The End of Human Rights.

• Author: Antaki, Mark
• Position: Book review

The language of human rights has captured our imaginations. But despite its predominance, the presuppositions, and limits of the language of human rights have been subject to little scrutiny. In The End of Human Rights, Costas Douzinas aires to take up this task. The present essay focuses on key aspects of Douzinas' critique of human rights so as to further Douzinas' path of questioning--a path leading toward a proper critique of human rights.

In Part I, the author begins with Douzinas' key question: should we give up on human rights? Though Douzinas does not believe that we ought to give up on human rights, he does believe that they need to be saved from "human rights triumphalism" and, ultimately, from metaphysics. Douzinas attempts to save human rights by defending his version of transcendence: the idea that human rights, by acting as a negative "utopia", that is, as a negative pre-figuration of an impossible better future, allow for the possibility of critical judgment of the hem and now. Douzinas is keen to avoid "metaphysical thinking" in his attempt to find a "place for transcendence in a disenchanted world." The author questions Douzinas' attempt to present a "nonmetaphysical" approach to human rights. Despite attempting to be nonmetaphysical, Douzinas' search for a new ground of human rights turns out to be animated by metaphysics, the essence of which is a denial of this world in the name of a better and truer world.

In Part II, the author explores Douzinas' ambivalent relation to metaphysics by turning to Douzinas' reading of Kant and Heidegger, his treatment of the relation between morality end power, and his understanding of the relation between goodness and being. The author draws on Nietzsche and others in order to highlight potential problems and avenues for further reflection. In light of Douzinas' entanglement with metaphysics, the author focuses on the extent to which, and the ways in which, Douzinas' account of human rights as negative utopia leads to an impoverished understanding of world. In the end, the author suggests that the subordination of duty to the production of a better world misapprehends both duty and world. It is perhaps by recovering duty as duty that we win be able to recover the world.

Le discours des droits de l'homme domine l'imagination. Mais en depit de son importance, les presupposes et limites de ce discours ont ete peu exammes. L'ouvrage de Costas Douzinas, The End of Human Rights, se consacre a cet examen. Cet article porte sur des aspects cles de la critique des droits de l'homme par Douzinas et prolonge le questionnement de celui-ci afin de permettre une critique veritable des droits de l'homme

Dans la premiere partie, l'auteur commence avec la question centrale de Douzinas : fant-il en finir avec les droits de l'homme? Si Douzinas ne croit pas a leur abandon, il soutient toutefois que les droits de l'homme doivent etre sanves du << triomphalisme des droits de l'homme >> et ultimement de la metaphysique. Douzinas tente de sauver les droits de l'homme en proposant sa propre version de la transcendance. Il soutient qu'en agissant comme une sorte d'utopie negative (une prefiguratiun negative d'un futur meilleur et impossible), les droits de l'homme permettent un jugement critique du present. En tentant de trouver << une place pour la transcendance dans un monde desenchante >>, Douzinas s'efforce d'eviter la pensee metaphysique. L'auteur remet en question la tentative de Douzinas de presenter une approche enon-metaphysique >> des droits de l'homme. Alors que Douzinas s'efforce d'etre non-metaphysique, sa quete d'un nouveau fundement des droits de l'homme est motivee par la metaphysique dont l'essence meme est la negation de ce monde au nom d'un monde meilleur et plus vrai.

Dans la deuxieme partie, l'auteur explore le rapport ambivalent que Douzinas entretient avec la metaphysique. A cette fin, il examine la lecture que fait Douzinas de Kant et Heidegger, son traitement de la relation entre la momie et le pouvoir, et sa comprehension de la relation entre le bien et l'etre. S'inspirant de Nietzsehe et d'autres penseurs, l'auteur releve des problemes potentiels et propose des pistes de reflexion. Compte tenu de l'empetrement de Douzinas avec la metaphysique, dans quelle mesure et de quelle facon sa conception des droits de l'homme comme utopie negative mene a une vision appauvrie du monde? L'auteur suggere en conclusion que la subordination du devoir a la production d'un monde meilleur ne rend pas justice au devoir et au monde a la fois. C'est peut-etre en retrouvant le devoir comme devoir qu'on pourra retrouver le monde.

Introduction: Human Rights as a Question I. Saving Human Rights A. Should We Give Up on Human Rights? B. Saving Human Rights from Themselves? C. Saving Human Rights from Metaphysics? II. Metaphysics and/as World Denial A. Utopia: Negative or Unattainable? B. The Immorality of Power as the Empowerment of Morality C. The Identity--or Not?--of Being and Goodness Conclusion: In the End--Ontology and Ethics? Introduction: Human Rights as a Question

The language of human rights has captured our imaginations. Talk of justice, the good, and most especially, human dignity is carried out more and more in the idiom of human rights. In such an intellectual climate, to question the turn to the language of human rights is tantamount to presenting oneself as an enemy of humanity. However, such a climate demands that serious attention be given to the language of human rights--its presuppositions, its limits, its capacity to speak to the human condition. In The End of Human Rights, (1) Costas Douzinas, Professor of Law at Birkbeck College, University of London, takes up this task as he aims to provide "a critique of legal humanism inspired by a love of humanity" (vii).

Douzinas describes his book as "an advanced textbook of legal theory and human rights" (vii). He characterizes the vast array of thinkers and approaches he turns to as a "cornucopia of philosophical thought ..." He explains that given such a vast array and the little "common ground" that obtains between the chosen thinkers, no "grand synthesis can arise ... "Douzinas' work is also almost part manifesto as this textbook is one "for the critical mind and fiery heart" (4).

The task of reading this work is made difficult by this chosen manner of proceeding and of conceiving the project: summaries of the thought of great thinkers abound--but sustained engagements are rare and usually give way to suggestive remarks. The habit of summarizing can leave the reader unsure as to where Douzinas himself stands on key issues: there sometimes arises a problem of voice. (2) Further, because Douzinas spends so much time demonstrating the relevance of a vast array of scholarly literature, he leaves much less space to clarify and expand key moments in his own critique. His aim of 'firing hearts up' also leads to a moralistic and combative tone that often obscures the matter at hand. This tone also leads to a shifting use of language and, sometimes, to a lack of care and rigour.

Despite these limitations, Douzinas is one of few contemporary theorists who recognize the need for a critique of human rights. Rather than engage in a one-sided attack on, or defense of, human rights, The End of Human Rights seeks to confront them in their complexity. The account of human rights provided is one of the few that even begins to let the matter itself emerge into visibility. Douzinas' The End of Human Rights is welcome not because of the questions it answers but because of the questions it raises.

This essay attempts to go to the crux of the matter by focusing only on key moments or aspects of Douzinas' account. By taking very seriously Douzinas' own manner of proceeding--including the language to which Douzinas turns in his attempt to bring the matter to visibility--this essay aims to further his own path of questioning. Moreover, the account of human rights Douzinas provides is also the outline of a task for thinking, for our thinking as moderns. How does the language of human rights hold sway in our world? Is it a language that frees us to our own humanity? Is it a language that imprisons us in a disenchanted world? Is it both?

In Part I, this essay provides an overview of The End of Human Rights and attempts to lay out both the intellectual task Douzinas sets out for himself and the manner in which he goes about setting it out. Recognizing that human rights are associated with the tradition of liberal humanism that he decries, Douzinas asks whether we should give up on human rights (A). Although Douzinas is more than reluctant to do so, believing they can be saved, he recognizes that we must also face the possibility that human rights must be saved from themselves (B). Ultimately, however, the reader discovers human rights must be saved not from themselves but from (what Douzinas understands or takes to be) metaphysics (C). Part II, in turn, consists of a more sustained engagement with the question of metaphysics. (3) Part II is less concerned with providing an overview of The End of Human Rights than with subjecting it to a more careful and rigourous reading.

1. Saving Human Rights

   1. Should We Give Up on Human Rights?

      Douzinas opens his book with a dual observation. On the one hand, "[h]uman rights have won the ideological battles of modernity." On the other hand, "[o]ur age has witnessed more violations of their principles than any of the previous and less 'enlightened' epochs." This dual observation leads to a question--a question of some importance to Douzinas for it is posed twice in the first seven pages: "should our experience of the huge gap between the theory and practice of human rights make us doubt their principle and question the promise of emancipation through reason and law when it seems to be so close to its final victory?" (2 and 7).

      Douzinas' answer is subtle and complicated (and book-length). The...