IN DEFENSE OF A DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNT OF HUMAN RIGHTS Sine Bağatur Bağatur, S. In Defense of a Democratic Account of Human Rights ISBN: 978-94-6299-084-5 © S.Bagatur, 2015 All rights reserved Cover design by Diego Carvalho The background painting is Vincent Van Gogh, Wheatfield under Thunderclouds (1890) Printed by Ridderprint BV IN DEFENSE OF A DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNT OF HUMAN RIGHTS EEN VERDEDIGING VAN DE DEMOCRATISCHE THEORIE VAN MENSENRECHTEN Thesis to obtain the degree of Doctor from the Erasmus University Rotterdam by the command of the rector magnificus Prof.dr. H.A.P. Pols and in accordance with the decision of the Doctorate Board The public defense shall be held on Friday, 19 June 2015 at 11.30 hours by Sine Bağatur born in Reyhanli, Turkey Doctoral committee Promotor: Prof.dr. I.A.M. Robeyns Other members: Prof.dr. H.H.A. van den Brink Dr. R. Celikates Dr. G.H. van Oenen Copromotor: Dr. C.B. Binder Table of Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 9 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 11 1 Everyday rights struggles ............................................................................................... 11 2 In defense of a democratic account of human rights ...................................................... 17 3 Outline ............................................................................................................................ 20 1 Setting up an Inquiry: Contemporary Rights Struggles .................................................... 23 1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 23 1.2 Two cases of contemporary rights struggles ............................................................... 24 1.2.1 Urban redevelopment and the right to housing ...................................................... 24 1.2.2 The right to work ................................................................................................... 29 1.3 Preliminary theoretical considerations about the cases ................................................ 33 1.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 35 2 The Naturalistic Conception of Human Rights ................................................................. 37 2.1 Introduction: different conceptions of human rights .................................................... 37 2.2 The nature of natural rights .......................................................................................... 40 2.3 Natural rights and human rights ................................................................................... 49 2.3.1 Alan Gewirth: Human action as the basis of human rights ................................... 52 2.3.2 James Griffin: Normative agency as the ground of human rights ......................... 56 2.3.3 John Tasioulas: Pluralistic grounding of human rights .......................................... 63 2.4 Are there a human right to work and a human right to housing? ................................. 65 2.5 Objections to the naturalistic conception of human rights ........................................... 69 2.5.1 The concern about ordinary moral reasoning ........................................................ 71 2.5.2 The concern about timelessness and irrelevance to the practice ............................ 72 2.6 Justification of human rights and different modes of justification .............................. 75 2.7 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 80 3 The Political Conception of Human Rights ...................................................................... 83 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 83 3.2 Rawlsian origins .......................................................................................................... 84 3.3 Recent versions of the political conception ................................................................. 86 3.3.1 Human rights and standards of legitimacy: Joseph Raz, Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge…………………………………………………………………………...87 3.3.2 Human rights and membership: Joshua Cohen and Mathias Risse ....................... 92 3.4 Human rights: political not metaphysical, moral or philosophical ............................. 95 3.5 Is there a human right to work; a human right to housing? ......................................... 98 3.6 Objections to the political conception ....................................................................... 104 3.7 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 106 4 The Discourse-Theoretic Conception of Human Rights .................................................. 109 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 109 4.2 Habermas on human rights ........................................................................................ 111 4.2.1 The rational reconstruction of the system of rights ............................................. 112 4.2.2 The dual nature of human rights .......................................................................... 116 4.3 Seyla Benhabib: Democratic iterations ..................................................................... 120 4.4 Rainer Forst’s constructivist conception of human rights .......................................... 122 4.5 Is there a human right to work, a human right to housing? ....................................... 126 4.6 Objections to discourse-theoretic approaches ........................................................... 129 4.6.1 The circularity objection ...................................................................................... 129 4.6.2 The critique of rational consensus ....................................................................... 133 4.7 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 138 5 Critiques of Human Rights ............................................................................................... 139 5.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 139 5.2 Objections to human rights in general ...................................................................... 140 5.2.1 The abstraction objection ..................................................................................... 140 5.2.2 The Individualism objection ................................................................................ 143 5.2.3 The ethnocentrism objection ................................................................................ 149 5.2.4 The ideology objection ........................................................................................ 152 5.3 Objections to socio-economic rights ........................................................................ 153 5.3.1 Historical background .......................................................................................... 154 5.3.2 Contemporary philosophical critiques ................................................................. 155 5.3.3 Responses to the philosophical critique ............................................................... 158 5.4 Which critique of human rights? Towards a dialectical understanding of human rights………………………………………………………………………………………161 5.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 163 6 In Defense of a Democratic Account of Human Rights ................................................... 165 6.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 165 6.2 The co-originality of human rights and democracy ................................................... 169 6.3 The justification: the right to resistance .................................................................... 175 6.4 The content, universality and political role of human rights ..................................... 180 6.5 Responses to specific objections to human rights ..................................................... 186 6.6 Revisiting the cases ................................................................................................... 188 6.7 Limitations of the democratic account ...................................................................... 190 6.8 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 192 7 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 193 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 199 Samenvatting (Dutch Summary) ............................................................................................ 213 Curriculum Vitae ...................................................................................................................