Which Rights Should Be Universal? PDF
Preview Which Rights Should Be Universal?
Which Rights Should Be Universal? WILLIAM J. TALBOTT 1 3 OxfordUniversityPress,Inc.,publishesworksthatfurther OxfordUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellence inresearch,scholarship,andeducation. Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam CopyrightbyOxfordUniversityPress,Inc. PublishedbyOxfordUniversityPress,Inc. MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NewYork www.oup.com OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,orotherwise, withoutthepriorpermissionofOxfordUniversityPress. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Talbott,W.J. Whichrightsshouldbeuniversal?/WilliamJ.Talbott. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN----- ISBN--- . Humanrights—Philosophy. . Humanrights—Moralandethicalaspects. I. Title. JC.T ′.—dc PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica onacid-freepaper To my parents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book began as a public lecture at the University of Washington in January . The idea grew to become a chapter, then a book, then two books, of which this is the first. The second volume (Human Rights and Hu- manWell-Being)willalsobepublishedbyOxfordUniversityPress. The book has benefited from the contributions of many people. I used part of the manuscript in a joint seminar that I taught with my colleague in political science Jamie Mayerfeld in the winter of . I received many goodsuggestionsfromthemembersoftheseminar,especiallyfromKather- ineKimandGracePastine. I presented a draft of several chapters to an interdisciplinary group of humanities scholars at the University of Washington’s Simpson Center for the Humanities in the fall of . I particularly benefited from the com- ments of Bruce Burgett, Margit Dementi Rankin, Shannon Dudley, Dianah LeighJackson,andKathleenWoodward. Ihavealsobenefitedfromdiscussioninmyundergraduateclasses,espe- cially from questions asked by Dakota Solberg-Moen and Andrew Ness. I wasfortunatetobeabletodiscusspartofthemanuscriptwithaninterdisci- plinary group of faculty at Green River Community College in February .Inthespring of,Ihadanopportunityto presentapartialdraft of the book in a series of five lectures to a nonacademic audience in the Wednesday University, a joint program of Seattle Arts & Lectures and the U.W.SimpsonCenterfortheHumanities. WorkonthisbookhasbeensupportedbyasummergrantfromtheU.W. Human Rights Education and Research Center, by a one-quarter release from teachingfunded bythe U.W.Simpson Centerfor the Humanities,and byasabbaticalleavefromtheUniversityofWashington. viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have received valuable comments from many people on drafts of vari- ouschapters,includingJeffClausen,DavidKeyt,BruceKochis,ThomasMc- Carthy, Tom Nagel, Paul Taylor, Martin Tweedale, Jay Wallace, and an anonymous referee. Elijah Millgram and Liam Murphy provided detailed and very useful comments on several chapters. Jacques Corriveau, Kather- ine Kim, and John Talbott read and commented on an early version of the full manuscript. Katherine Kim helped with the proofreading of the final version.Ialsowanttothankthefollowingmembersoftheeditorialstaffat Oxford University Press for their contributions: Stacey Hamilton, Merryl Sloane, Lara Zoble, and especially Peter Ohlin for his encouragement and guidancethroughoutthepublicationprocess. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Jamie Mayerfeld. Over the years, I have discussed many of these issues with Jamie; in the winter of we cotaughtacoursethatgavememanyideasforthebook;andoverthepast three years Jamie has commented on many drafts of many chapters. His goodadvicehashelpedmeinmorewaysthanIcanlist. I want to thank my daughters, Kate and Rebecca, for teaching me so much about the rewards of child rearing as well as for being such a good audience for my ideas over so many years. I am grateful to my stepdaugh- ter, Erin Burchfield, who challenged me to articulate the appeal of moral relativism and who also provided me with information about the life of women in Nepal after she spent a semester there. Finally, I want to thank my wife, Judy, who has provided me with the encouragement and emo- tional support that enabled me to write the book, has proofread the entire manuscript, has provided me with many suggestions that improved the book,andhastaughtmesomuchaboutempathicunderstanding. CONTENTS Introduction The Proof Paradigm and the Moral Discovery Paradigm Cultural Relativism about Human Rights An Epistemically Modest Universal Moral Standpoint The Development of Women’s Rights as a Microcosm of the Development of Human Rights Autonomy Rights Political Rights Clarifications and Objections Conclusion Notes References Index Which Rights Should Be Universal? 1 INTRODUCTION The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. —William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming” Are there any universal rights? Much has been written on this question. A problemaboutphrasingthequestionthiswayisthattheveryideaofsome- one’shavingarighttosomethingisanideawithahistoricallineage.There werehumansocietieslongbeforeanyoneevenhadanysuchidea.1Itseems puzzling to think that someone might claim that rights existed before any- one had ever articulated the idea itself. How could it make sense to think that the members of a prehistoric human community might have had rights, when no one had ever had such a thought? Historically, natural rights theorists typically appealed to God as the source of individual rights to provide a solution to this puzzle. The suggestion is that even before hu- manbeingshadtheideaofaright,Godhadit.Thus,Godmadeittruethat human beings have rights, even before the human beings themselves had anyinklingofthisfact. I want to suggest a different kind of defense of universal rights. On my view, the proposition that human beings should have certain legally pro- tected basic rights is a partly moral, partly empirical discovery based on thousands of years of accumulated experience of human social existence. Because the necessary discoveries took thousands of years to make, it is a mistake to think that members of prehistoric human communities should have respected each other’s basic rights. However, it is still true that the members of those communities had characteristics which, once they are generally recognized and their moral significance generally appreciated, wouldexplainwhycertainbasicrightsshouldbeuniversallyprotected. Toallowforthiselementofdiscoveryinthetheoryofrights,ratherthan consider whether any rights are universal, I consider whether, in light of what we now know about human beings, any rights should be universal. My answer to that question is: We now have sufficient understanding of the nature of human beings and of the moral constraints on how they shouldbetreatedtorealizethatgovernmentseverywhereoughttoguaran- tee certain basic rights to everyone within their borders. In this book, I 3 4 WHICH RIGHTS SHOULD BE UNIVERSAL? outline what those rights are and explain why they should be universally protected. Religious Authorities and Moral Philosophers Thediscoverythatcertainbasicrightsshouldbeuniversalistheproductof thousands of years of human moral development. The earliest stages are shrouded in prehistory. The first historical records are the written docu- mentspreservedbyvariousreligioustraditions,usuallydocumentsthatbe- lieversregardassacredtextsrecordingthecommandsofamoralauthority, typically regarded as infallible. At least initially, most religions hold that moraltruthscanbedeterminedsimplybyacceptingwithoutquestionwhat- ever the moral authority says (or an authoritative interpretation of what themoralauthoritysays). Suppose we take the defining feature of a religion to be its identification of a moral authority, a person or a text, typically regarded as infallible. On this definition, all of the major religions qualify as religions, but some movements not usually thought of as religions—for example, various twentieth-century Marxist movements—also qualify. In this book, I will use the term religion in the broader sense that includes Marxist move- ments,becauseIbelievetheircommonalitiesaremoreimportantthantheir differences. At least initially, religions typically admonish their adherents to follow the directives of the relevant moral authority unquestioningly, and not to exercise their own moral judgment. Nonetheless, these religious traditions tendtoproduceatleastsomepeoplewithacapacityforindependentmoral judgment. People who exercise this capacity will not regard any other per- son or text as a source of unquestionable moral truth. They can regard people or texts as sources of moral wisdom, to be seriously considered in deciding what to do. However, the ultimate decision about what to do will always depend on their own moral judgment. I will refer to people who developandexercisetheirownmoraljudgmentasmoralphilosophers. Historically, religions have usually regarded moral philosophers, in the senseinwhichIusetheterm,asthreats.Thisisunderstandable,becauseif people generally were to exercise their own moral judgment, they would almost surely question the religion’s designated moral authority on some issues. This would make it very difficult to maintain the relevant authority as an infallible source of moral truth. Thus, moral philosophers have often beenclassifiedasheretics,apostates,corruptersoftheyoung,orenemiesof thepeopleanddealtwithharshly. Itisonlyrelativelyrecentlythatsomereligionshaveceasedtopersecute INTRODUCTION 5 moral philosophers. Typically, tolerance for moral philosophy depends on the recognition of some sort of right to freedom of religious and political thought, and the recognition of such rights is a relatively recent phenome- non in historical time. Today, moral philosophy is tolerated in more parts of the world than ever before in history, but there are still many places whereitisnottolerated. Since youare reading this book,I assume thatyou are amoral philoso- pher,inthesenseinwhichIusetheterm—thatis,youhavedevelopedand exerciseyourownmoraljudgment.Doesthismeanyouareareligious?No, butitdoesimplythatifyouarereligious,youarenotblindlysubmissiveto amoralauthority.Consideranexample.Thehighestmoralauthorityinthe Roman Catholic church is the pope. Nonetheless, polls consistently show that large majorities of Catholics in the United States (and in many other countries) disagree with the pope’s position on contraception and on the ordination ofwomen. This ispowerful evidence that,in the sensein which Iusetheterm,therearealotofmoralphilosophersintheRomanCatholic church.Moralphilosopherscanbefoundinanyreligion. Many people are moral philosophers without realizing it. For example, many people believe that their moral judgments come from moral authori- ties, without realizing that a large component of their moral judgment in- volves interpreting what the moral authorities have said in light of their owncircumstances.So,forexample,mostChristiansbelievethatGodcom- manded,“Thoushaltnotkill.”Yetveryfewofthemarepacifists.Ofcourse, there are religious authorities such as the pope who claim to provide au- thoritative interpretations of such commands. At one time it was plausible to think that there is a division of moral labor. Religious authorities could announce moral imperatives or fix the interpretation of previously promul- gated imperatives and others would simply follow orders. The history of moraldevelopmentdoesnotfitthispattern. Time and again, moral development has occurred as the result of a bottom-up process by which the opinions of those who are regarded as moral authorities or those who are members of an elite group of decision makers are overturned by social movements that emerge from below. In this book I discuss a large number of examples of the bottom-up process of moraldevelopmentinvolvingrightsnorms.Inchapter,Iexplainwhythis bottom-upsocialprocessshouldbeunderstoodasbeingbottom-upinafur- ther,epistemicsense. Thebottom-upprocessofmoraltransformationisnotlimitedtotherec- ognition of individual rights. Consider, for example, the development since the s of the animal welfare movement. This movement developed in the United States in spite of the fact that, at the outset, none of the major religions in the United States endorsed its goals. The movement has been
Description:The list of books you might like
