Final Class

ER 11, Spring 2012

A long way

Tale of Two Sparks

UDHR: A Historical Accomplishment

The way it once was

And a little later

Encounters

Encounters

The way we live now

We have irreversibly encountered each other

“Age of Discovery”

Colonialism

World Wars

Paris 1919

We have irreversibly encountered each other

Anti-Slavery Campaign

Labor Movement

Red Cross (Solferino, 1859)

Women’s Emancipation

• Emmeline

Pankhurst

San Francisco, June 1945

Dec. 10, 1948

Dec. 10, 1948

Dec. 10, 1948

Dec. 10, 1948

Inspiration • Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Inspiration • Now, Therefore THE GENERAL

ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Philosophical Inquiry

Human rights = moral rights

Why would people have them?

How could there be a universal language of value?

Intellectual support required

Philosophizing – your judgment required

“Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know] "Have courage to use your own understanding!"--that is the motto of enlightenment.”

Kant, What is Enlightenment?

Philosophizing – slowing down

“Philosophy is thinking in slow motion. It breaks down, describes and assesses moves we ordinarily make at great speed” (John Campbell)       

Here: think carefully about what human rights are, why people would have them

required by intellectual honesty, and to make them intellectually secure

Philosophizing – minimizing bullshit

Philosophizing – minimizing bullshit

• “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted.”

• “[The bullshitter] is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. (…) He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”

Philosophizing – minimizing bullshit

• “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted.”

• “[The bullshitter] is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. (…) He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”

Skeptics, Challengers

Skeptics, Challengers

Skeptics, Challengers

Three strategies

• Lockean natural rights: untrue to facts of nature not to be moral

• Outside of theological framework, hard to make sense of claim that we find morality “in nature,” outside of ourselves

Three strategies

• Kantian self-consistency: irrational not to be moral – leads to a contradiction in the mind

• Too high a standard for arguments to derive human rights: could not be met

Three strategies

• Griffin: unreasonable not to be moral, and human rights are among the moral demands it would be unreasonable to reject – still a mistake to be immoral

• answer presented in lecture

Also: Rorty

• Rorty: not focusing on rational argument, but on education: an education towards sympathy, progress in sentiments

• Rightly stresses importance of education

But rational inquiry is still needed

Answer presented in lecture

• Griffin: human rights as protections of distinctively human life

• Valuing happens within context of shared human life – valuing is a social/human activity

• prudent person values things in a way that appeals to what is generally valuable in terms of human interests

• Perception model: “valuing occurs before shared form of life; values emerge for all of before this background; the prudent person acts accordingly; moreover, there are no credible intellectual resources to privilege some fundamentally over others.”

Too complicated?

• Why expect that it would not be?

• Nobody expects molecular biology to be straightforward!

Answer strong enough? Torture • There may well be cases of

justified torture, but if so, these would (a) be extreme cases that (b) do not lend themselves to regulation

• Can support a human right against being tortured, but not because there is an absolute right never to be so treated

• Kantian approach would take us to absolute moral right against torture, but not Griffin

Still room for notion of dignity • “We human beings have a

conception of ourselves and of our past and future. We reflect and assess. We form pictures of what a good life would be – often, it is true, only on a small scale, but occasionally also on a large scale. And we try to realize these pictures. This is what we mean by a distinctively human existence (…) And we value our status as human beings especially highly, even more highly than even our happiness. This status centers on our being agents – deliberating, assessing, choosing, and acting to make what we see as a good life for ourselves.” (p 32)

• Dignity – ability to lead a distinctively human existence

• Human rights are there to protect it

All of UDHR?

Skeptics, Challengers

Universal Declaration

All of the Universal Declaration?

More Skepticism: Relativism

• thesis that fundamental values and ethical beliefs are culture-bound

• no right and wrong, but merely a “right for” and “wrong for”

Two responses

• Response I: global moral engagement is inevitable

• Response II: Moral engagement across cultures often possible

Question of appropriate intervention

A Tale of two sparks

A Tale of two sparks

Remember:

• Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Making the world a better place is the responsibility of the privileged

Making the world a better place is your responsibility