Is a Political Science of Human Rights Possible?
| Author | Michael Freeman |
| Published date | 01 June 2001 |
| Date | 01 June 2001 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/092405190101900202 |
| Subject Matter | Part A: Articles |
Part
A: Articles
Is a Political Science
of
Human Rights Possible?
Michael Freeman'
Abstract
The political science
of
human rights rests on a philosophical contradiction. The
contemporary conception
of
human rights derives from the 'classical' conception
of
natural
rights. which was based on the philosophy
of
natural law.
Modem
social science derives
from nineteenth-centurypositivism. which arose precisely to refute the philosophy
of
natural
law,
and
to exclude the concept
of
natural rights from scientific discourse. The concept
of
human rights retains from its natural-law heritage its inherentprescriptive character, but it
is.
for
that reason, not a properobject
of
scientific study by the canons
of
positivism. Ishow
how this philosophical confusion affects the contemporary politicalscience
of
human rights.
I argue that the political science
of
human rights should be interdisciplinary between
philosophy
and
socialscience. between the socialsciences,
and
betweenpoliticalscience and
international relations.
Law
should be removed from its hegemonic role in human-rights
studies,
and
relocated correctly within this interdisciplinary approach.
Introduction: aQuestion of Logic
In thispaper I inquirewhether a politicalscienceof
human
rightsis possible, and, ifso, what
its logicalproperties are. This inquiry requires an analysis of the concept of humanrights,
the logic of political science, and the relations betweenthe two.
I The Concept of Human RJghts: an Historical Perspective
The conceptof human rights is problematic because it is logicallyuniversal but historically
Western.
In order to show that these two features of the concept are mutually consistent,
human-rights theoristssometimes saythat thehistory of a conceptis irrelevantto its validity.
Thisis partly correct,becausethe history of a conceptcannotdetermine completelywhether
it is reasonable to apply the conceptnow. However, the meaning of a conceptis the product
ofits history. Its validity dependson its meaning, andthus the history
ofa
conceptisrelevant
to its validity.
Contemporary analyses of humanrights often refer to a standardversion of its
history.
'The roots of the liberal Westernapproach to human rights', Jack Donnelly has written, 'are
conventionally andcorrectlytracedbackto theseventeenth century,particularlyseventeenth-
centuryEngland'.IThe 'newly risingbourgeois class'
demanded
freedom
fromthe increasing
threats of State power, and these demands eventually took the form of arguments for
universal naturalrights.' Donnellyhas maintained that natural or humanrights representan
MichaelFreemanteachespolitical theory in the Departmentof Government,Universityof Essex,United
Kingdom.
Donnelly,1.,UniversalHumanRightsinTheoryand Practice,CornellUniversityPress,Ithaca,NY, 1989,
p.89.
Howard,R.E.and Donnelly,1.,'Humandignity,human rights,andpoliticalregimes', in: Donnelly, op.cit.
Netherlands Quarterly
of
HumanRights.
Vol.
19/2.123-139. 2001.
iCNetherlands Institute
of
HumanRights
(81M).
Printedin theNetherlands. 123
NQHR212001
approach to questions
of
political order quite different from that
of
medieval natural law.
This, he says, is particularly clear in Aquinas' theory
of
natural law, 'perhaps the best
developed and best known
of
the classic natural-law theories' .3He analyses Aquinas' theory
with a distinction between two expressions: 'being right' and 'having aright'. This
distinction corresponds closely to that between 'objective right' (what is right) and
'subjective rights' (what we are entitled to). Donnelly maintains that the first is found in
many traditional cultures, whereas the second is modern, Western, and the form
of
human-
rights discourse. Aquinas uses (with some marginal exceptions) only the first linguistic form.
Donnelly argues that this demonstrates an important difference between high medieval and
modern political thought, which is relevant to contemporary discussions
of
human rights."
Donnelly's argument is vulnerable to several objections. Firstly, he assumes that, because
Aquinas' theory may be the best developed and best known medieval natural-law theory, we
can infer from an analysis
of
that theory valid generalisations about all medieval political
thought. Brian Tierney has shown that this inference is erroneous, because there was a
medieval tradition
of
rights discourse that Aquinas ignored. SSecondly, in locating the origin
of
human rights in the seventeenth century, and particularly in the political theory
of
Locke,
he ignores the medieval sources
of
Locke's thought, especially in the political theory
of
Hooker." Thirdly, his distinction between medieval natural law and modernnatural rights is
contradicted by his own (correct) insistence that Locke's concept
of
natural rights was
derived from his conception
of
natural law.' Donnelly therefore exaggerates the break
between medieval natural-law and modern natural-rights theories. The implication ofthis for
contemporary human-rights arguments is that the concept
of
natural rights was applied
historically in a more diverse set
of
social conditions than Donnelly and the standard version
maintain, and that it bequeathed to the modern concept
of
human rights more social
flexibility than the standard version might be interpreted as implying.
Whereas Donnelly maintains that the modernity
of
the concept
of
human rights does not
invalidate its contemporary universal validity, Alasdair MacIntyre has argued that the
modernity
of
the concept
of
rights calls the universality
of
human rights into question. He
relies on an argument that is both linguistic and conceptual. He asserts that there is no
expression in any language correctly translated by our expression' aright' before about 1400.
He admits that this does not prove that there are no human rights; it only follows that no-one
'could have known that there were'. This raises doubts about the universal validity of the
concept
of
human rights." MacIntyre's arguments are mistaken, however. Aristotle had a
conception
of
citizens'though not
of
human
rights, holding that slavery was natural, and that
women and many men were not citizens. He had several expressions for these rights. The
(note 1), p. 70.
Donnelly, 1., The Concept
of
Human Rights, Croom Helm, London, 1985,p. 45.
Donnelly, 1., 'Natural law and right in Aquinas' political thought', in: Western Political Quarterly, Vol.
33,
No.4,
1980, pp. 520-535.
Tierney, B.,
'Tuck
on rights: some medieval problems', in: History
of
Political Thought, Vol. 4,
No.3,
1983, pp. 429-441; 'Villey, Ockham and the origin
of
individual rights', in: Witte, Ir., 1. and Alexander,
F.S. (eds), The Weightier Matters
of
Law: Essays on Law and Religion. A Tribute to Harold J. Berman,
Studies in Religion, 51, Atlanta, GA, pp. 1-31; 'Origins
of
natural rights language: texts and contexts,
1150-1250', in: History
of
Political Thought, Vol. 10,
No.4,
1989, pp. 615-646; 'Natural rights in the
thirteenth century: a Quaestio
of
Henry
of
Ghent', in: Speculum, 67, 1992, pp. 58-68.
Laslelt, P., 'Introduction', in: Laslelt, P. (ed.), John Locke: Two Treatises
of
Government, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1970, pp. 56-57.
Donnelly, op.cit. (note 3), p. 69.
Macintyre, A., After Virtue, University
of
Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN, 1981,p, 67.
124
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