Universalism as Oppression

Abstract:     
According to the original notion advanced by Denis Diderot in the Encyclopedia, universal rights should be sought "in the principles of the written law of all organized nations, in the social acts of the savages and barbarians, in the implicit conventions of the enemies of the human gender among them, and even in the indignation and resentment, the two passions that nature generates in the animals to supply the faults of social law or public vengeance".

This study advances the argument that any a priori determination of what are universal human rights is tainted. It suggests that even democratic vote, if not truly universal vote, does not cure such a priori stigma. The affirmation of such a priori universals through political or military pressure - or even through international tribunal decisions - also does not overcome its original defects. Our contention is that universals must first to be found, and then declared.

We have not intended, in this paper, to describe any rooster of formal or substantive universals, which we think are indispensable to establish a group of actually legal human rights, as distinguished from its rhetorical status. We understand that this scientific pursuit would be the effective way to build the human rights on a way to respect the diversity of human nature.

It would also seem that coerced universalism does not validate, but rather erodes, the human and moral values that a de facto and empiric universalism would perhaps validate. The path that goes from the unilateral universalism to a de facto libertarian universality would follow very simple rules: just apply as traffic rules the principles of freedom and equality both among societies and individuals.

Keywords: Human rights, universalism, linguistics, antropology

Working Paper Series