Abstract
This chapter offers a critical analysis of several forms of skepticism toward human rights universality. What is the substance of the critique of human rights universalism? To what extent is this critique a form of relativism? Is such relativism preferable to universalism?
It is argued that a reasonable critique of human rights universalism calls for a new form of universalism. The perspective proposed is that of “critical universalism”, that is, a normative universalism informed by the challenge of relativism. Additionally, human rights are understood in this chapter as a multidimensional value system with legal, political, and moral levels. It is therefore argued that the universality of human rights cannot be justified if human rights are interpreted as primarily legal norms. Nor is it possible to claim universal validity on behalf of conventional political moralities. What is justifiable is a call for a universality of moral judgments that is an essential feature of ethics as a critique of conventional norms.
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Notes
- 1.
The terminology adopted here is developed by the Swedish ethicist Carl-Henric Grenholm (Grenholm 2014).
- 2.
By “the West”, I have in mind North America and Western Europe, including their respective spheres of political and discursive influence.
- 3.
- 4.
My position has some similarities with that of Rainer Forst who, discussing the political history of human rights, argues that “[…] the main point of this rights discourse was to claim the right to participate in the political structures that determine which rights and duties those subjected to them have” (Forst 2012, p. 86).
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Namli, E. (2018). Critique of Human Rights Universalism. In: Stenmark, M., Fuller, S., Zackariasson, U. (eds) Relativism and Post-Truth in Contemporary Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96559-8_8
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