Title: Presentation on: Seyla Benhabib, The Claims of Culture. Equality and Diversity in the Global Era (Preface, Chapters 1-2) 2002, Princeton, USA: Woodstock, UK: Princeton University Press.
1Presentation onSeyla Benhabib, The Claims of
Culture. Equality and Diversity in the Global Era
(Preface, Chapters 1-2) 2002, Princeton, USA
Woodstock, UK Princeton University Press.
- by Marek Mikuš
- 7th semester
- Institute of Ethnology
- Faculty of Philosophy and Arts
- Charles University, Prague
2Seyla Benhabib Biographic Outline
- born in 1950 in Istanbul, Turkey Sephardic Jew
origin - received BA in Humanities at the American College
for Girls in Istanbul - emigrated to USA in 1970
- received her BA in Philosophy at Brandeis
University and her MA and PhD (1977) in
Philosophy at Yale University - has been Professor of Government, Department of
Government, and Senior Research Fellow, Center
for European Studies, at Harvard University (1993
- 2000) - currently Eugene Meyer Professor of Political
Science and Philosophy at Yale University (from
2001 onwards) - areas of specialization 19th and 20th century
continental social and political thought,
feminist theory, the history of modern political
theory and multiculturalism in liberal
democracies
3Seyla Benhabib Bibliography
- The Claims of Culture. Equality and Diversity in
the Global Era. Princeton University Press,
2002. - Transformation of Citizenship. Dilemmas of the
Nation-State in the Era of Globalization. Van
Gorcum, Amsterdam, 2000. - The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt. Sage
Pub., 1996. - Feminist Contentions A Philosophical Exchange
(co-authored with Judith Butler, Nancy Fraser
and Drucilla Cornel). Routledge, 1996. - Situating the Self. Gender, Community and
Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics. Polity
Press, 1992. - Critique, Norm and Utopia A Study of the
Foundations of Critical Theory. Columbia
University Press, 1986.
4Being a Political Philosopher
- What does a political philosopher do? To be a
- political philosopher is more a vocation than a
career. We can be in our universities, and in
some context one can be a journalist, one can be
a human rights activist, but basically I would
say that it is a vocation for thinking about the
political. Not just day-to-day - politics, but about the phenomenon of the
political, that all communities of any degree of
complexity - organize themselves according to certain
principles of justice, equality, reciprocity, and
authority. - Source Conversations with History, Institute of
International Studies, UC Berkeley.
5Main Topics
- social-constructivist position in the debate on
multiculturalism vs. reductionist sociology of
culture mosaic multiculturalism - narrative view of actions and culture
- communicative or discourse ethics
- practical discourses
- interactive universalism
- dynamic model of identity groups
- institutional plurality in liberal democracies
- typology and defence of universalism(s)
- challenge of cultural and moral relativism
6Central Quotation
- () as long as these pluralist structures
(multiple legal, jurisdictional etc. systems for
multiple groups note by mm) do not violate
three normative conditions, they can be quite
compatible with a universalist deliberative
democracy model. I call these the conditions of
egalitarian reciprocity, voluntary
self-ascription, and freedom of exit and
association () - p. 19, original emphasis
7Preface
- makes clear 2 basic points that underpin much of
her reasoning - cultures are constituted through contested
practices (p. viii) /
social-constructivist approach - she speaks from the position of democratic
theorist, distinguished from one
of multicultural theorist - this position is one of supporting movements for
cultural recognition under the condition they
apply for political and institutional inclusion,
justice and cultural fluidity (p. ix) as well - the most strongly she opposes so-called mosaic
multiculturalism (a term basically referring to
left-essentialist, communitarian and
primordialist tendencies in the multiculturalism
debate)
8Chapter 1 Introduction. On the Use and Abuse of
Culture. 1/4
- Herderian concept of culture and the
reductionist sociology of culture - narrative view of actions and culture
- first-order deeds
- second-order narratives
- social construction of cultural differences
- example Turkish nation-building project
- the normative principles of her reasoning
communicative or discourse ethics - universal respect
- egalitarian reciprocity
9Chapter 1 Introduction. On the Use and Abuse of
Culture. 2/4
- three types of practical discourses
- moral discourses about universal norms of
justice - ethical discourses about concepts of the good
life - political-pragmatic discourses about the
feasible - the actual participation of all concerned
subjects in discourses as a source of legitimacy
of all norms - recursive validation, intercultural
communication, resignification - declares her proclivity to interactive
universalism vs.
substitionalist universalism - the boundaries of moral discourses are set only
by the extent of our doings as a
consequence of which we affect one
anothers well being and freedom (p. 14)
10Chapter 1 Introduction. On the Use and Abuse of
Culture. 3/4
- narrative construction of individual identities
(selves) - example from anthropology of kinship rule of
universal reciprocity - individual life stories shaped by multiple
affinities - dynamic model of identity groups
- communitarian MC concentration on classifying,
delimiting and describing supposedly
homogeneous cultural systems - dynamic model means turn towards emphasis on
what these groups demand, instead of what
they are - example of application the process of
channelling of class politics into
ethnic politics
11Chapter 1 Introduction. On the Use and Abuse of
Culture. 4/4
- 3 normative conditions, under which plurality of
legal, jurisdictional etc. structures is
compatible with universalist democratic model - egalitarian reciprocity
- voluntary self-ascription
- freedom of exit and association
- criticism of Rawls' theory of political
liberalism - constitutional essentials vs more specific
institutional arrangements
and policies the private sphere - deliberative democracy model (Jurgen Habermas)
12Chapter 2 Nous et les autres. Is
Universalism Ethnocentric? 1/3
- deconstructs the notion of ethnocentrism of
universalism - universalism - necessary grounds for the right to
cultural self-determination - differentation between four basic types of
universalism all rooted in
certain form of belief - essentialism and existenstialism (Hobbes, Hume,
Adam Smith, Sartre) - justificatory universalism (Habermas, Dworkin,
Rawls, Putman) - moral universalism
- legal universalism universalism, like justice,
can be political without being metaphysical (p.
28)
13Chapter 2 Nous et les autres. Is
Universalism Ethnocentric? 2/3
- deconstructs the notion of radical
incommensurability - draws on Lyotard phrase, regimen, genre of
discourse - If frameworks, linguistic or conceptual, are so
radically incommensurable, then we would not even
be able to know that much our ability to
describe a framework as a framework in the first
place rests upon the possibility that we can
identify and select certain features of these
other frameworks as sufficiently like ours to be
characterized as conceptual activities in the
first place (p. 30). - moral reservations against the concept of
incommensurability - the hermeneutic truth of cultural relativism
- Gadamer a melting or merging or blending into
one another of horizons - real confrontation ? communities of
interdependence - pragmative imperative for pluralist ethical
universalism
14Chapter 2 Nous et les autres. Is
Universalism Ethnocentric? 3/3
- the problem of moral relativism
- if the cultures function as equal participants in
a dialogue, the moral discourses of each culture
concerns all the rest - can we separate moral discourses from cultural
discourses or cultural contexts? (holistic
paradox) - Benhabib's solution differentiation between the
moral, the ethical and the evaluative - take the best and leave the rest
- this type of differentation as an invention of
modernity
15Textual Connection
- Political society is not neutral between those
who value remaining true to the culture of our
ancestors and those who might want to cut loose
in the name of some individual goal of
self-development. It might be argued that one
could after all capture a goal like survivance
for a proceduralist liberal society. One could
consider the French language, for instance, as a
collective resource that individuals might want
to make use of, and act for its preservation,
just as one does for clean air or green spaces.
But this can't capture the full thrust of
policies designed for cultural survival. It is
not just a matter of having the French language
for those who might choose it. (...). But it also
involves making sure that there is a community of
people here in the future that will want to avail
itself of the opportunity to use the French
language. - Charles Taylor on Canadian bilingualism
- The Politics of Recognition. In
Multiculturalism Examining the Politics of
Recognition, edited by Amy Gutmann. 1994,
Princeton University Press, pp. 58-59.
16Suggestions of Questions
- Is the claim that even completely independent
sociocultural systems should conform to universal
moral norms still to be considered as an
implication of the interactive/plural
universalism, or rather of a different
universalism? - Is it possible for the participants in
communities of conversation to be actually
equal in the situation of the growing structural
inequality on a global scale? - Is there an option to secure the legitimacy of
legal universalism in face of the rejection of
certain cultures to participate in a dialogue on
the topic of their moral discourses? If there is,
is it viable to export our legal norms or even
to impose them in the fashion we witness today?
17Thanks for your attention!