In History and Illusion in Politics Raymond Geuss writes that:
A 'human right' is an inherently vacuous conception, and to speak of 'human rights' is a kind of puffery or white magic. (p. 144)His primary complaint seems to be that there is no means to enforce these rights, and perhaps should not be. So to say that everyone has a right to x is to say no more than that it would be good if everyone had x, and yet to imply somehow that one means more than this.
I don't see what's wrong with this though. That is, I don't see what would be wrong with rights talk if all it amounted to was "a moralising conception about what would be desirable" (p. 142); nor do I see what would be wrong with such talk if it were meant to be more than that (but less than the claim that there is an actual, enforceable, legal right), because adding the word 'very' or 'extremely' before 'desirable' would provide the more without introducing any obvious error; nor do I see anything wrong with the allegedly implicit suggestion that we can discover what is so desirable, given that we can discover what is desirable and have discovered (or perhaps remembered) that women and men are equal, for instance, and that their being treated so is desirable; nor do I agree with Geuss that, if rights are a fiction, they are an inconvenient fiction (see p. 147). Rights talk isn't going away, as he recognizes, and whether it does more harm than good surely remains to be seen.
More on this soon, I hope, but Geuss strikes me as better on the idea that rights are a fiction than on the claim that they are a malign fiction. I don't deny that they are a kind of fiction, so it's the malign part that most interests me. He sometimes seems to think the fiction is malign just because it is a fiction, and I don't buy that. He also seems to be thinking of heavy-handed attempts to enforce moral views, which I agree could well be bad, without considering the good that can be done with this kind of rhetoric. (For an example of the kind of thing involving rights-talk that I like see here.) A quick read suggests that there is some old-fashioned positivism in his thinking (rights are either enforceable or mere expressions of moral views), but I'm curious to find out what I might have missed or got wrong.
"So to say that everyone has a right to x is to say no more than that it would be good if everyone had x, and yet to imply somehow that one means more than this."
ReplyDeleteWhat sort of thing substitutes in for "x" here? "Everyone has a right to vote" makes it sound like it should be an action-term, but "Everyone had vote" is nonsense.
When I find examples that do fit, like "life" or "property", it still seems to not fit: "Everyone had life" is trivially true, but not what a right to life is about; "Everyone has property" is satisfied by any amount of property, but a "right to property" is not about just some property a person might have.
I haven't read Guess, but I, too, find the "malign" charge questionable. As you suggest, invoking rights--especially in the context of basic human rights--is about something beyond merely good.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the idea is not just that rights are about what is good, or even very good, but also making a claim about the existence of obligations (to ensure that whomever has a right to something is provided it, or provided access to it, etc.). What's not clear--and maybe this is where the concern about enforcement arises--is WHO has the obligation in cases of "positive rights" (rights of provision that go beyond non-interference).
Rights-language, if we agree to using it, thus allows us to fix one point, and then ask: if we are agreed that people have this right, then what are the obligations of others--collectively and individually--in realizing this right?
So, the idea is that the point of rights-language is to emphasize obligation concerning these kinds of goods. Respecting rights is not, as it were, super-erogatory, as doing other kinds of good might be.
Daniel: You're right, I've phrased this badly. I was thinking, I suppose, of things like "freedom of religion," "healthcare," or "a job," but I should have found a way that allowed for other kinds of substitution.
ReplyDeleteMatt: Yes, Respecting rights is not, as it were, super-erogatory, as doing other kinds of good might be. sounds exactly right to me. Geuss talks about positive rights, so I'll re-read that part of the book and maybe return to this issue. Part of the problem might be due to the fact that he is focusing on politics and I'm thinking more of ethics, but I don't know how cleanly the two can be separated.
Thanks for this. I've waited all week to have some time to respond. Well, now I have it.
ReplyDeleteA quick read suggests that there is some old-fashioned positivism in his thinking (rights are either enforceable or mere expressions of moral views), but I'm curious to find out what I might have missed or got wrong.
The problem with not caring whether rights are enforceable (it seems to me) is that it's tantamount to not caring whether they are actually enforced or not. Worrying about the former is a necessary condition for worrying about the latter.
Suppose that you meet people whose rights, or what you view as their rights, are actually being violated right now in the real world (such as the various minority groups in Indonesia which Geuss mentions, p. 144). You say to these people that it's very bad, a cause for indignation, a scandal, that their rights are being violated. They nod in assent, show their appreciation for your sympathy, etc. But then later you go on to say, perhaps in a philosophical discussion on rights that you're having with Geuss (or myself) behind the Indonesians' backs, that you never actually intended to require of the rights whose violations you speak about so indignantly that they be even theoretically enforceable, let alone actually enforced. Don't you think that the Indonesians' reaction here might be just a little cool?
The passage right after the quote about "puffery or white magic" is very relevant: "The point about magic is that the particular nature of the formulae used and the names of the spirits invoked ('rights', 'the will of God', nature) matter less than that those on the receiving end believe in the reliable efficacy of whatever is invoked." Geuss's criticism is not that rights talk is a magic spell, but that it is a magic spell that does not do, in the real world, the work it is widely expected to do. It is a Wittgensteinian idling wheel. Geuss would not criticise a magic spell that actually worked - but one that did would probably not be seen as a spell at all.
¨(We already had a version of part of this discussion here late last summer, and made some progress, it seems to me. The bit about "the rights of the philosophers" still seems to me to hit the nail on the head, but if you talk about just "rights" without any qualifications, people will almost automatically assume that you're defending the rights of the philosophers instead of attacking them. The analogous thing, after all, is what has happened time and again to Wittgensteinian philosophers of religion.)
Part of the problem might be due to the fact that he is focusing on politics and I'm thinking more of ethics, but I don't know how cleanly the two can be separated.
ReplyDeleteYes. But part of the point he's making is that political considerations are overriding in relation to moral ones. Not in the sense that politically expedient but morally bad outcomes are overriding in relation to morally good outcomes, but in the sense that if you come up with a moral argument in favour of a particular political outcome yet lack the political power to actually realise the outcome, hardly anyone will probably care that you came up with the moral argument, and probably even fewer will be in any way heartened that you did. (Those Indonesians again.)
You referred to "the good that can be done with this kind of rhetoric", linking a little piece by Nussbaum. To this, Geuss would probably respond by asking for examples of actual political actors who have done good with this kind of rhetoric. The title of the book you're quoting from is History and Illusion in Politics - not History and Illusion in Moral Philosophy or even History and Illusion in Political Philosophy. Another of his books is titled Philosophy and Real Politics - where "real politics" means politics as actually practiced by real politicians in the real world ca. early 21th century.
So an attempted response to Geuss on his terms would begin something like "That good can come out of rights talk can be seen from the fact that in 1993, the Belgian parliament..." or "That good can come out of rights talk can be seen from the fact that in 2002, the Supreme Court of the United States..." I'm not by any means saying that this cannot be done. In fact, I would very much like to see it attempted.
Finally, one more point. You wrote in the comment thread to your Tree of Life post that you "don't like solutions to the problem of evil generally". This is very interesting for me personally, as I don't like rights talk for exactly the same reason I don't like solutions to the problem of evil. Why is it admirable and impressive when an archbishop admits the impotence of theodicies in the face of the evils of this world, but not admirable or impressive when Geuss admits the impotence of rights talk in the face of the evils of this world? I find both the archbishop and Geuss equally impressive for the same reason you seem to find only the former impressive.
Thanks, Tommi. There is a lot for me to think about here, and I might have to get back to some of your points later. I think what Geuss says about magic is probably worth a post on its own, for instance.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with not caring whether rights are enforceable (it seems to me) is that it's tantamount to not caring whether they are actually enforced or not.
I suppose what I'm thinking is that rights, being essentials of human well-being, are things we should try to ensure are not violated. If they are violated and there is nothing we can do about it we may well care a lot, but they are no less rights just because we cannot enforce them. They remain targets that we aim (or perhaps even just hope) to achieve some time. That isn't nothing, even if it's not as much as someone might want.
if you come up with a moral argument in favour of a particular political outcome yet lack the political power to actually realise the outcome, hardly anyone will probably care that you came up with the moral argument, and probably even fewer will be in any way heartened that you did.
True, but not everything happens immediately. Declaring healthcare a human right won't guarantee healthcare for anybody immediately, but if a powerful enough body makes such a declaration then this could be the first step towards ensuring that everyone gets healthcare. Whether that's a realistic goal is another matter, as is the question whether this should be our highest priority. And no doubt there are other questions too. But this is the kind of way that a declaration that something is a right might do some good, even if it isn't immediately enforceable. I don't have any real examples to offer, but I don't think it's too hard to imagine plausible examples. In fact, Fleischacker's book on distributive justice may well be a good source for examples of talk about the rights of the poor leading to improved welfare provision. I'll try to look that up.
Rights-talk guarantees nothing, and solves nothing on its own. But I don't think it is always utterly impotent.