In the eve of the ALD, I anticipate some interesting discussions on the
floor as posted online today. I hope to provoke some thoughts in
anticipation of my absence. I labored hard to avoid certain technical
concepts as much as possible in order allow greater latitude for
reactions from all quarters. There is a semblance in approach my essay
with the three generic domains of human interests that categorize human
cognition according to Jurgen Habermas. Nevertheless, I adopt here a
harmonious approach of contact and confirmation within the various
philosophical traditions (Kant, Aristotle), contemporary scientific
theories and historical contexts.
The modern concept of human rights( I mean here the genesis of the
three generation rights namely liberte, egalite and fraternite) arose
from the French Revolution within a cultural context pervasively
influenced by the philosophes, Voltaire, Diderot, et al who were
overwhelmingly convinced of the exactitude of the scientific method,
and its capacity to generate verifiable knowledge. This follows a
perennial repugnance of established authority especially that of the
state and religion which were replaced by the apotheosis of the
individual over the state. This historical event parallels a paradigm
shift within the scientific community that shook the foundations of
Aristotelian science with Newtonian physics. The conflation of this
Newtonian science with social theory persisted to this present era, and
it still does define our contemporary understanding of human rights.
This historical backdrop I believe shall warrant an analysis of rights
to recourse to science in order to have a better understanding of the
concept. My argument here is that synthetic evolutionary theory
supports the conclusive reduction of human existence to genes, and
contemporary physics (General Relativity and Quantum physics) does
inform and indeed influence our understanding of rights as an a priori
transcendental concept within social interaction.
The legacy of the Enlightenment project views human rights as some
universal metaphysical constant and human existence subject to neo-
classical physics. However, I will warn that this theory of rights as
a thought experiment with its coterie of meanings has never been
subjected to rigorous scientific test. It is one theory in the history
of scientific epistemology that made a quantum leap to a universal law
without verification. If Popper’s falsification theorem is
authoritative in defining the parameters of empirical knowledge then
the Western version of human rights should be put to rigorous test to
determine its viability.
What is very evident within current political discourse of human
rights is again the conflation of two mutually exclusive and
asymptotical relationships between human dignity and empirical human
experience. If we follow the thread of the Enlightenment project’s
justification of human rights and study the paradigm shifts from Newton
to Einstein’s era, science informs us of two fundamental and
irrefutable laws of nature which I believe are coherent within any
social context, i.e. the relativity of judgment within any given frame
of reference and the subjectivity of any given concrete individual
disposition. Relativity rules out any simultaneity of judgment e.g.
Western understanding of human rights might not be necessarily valid or
applicable within the Gambian socio-economic and cultural context.
Similarly quantum physics bears the potential implication that
individual subjectivity at the concrete level rules out the feasibility
of any universal concept at any particular given moments. In other
words a totally free human existence cannot be subject to a sweeping
moral law such as Kant’s categorical imperative. These two
principles extrapolate into one valid proposition: human rights are
valid yet very contextual and relative.
Now how does this mean within contemporary Gambia? I would caution
that this is a very mangling question, and one has to walk the fine
line of objectivity to avoid the potential sways of current factional
politics. At best we can expect to demonstrate the essence of human
rights within our socio-economic experience and leave the rest to
legitimate politics to interpret. If the concept of human rights is
relative, then civil society should define and establish what those
rights mean to them through a legislative process. And that definition
should never be dictated as a fiat from the US or any other
international body, nor induced through some economic conditionality as
quid pro quo. Sir Isaiah Berlin did aptly recognize the ramification
of these overarching universal theories and thus commented that they
are dangerous illusions that would lead to nothing but bloodshed,
coercion, and deprivation of liberty.
Similarly, individual freedom is a very subjective force within any
given logical space. Again Berlin has something very interesting to say
about individual subjectivity:
“Men choose between ultimate values; they choose as they do
because their life and thought are determined by fundamental moral
categories and concepts that are, at any rate over large stretches of
time and space, a part of their being and thought and sense of their
own identity; part of what makes them human.''
The caveat here however is that unchecked freedom within any society
gradually lapses into chaos; and the use of coercion will sure lead to
anarchy because it interrupts the necessary equilibrium between order
and novelty (which the national interest and individual liberty
guarantees respectively) that any society needs to evolve. The
individual Gambian I therefore recommend needs to habituate certain
civic virtues that augur harmony within society and this I call
practical freedom, a derivative of Aristotle’s concept of phronesis or
practical wisdom- as sure road to materialize the other most important
human right i.e. socio-economic rights.
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