmen, potentially threatened by a tyrannical regime.
The contemporary conception of rights has moved from a narrow European context to a far more universal concern for human welfare, applying equally to both genders and all ethnic groups. There is little point in claiming political rights when one’s fundamental needs are not even met on a daily basis. For this reason, political theorists such as Amartya Sen, Peter Singer or Martha Nussbaum have shifted their arguments for rights to the defence of fundamental needs such as access to water, shelter and adequate nourishment. In this new context, it is not up to the starving to claim their right to be fed but it is a duty incumbent on rich countries to take action and provide the necessary humanitarian aid, in the first instance. It is, indeed, a sad reflection of a deeply divided world when political theorists have to redefine the very concept of ‘rights’ and bring it down to the most basic conditions of human life, in the hope that the most privileged sections of the human race will be prompted to alleviate the poverty of their less fortunate fellow human beings.
Triple A Learning IB Blogs
April 21, 2011
From political rights to the right to basic human needs
January 16, 2011
Is globalization the ultimate realisation of Human History?
Hegel famously coined the phrase ‘the ruse of reason’ to describe the power of causes unknown to mankind on its onward march towards the historical revelation of Spirit or ultimate Wisdom. Could it be that globalization is nothing but the very manifestation of ‘the ruse of reason’, leading a reluctant human race to more solidarity and cooperation, not to mention self-understanding? Kant, before Hegel, conceived History as a long process of self-realization towards a state of universal Enlightenment. The philosopher of Konisberg already had in mind the model of a ‘world citizen’, not only motivated by the ‘categorical imperative’ of practical reason but also prepared to take the defence of universal justice wherever his fellow-man was being oppressed. A similar attitude can be found today in Peter Singer’s plea for a word citizenry, as the Australian ethicist urges us to consider the plight of distant African children with the same urgency as we would feel compelled to save a child from drowning. Marx was not concerned with such ethical issues but with the alienating effects of a fast-growing capitalist globalization. He rightly predicted the overall, but always precarious, success of the capitalist system of production combined with a political ideology serving the interests of the ruling class. However, his prediction that capitalism was doomed and would eventually give way to communism still rested on the assumption that communism could naturally adapt to a pre-existing capitalist world order.
Post 1945 philosophers approached the question of global politics with more suspicion. In the middle of the Cold War, Hannah Arendt asked herself whether the creation of a sovereign world state would actually bring ‘the climax of world politics’ and therefore ‘the end of History’ as the history of conflicts between rival ideologies. Arendt saw the origin of global consciousness, not in the eighteenth-century ideals of freedom and sovereignty but in the common fear of a world destroyed by technology through the use of atomic weapons. A twenty-first commentator could easily compare Arendt’s anguish at the prospect of a final nuclear holocaust with our contemporary fear of some environmental Armageddon. Yet, Arendt remained optimistic as to the resourcefulness of mankind to work together, but more importantly, to respect and learn from each other’s culture. Her friend and mentor, Karl Jaspers, identified a common moment of cultural gestation where, in the fifth century B.C, the founders of the Chinese, Buddhist, Hebrew and Greek civilizations reflected, in unison, on the human experience and what being human entailed, in moral and spiritual terms. For Jaspers, these separate enlightenments defined a radical shift in world history as it brought forward a philosophical dimension of humanity, untapped until then. To assume that man is never master of his destiny is denying the human race the potential to improve morally and politically. Globalization is the result of slow, sometimes unpredictable, economic, political and cultural processes. Yet it may, man willing, eventually outwit the invisible hand of History and pave the way to a more united and more tolerant humanity.
March 3, 2010
End world poverty: ethics
Back in January, I commented on the responses I witnessed around me to the earthquake disaster in Haiti. At the time I expressed doubt that reasoning alone was likely to encourage many people to take action to help others, but that emotions of distress or empathy might be unlikely, without reasoning, to lead to sustained ethical action. My speculation was that we need both emotion and reasoning, accompanied by some knowledge of how the world works in order to understand the ways in which fortune and misfortune are interconnected.
Since then, I’ve read a very interesting little book on ethics, published about a year ago, that I’d like to recommend: Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty. Singer presents arguments for an ethical obligation to others, applied to the obligation of people with more than enough to those with not enough. He supports and illustrates his argument with the results of studies, examples and stories. In an immensely readable treatment of poverty and possible solutions to some of the appalling inequities of our world, he builds a case that we do have an ethical obligation to others and that almost all people living in a developed country can fulfill that obligation without great inconvenience to themselves. Known for his practical approach to ethics, Singer concludes quite pragmatically with a table of donations that people should make according to their incomes. If Americans alone did so they would put an end to world poverty — and the arguments apply equally beyond Singer’s borders.
