Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights
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Date
2011-02
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The multi-faceted processes of globalization have been associated with the increasing
interconnectedness of the world or the creation of a global village. These processes are,
however, full of ambiguities in that they challenge human freedom, dignity, rule of law and
democratic self-determination. Especially, economic globalization creates what Pheng Chea
calls the “inhuman conditions’ that describe the defective features of human existence due to
commodification, technology and totalitarian domination. In this condition of human existence,
cosmopolitanism is being advocated as a practical consciousness of universal humanism and as
a political project to regulate the dehumanizing effects of economic globalization. The thesis
explores and analyzes Jurgen Habermas’ conception of the cosmopolitan condition as
constitutionally structured multi-level global governance without global government geared
towards the global realization of peace, human rights, and democracy. Habermas upholds the
enlightenment ideals of rationality, freedom, human rights and democracy based on the notion of
communicative reason implicit in everyday use of language. Hence, Habermas defends the
universality of the constitutional state subject to procedural discourse. The democratic ideal at
the level of a state is to bring the political and economic system under the will of the people
articulated in discourse. The global realization of human rights and democracy is conceived as
the control of supranational and transnational governance by the will of world citizens
developed in national and transnational public spheres. I argue that Habermas’ democratic
theory seems to be unrealistic in existing liberal democracies where the autonomy of political
discourse and public sphere is challenged by political and economic forces. Analogously,
Habermas’ cosmopolitan project is problematic in that the development of cosmopolitan
consciousness and global public sphere is compromised by economic globalization. In as much
as national and transnational public spheres depend on uneven global economic structure; it is
unlikely that Habermas’ project will realize the goal of overcoming global economic and social
inequalities. I argue that the development of popular based nationalism in the postcolonial south
can make the state serve the interest of the majority of the people and also challenge economic globalization
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Philosophy