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Durham E-Theses Durham E-Theses Egalitarian Rights Recognition: A Political Theory of Human Rights HANN, MATTHEW,JAMES How to cite: HANN, MATTHEW,JAMES (2013) Egalitarian Rights Recognition: A Political Theory of Human Rights, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9453/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk i Egalitarian Rights Recognition: A Political Theory of Human Rights by Matthew James Hann Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Submitted to the School of Government and International Affairs Durham University 2013 ii This thesis is the result of my own work. Material from the published or unpublished work of others which is used in the thesis is credited to the author in question in the text. No part of this thesis has been previously submitted for a degree in the University of Durham or any other university. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author's prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. iii Acknowledgements The submission of this thesis marks the end of my eighth year in Durham; there are many people to thank. First I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisors, Dr. Maria Dimova-Cookson and Dr. Thom Brooks for their outstanding support and many, many helpful suggestions. This PhD would not have been possible without funding from Durham University; I would like to gratefully acknowledge the receipt of a Social Sciences and Health Inter-disciplinary Scholarship. Nor would it have been possible without the support of Ustinov College, which has provided me with much more than simply somewhere to live. This thesis has benefited greatly from comments and questions I have received at several conferences over the last three years. I am grateful to, amongst others, Prof. David Boucher, Dr. Gene Callaghan, Prof. James Connelly, Prof. Rex Martin, Prof. Peter Nicholson, Davide Orsi, Dr. Julia Stapleton, Dr. Hanno Terao, Prof. Colin Tyler, Prof. Andrew Vincent, and Dr. John Williams for their insightful comments and challenging questions. I have received a great deal of help and support from several colleagues and friends during my studies; in particular I would like to thank Emilio Berrocal, Lauren Bisom, James ‘Dan’ Croft, Matthew Griffiths, Anna Jobe, Matthew Lakin, Ben Lambert, Graham Lochead, Emma Linney, Jess Murphy, Ben and Jac O’Connell, Maggie O’Neill, Alice Panepinto, Emmy Quinn, Lili Siegenthaler, Rob Sykes, Iain Wallace, and especially Céline Ophelders, who has not only provided valuable proof-reading and assistance with both Dutch and German translations, but has also provided an immense amount of emotional support over the last eighteen months. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, for all their encouragement and support over the years. Matthew James Hann, Ustinov College, Durham, Summer 2013 iv Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One G.W.F. Hegel, T.H. Green, and the social recognition of rights ................................. 7 1. Recognition in Hegel and Green ............................................................................ 9 1.1 Recognition in Hegel .................................................................................... 10 1.2 Recognition in Green .................................................................................... 17 1.3 The Universal Self-Consciousness and the Eternal Consciousness ............. 20 1.4 Summary ....................................................................................................... 24 2. Rights in Hegel and Green.................................................................................... 24 2.1 Rights in Hegel ............................................................................................. 25 2.2 Rights in Green ............................................................................................. 28 2.3 Summary ....................................................................................................... 32 3. State and society ................................................................................................... 33 3.1 State and society in Hegel............................................................................. 33 3.2 State and society in Green ............................................................................ 37 4. Concluding remarks .............................................................................................. 41 Chapter Two Natural rights and rights recognition between Green and Arendt ........................... 44 1. Spencer, Ritchie and rights debate at the turn of the twentieth century ............... 46 2. Rights recognition and natural rights, 1900-1948 ................................................ 56 2.1 Arguments in favour of natural rights .......................................................... 66 Chapter Three Hannah Arendt: the Rights of Man, the political community, judgment, and recognition ...................................................................................................................... 77 1. Hannah Arendt, ‘the Rights of Man’ and statelessness ........................................ 80 2. Human Rights and the Political Community ........................................................ 86 3. ἴσοι καὶ ὅμοιοι – equality and sameness – or ‘who may belong?’ ....................... 91 4. Membership: The Right to Have Rights ............................................................... 94 5. Recognition ......................................................................................................... 106 v 5.1 Natality: or ‘why recognise?’ ..................................................................... 113 6. Concluding Remarks .......................................................................................... 118 Chapter Four Societies of rights: what does a political community look like? .............................. 120 1. Society ................................................................................................................ 121 1.1 Equality ....................................................................................................... 121 1.2 Common good and sensus communis ......................................................... 132 1.3 Communication........................................................................................... 135 1.4 The shape and limits of society .................................................................. 138 2. Rights as synchronically recognised (though not necessarily enforced) claims 146 2.1 A walk in the woods: tradition, action and claims...................................... 147 2.2 Defending rights as claims ......................................................................... 153 3. Concluding Remarks .................................................................................. 160 Chapter Five Building rights on contingent foundations: filling the void and minding the gap . 163 1. A potential objection to the egalitarian rights recognition ................................. 163 2. Post-foundation political theory ......................................................................... 164 2.1 Nancy: the void as freedom ........................................................................ 167 2.2 Lefort: the empty heart of democracy ........................................................ 169 2.3 Laclau: the particular and the universal ...................................................... 172 2.4 Alain Badiou: ‘ethics’ and the event .......................................................... 176 3. Egalitarian rights recognition restated ................................................................ 183 Chapter Six Rights recognition and cosmopolitanism: global egalitarian rights recognition ... 193 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 193 2. Current accounts of international and cosmopolitan human rights .................... 196 2.1 ‘Mainstream’ Cosmopolitanism ................................................................. 198 2.2 A Hegelian Approach to International Human Rights ............................... 203 2.3 Cosmopolitanism built on discourse ethics ................................................ 210 vi 3. Global egalitarian rights recognition as a foundation for cosmopolitan human rights .......................................................................................................................... 217 3.1 Fluidity of borders: formal and informal .................................................... 218 3.2 Creating
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