REASON VERSUS HUMAN RIGHTS

 

Sylvia Zeller, René Talbot and Frank Wilde

 

We would like to examine in which areas human rights and
reason oppose each other, starting with a critique of the Enlightenment
and the modern concept of reason. It is commonly accepted to view them
as alligned, yet Adorno and Horkheimer refer to the “impossibility
of providing a fundamental argument against murder by means of reason”.
It is
equally impossible to find a fundamental argument against torture
rooted only in reason, and Enlightenment rationalism itself has
provided new, secular justifications for torture.

Foucault, at least with regard to the French concept of reason, argues,
“torture is reason”. The recent controversy surrounding the
Daschner case1 poignantly
demonstrated that there could be reasonable grounds for torture.

Are
the arguments for a categorical ban on torture merely “more
reasonable”? Or, is it necessary to restrict reason (on non-religious
ground) in order to guarantee that human rights are inalienable?

This
conflict becomes particularly apparent in the day-to-day practice of
involuntary psychiatric treatment where, on the basis of reason, human
rights are being completely disregarded.

WHAT
IS THE MEANING OF A WORD?
At first, it is probably surprising to look at reason and human rights
as opposites. On closer examination, however, it becomes more evident.

In
Madness and Civilization – A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (1961),
the French philosopher Michel Foucault already hinted at a
contradiction between human rights and reason. At the same time, the
American psychiatrist, Thomas Szasz, implicitly exposed a similar
incongruity in his work The
Myth of Mental Illness. However, they are still lacking a detailed
description of the contradiction and incongruity per se.

“The
meaning of a word just is use” – argues Ludwig Wittgenstein – but
most importantly, the use of a word is social practice and definitions
emerge from so-called “forms of life.” People’s behaviour, actions and
relationships are shaped by the use of language which in turn
determines meaning, particularly if language is meant to justify
monopolised means of force in order to act against a person’s will.
How then is “reason” applied to language and social practice?

The
word “reason” is a euphemism that masks an intrinsically brutal
concept. It is a device of dominance and power – the classic
ideological criticism made by various members of the Frankfurt School.
By supporting this thesis it is also correct to assume that we intend
to completely deconstruct the term “reason”, not least because Foucault
cleverly remarked that “reason is torture”. Due to the
considerable scale of this subject matter we will only be able to give
a broad framework and to touch upon a few issues.

BRUTAL REASON
What do we mean when we talk about the contradictory nature between
reason and human rights?
It is a rhetorical device, an exaggeration, which results in a
dichotomy as a final consequence. It does not mean that reason and
human rights are antagonistically opposed. But, focussing on the
contradiction is paramount because when the “unreasonable” and the
“irrational” insist on human rights and their indivisibility the
inherent conflict comes to the fore.

As
it stands, the conflict between reason and human rights is constantly
resolved in favour of reason by stripping individuals of their rights
through psychiatric coercion; that is, by treating patients – the
“unreasonable and irrational” – against their will, by employing cruel
means of physical restraint, involuntary penetration with syringes,
injections of mind altering drugs, and even by administering
electroconvulsive shock therapy.

Hence,
we will not attempt to come up with a contentious definition of reason
and its criteria, rather, vice versa, we will take a complementary
approach and define it by looking at “unreasonableness”. By definition,
actions, feelings and thoughts that are being classified as mad,
mentally ill or insane are considered to be unreasonable or not
rational. Since a criminal violates the rights of others, his can be
infringed upon too. Therefore,the force of the state imposes punishment
in proportion to, but not greater than the crime committed. But in the
case of those judged “unreasonable”, no analygous concept of
proportionality stops state coercion. The torture taboo, usually
established in a civilised society, becomes invalid as soon as there is
no guarantee of the physical inviolability of the “unreasonable”
through psychiatric coercion and inhumane treatment in psychiatric
prisons

This
kind of cruel treatment is incompatible with the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights as outlined by the UN in 1948. The systematic
distinction between reason and unreason, the rational and the
irrational, make it possible to deprive a particular group of
individuals of their human rights. This poses the question of how the
“unreasonable/irrational” could actually have become a threat to reason?

Reason
in the footsteps of the Inquisition
The
programme of the Enlightenment is an attempt to attribute reason with
divine powers. It is meant to play the role of the Supreme Judge and
assigned to make universal decisions and answer final questions. Civil
societies seize on the notion of reason to legitimate the takeover of
power. As a consequence, the human being becomes a construction of
reason, and to be reasonable and rational becomes the primary feature
of being human. A new anthropology is established.

In
On Revolution Hannah Arendt argues:
“To claim that ‘irrational’ and unpredictable drives and desires
could be controlled by the ‘rational’ was of course crucial to the
Enlightenment.”

On
the other hand, by advocating and demanding liberty, equality and
fraternity the Enlightenment did lay the foundation for equal rights
for all and therefore for human rights. This led to the contradiction
between the validity of a universal right for all and the construction
of the self as a rational being, and consequently to the restriction of
some individuals and the exclusion of the “irrational” and
“unreasonable”. This very contradiction is the beginning of the Terror
of Reason following in the footsteps of the Inquisition.

In
the process, a hierarchy of experts and high achievers has superseded a
hierarchy based on birth. The university becomes a leading authority
and institution of power. Doctorates and professorships replace titles
of nobility. An understanding of the world is increasingly dominated by
natural science. The ostensibly objective approach and employment of
causal chains and mathematic models allow the natural sciences to make
predictions as well as re-interpret the past. The success of modern
natural science and technology, for instance the discovery of
electricity and its utilisation, led to increased productivity. On the
other hand, success also led to a fallacy. This success misled society
into ascribing scientific laws of causation to social, historical and
personal processes. However, in reality, the promised lands of social
utopia, so scientifically proven, would, more often than not, emerge as
nightmares of reason.

Interestingly,
natural science’s claim to absolute objectivity and explanation was
challenged during the early 20th century particularly in the field of
physics. Consider for instance the precarious position of the observer
in quantum physics, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, Einstein’s
Relativity Theory, or, in the most prestigious of all disciplines,
mathematics, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems. This deconstruction from
within the natural sciences, particularly the core disciplines of
mathematics and physics fundamentally challenged and undermined any
possibility of objectivity, a development that ran parallel to
philosophical thought. Ludwig Wittgenstein contended that a
hierarchical order of “language-games” was impossible, thus rejecting
the notion of a universal idea or “grand theory”. Yet, we ourselves
observe the constant perpetuation of a mechanistic worldview. In
medicine, biotechnology and brain sciences these issues are being
deliberately ignored.

NOT A RATIONAL ECONOMY PLEASE!
“Citizen Legislator! In view of the fact that until now the poor have
aided you with the revolution and the drafting of a constitution it is
time to let them reap the fruits of their labour.
Put on the agenda the provision of workshops where those willing to
work can find the work they are lacking, whenever and wherever they
wish; provide homes for the aged and the sick, where their brothers can
attend to their needs; where the parasite and the idle get accustomed
to labour and learn to feel ashamed of having lived on the efforts and
fruits of the labour of others.” (From a 1793 manifesto by the
inhabitants of the working-class area of Faubourg Saint-Antoine as
quoted in Ulrich Enzensberger, Parasiten, p. 127)

It
is obvious that already at the time of the French Revolution
Enlightenment ideology was aimed at the exclusion and ostracism of
so-called “parasites”. The emphasis on biological explanations –
“biologisation” – in relation to social conditions results in a
re-education for the purpose of “standardising” all citizens. Marx’s
son-in-law, Paul Lafargue, strongly disagreed with this idea of a fully
structured and rationally functioning society, a metaphorical ant
colony. In his The Right To Be Lazy (1884) he argues against the
rational concepts of productivity and work ethic. Following these
beliefs it is about time we dumped concepts of reason in relation to
economics: an economy understood as the production of goods,
commodities, services and anything else tradeable which satisfies a
range of different needs and desires.

Here
we have two fundamentally different and opposing concepts:
a.) The Marxist tradition demands a rational/reasonable mode
of production, which the Bolsheviks realised in the form of a planned
economy.
b.) A market economy is interested in maximising profit
whereby individual agents agree on the conditions and enter a contract
of exchange. Personal need satisfaction, not reason, is the only
driving force during the exchange.
But planned economies guided by reason can at best try to minimise the
commanding tone of the decision makers. Paternalism remains an
intrinsic aspect to this economic system and there is a simple
explanation for this: People can act
differently, even contradictorily, but for the very same reasons.
Equally, they can display the same behaviour but for very different
reasons. This is the ontology of human freedom. Because there is no
directive or prescriptive programme for human action and behaviour it
is imperative to acknowledge unpredictability as the most
basic principle of human behaviour and the development of need
satisfaction. Consequently, the system that benefits speculation and
rewards the speculators, whose prognoses are regularly confirmed,
strictly and swiftly serves these unpredictable needs. The cultivation
of speculation, of irrational human “hunches”, becomes the norm, not
reason.

In
contrast – and not without Christian undertones – we have what we might
term “sermons of reason” where projections, sympathy, and indeed, and
ludicrously so, empathy, are meant to compensate for the logical
disadvantages of rational rule, in the sense of ” Do not do unto others
that you would not wish upon yourself”. Not only does it restrict one’s
own actions – and correspondingly, the Hippocratic oath only requires
doctors not to cause harm – but also one’s own maxim is meant to become
the maxim for all.

In
The Theology of Medicine (p.164) Thomas Szasz proposes an analysis of
the consequences:
“As we saw earlier, justice may, in its most basic sense, be
readily defined as the fulfilment of contracts or expectations.
Contracts, moreover, consists of performances and counter performances
— that is, of overt acts. They thus differ from intentions, sentiments
or states of mind – which are private experiences. Accordingly, justice
is open to public inspection, scrutiny, and judgment, whereas love is
closed to such examination and evaluation. Hence, the claim that one is
acting justly is a plea for the support of the good opinion of others,
whereas the claim that one is acting lovingly leaves no room for the
judgment of others and its zeal brooks no opposition. In short,
although love appeals to the ideal of consideration for the need of
others, and justice appeals to the ideal of consideration for
agreed-upon rules, in actual practice just actions afford more
protection for the self-defined interests of others than do loving
actions.”

But
how does this apply to human rights? The market economy achieves a
higher degree of satisfaction for its participants. The market
economy’s subjects’ scope of decision-making is qualitatively different
because it is inherently self-determined. Not only is higher
productivity achieved within a shorter period of time, but also the
scope for more transfer payments for those unwilling or unable to enter
the marketplace to exchange their labor for pay. But those payments
must be made as a matter of human right.

Thus,
the idle gain without much pain. Human rights can only be realised when
forced labour is abolished. The right to laziness reallocates from a
utopian realm and becomes an everyday occurrence and social
achievement. And not just for the rich.
Therefore, human rights cannot be explained by means of reason.
Human Rights have the value we bring to them.

As Mathias Beltz succinctly put it, “Freedom is when and where no
explanation is needed.”

This text was first broadcast in German on 11.05.2006 in Dissidentenfunk

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1. In
2002, Frankfurt’s deputy police chief, Wolfgang Daschner, threatened a
kidapper with torture in order to extract from him the whereabouts of
his victim, who it was hoped, if found in time, could be freed alive.
Unknown to the police, however, the victim had already been killed. In
2004 Daschner was punished with a fine of 14,400 Euros. For
more on the Daschner case, please see here – scroll down to
“Ticking time bomb scenario”.