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ProQuest Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Universality of Rights John Humphrey, Henri Bergson and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by Clinton T. Curie A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Political Science) Department of Political Science Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario, Canada July, 2005 © Copyright 2005, Clinton T. Curie Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 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Abstract One of the central challenges of globalization is negotiating the tension between the universal and the particular. This tension is most clearly manifested in contemporary human rights. Using MacIntyre’s Three Rival Versions o f Moral Enquiry as a foil, I argue that the Greek Fathers of the Christian Church provide an alternative way to think through the relationship between the universal and the particular. After expanding upon this alternative tradition, I turn to the beginning of the contemporary human rights project. The journals of John P. Humphrey, one of the chief drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, shows that he was profoundly influenced by the philosophy of Henri Bergson, and in fact regarded the Declaration as a kind of legal transliteration of Bergson’s philosophy of the open society. A careful analysis of Bergson’s philosophy, aided by the robust neo-Thomist critique of Bergson by Jacques Maritain, establishes an affinity between Humphrey’s vision of the contemporary human rights project and the Greek Patristic tradition. I conclude that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, understood in a Bergsonian context, provides us with a way to affirm in the Modem context that there is a ground to human fellowship which is transcendent and which offers a basis to affirm a universal ethics without a radical homogenization of cultures. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents Introduction 1 1. Method 3 2. The Argument 4 Chapter 1: Universality, Particularity and Human Rights 11 1. The problem of universality in contemporary human rights discourse 13 1.1. The Roots of the Contemporary Human Rights Movement 15 1.2. The Rise of Human Rights in the Twentieth Century and the United Nations 18 1.3. The Contemporary Tension between Universality and Particularity 27 2. A Sophisticated and Compelling Solution: Neo-Thomism 30 2.1. MacIntyre’s Trichotomy 30 2.2. Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry and Human Rights 34 2.3. Craft-tradition: A Close Reading 37 3. Conclusion: 46 Chapter 2: The Greek Patristic Tradition 49 1. Apology 51 2. Gregory Palamas and Barlaam the Calabrian 55 3. The Greek Fathers: Five thematic distinctions 65 3.1. Incarnation: The Hypostatic Union of human and divine 66 3.2. Creation: The Image and Likeness of God 78 3.3. God and the Limits of Theology 81 3.4. Deification 89 3.5. Authority: The nature of the Church 96 4. Conclusion 104 Chapter 3: John Humphrey and the Universal Declaration 112 1. John Peters Humphrey 112 1.1. Early Works 115 1.2. Humphrey and the United Nations 120 1.3. The Drafting of the Declaration 125 2. Humphrey and the Problem of the Universality of Human Rights 132 3. Humphrey and Bergson 144 4. Conclusion 156 Chapter 4: John Humphrey and Henri Bergson 158 1. Henri Bergson 161 2. Bergson’s philosophy 166 2.1. Time and Free Will 167 2.2. Matter and Memory 171 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iv 2.3. “An Introduction to Metaphysics” 175 2.4. Creative Evolution 178 2.5. The Creative Mind, “Introduction, I and IT’ 183 3. The Two Sources o fMorality and Religion 188 4. Bergson and the Greek Patristic Tradition 198 5. Conclusion 201 Chapter 5: Jacques Maritain and the Neo-Thomist Critique of Bergson 203 1. Maritain’s Acceptance of Neo-Thomism 207 2. Maritain’s Early Criticisms of Bergson 211 3. Maritain’s Later Criticisms of Bergson 231 4. Maritain’s Final Assessment of Bergson 235 5. Conclusion 248 Chapter 6: Two versions of Human Rights 253 1. Maritain, Natural Law and the Open Society 253 2. Maritain and the Contemporary Human Rights Project 258 3. Maritain and the Universality of Human Rights 276 4. Bergson and the Universality of Human Rights 284 5. A Rapprochement between Bergson and Maritain? 287 6. Conclusion 290 Conclusion 292 Bibliography 300 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Universality of Rights John Humphrey, Henri Bergson and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Introduction Broadly speaking, this is a dissertation about globalization. What is globalization? If we were to travel back in time to Christmas 1979, our televisions would regale us with Coca-Cola’s Christmas advertising drive. We would enjoy a commercial featuring a group of multi-racial young men and women, holding hands around a Christmas tree which was strung with brightly coloured electric lights. Their sincerity shone in their uplifted faces as they sang, “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony; I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company. Its the real thing.” This, for me, is the very image of globalization. It is an image which carries a variety of connotations. Globalization is the erasing of borders between human beings, beginning with national borders. Alternately, it is the coming-together of people who were formerly apart into a universal people. Viewed theologically, globalization is a grand reconciliation, it is the reversal of the Biblical curse of the Tower of Babel. The Coke executives who chose the Christmas tree for their symbol knew their business well. The image further suggests that this grand reconciliation and harmonization is attained via the universal acceptance of American-style economics; it is inseparable from the aggressive peddling of cavity-promoting and addictive black bubbling liquid. In addition, the role of technology, symbolized by the string of electric lights, is central to 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. globalization, such that we cannot seriously discuss globalization without also discussion