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Empty Rights

Ivan Kenneally in a comment to a Peter Lawler post at Postmodern Conservative: One could argue, as Delsol has, that the big thing now is a kind of cosmopolitanism without…

Ivan Kenneally in a comment to a Peter Lawler post at Postmodern Conservative:

One could argue, as Delsol has, that the big thing now is a kind of cosmopolitanism without Xn faith, or a peculiarly secular interpretation of the Pauline spiritual unity of mankind. In a sense, today’s cosmopolitanism is easier to theoretically construct since the archimidean point, human rights, is so emptied of real content but practuially harder since there’s so little that functions as the ground of political unity.

I'm hardly a PoMoCon as the posters there call themselves, and I've not been reading there stuff long enough to understand exactly what one is, but I'm intrigued by the concept.  I largely agree with them regarding the limitations, even the sickness of modernity, but I'm not so sure I'm groping for remedies in the same places that they are, even though I share the faith with them.

It could be that I just don't understand their point of departure well enough to understand why they think it, but PoMoCons and PaleoCons like Larison, seem to have a problem with the modern rights tradition.  I'm not sure why, and I'd like some clarification on the point if any readers can offer it. 

I left my own comment asking Kenneally for clarification:

Could you clarify why the rights tradition is empty of content? This seems to be a PaleoCon/PoMoCon meme, and I’m not sure what the basis for it is.

I think there’s a common-sense understanding of rights that almost everyone grasps, regardless of how little such a person understands about sources from which the rights tradition grew. I would describe that common-sense content as a basic recognition that every human being has a fundamental dignity that must not be violated by other individuals, groups, or the state. That gets parsed out into particulars through the political process, for instance the one that gave us the Bill of Rights. How much more content do you need?

My guess is that the problem for these conservatives is there need to conflate the cultural with political, and that's something I've been arguing against here for a long time.  I would agree with those who argue that the rights tradition in the West derives from Christian ideas about the universality of mankind, but does that mean that Christians own the idea?  Why not just look at it as a gift to the world that the world can then take and make us of in its own in a way?

My argument here is that we live in a pluralistic world, and that Christians have to be true to themselves and to their deepest beliefs, and they have every right to make their case for the beauty and profundity of their understanding of the world and the nature and purpose of the human beings who live in it. But that does not mean that they have to make that case in the political sphere. Cosmopolitanism is a practical necessity in our world. A Christian cosmopolitanism is not empty of content.  The thoughtful Christian is happy to explain the content of his beliefs to any who would be curious to find out about them, but that is not an activity for the political sphere. The Christian can bring his concerns, which of course largely derive from his Christian values and sensibility, into the political sphere, but he must argue for them using the rights language that is the lingua franca of the political sphere.

I'm interested to be challenged on this assertion.  It seems so obvious to me, I'm certain I must have a blind spot that prevents me from understanding why this is difficult for thoughtful conservatives to understand.

Comments

9 responses

  1. Patrick Avatar
    Patrick

    I like your “common sense” explanation of rights. I agree with it. But I really don’t think that rights language operates like that in American political discourse. In our political conversation, when people invoke rights they’re calling on a specific tradition of Lockean, Painean natural rights. That particular model is one that proper conservatism rejects.

    Reply
  2. Jack Whelan Avatar
    Jack Whelan

    Patrick, could you elaborate on where the problem with natural rights lies for conservatives. I’m not sure I understand why there’s a problem or what its practical political consequences are.
    I would ask you, regardless of the intellectual origin of one’s ideas about rights, isn’t my common-sense definition pretty much the one most people operate with?
    Perhaps not and I am projecting.
    Look. I get that when you dig down into philosophical first principles, people like me have serious problems with, for instance Mill or Rawls, or really any purely secular thinking about rights, but that kind of philosophical debate is more a cultural-sphere activity than a political one. And my question is about whether the Christian idea of rights and the secularist idea about rights has that significant a practical difference when making decisions in the political sphere.
    I’d argue that my common-sense definition is broadly acceptable and workable in the political sphere when it comes to the day-to-day business of legislating and governing. It’s a meeting place for secularists in the natural rights tradition and people of faith whose rights tradition, after all, is not really all that foreign to the natural rights tradition, because the former largely sprang from the latter, whether or not proponents of the former are consciously aware of or acknowledge their debt to the latter.
    Maybe I’m wrong about that and have to educate myself better on the fine points here. But the issue interests me, and I think it’s important, especially for principled conservatives, to appreciate that there’s more common ground than difference when it comes to practical matters in the political sphere.

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  3. Jack Whelan Avatar
    Jack Whelan

    Some other thoughts:
    I’m no expert on legal philosophy, but it seems to me the debate comes down to how much overlap is required between the law and morality for law to be legitimate.
    My position is that morality, as it relates to the mores and customs of a particular culture, can no longer have a primary influence on legitimating law in a pluralistic society.
    But that does not mean I’m a complete positivist. There is one moral principle, viz., the definition of right that I posted about above. This principle is fundamentally derived from moral intuition, but it is not culturally limited. This idea of the fundamental dignity of the human being provides a robust basis for the legitimation of the law in a society where reference to moral customs simply can no longer work.
    I’m sure there are some issues that would be problematic–local community standards might be one, and I can think of some others–but I honestly do not see why any sane conservative who understands that we live in a world where people with all kinds of traditional and modern values systems have to get along would object to this idea of rights providing the fundamental basis for law and legislation. I don’t see where the problem lies, except for those who want their “customs” to be normative for the entire socieity.

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  4. Patrick Avatar
    Patrick

    Here’s the short version of my elaboration:
    You yourself have observed that various hallmarks of our political discourse are sustained by idolatry (even if individuals may understand these features in a more flexible and ultimately truer sense).
    I don’t think rights-language is exempt from this phenomenon.
    I can go on for awhile, and maybe it would be better to do so, but that’s the gist.

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  5. jack Whelan Avatar
    jack Whelan

    I don’t think rights language is exempt from idolatry either, because nothing is exempt. I think conservatives have to make the case that there are more dangers or practical disadvantages in using rights language in the political sphere than using something else to provide a framework. What is the something else?

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  6. Patrick Avatar
    Patrick

    I think this is going to be the point of irreconcilable differences between you and those conservatives.
    You’ve identified “rights-language” with “secularese.” So if they replace that, it’ll have to be with something that’s not secular.
    If pressed, they might suggest that, strictly speaking, the only secular language is nihilism.
    As for me, Idunno.

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  7. jack Whelan Avatar
    jack Whelan

    Thanks, Patrick for making the attempt to clarify. But I’m still stumped as to why it’s so difficult for conservatives to accept that there can be both a sacred zone and a secular zone. It’s as if the very existence of the secular zone is perceived as a mortal threat to the existence of their sacred zone, which suggests to me that they don’t really feel that confident in its enduring, sustaining validity.
    For me that sacred zone is so obvious, so perduring so deeply, clearly true that I feel I can be magnanimous with those who for whatever reason don’t get it. I can meet them more than half way, but the rights language is not even half way; it’s really almost the same language, even if the depths from which this language emerges is obscure to secularists who use it.
    I don’t feel the need to force what I understand to be most deeply true down people’s throats. So I have to wonder how deep is the faith and the hope of religious conservatives who insist that the conversation in the political sphere has to happen on their terms or not at all.

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  8. Patrick Avatar
    Patrick

    I think you might be right if their project were to impose some sort of theocracy over the entire nation, but they don’t really want the “entire nation” to be much of anything at all. They simply want more local autonomy, and argue that there’s no such thing as a values-neutral language, so we might as well put our values-cards on the table without apology.
    From Larison:
    http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2008/12/03/the-secular-right/

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  9. Jack Whelan Avatar
    Jack Whelan

    Patrick, once again I appreciate your willingness to engage with me on this topic. It’s important and in a way central to what I’m about here. I read the Larison post, and I’m going to respond to it as a new post.

    Reply

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