Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics (2022) XXIV/3

The second edition of Claudio Corradetti’s Relativism and Human Rights[1] updates his influential account of the theory and practice of human rights and further deepens what was already a major contribution to the philosophical literature in this field. In Chapter 3 of the book Corradetti offers a detailed discussion and reinterpretation of several attempts to ground human rights. This paper will offer a new layer to the discussion of how human rights are grounded. I will focus on the interplay between technology and the human rights agenda and, in particular, on the relationship between the rise of Artificial Intelligence and the project of grounding human rights. Corradetti and other key thinkers on rights have not paid much attention to the impact of AI on the traditional grounds of human rights, and I hope this paper encourages them to take a second look. Part I provides a brief overview of statistical machine learning (the main variant of what the popular media calls AI) and its current uses. Part II considers the implications of this type of technology on classical and contemporary justifications of human rights. Part III takes up the relationship between algorithmic governance and human rights. The conclusion places the discussion in the context of the broader interplay between technological developments, selfperceptions, and political institutions.

What does it mean to opine in politics? The founder of sociology Auguste Comte answered to this question in such an articulated manner to destabilize our current liberal values about consensus and representation. Indeed, his entire philosophical effort, can be regarded as attempt to redefine relations between liberty of all and scientific specialized knowledge. Through a fight engaged against metaphysical way to overtake theological stage, his positivism carries out a radical critic to the subjective rights’ constitutionalism, deemed unable to preserve both order and progress. Separating powers into a ‘spiritual’ and a ‘material’ one, boosting up our innate altruism, subordinating social solidarity to human continuity, are some of Comtean strategies to inaugurate a new duties’ era, in which the opinion government has the task of translate the ego-alter conflict in a religious dualism between Humanity and Earth.

Bernhard Waldenfels devoted to Cornelius Castoriadis’ thought two important essays: Der Primat der Einbildungskfraft (1989) and Revolutionäre Praxis und ontologische Kreation (2012). A close reading of these texts, which speak to an intense philosophical and personal engagement, allows one to ascertain the affinities and distances between the conceptual mainstays of their philosophies, namely ontological creation in Castoriadis and responsive phenomenology (as well as phenomenology of the alien) in Waldenfels.

In this paper, I try to exploit some ideas delivered by Castoriadis and Lasch, in the view of understanding the paradox of the persisting legitimacy of the tenets of Neoliberalism, despite the bankruptcy of its policies. In this respect, the notion of the social imaginary significations seems helpful, shedding light to the predominant self-image of the individual, under Neoliberalism, as entrepreneur of himself. Such self-image isolates the individuals from each other, bolstering their narcissism. As a result, an ideology of individual “autonomy” is produced. As Lasch has pointed out, late Capitalism’s narcissism is the hallmark of heteronomy, immerging individuals in a vain pursuit of power over each other, through the acquisition and accumulation of futile commodities, a pursuit which results to nothingness. The perpetually unaccomplished search for the promised bliss, keeps people attached to this social imaginary signification, not despite, but because of the failure of its promises, in a postmodern version of the myth of the Danaïds sieve.

Cornelius Castoriadis’s entire work has been all along devoted to pursuing a vehement critique of all kinds of ontological foundation of political institution. His fostering of the radically socialhistorical characters of collectivity has been constantly played against the aspiration to base contingency upon absolute precepts. Nevertheless, as I attempt to show in this paper, his institutional theory, while freeing itself from ontological absolutes, risks being haunted by another kind of absolutism, one of democratic outline. Such an absolutistic seduction, in my view, takes the form of a strong, all too strong defense of direct democracy and radical autonomy as well as rejection of political representation. As a consequence, Castoriadis’s discourse can be viewed as inhabited by a structural contradiction: while the search for an originary purity is discarded at the ontological level, it shows its phantasmatic perpetuation in the realm of politics.

In this paper I discuss the relationship between Cornelius Castoriadis and Ancient Greece by focusing on the meaning of tradition and on the possibility to produce new philosophical and political reflections through it. I analyze the general features of his reading and I argue that his interest also develops in many texts and forms. I distinguish different dimensions of this relationship, which does not concern only the analysis of Greek society but also that of philosophers and their works. I clarify that Castoriadis turns to ancient authors’ texts in order to philosophize through them and to develop his own thinking.

This paper aims at reconstructing Cornelius Castoriadis’ arguments for the pertinence of the concept of alienation and against its explicit or oblique rejection that made its appearance in the French philosophical scene during the 1960s, under the banner of anti-humanism. My claim is that these are important arguments that are still philosophically and politically relevant, even more so given the recent (re)turn to the concept of alienation, by philosophers and critical social theorists such as Rahel Jaeggi, Hartmut Rosa, Stéphane Haber and Miguel Abensour.

The aim of this paper is investigating some implications of Cornelius Castoriadis’ thought in the field of legal philosophy. In particular, the analysis will deal with the classical topic of the distinction between government by laws and government by men. To this purpose, it could be useful to retrace Castoriadis’ re-thinking of Plato’s Stateman, where the Greek philosopher talked about the first and the second sailing. These categories are crucial also to understand the project of autonomy developed by Castoriadis, bearing in mind that autonomy in this sense does not mean “anomie” or lack of any norms; conversely, according to Castoriadis, autonomy has the sense of give to oneself one’s laws or rather, “to make one’s laws, knowing that one is doing so”.

A series of epochal events – the 2008 crisis, the pandemic, the war – are pushing us to rethink our institutions. Thus, especially in Italy, there has been a return to the question of what an institution is, how it can be and endure, how a tension lives in it between the “instituted” and the “instituting”, and how the instituting element must be valorised to ensure that associated life does not wither. Cornelius Castoriadis is one of the authors rediscovered in this debate, as he gave the category of institution not only a political, economic or social value, but an ontological one. However, his thought is still insufficiently known and its potential is still underestimated. The aim of this essay is to reconstruct the first phase of Castoriadis' thought, from his arrival in France to the publication of his most famous work in 1975. By traversing the years of political militancy, his adherence to and then his critique of Marxism, and by reconstructing his relationship with other intellectuals of the time - Sartre, Lefort, Lyotard, Debord, Merleau-Ponty - one can not only find the roots of the category of institution and grasp the profound significance of his project of autonomy, but also understand the relevance of his analysis and draw insights for today.

This short article tries first of all to convey the relevance of a philosophy such as the one developed by Castoriadis in a non-systematic and somehow idiosyncratic way and yet deeply coherent in its conclusive sense. It is a patrimony of ideas and theses that have still to be explored, used and elaborated from a perspective that privileges a critical view about the whole of our practice and being. However, Castoriadis’ a-systematic system should itself be critically tested. How much the promise of autonomy and truth it is embodying is truly realized and followed in the spires of its argument? There are at least six weak points in Castoriadis’ “system” that the article intends to present and cursorily discuss.

This essay evaluates Corradetti’s compelling assertion that the “primary aim” of his Relativism and Human Rights “is that of reconstructing some central concepts of the Hegelian understanding of the right and of providing a post-metaphysical reinterpretation of the notion of recognition in terms of a dialectical process, granting fundamental rights within the context of an institutional discursive model of rationality.” The discussion is divided into four parts. Part 1 reviews Hegel’s reception of the tradition of natural right, asserting that the latter plays a role in Hegel’s recognitive account of ethical life greater than Corradetti allows. Part 2 considers the use Corradetti makes of Hegel’s concept of dialectical negativity, arguing that, while it can and should be understood in terms of relations of recognition and, especially, misrecognition, it also articulates features of Hegel’s logic and metaphysics that – pace Corradetti – can play a role in a postmetaphysical theory of social life. Part 3 seconds Corradetti’s claims about the value of recognition theory for a Hegelian account of universal human rights, but asserts that that value is best expressed via an intercultural understanding of that account. Part 4 details the normative dimension of such an account, arguing that here, too, Hegel has more to offer than Corradetti allows.

This paper traces Foucault’s confrontation with modern political science and Hobbes’s model of sovereignty and, in its central part, discusses Foucault’s own position on the theme of war in Hobbes’s thought.

This short comment connects the aspects of Corradetti’s book with international environmental law, and, more specifically, to the rights of nature and the gradual affirmation of a human right to a healthy environment, which takes into consideration the interests of the human beings and nature alike. The analysis starts from some reflections on the concept of ‘common concern of human kind,’ then acknowledges the absence in Corradetti’s book of reference to non-human beings and other elements of nature. It further asks a question (to the author and in general): whether it is possible to conceive a cosmopolitan law that not only recognises a place in the world for all human beings, but also appreciates the place of non-human beings and of the environment per se on one hand and as related to the existence of human beings on the other. It eventually explores the concept of ‘cosmopolitan authority’ in the context of the (though limited) jurisprudence on environment of regional human rights courts. It concludes by arguing that cosmopolitan law can be better appreciated when we endorse a broad understanding of the subjects of this system, which include the ‘us’, namely human, non-human beings, and the environment. This point of view embraces present and future generations, both entitled of human dignity.

The article presents a reflection on Corradetti’s distinctive position developed in Relativism and Human Rights. A Theory of Pluralist Universalism. It concentrates, in particular, on a detailed analysis of the development and deployment of the text’s argumentation in the final chapter. In this analysis, the article indicates aspects and elements of the argumentation which lead to potential difficulties with the elaboration of a theory of pluralist universalism.

Claudio Corradetti’s Human rights and critical theory is an argument for the idea of pluralistic universalism. The purpose of the volume is to demonstrate that human rights are something epochal and revolutionary, something that was realized at a specific historical moment, modernity, through a process of self-reflection. Subjects attain an idea of themselves as subjects and at the same time as subjects of law. In the following pages, while accepting Corradetti's thesis on the revolutionary character of human rights, I will argue the anthropological foundation of such rights, under penalty of the artificiality of the law itself. I will show that the subject of these rights cannot be considered one-dimensional nor can the law be fully resolved only in its legal formulation. The revolution of law is possible above all because the way of thinking of the subject’s self-reflection in the world is revolutionary: not only as a legal actor, but as ontologically endowed with dignity and values whose rights are a legal and political expression. What is meant by "human being"? And what is the human being subject to law? What makes it possible to attribute the rights to an individual? Why, precisely in modernity, do you feel the need to organize rights legally and to formulate human rights, while maintaining that they are the prerequisite for being part of civil society? Through a brief reconstruction of some salient moments in the history of law up to modernity, I will propose some reflections on the underlying conception of human beings. This conception remains problematic, however, it is important to ask the question about the sense of "human being" and the fact that this question remains "open" both in the formulation of the idea of law and in the values on which we believe it is based. The idea is that the revolution brought about by modern law is so well beyond its logical and legal forms - which however remain essential - and is of consequence not only to a new vision of the world order but also of human beings.

In this reply I explain the philosophical project behind the book and the reasons for its expansion in occasion of the second edition. I respond to the challenging remarks of my critics and clarify in which terms I adopt a Hegelian approach to a theory of human rights. Hopefully, this should guide the reader through the requested clarifications I provide with regard to functional aspects and possible applications of the theory.

If we want to reach “net zero greenhouse gas emissions” by 2050, we need to drastically change our life standards. Individuals can give a substantial contribution even without waiting for the fullest activation of regulatory frameworks: our example shows that reductions of the individual emissions of about 20% are achievable without a drastic change in their habits. But more substantial reductions beyond 20% require political decisions and investments that would ‘enable’ them to achieve them. Single individuals constitute a sort of immense “climate innovation agent”, promoting the ever-wider growth and consolidation of a global public sphere, which must be capable of directing politics towards such changes, or, above all, facilitating the acceptance of measures in this direction and giving voice to systemic and effective criticisms, where such measures – which are now widely evident – are not or are too weakly adopted. Institutions and politics must support them in adopting the changes required to achieve net zero emissions. In this essay, it is first introduced the current state of the Earth's climate (§ 1). Then, the key facts leading to the conclusion that human activities are the main cause of climate change are summarized, and the role that individual choices can lead to a reduction in emissions is analysed (§ 2). There are several obstacles that must be overcome to reduce the emissions – many of a political nature above all – and the essay examines various risks of ineffectiveness that could constellate a path that is complex and full of old and new difficulties (§ 3). The work carefully examines some proposals on the actual advantages that could occur if institutions enable individuals to decide for a global change in emission behaviours (§ 4). A multifaceted strategy, aimed at directing the individual's motivation towards a global change in consumption behaviour and energy saving, can lead to the required change (§ 5). Such a strategy requires immediate and effective policy actions at institutional level, to enable the structural change we need and which the ongoing climate change, mainly caused by man, requires us to implement.

Eugène Sue describes the miserable living conditions in the Parisian slums, where the story - set in 1838 - takes place, and he recognizes how the manual worker is degraded to the condition of beast of burden. The author pleads for a philanthropic intervention to put an end to that aberrant state of affairs clamoring for direct state intervention. Alongside a repressive state apparatus of crime (which thrives among the plebs), he advocates a protectionist juridical apparatus of the weakest by outlining a perspective that will come true in the welfare state, advocating a radical overcoming of the liberal gendarme-state. Sue debunks the myth of equality on which the law of the bourgeois state is based, denounces the social origin of the crime and questions the entire individualistic-liberal structure. A vision of promotion of the law must prevail, where the (positive) sanctions are aimed at the inclusion of the weaker classes, not at their further marginalization, which occurs through punishment.

Castoriadis thinks he is the first to have grasped the nature of the social as being self-instituted. He shows that the philosophers of history, believing to grasp the new, have only perceived the different. They did not know how to see that the new is always radical creation, and that the social is a specific level of being pertaining to the only dimension to account for creation: the imaginary. This approach, could seem to prohibit the collective action in view of the emancipation. It is not the least interest of Castoriadis' thought to show that this is not the case.