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{"id":18909,"date":"2017-06-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=632"},"modified":"2017-06-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-23T00:00:00","slug":"genealogy-of-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/06\/genealogy-of-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Genealogy of Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I<\/span>n The Sacredness of the Person<\/em><\/a>, Hans Joas offers an \u201caffirmative genealogy\u201d of the notion of human rights. He traces the historical origins of the concept not, in\u00a0Nietzchean fashion, to debunk, but to validate.\u00a0Isolating the origins of a set of cultural values or practices need not, he insists, lead us toward nihilistic skepticism. He\u2019s right about that.<\/p>\n

Joas doesn\u2019t think either of the conventional genealogies works.\u00a0One is secular, tracing the concept of human rights to the abandonment of religious underpinnings for social life in the eighteenth century; the other is religious, claiming that Christianity\u2019s anthropology is the specific origin of human rights.\u00a0The secular account fails on empirical grounds.\u00a0Joas is skeptical of the religious story because he can\u2019t see why it might have taken so long for Christian convictions to produce the notion of human rights: \u201cMaturation across centuries is not a sociological category, and even if we switch from the listing of intellectual forerunners to the level of institutional traditions, where this thesis sounds more plausible, we must keep in mind that traditions do not perpetuate themselves but are sustained through the actions of individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joas argues instead that \u201cthe sacredness of the person\u201d is key to the development of human rights: \u201cI propose that we understand the belief in human rights and universal human dignity as the result of a specific process of sacralization\u2014a process in which every single human being has increasingly, and with ever-increasing motivational and sensitizing effects, been viewed as sacred, and this understanding has been institutionalized in law. The term \u2018sacralization\u2019 should not be understood as having an exclusively religious meaning. Secular content may also take on the qualities characteristic\u00a0of sacrality; namely, subjective self-evidence and affective intensity. Sacredness may be ascribed to new content. It may migrate or be transferred; indeed, the entire system of sacralization that pertains within a culture may undergo revolution. The key idea of this book, then, is that the history of human rights is a history of sacralization\u2014the history of the sacralization of the person.\u201d He examines Weber, Durkheim, and other historically oriented sociologists to fill out his case.<\/p>\n

I want to pause on his comment about \u201cmaturation across centuries.\u201d He may be right that this doesn\u2019t constitute a sociological category, but that\u2019s just to the detriment of sociology. It\u2019s definitely a theological<\/em> category (\u201cgrow up into the fullness of Christ\u201d), and as theology it is also historical. Perhaps, to make sense of what actually happens in history, we need categories that go beyond the sociological?<\/p>\n

In any case, it\u2019s clear that for Joas\u2019s sociology determines theology rather than vice versa.\u00a0He examines to supposedly Christian concepts\u2014\u201cthe idea of the immortal soul of every human being as her or his sacred core, and the notion of the life of the individual as a gift that incurs obligations, which limit our right to self-determination\u201d\u2014that are often said to be the Christian foundation of human rights. He doesn\u2019t think they are \u201cprogenitors\u201d of human rights. Instead, he explains \u201chow, in the name of human rights and on contemporary intellectual premises in general, we might lend new credibility to these two elements.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He seems to forget that \u201cletting yourself be blown by every trending wind\u201d isn\u2019t a theological category.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"