A World Consensus on Human Rights?
Taylor, Charles
What would it mean to come to a genuine, unforced international consensus on human rights? I suppose it would be something like what John Rawls describes in his Political Liberalism as an...
...To the extent that we can only acknowledge agreement with people who share the whole package, and are moved by the same heroes, the consensus will either never come or must be forced...
...I suppose it would be something like what John Rawls describes in his Political Liberalism as an "overlapping consensus...
...This is not to say that all of those concerned Buddhists, monks and lay, involved in democratic activism of one kind or another have been of this persuasion...
...But from this Buddhist perspective comes a caution against the politics of anger, itself the potential source of new forms of violence...
...Wrong is the opposite of right, and so this is in some sense in play here...
...The injunction to respect comes rather as a consequence of the fundamental value of nonviolence, which also generates a whole host of other consequences (including the requirement for an ecologically responsible development and the need to set limits to growth...
...Here, too, there is the awareness that very exigent demands are being made, which go way beyond what the majority of ordinary believers recognize as required practices...
...The rights define norms of respect for human beings more radical and more 20 • DISSENT Consensus on Human Rights...
...and in particular, I want to look at the way this position has been articulated by an influential movement in Thailand...
...This has its origins in Christianity, and also certain strands of ancient thought, but the distance is greatly exacerbated by what Weber describes as the disenchantment of the world, the rejection of a view of the cosmos as a meaningful order...
...Some of these have attempted to find a basis in this Buddhism for democracy and human rights...
...As were not an academic journal, we prefer that they, wherever possible, be dropped altogether or worked into the text...
...Or maybe: partially yes, partially no, as we come to distinguish some of the things that have been associated in the Western package...
...The human agent stands out even more starkly from the mechanistic universe...
...but a profound sense of difference, of unfamiliarity, in the ideals, the notions of human excellence, the rhetorical tropes and reference points by which these norms become objects of deep agreement for us...
...Here again there is a consciousness of the universalization of the highest of traditional minority practices...
...Of course, this might involve some adjustments in what was borrowed, but this inevitably happens whenever ideas and institutions developed in one area are taken up elsewhere...
...But here, too, in developing a doctrine of democracy and human rights, Reform Buddhists are proposing to extend what has hitherto been a minority practice and entrench it in society universally...
...We can't assume straight off, without further examination, that a future unforced world consensus could be formulated to the satisfaction of everyone in the language of rights...
...But this concern is not necessarily demo18 • DISSENT Consensus on Human Rights...
...These are the basis of judicial review, whereby the ordinary legislation of different levels of government can be invalidated on the grounds of conflict with fundamental rights...
...We will not consider manuscripts submitted simultaneously to several publications...
...As Sulak explains it, the Buddhist commitment to nonviolence entails a nonpredatory stance toward the environment and calls also for the limitation of greed, one of the sources of anger and conflict...
...The older notion that human society stands under a Law of Nature, whose origin was the Creator, and which was thus beyond human will, was now transposed...
...This carries us far from the politics of imposed order, decreed by the wise minority, which has long been the traditional background to various forms and phases of military rule...
...What we are looking for, in the end, is a world consensus on cerSUMMER • 1996 • 17 Consensus on Human Rights...
...It is also evident that this underpinning for democracy offers a strong support for human rights legislation...
...We could then proceed to identify certain centers of disagreement across cultures, and we might then see what, if anything, could be done to bridge these differences...
...I have been distinguishing between norms of conduct and their underlying justification...
...To be accepted in any given society, these would in each case have to repose on some widely acknowledged philosophical justification...
...and Vitit Muntaborn and Charles Taylor, Roads to Democracy: Human Rights and Democratic Development in Thailand (Bangkok and Montreal: International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, July 1994...
...It might help to structure our thinking if we made a tripartite distinction...
...The idea was already expressed in 1949 by Jacques Maritain: "I am quite certain that my way of justifying belief in the rights of man and the ideal of liberty, equality, fraternity is the only way with a firm foundation in truth...
...They offer in principle greater freedom, greater security from violence, from arbitrary treatment, from discrimination and oppression than humans have enjoyed at least in most major civilizations in history...
...But a quite different sense of the word is invoked when we start to use the definite or indefinite articles or to put it in the plural and speak of "a right" or "rights" or when we start to attribute these to persons and speak of your rights or my rights...
...This has acquired additional political relevance recently, in that the charismatic leader of the Palang Dharma Party, Chamlong Srimuang, is a follower of SantiAsok...
...Use WordPerfect 5.1 or standard text ASCII format, and send us the disk...
...For the Western rights tradition also carries certain views on human nature, society, and the human good that are elements of an underlying justification...
...Others, however, are certainly ready, even eager, to espouse some universal norms, but they are made uneasy by the underlying philosophy of the human person in society...
...Or maybe neither of these simple solutions will work (this is my hunch), but modifications need to be made in both...
...This view has been an important strand in Western democratic theory of the last three centuries...
...Agreement on norms, yes...
...There has, however, been a democratic strand in this general movement...
...And we would be content to live in this consensus, undisturbed by the differences of profound underlying belief...
...First, what would the consensus be on...
...I want to talk a little about both these issues here...
...Some governments might resist the enforcement of widely accepted norms because they have an agenda that involves their violation (for example, the contemporary People's Republic of China...
...Other differences stand out...
...Moreover, these two levels are not unconnected...
...Taking care of others means as well taking care of oneself...
...Charters of rights are now entrenched in the constitutions of several countries and also of the European Union...
...As has often been pointed out, there is something rather special here...
...Taking the rights package as a whole is not simply wrong, because the philosophy is plainly part of what has motivated the great promotion enjoyed by this legal form...
...It's as though, in spite of the difference in philosophy, this universalization of an exigent standard, which human rights practice at its best involves, was recognized as a valid move, and recreated within a different cultural, philosophical, and religious world...
...But right away there is a first obstacle...
...But we have to confess at the outset that it is not entirely clear around what the consensus would form, and we are only beginning to discern the obstacles we would have to overcome on the way there...
...Of course, there will also be differences in the norms grounded, which raises its own problems, but for the moment I just want to note the substantial overlap...
...This is the situation at the outset, in any case, where consensus on some aspect of human rights has just been attained...
...One might have thought this was obvious: on human rights...
...In the West, both democracy and human rights have been furthered by the steady advance of a kind of humanism that stressed how humans stood out from the rest of the cosmos and had a higher status and dignity than anything else...
...Following Obeyesekere's analogy, one would say that it is reminiscent in this respect of Max Weber's "asceticism" that led to responsible, disciplined social action...
...The dhammaraja is undoubtedly understood as an agency for good, for the welfare of the people, but he is not in any normal sense a democratic agency...
...But they are not expressed in this language...
...One way of putting our central question might be this: what variations can we imagine in philosophical justifications or in legal forms that would still be compatible with a meaningful universal consensus on what really matters to us, the enforceable norms...
...Sulak Sivaraksa, Seeds of Peace: A Buddhist Vision for Renewing Society (Berkeley and Bangkok: Parallax Press, 1992...
...I'd like to recur to the Theravada Buddhist demurral before the anthropology of the rightsdemanding individual, which I invoked earlier...
...It is no longer just an element of the law that stands over and between all of us equally...
...On the contrary, he and those inspired by him have always stressed that the path to enlightenment is inseparable from that of concern for all creatures: metta (loving kindness) and karuna (compassion...
...The force of the underlying philosophy has brought about a steady promotion of the legal norm in our politico-legal systems...
...But what is unfamiliar to the Western observer is the entire philosophical basis, and its appropriate reference points, as well as the rhetorical bases of its appeal...
...We would agree on the norms, while disagreeing on why they were the right norms...
...Phutthathat himself was not entirely clear on the issue of democratic agency...
...Following this line of thinking, it might help to understand a little better what exactly we want to converge onto in the world society of the future, as well as to measure our chances of getting there, if we imagine variations separately on the two levels...
...For Pascal, the human being is a mere reed, but of incomparably greater significance than what threatens to crush it, because it is a thinking reed...
...That's what our original question was about...
...Perhaps because of my optimistic nature, I believe that it is...
...There is an outlook here that converges on a policy of defense of human rights and democratic development, but that is rather different from the standard Western justifications of these...
...Saneh Chamarik, Democracy and Development:A Cultural Perspective (Bangkok: Local Development Institute, 1993...
...If there's a delay, it's because a few editors are reading your article...
...The first is the notion, central to Buddhism, that ultimately each individual must take responsibility for his or her own Enlightenment...
...Reform Buddhism is practiced by an elite, as has been the case with most of its analogues in history...
...We can in fact see a convergence here on certain norms of action, however they may be entrenched in law...
...This means they are heavily engaged with a crucial part of the agenda of democratization in Thailand—decentralization, and in particular the recovery of local control over natural resources...
...Will it be...
...But what specifically pushes to democracy, that is, to ensuring that people take charge of their own lives, rather than simply being the beneficiaries of benevolent rule...
...And out of this will come further borrowings and the creation of new hybrid forms...
...Many societies have held that it is good to ensure certain immunities or liberties to their members—or sometimes even to outsiders (think of the stringent laws of hospitality in many traditional cultures...
...This does not prevent me from being in agreement on these practical convictions with people who are certain that their way of justifying them, entirely different from mine or opposed to mine . . . is equally the only way founded upon truth...
...Whereas in the Western framework these go together because they are both seen as requirements of human dignity, and indeed, as two facets of liberty, a connection of a somewhat different kind is visible among Thai Buddhists of this reform persuasion...
...This is not to say that something very like the underlying norms expressed in schedules of rights don't turn up elsewhere...
...Perhaps, in fact, the legal culture could "travel" better if it could be separated from some of its underlying justifications...
...And so do the models of heroism...
...Or perhaps the reverse is true, that the underlying picture of human life might look less frightening if it could find expression in a different legal culture...
...But the dedication of some members of this elite to democracy, equality, and human rights commands respect...
...The Buddhist philosophy that I have been describing starts from a quite different place, the demand of ahimsa, and yet seems to ground many of these same norms...
...At the origin of society stands a con16 • DISSENT Consensus on Human Rights...
...These modes are, after all, well rooted in Theravada Buddhist history, in particular in the paradigm model of the emperor Asoka as the ideally just ruler and upholder of Dharma...
...It attacks what it sees as the "superstition" of those who seek potent amulets, the blessings of monks, and the like...
...It operates both as legal norm and as underlying justification...
...It is also something I have a role in enforcing...
...It gives me some control over this immunity...
...This perhaps gives us an idea of what an unforced world consensus on human rights might look like...
...onstrators...
...Now there is a curious convergence in this respect with the strand of Reform Buddhism I have been describing...
...Phutthathat's reformism was the very opposite of a disengaged religion, unconcerned with the world...
...So subjective rights are not only crucial to the Western tradition...
...It is this stream that seems to be producing new reflections on Buddhism as a basis for democratic society and practice...
...Everywhere it is wrong to take human life, at least under certain circumstances and for certain categories of persons...
...How does this fit with the Confucian emphasis on close personal relationships, not only as highly valued in themselves but as a model for the wider society...
...Rights talk has roots in Western culture...
...No dot matrix submissions, please...
...The Western rights tradition in fact exists at both these levels...
...Jack Donnelly speaks of "human dignity" as a universal value...
...This society has seen in the last century a number of attempts to formulate reformed interpretations of the overwhelmingly majority religion...
...This is a big agenda, and I don't propose to follow it out here in all its ramifications...
...And something similar could be said for Photirak and his SantiAsok movement...
...One may see something paradoxical in this, in that this rather austere reformism is espoused by a relatively small elite, rather far removed from the religious outlook of the mass of the people...
...After all, something of this has already occurred with another stream of the philosophy of ahimsa, that of Gandhi...
...Where "dignity" might be too precise and culture-bound a term, "well-being" might be too vague and general...
...Maybe yes, maybe no...
...This wouldn't matter, because what we need to formulate for an overlapping consensus is certain norms of conduct...
...In fact, we can easily imagine situations in which, for all its interconnections, the package can be untied, and either the forms or the philosophy could be adopted alone, without the other...
...It wants to separate the search for enlightenment from the seeking of merit through ritual...
...5) We're usually quick in giving editorial decisions...
...That I have a right to life says more than that you shouldn't kill me...
...Please use inclusive language so that we don't have to make adjustments during editing...
...exigent than have ever existed in the past...
...A good place to start the discussion would be to give a rapid portrait of the language of rights that has developed in the West and of the surrounding notions of human agency and the good...
...But it is the reform stream that is concerned to develop a Buddhist vision of democratic society...
...They and others in their milieu are highly active in the nongovernnmental organization (NGO) community...
...The deep underlying values supporting these common conclusions will, in the nature of the case, belong to the alternative, mutually incompatible justifications...
...cratic...
...The hope for a world consensus is that this kind of move will be made repeatedly...
...Later, a process of mutual learning can follow, moving toward a "fusion of horizons" in Gadamer's term, where the moral universe of the other becomes less strange...
...When people protest against the Western rights model, they seem to have this whole package in mind...
...Of course, they have particularly in mind—or in their sights—the United States...
...It centers everything on him or her, makes his or her freedom and self-control a major value, something to be maximized...
...And that, indeed, is how it is understood by thinkers like Sulak...
...A right is something that in principle I can waive...
...The heroes of ahimsa are not forceful revolutionaries, not Cola di Rienzi or Garibaldi...
...The peculiarity of the West was, first, that this idea played a bigger role in European medieval societies than elsewhere in history and, second, that it was the basis for the rewriting of Natural Law theory that marked the seventeenth century...
...Peter Jackson, "Thai Buddhist Identity: Debates on the Traiphum Phra Ruang," in Craig Reynolds, ed., National Identity and its Defenders: Thailand 1939-1989 (Clayton, Victoria: Monash Papers on Southeast Asia number 25, 1991...
...THE EDITORS q SUMMER • 1996 • 21...
...Each would have its own way of justifying this from out of its profound background conception...
...6) Please bear with us—we have accumulated quite a backlog of material, and you may have to wait for a few issues before you see your article in print...
...Phutthathat spoke of a "dhammic socialism...
...So the modern Western discourse of rights involves, on one hand, a set of legal forms, by which immunities and liberties are inscribed as rights, with certain consequences for the possibility of waiver and for the ways in which they can be secured—whether these immunities and liberties are among those from time to time granted by duly constituted authority or among those that are entrenched in fundamental law...
...even more significant is the fact that they were projected onto Nature and formed the basis of a philosophical view of humans and their society, one that greatly privileges individuals' freedom and their right to consent to the arrangements under which they live...
...Their commitment to people-centered and ecologically sensitive development makes them strong allies of those communities of villagers who are resisting encroachment by the state and big business and fighting to defend their lands and forests...
...Now some people have trouble with this...
...This seems to give pride of place to autonomous individuals, determined to demand their rights, even (indeed especially) in the face of widespread social consensus...
...Can people who imbibe the full Western human rights ethos, which (on one version anyway) reaches its highest expression in the lone courageous individual fighting against all the forces of social conformity for his rights, ever be good members of a "Confucian" society...
...They see something dangerously individualistic, fragmenting, dissolvent of community, in this Western legal culture...
...This will allow us to raise the issue of to what extent we could hope for a convergence on norms even with very different underlying justifications...
...That is why so many of the landmarks of the historical development of rights were in their day instruments of elite privilege, starting with the Magna Carta...
...Beyond these, there are followers of Phutthathat's reformism who are deeply committed to democracy, such as Sulak Sivaraksa and Saneh Charmarik...
...He prefers to speak of the "pursuit of spiritual as well as material well-being" as the universal...
...We could, and people sometimes do, consider this legal culture as the proper candidate for universalization, arguing that its adoption can be justified in more than one way...
...The second is a new application of the doctrine of nonviolence, which is now seen to call for a respect for the autonomy of each person, demanding in effect a minimal use of coercion in human affairs...
...This view leads to an activist concern for social justice and well-being...
...The two formulations are not equivalent in all respects, because in the latter case the immunity or liberty is considered the property of someone...
...Instead of saying that it is wrong to kill me, we begin to say that I have a right to life...
...SUMMER • 1996 • 19 Consensus on Human Rights...
...And it is very critical of the whole metaphysical structure of belief that has developed in mainstream Buddhism, about heaven, hell, gods, and demons, which play a large part in popular belief...
...It has been described by Sri Lankan anthropologist Gananath Obeyesekere as a "Protestant Buddhism...
...That is, different groups, countries, religious communities, civilizations, while holding incompatible fundamental views on theology, metaphysics, human nature, and so on, would come to an agreement on certain norms that ought to govern human behavior...
...They form a significant part of the NGO community committed to this agenda...
...They are concerned with alternative models of development, which would be more ecologically sound, concerned to put limits to growth, critical of "consumerism," and conducive to social equality...
...To Our Contributors A few suggestions: (1) Be sure to keep a copy of your manuscript...
...tain norms of conduct, enforceable on governments...
...2) Please don't write to ask whether we're interested in such and such an article—it makes for useless correspondence...
...3) Type your ms double-spaced, with wide margins...
...I will just consider one example, a case where we can see an important difference with the Western philosophy of the human person...
...Or take a chance and send us your article...
...Human rights don't stand out, as they often do in the West, as a claim that is independent from the rest of our moral commitments or even sometimes in potential conflict with them...
...My aim here is not to judge between these approaches, but to point out these differences as the source of a potentially fruitful exchange within a (one hopes) emerging world consensus on the practice of human rights and democracy...
...Some element of subjective right may exist in all legal systems...
...And there does seem to be some basis for hoping that we can achieve at least some agreement on these norms...
...But in their criticism of Western procedures, they also seem to be attacking the underlying philosophy of the West, which allegedly gives primacy to the individual, where supposedly a "Confucian" outlook would have a larger place for the community and the complex web of human relations in which each person stands...
...This is to introduce what has been called "subjective rights...
...Thus, a rather different route than that taken in the West has been traveled to a similar goal...
...Kant echoes some of the same reflections in his discussion of the sublime...
...The gamut of Western philosophical emotions, the exaltation of human dignity, the emphasis on freedom as the highest value, the drama of age-old wrongs righted in valor, all the things that move us in seeing Fidelio well performed, seem out of place in this alternative setting...
...And please remember that we can't return articles unless they're accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope...
...And beyond that, they have become part of a world repertory of political practices, invoked in Manila in 1986 and in Prague in 1989, to name just two examples...
...One main stream of reform consists of movements that (as they see it) attempt to purify Buddhism, to turn it away from a focus on ritual, on gaining merit, and even worldly success through blessings and acts of piety, and to focus more on what they see as the original goal of Enlightenment...
...We can't really be concerned with our own liberation without also seeking that of others, just as any acts of injustice toward them redound to our own continued imprisonment in illusion...
...This stream tries to return to what it sees as the original core of Buddhist teaching, about the unavoidability of suffering, the illusion of the self, and the goal of Nirvana...
...It's too early to say...
...In a sense they involve taking the rather exceptional treatment accorded to privileged people in the past and extending it to everyone...
...and to be enforced in fact, they would have to find expression in legal mechanisms...
...Interestingly, this Buddhist conception provides an alternative way of linking together the agenda of human rights and that of democratic development...
...We can see here an agenda of universal wellbeing...
...It is a spiritual stance that entails heightened standards of personal commitment and responsibility, of probity and dedication to duty, even of self-sacrifice and dedication to the poor and downtrodden...
...It is because humans justifiably command all this respect and attention, at least in comparison to anything else, that their rights must be defended...
...It isn't grounded on a doctrine of the dignity of human beings as something commanding respect...
...The Buddhist commitment lies behind all these goals...
...This is, indeed, one of the models on which the Thai monarchial state was based...
...One can presumably find in all cultures condemnations of genocide, murder, torture, and slavery, as well as of, say, "disappearances" and the shooting of innocent demSUMMER • 1996 • 15 Consensus on Human Rights...
...If you are submitting to Dissent electronically, our email address is dissent@igc.apc.org . (4) Notes and footnotes should also be typed double-spaced, on a separate sheet...
...An important part of the Western consciousness of human rights lies in the awareness of a historic achievement...
...It could also find expression in other modes of social action, including those that see the agency of reform as a minority with the right intentions...
...On one plane, it is a legal tradition, legitimating certain kinds of legal moves, and empowering certain kinds of people to make them...
...The late Phutthathat (Buddhadasa) was a major figure in this regard...
...Perhaps we are incapable at this stage of formulating the universal values in play here...
...The fundamental law was reconceived as consisting of natural rights, attributed to individuals prior to society...
...Perhaps we shall always be incapable of this...
...tract, which takes people out of a state of nature and puts them under political authority as a result of an act of consent on their part...
...And we can therefore see how resistance to the Western discourse of rights might occur on more than one level...
...Two things seem to come together in this outlook to underpin a strong democratic commitment...
...Check all your figures, dates, names, etc.—they're the author's responsibility...
...Yasuaki Onuma criticizes this term, pointing out that "dignity" has been a favorite term in the same Western philosophical stream that has elaborated human rights...
...And it involves, on the other hand, a philosophy of the person and of society, attributing great importance to the individual and making significant matters turn on his or her power of consent...
...The human rights doctrine based on this humanism stresses the importance of the human agent...
...We can see how the notion of (subjective) right both serves to define certain legal powers and also provides the master image for a philosophy of human nature, of individuals and their societies...
...Gandhi's practices of nonviolent resistance have been borrowed and adapted in the West, in the American civil rights movement, for example...
...for example, Lee Kwan Yew and those in East Asia who sympathize with him...
...It might help the discussion to distinguish these two levels, at least analytically, so that we can develop a more fine-grained picture of what our options are here...
...And how does this ethic of demanding what is due to us fit with the Theravada Buddhist search for selflessness, for self-giving, and dana (generosity...
...Can it be...
...Then a legal culture entrenching rights would define the norms around which the world consensus would supposedly crystallize...
...Saneh Chamarik quotes the Buddha: "Monks: Taking care of oneself means as well taking care of others...
...Also worthy of remark is one other facet of this case, which may be generalizable as well...
...Look at our last few issues to see if your idea fits in...
...Because of its roots in a certain justice agenda, the politics of establishing rights in the West has often been surrounded by anger, indignation, and the imperative to punish historic wrongdoing...
...Panyanantha made a democratic application of Phutthathat's thought, for instance...
...In both these regards, it contrasts with many other cultures, including the pre-modern West: not that some of the same protections and immunities may not have been present, but in that they had a quite different basis...
...And without the philosophy and the models, a whole rhetoric loses its basis...
...however, distinguishing the levels still helps, because the modifications are different on each level...
...Consequently, in the Western mind, the defense of human rights seems indissolubly linked with this exaltation of human agency...
...Frst, let's get at the peculiarities of the language of rights...
...But the misgivings expressed in the previous paragraph, which cannot be easily dismissed, show the potential advantages of distinguishing the elements and loosening the connection between the legal cultures of rights enforcement and the philosophical conceptions of human life by which they were originally nourished at their point of origin...
...so that it now occupies pride of place in a number of contemporary polities...
...q Sources on Buddhism Richard Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere, Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka (Princeton University Press, 1988...
...but perhaps we already dimly discern the direction in which we have to travel...
...This is not to say that we already have some adequate term for whatever universals we may discern among different cultures...
...Is this kind of consensus possible...
Vol. 43 • July 1996 • No. 3
