权利的根基——兼评《实用主义、权利和民主》和《可操作的权利》

寻求权利的正当性基础是一项永恒的课题。辛格的实用主义权利观从对传统权利观的权利基础不可证实的批判出发,主张将权利放在人与人所属的共同体的关系之中来理解,进而主张权利存在于涉他的行为和社会关系之中,体现为每个人都平等地承担尊重权利的义务。因此,这一方面为我们理解权利的基础提供了具体的路径,也开放出一个到底是权利行为在先还是权利规范在先的重大理论问题。但是她却假定了我们社会交往关系在一种平等的人与人之间展开,而且我们的理性可以洞察权利行为与权利规范的转化。恰恰是这种理论预设迫使她的权利理论陷入一种难以克服的内在紧张之中。但这都为当下中国社会在权利的舶来与内生的矛盾中寻求权利的根基提供了重要启示。

The Foundation of Rights——Review on Pragmatism, Rights and Democracy and Operative Rights

The inquiry into the legitimate foundation of rights itself is an old and eternal thesis.From the criticism of the problem of justification of the basis of rights of conventional conception of rights,the pragmatist conception of right,with Beth J.Singer as a representative,claims that rights should be put into the relation between people and their community,and that rights exist in behavior and social relation which is related to others,and they manifest themselves in the fact that everybody bears the duty to respect rights equally.Therefore,Singer has opened an important issue of the priority of the behavior of rights or the norms of rights.However,she premises that our social relations of communication spread among equal individuals and our rationality can penetrate the norms which control people＇s behavior and translate them into rights.It is this premise that troubles her rights theory with a kind of insurmountable internal tension.