Hegel’s Justification of the Human Right to Non-Domination

Abstract

‘Hegel’ and ‘human rights’ are rarely conjoined, and the designation ‘human rights’ appears rarely in his works. Indeed, Hegel has been criticised for omitting civil and political rights all together. My surmise is that readers have looked for a modern Decalogue, and have neglected how Hegel justifies his views, and hence just what views he does justify. Philip Pettit (1997) has refocused attention on republican liberty. Hegel and I agree with Pettit that republican liberty is a supremely important value, but appealing to its value, or justifying it by appeal to reflective equilibrium, are insufficient both in theory and in practice. By reconstructing Kant’s Critical methodology and explicating the social character of rational justification in non-formal domains, Hegel shows that the republican right to non-domination is constitutive of the equally republican right to justification (Forst 2007) – both of which are necessary requirements for sufficient rational justification in all non-formal domains, including both claims to rights or imputations of duties or responsibilities. That is the direct moral, political and juridical implication of Hegel’s analysis of mutual recognition, and its fundamental, constitutive role in rational justification. Specific corollaries to the fundamental republican right to non-domination must be determined by considering what forms of illicit domination are possible or probable within any specific society, in view of its social, political and economic structures and functioning.

‘Hegel’ i ‘ljudska prava’ retko su povezivani i oznaka ‘ljudska prava’ retko se javlja u njegovim delima. Zaista, Hegel je kritikovan zbog izostavljanja ujedno građanskih i političkih prava. Moja pretpostavka jeste da su čitaoci tražili moderni Dekalog i da su zanemarili kako Hegel pravda svoje stavove, i stoga samo koje stavove opravdava. Filip Petit (1997) je preusmerio pažnju na republikansku slobodu. Hegel i ja se slažemo sa Petitom da je republikanska sloboda krajnje važna vrednost, ali apelovati na njenu vrednost, ili opravdavati je apelom na reflektivni ekvilibrijum, nedovoljni su i u teoriji i u praksi. Rekonstruišući Kantovu kritičku metodologiju i objašnjavajući društveni karakter racionalog opravdanja u ne-formalnim domenima, Hegel pokazuje da je republikansko pravo na ne-dominaciju konstitutivno za podjedanko republikansko pravo na opravdanje (Frost 2007) – gde su oba nužni uslovi za dovoljno racionalno opravdanje u svim ne-formalnim domenima, uključujući zahteve za prava ili imputacije dužnosti ili obaveza. To je neposredna moralna, politička i pravna implikacija Hegelove analize uzajamnog priznanja, i njegova temeljna, konstitutivna uloga u racionalnom opravdanju. Specifične posledice fundamentalnog republikanskog prava na ne-dominaciju moraju biti određene sagledavajući koji oblici nedozvoljene dominacije su mogući ili verovatni unutar bilo kog specifičnog društva, u pogledu njegovih društvenih, političkih i ekonomskih struktura i funkcionisanja