Christian Schlüter reviews Axel Honneth

In Frankfurter Rundschau (August 30, 2011), Christian Schlüter reviews "Das Recht der Freiheit. Grundriß einer demokratischen Sittlichkeit" (Suhrkamp Verlag, 2011) by Axel Honneth:

Review: "Es geht um die Würde"

Excerpts:
"Honneth grenzt sich klar von den kantianisch inspirierten Freiheitskonzeptionen ab, wie sie in den letzten Jahrzehnten etwa von John Rawls und Jürgen Habermas vertreten wurden. Dabei gehört der begriffsgeschichtliche erste Teil gewiss zu den stärksten Abschnitten in dem Buch. Bemerkenswert ist allemal, wie Honneth versucht, ausgerechnet dem preußischen Staatsphilosophen Hegel ein modernes Konzept der Freiheit zu entlocken: Es ist der Immanenz verpflichtet und erhält sein normatives Profil durch den Abgleich des Anspruchs, Freiheit zu verwirklichen, mit der tatsächlich verwirklichten Freiheit [....]

Honneths Plädoyer für eine neue Kultur der Freiheit mündet in der Forderung, Europa nicht nur als Sonderwirtschaftszone, sondern endlich auch als politischen, zumal demokratischen Raum zu gestalten. Politik im Namen der Freiheit muss gestalten. Sonst hört sie auf, frei zu sein und wickelt sich selber ab. Honneths großes Verdienst besteht allerdings nicht allein darin, das politisch Vernünftige noch einmal zu vergegenwärtigen. Vielmehr erinnert sein Buch an eine Bedeutung der Freiheit, die uns beinahe schon abhanden gekommen ist. Sie ist an Begriffe wie Würde und Scham gebunden, sie ließe sich am ehesten beschreiben als Zugänglichkeit und Zutraulichkeit, als ein Vertrautsein mit der Welt. Denn in einer fremden und feindlichen Welt ist der Menschen unfrei."

Thomas Meyer reviews Axel Honneth

In "Süddeutsche Zeitung" (August 29, 2011), Thomas Meyer reviews "Das Recht der Freiheit. Grundriß einer demokratischen Sittlichkeit" (Suhrkamp Verlag, 21011) by Axel Honneth:

Review: "Mit Hegel in die vernünftige Wirklichkeit"

Excerpt:
Dem skelettierten, dafür gegenwartstauglich gemachten Hegel bleibt es überlassen, nicht nur den alten Deutungskonkurrenten Kant aus dem Feld zu schlagen, sondern auch dessen tatsächliche und vermeintliche Nachfolger. Während die Altvorderen der „Frankfurter Schule“ aus guten Gründen schon kaum mehr einer Erwähnung wert betrachtet werden, dürfte sich nicht nur Jürgen Habermas die Augen reiben: Er, der selbst an einer großen Rechtsphilosophie arbeitet, und viele andere werden als institutionen-vergessene Kantianer beiseitegeschoben, um Platz für das Soziale zu bekommen. Kants Idee der „wohlgeordneten Freyheit“ ist für Honneth nämlich nichts anderes als der Verzicht auf die Dimension des „Sozialen“.
Ein solch defizitäres Freiheitsverständnis, das immer erst nachträglich die Bedingungen dafür schaffen muss, die Anwendung der bloß gedachten Freiheit erst zu ermöglichen, verbleibt in einer schlecht gedachten Rechtsmetaphysik. Ganz anders sei dies bei Hegel angelegt. Der gehe davon aus, dass das „Subjekt als in soziale Strukturen eingebunden gedacht werden“ müsse, die seine „Freiheit garantieren“, bevor es erst dann „als freies Wesen in Verfahren hineinversetzt werden kann, die über die Legitimität der gesellschaftlichen Ordnung wachen.“

Thomas Meyer is Guest Professor at the Centre of Jewish Studies, Karl-Franzens-University Graz.

Habermas at the 22nd German Congress of Philosophy

Lectures at the 22nd German Congress of Philosophy, September 12-15, 2011, at Munich University:

Jürgen Habermas
Über die Verkörperung von Gründen

Robert Pippin
Die Form der Vernunft

Seyla Benhabib
Rights-bearing and Reason-giving: Constructing the Subject of Rights

Susan Neiman
Politische Ziele, moralische Gründe

Franz von Kutschera
Fünf Gründe, kein Materialist zu sein

Peter Gärdenfors
Reasons for Meanings: A Theory of Semantics Grounded in Perception, Action and Interaction

Lorraine Daston
Vernunft, Rationalität und Regeln: Von der Aufklärung zum Kalten Krieg

See the program here.

Among the other participants are: Robert Brandom, Michael Tomasello, Michael Quante, Peter Koslowski, Lutz Wingert, Volker Gerhardt, Alessandro Pinzani, Slavoj Zizek, Rahel Jaeggi, Rainer Forst, Charles Larmore, and Simone Chambers.

Update:
Reports from the congress in Munich:

*Jan Küveler - "Einhörner auf der Rückseite des Mondes"
(Die Welt, September 16, 2011)

*Christian Schlüter - "O'zapft is!"
(Frankfurter Rundschau, September 17, 2011)

Steven Wheatley on Deliberative Democracy and International Law

Free full text from "European Journal of International Law" (vol. 22 no. 2, 2011):

A Democratic Rule of International Law

by Steven Wheatley

Abstract
"This article examines the way in which we should make sense of, and respond to, the democratic deficit that results from global governance through international law following the partial collapse of the Westphalian political settlement. The objective is to evaluate the possibilities of applying the idea of deliberative (‘democratic’) legitimacy to the various and diverse systems of law. The model developed at the level of the state is imperfectly applied to the inter-state system and the legislative activities of non-state actors. Further, regulation by non-state actors through international law implies the exercise of legitimate authority, which depends on the introduction of democratic procedures to determine the right reasons that apply to subjects of authority regimes. In the absence of legitimate authority, non-state actors cannot legislate international law norms. The article concludes with some observations on the problems for the practice of democracy in the counterfactual ideal circumstances in which a plurality of legal systems legislate conflicting democratic law norms and the implications of the analysis for the regulation of world society."

Steven Wheatley is Professor of International Law at the Law School, University of Leeds. He is the author of "The Democratic Legitimacy of International Law" (Hart, 2010). See my post here.

Habermas on Europe and the "New German Question"

Addressing a panel hosted by the European Council on Foreign Relations (Berlin, April 6 2011), Jürgen Habermas criticized political elites for shirking their responsibility of delivering Europe to its citizens, instead relying on opportunism that threatens to "sink 50 years of European history". The panel discussion with Jürgen Habermas, Joschka Fischer, Henrik Enderlein and Christian Calliess on "Europe and the re-discovery of the German nation-state" is now available in English at "Eurozine":

Europe and the "New German Question" [pdf]

The text was originally published in German in "Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik" (May 2011). See my previous post here.

Excerpt:
Habermas: "Are we now seeing a new version of the same German question that led to the founding of the EU? I don't think so. Back then politicians had the Second World War and the mass crimes on their shoulders and were thinking in terms of the categories of the nineteenth century. The aim of stopping a colossus once again waging power politics at the heart of Europe by incorporating it was an important motive. I don't see a similar situation today. For some years now the Federal German Republic has been making an increasingly amorphous impression and seems to me to be characterized rather by the way it does not pursue any "power political" interests in the classical sense. The governments of this economically successful republic make themselves beholden to the twin imperatives that more or less every state must follow these days, namely trimming the economy to the interests of competitiveness, while making certain social concessions, so that output legitimacy forestalls any difficulties that might hinder domestic re-election. In this sense Germany is relatively weak, as far as its will to shape political structures is concerned. But accompanying this weakness I see a growing sense of national self-centredness; and consequently there arises the potential for disruption at the heart of Europe, which, under the present government, is for the first time seriously obstructing the unification of Europe."

Christoph Möllers reviews Axel Honneth

In "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (August 24, 2011), Professor Christoph Möllers reviews "Das Recht der Freiheit. Grundriß einer demokratischen Sittlichkeit" (Suhrkamp Verlag, 21011) by Axel Honneth:

Review: "Frei macht, was ohnehin geschieht"

Excerpts:
"Gegen einen normativen Individualismus entwirft Honneth ein Konzept sozialer Freiheit, in der der Mensch Selbstbestimmung nur in Gemeinschaft vollziehen kann. Das "Recht der Freiheit" erfüllt dieses Programm innerhalb einer imposanten Theoriearchitektur [....]. Der Anspruch des Buches ist hoch, und warum nicht in der eher zu bescheidenen akademischen Philosophie in Deutschland? In jedem Fall ist es den Versuch wert, vom Begriff der Freiheit mehr zu verlangen, als es die politische Theorie üblicherweise tut. Viele Gründe zur Vorfreude also, die die gewisse Enttäuschung des Rezensenten miterklären mögen. Dies gilt nicht für den ersten Hauptteil, eine luzide historische Darstellung des Freiheitsbegriffs aus der Perspektive der eigenen Konzeption. Sie kann als ein eigenes wichtiges Buch gelesen werden und bestätigt die Einsicht, dass Philosophen die besten Philosophiehistoriker sind. [....]

Hegels Theorie bezog ihre Stärke aus ihrer Distanz zu moralischen Urteilen, ihrem Interesse an Institutionen, ihrem geschichtsphilosophischen Drive und einem begriffsgeleiteten Gegenwartshunger, der uns heute bei Denkern wie Habermas und Luhmann fasziniert. Wer solches in diesem voluminösen Band sucht, wird zu selten fündig: Das "Recht der Freiheit" orientiert sich nicht an Hegels Philosophie des Rechts, sondern an Honneths berühmter, aber kaum weiterentwickelten Deutung der Theorie des Selbstbewusstseins in Hegels "Phänomenologie". Diese wird auf die Ebene der politischen Theorie verlagert: Politik als verallgemeinerte gelungene Zweierbeziehung scheint das Ideal. Gegenwartsanalysen gehen in langen historischen Rekonstruktionen unter.[....]

Christoph Möllers is Professor of Public Law and Jurisprudence at the Humboldt-University, Berlin. He is the author of "Der vermisste Leviathan: Staatstheorie in der Bundesrepublik" (Suhrkamp Verlag, 2008).

New book: 40 Essays on Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas, Volumes I and II

ed. by Camil Ungureanu, Klaus Günther
& Christian Joerges

(Ashgate, 2011)

1014 pages



Description

Jürgen Habermas is widely regarded as one of the outstanding intellectuals of our time. This collection focuses on the theory of law which can be distilled from his vast compendium of work. At the same time the collection places this theory in the context of Habermas' overall contribution to the theory of society, political theory and social philosophy. Volume I on 'The Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy' identifies the theoretical foundations. Volume II focuses on the critical debate of Habermas' discourse theory of law and democracy, on the challenges posed by the postnational constellation (Europeanization and processes of globalization) and on particular strands within his work, such as genetic technology and religion. Each volume is prefaced by a comprehensive introduction by the editors.

Contents

VOLUME I

Introduction: Jürgen Habermas's Discourse Theory of Democracy and Law [20 pages]

Part I: Foundations

1. Enlightenment and the Idea of Public Reason (1995), Thomas McCarthy [Abstract]
2. Facts, Norms, and Normative Facts (2000), Robert Brandom
3. Universality and Truth, and Response to Jürgen Habermas (2000), Richard Rorty

Part II: The Discourse Theory

4. Grasping the Force of the Better Argument (2003), William Rehg [Abstract]
5. The Communicative Paradigm in Moral Theory (1999), Alessandro Ferrara
6. Legitimacy Without Morality (2002), Peter Niesen
7. Plurality of the Good? (1997) Karl-Otto Apel [Abstract]
8. Values and Norms (2002), Hilary Putnam
9. Comment on Jürgen Habermas' "From Kant to Hegel and Back Again" (1999), Charles Taylor [Abstract]

Part III: Habermas's Theory of Democracy

10. Historical Context and the Legacy of German Legal-Political Thought (2003), John P. McCormick
11. On the Origins of Constitutional Patriotism (2006), Jan-Werner Müller
12. Models of Public Space (1992), Seyla Benhabib [Abstract]
13. Activist Challenges to Deliberative Democracy (2001), Iris Marion Young
14. The Rule of Reasons (2001), Rainer Forst [Abstract]
15. Reflections on Habermas on Democracy (1999), Joshua Cohen [Abstract]

Part IV: The Legal System

16. Democracy, Human Rights, and the Problem of a Worldwide Civil Society (1998), Albrecht Wellmer
17. Individual Freedom and Social Equality (2000), David Ingram
18. Basic Rights and Democracy in Jürgen Habermas's Procedural Paradigm of Law (1994), Robert Alexy [Abstract]
19. Procedural Justice? (2003) Cristina Lafont [Abstract]
20. A Question of Institutionalization (2007), Christopher F. Zurn

VOLUME II

Introduction: Reflections on Habermas's Postnational Constellation [22 pages]

Part I: Debating Habermas

1. Political Liberalism: Reply to Habermas (1995), John Rawls [Abstract]
2. How Can the People Ever Make the Laws? (1997) Frank I. Michelman
3. Quod Omnes Tangit (1995), Niklas Luhmann
4. From Consent to Dissent (2000), Marcello Neves
5. The Other of Justice (1995), Axel Honneth
6. Governmentality and Deliberative Politics (2005), Thomas Biebricher
7. Derrida on Free Decision (2008), Camil Ungureanu [Abstract]
8. Critical Social Theory and the Feminist Critiques (1995), Jean L. Cohen

Part II: The Postnational Constellation

9. Habermas, Supranational Democracy and the European Constitution (2006), John P. McCormick [Abstract]
10. An Emerging European Public Sphere (2005), Erik Oddvar Eriksen [Abstract]
11. The Constitutionalization of International Law (2001), Klaus Günther
12. Facts Without Norms? (2007) Christoph Humrich
13. Global Governance Without Global Government? (2008) William E. Scheuerman
14. State and Constitution – a Reply to Scheuerman (2008), Hauke Brunkhorst [Abstract]
15. Towards a Critical Theory of Global Justice (2001), Rainer Forst [Abstract]
16. Habermas's Call for Cosmopolitan Constitutional Patriotism in an Age of Global Terror (2007), Michel Rosenfeld
17. Preventing Military Humanitarian Intervention? (2009) Regina Kreide
18. Habermas on Human Cloning (2004), Eduardo Mendieta [Abstract]
19. Online Forums and Deliberative Democracy (2005), Davy Janssen & Raphaël Kies
20. A Secular State for a Postsecular Society? (2007) Maeve Cooke [Abstract]

Jeffrey Flynn on Human Rights

Jeffrey Flynn has posted a new paper on SSRN:

"Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and the Politics of Human Dignity" [pdf]

Abstract:
This paper begins with two recent, contrasting historical accounts of when human rights were invented. In Inventing Human Rights (2007), Lynn Hunt tells the story of how the psychological foundations for human rights were laid with the rise of the humanitarian sentiment prior to the revolutionary period of the late eighteenth century. In The Last Utopia (2010), on the other hand, Samuel Moyn goes against the grain of most recent scholarship by focusing on a crisis of political utopianism in the 1970s as the locus for the roots of the contemporary resonance of human rights. Both historians draw our attention, though in different ways, to the relationship between human rights and humanitarianism.

In addressing this relation, I argue for the need to distinguish the logic of humanitarianism (viewing others as objects of suffering) from that of human rights (viewing others as subjects of rights). Drawing on recent work by discourse theorists such as Jürgen Habermas and Rainer Forst, I distinguish between passive and active components of human dignity, relating the former to the politics of humanitarianism and the latter to the politics of human rights. I further distinguish between two perspectives on the politics of human rights: internal and external. Relying on these two sets of distinctions, I defend the following claims. A theory of human rights needs to be able to account for both perspectives, internal and external. When it comes to the relation between humanitarianism and human rights, invoking humanitarian motifs within the politics of human rights runs the risk of wrongly viewing violations of human dignity in overly passive terms. Yet as a historical matter, humanitarian motifs may have been essential in getting the contemporary politics of human rights off the ground. Rather than proposing that we try to purify human rights practice of humanitarian motifs, I maintain that we must keep in mind the potential underside of the latter. The ultimate aim of human rights in practice must be to go beyond viewing others as merely objects of concern to viewing them as subjects of rights.

The paper will be presented at the APSA 2011 Annual Meeting in September.

Jeffrey Flynn is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Fordham University.

Ludwig Siep reviews Axel Honneth

In "Die Zeit" (August 18, 2011), Professor Ludwig Siep reviews "Das Recht der Freiheit. Grundriß einer demokratischen Sittlichkeit" (Suhrkamp, 2011) by Axel Honneth:

Review: "Wir sind dreifach frei"

Excerpt:
"Gibt es einen Leitfaden, nach dem man Fortschritte und Rückschritte in der europäischen Geschichte der beiden letzten Jahrhunderte beurteilen kann? Ist eine "normative Rekonstruktion" der Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte aus philosophischer Sicht möglich? Der Frankfurter Philosoph Axel Honneth findet diesen Leitfaden bei Hegel. Während Habermas die Maßstäbe der kritischen Gesellschaftstheorie in einer sprachphilosophischen Transformation Kants neu formulierte, geht Honneth auf Hegels Kantkritik und seine Historisierung der Vernunft zurück. Auch für Honneth kann man moralische Normen und Gerechtigkeitsvorstellungen nicht durch hypothetische Diskurse oder Vertragsmodelle, wie etwa bei Rawls, rechtfertigen. Man hat keine Argumente, wenn man ganz von den Werten der Institutionen absieht, in denen man lebt. Diese wiederum sind ohne das Verständnis ihrer historischen Entwicklung weder zu verstehen noch zu rechtfertigen. Honneth plädiert fur eine materiale und historische Gerechtigkeits- und Freiheitstheorie. [....] Für Honneth ist die entscheidende Wertvoraussetzung der Moderne die Freiheit in drei Bedeutungen: als gleiches Recht eines jeden Menschen auf bestimmte Grundrechte, als Anspruch auf das eigene autonome Urteil über moralische Normen und als "soziale Freiheit".

Abstract (from "Perlentaucher"):
"Sehr eingehend widmet sich der in Münster Philosophie lehrende Ludwig Siep diesem Buch seines Frankfurter Kollegen Axel Honneth, der darin mit Rückgriff auf den späten Hegel die modernen Gesellschaften auf die Entwicklung der Freiheit abklopft, auf gleiches Recht, die Autonomie des Urteils und die soziale Freiheit. Beeindruckt zeigt sich Siep davon, wie kompakt Honneth die gesamte Sozialgeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts rekonstruiert und dabei Fort- und Rückschritte in den Sphären Familie, Arbeit und Politik unter die Lupe nimmt. Dabei kommt Honneth zu dem auch für den Rezensenten überraschenden Ergebnis, dass Fortschritte in Bezug auf Freiheit, Gleichberechtigung und wechselseitige Anerkennung eigentlich nur in der privaten Sphäre erreicht wurden, während in Ökonomie und Politik die Spielräume kleiner wurden. So viel zum Sittenverfall! Siep ist nicht mit allen Schlüssen, die Honneth zieht, einverstanden, auch seine konfliktfreie Sicht auf die Anerkennung findet Siep diskutabel, aber er schätzt das Werk schon deshalb, weil ihm das Kunststück, den späten Hegel für eine moderne Gesellschaftskritik zu revitalisieren."

See my previous post on Axel Honneth's new book here.

Ludwig Siep is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Münster. He is the author of "Anerkennung als Prinzip der praktischen Philosophie " (Alber, 1979) and "Konkrete Ethik: Grundlagen der Natur- und Kulturethik" (Suhrkamp, 2003).

Eva Erman on The Boundary Problem

Eva Erman has posted a new paper at SSRN:

"The Boundary Problem: A Discourse-Theoretical Solution" [pdf]

Abstract:
"Democracy presumes a collective who are in a specific sense self governing or selfdetermining. However, the problem of who should be included in this collective and thus take part in the collective democratic decision-making, what is sometimes called the boundary problem in democratic theory, is an increasingly pressing political problem in a globalized world. A basic presumption of this paper is that insofar as we wish to address this problem as part of a normative democratic theory, the defended criterion of justified inclusion must be compatible with a proper criterion of democratic legitimacy. The overall aim is to show that a particular discoursetheoretical approach has resources to achieve this. With reference to what is labelled the "equal influence principle", the thesis defended is that a discourse-theoretical solution to the boundary problem is preferable to solutions drawing on some version of the all affected (interests) principle."

The paper will be presented at the 2011 APSA Annual Meeting in Seattle, September 1-4.

Eva Erman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Uppsala University, Sweden. She is the author of "Human Rights And Democracy: Discourse Theory And Global Rights Institutions" (Ashgate, 2005) and Co-Editor (with Anders Uhlin) of "Legitimacy Beyond the State? Re-examining the Democratic Credentials of Transnational Actors" (Palgrave, 2010). She is Chief Editor of "Ethics and Global Politics".

New Book: Robert Bellah on Religion in Human Evolution

Religion in Human Evolution
From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age

by Robert N. Bellah

(Harvard University Press, September 2011)

784 pages


Description

How did our early ancestors transcend the quotidian demands of everyday existence to embrace an alternative reality that called into question the very meaning of their daily struggle? Robert Bellah, one of the leading sociologists of our time, identifies a range of cultural capacities, such as communal dancing, storytelling, and theorizing, whose emergence made this religious development possible. Deploying the latest findings in biology, cognitive science, and evolutionary psychology, he traces the expansion of these cultural capacities from the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (roughly, the first millennium BCE), when individuals and groups in the Old World challenged the norms and beliefs of class societies ruled by kings and aristocracies. These religious prophets and renouncers never succeeded in founding their alternative utopias, but they left a heritage of criticism that would not be quenched.

Bellah’s treatment of the four great civilizations of the Axial Age — in ancient Israel, Greece, China, and India — shows all existing religions, both prophetic and mystic, to be rooted in the evolutionary story he tells. Religion in Human Evolution answers the call for a critical history of religion grounded in the full range of human constraints and possibilities.

Contents [preview]

1. Religion and Reality
2. Religion and Evolution
3. Tribal Religion: The Production of Meaning
4. From Tribal to Archaic Religion: Meaning and Power
5. Archaic Religion: God and King
6. The Axial Age I: Introduction and Ancient Israel
7. The Axial Age II: Ancient Greece
8. The Axial Age III: China and the Late First Millennium BCE
9. The Axial Age IV: Ancient India
10. Conclusion

Reviews

This is an extraordinarily rich book based on wide-ranging scholarship. It contains not just a host of individual studies, but is informed with a coherent and powerful theoretical structure. There is nothing like it in existence. Of course, it will be challenged. But it will bring the debate a great step forward, even for its detractors. And it will enable other scholars to build on its insights in further studies of religion past and present.
- Charles Taylor

This great book is the intellectual harvest of the rich academic life of a leading social theorist who has assimilated a vast range of biological, anthropological, and historical literature in the pursuit of a breathtaking project. Robert Bellah first searches for the roots of ritual and myth in the natural evolution of our species and then follows with the social evolution of religion up to the Axial Age. In the second part of his book, he succeeds in a unique comparison of the origins of the handful of surviving world-religions, including Greek philosophy. In this field I do not know of an equally ambitious and comprehensive study.
- Jürgen Habermas

Robert N. Bellah is Elliott Professor of Sociology Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.

See an interview with Robert N. Bellah on his new book: "Where Does Religion Come From?" (The Atlantic, August 17, 2011).

See also an interview from 2008 on "Rethinking Secularism and Religion in the Global Age" [pdf]

Update:
Post by Robert Bellah at "The Immanent Frame" on his new book: Where Did Religion Come From?

An interview with Robert Bellah on his book here (60 minutes).

Thomas Christiano on Human Right to Democracy

Free online article from "Philosophy and Public Affairs" (Spring 2011, vol. 39 no. 2):

"An Instrumental Argument for a Human Right to Democracy" [pdf]

by Thomas Christiano

Excerpt:
"I argue here that there are good grounds for thinking that there is a moral human right to democracy and that this does not impinge at all on the right of collective self-determination. The argument given here is fully instrumental, relying heavily on empirical studies that support the theses that (1) democracies are normally reliable protectors of certain very urgent and widely accepted human rights and (2) nondemocracies and partial democracies reliably fail to protect these rights. The moral human right to democracy is grounded in the central role democracy plays protecting other fundamental moral rights in political societies and in international society. There is, I think, also an argument for the human right to democracy that makes democratic rights fundamental, but it must proceed from more controversial premises. It is worthwhile to make out a separate strong instrumental argument for the right to democracy based on the minimal premise that democracy is essential to the protection of very urgent and widely accepted human rights."

Thomas Christiano is Professor of Philosophy and Law at the Department of Philosophy, University of Arizona. He is the author of "The Constitution of Equality. Democratic Authority and its Limits" (Oxford University Press, 2008).

Seyla Benhabib on Human Right to Democracy

Professor Seyla Benhabib has posted a new paper on SSRN:

"Is There a Human Right to Democracy? Beyond Interventionism and Indifference" [pdf]

Abstract:
"There is wide-ranging disagreement in contemporary discourse about the justification as well as the content of human rights. On the one hand, the language of human rights has become the public vocabulary of a conflict-ridden world which is increasingly growing together. The spread of human rights, as well as their defense and institutionalization, are now seen as the uncontested language, though not the reality, of global politics. In this essay I wish to shift both the justification strategy and the derivation of the content of human rights away from minimalist concerns towards an understanding of human rights in terms of the “right to have rights” (Hannah Arendt). I will defend a discourse-theoretic justification strategy which seeks to synthesize the insights of discourse ethics with Hannah Arendt’s concept. I thereby hope to point the way toward a more robust defense of human rights within a global justice context. Whereas in Arendt’s work, “the right to have rights” is viewed principally as a political right and is narrowly defined as the “right to membership in a political community,” I will propose a non-state-centered conception of the “right to have rights,” understood as the claim of each human person to be recognized and to be protected as a legal personality by the world community."

The paper will be presented at the APSA Annual Meeting 2011 and it will appear as part of a forthcoming book, titled: "Dignity in Adversity. Human Rights in Troubled Times" (Polity Press, September 2011)

The paper was originally presented in 2007.

See also Joshua Cohen's paper "Is There a Human Right to Democracy" [pdf] (2006).

Seyla Benhabib is professor of political science and philosophy at Yale University.

Martha Nussbaum on Creating Capabilities

In this video Professor Martha Nussbaum explains the Capabilities Approach, as outlined in her new book, "Creating Capabilities" (Harvard University Press, 2011):

Video: Nussbaum on Creating Capabilities (10 mins)

See my previous post on Nussbaum's book here.

Also an interview with Martha Nussbaum in BBC Radio 4 here (28 mins).

Martha Nussbaum is Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago.

Symposium on Thomas Christiano’s "The Constitution of Equality"

Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy (JESP) has published a symposium on Thomas Christiano's "The Constitution of Equality. Democratic Authority and its Limits" (Oxford University Press, 2008):

C.L. Ten (Singapore)
The Limits of Democratic Authority [pdf]

Corey Brettschneider (Brown)
Judicial Review and Democratic Authority: Absolute v. Balancing Conceptions [pdf]

Cindy Holder (Victoria)
Democratic Authority From The Outside Looking In: States, Common Worlds and Wrongful Connections [pdf]

Thomas Christiano (Arizona)
Reply to Critics of The Constitution of Equality [pdf]

Thomas Christiano is Professor of Philosophy and Law at the Department of Philosophy, University of Arizona.

(Thanks to ABC Democracy for the pointer!)

Peter Vallentyre reviews G. A. Cohen

At "Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews", Peter Vallentyne reviews "On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice, and Other Essays in Political Philosophy" (Princeton University Press, 2011) by G. A. Cohen:

Review of "On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice, and Other Essays in Political Philosophy"

Peter Vallentyre is Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, University of Missouri. His web site contains a large number of online papers.

See my post on G.A. Cohen's book here.