HUMAN RIGHTS AS A WAY OF LIFE

On Bergson’s Political Philosophy

By Alexandre Lefebvre

Stanford University Press

Copyright © 2013 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8047-8578-5

Contents

Preface…………………………………………………………..xiiiAcknowledgments……………………………………………………xixAbbreviations……………………………………………………..xxiPART I HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE PICTURE OF MORALITY……………………….Introduction: The Picture of Morality………………………………..31. A Dialogue on War……………………………………………….62. Bergson’s Critical Philosophy…………………………………….153. The Closed Society: Bergson on Durkheim……………………………324. Human Rights and the Critique of Practical Reason…………………..49PART II AN INTRODUCTION TO THE OPEN LIFE……………………………..5. Human Rights as Conversion……………………………………….736. The Open Society………………………………………………..837. The Two Faces of Human Rights…………………………………….110Notes…………………………………………………………….145Bibliography………………………………………………………167Index…………………………………………………………….177

CHAPTER 1

A Dialogue on War

Just like the witches of Macbeth, the belligerents will say: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion

In a letter written as the preface to Jean-Clet Martin’s Variations,Gilles Deleuze has the following words of advice for a young philosopher:

In the analysis of concepts, it is always better to begin with extremely simple,concrete situations, not with philosophical antecedents, not even with problems assuch (the one and the multiple, etc.). Take multiplicities for example. You want tobegin with a question such as what is a pack? (it is different from a lone animal)… I have only one thing to tell you: do not lose sight of the concrete, alwaysreturn to it.

I have no idea whether or not Bergson inspired these lines. They do, however,capture his way of proceeding in Two Sources. In particular, they areapt for describing how he arrives at the concept of the “closed society.”

The closed society is the major critical concept of Two Sources. It is ofspecial importance for us because it is Bergson’s point of attack against thepicture of morality, along with the predominant dispensation of humanrights it underpins. Part 1 will analyze the concept of the closed society, primarilythrough Bergson’s critique of Émile Durkheim. And my purpose isto show the significance of Two Sources for theoretical and practical problemsof human rights. But it is best to begin as Deleuze recommends, withthe concrete situation. What is it that leads Bergson to create the conceptof the closed society? The answer is simple and brutal: war.

The Picture of Morality and the Problem of War

Let us restate the picture of morality that Bergson challenges. In essence,it is the view that moral obligation expands from smaller to biggergroups, all the way to the whole of humanity. As previously quotedin the Introduction: “We observe that the three groups [i.e., family, nation,and humanity] to which we can attach ourselves comprise an increasingnumber of people, and we conclude that the increasing size ofthe loved object is simply matched by a progressive expansion of feeling.(DS 1001–2/32)

The point of calling this scheme a “picture” or an “image” is tounderscore the sense in which it is less a worked-up theoretical positionand more the ordinary grain or bent of our moral thinking. Indeed,once on the lookout for this view—that is, that a morality universal inscope is secured through step-by-step expansion—we can begin to detectit everywhere, in both friends and foes of human rights. We find it, forinstance, in W. E. H. Lecky’s History of European Morals: “At one timethe benevolent affections embrace merely the family, soon the circle expandingincludes first a class, then a nation, then a coalition of nations,then all humanity and finally, its influence is felt in the dealings of manwith the animal world.” And in Edmund Burke: “To be attached to thesubdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the firstprinciple (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link inthe series by which we proceed toward a love to our country and to mankind.”Closer to our own time, it is revealed in a casual turn of phrase:”The goal of [human rights education] is to expand the reference of theterms ‘our kind of people’ and ‘people like us.'” We could easily multiplyexamples. But it is Durkheim, the founder of French sociology, whogives it a definitive articulation. We will see that it is this version of thepicture of morality that Bergson attacks in Two Sources.

Family, nation, and human represent different phases of our social and moralevolution, stages that have mutually prepared one another. Consequently, thesegroups can be superimposed on one another without mutual exclusion. Just aseach has its part to play in historical development, they mutually complementeach other in the present: each has its function. The family envelops the person inan altogether different way, and answers to different moral needs, than does thenation. It is not a matter then of making an exclusive choice among them. Man isnot morally complete unless he undergoes this triple action.

Here we have a perfect match with the picture of morality. With just aglance we see that Durkheim explicitly deploys two of the four postulatesidentified in the Introduction. First, our group attachments are compatible(postulate 2). Properly arranged, our attachments to the three groups—family,nation, and humanity—are complementary. Durkheim thus closesoff the inevitability of a tragic situation where the rights of one groupwould square off against the rights of another. Instead, each group fulfillsa different function, all of which are necessary to form a complete moralperson. But it is important to note that although the three groups are complementary,they are not equal. This is the second point: for Durkheim,there is a clear ranking to these levels and progress (postulate 4) is madeby advancing to higher stages—from family, to nation, to humanity. Accordingly,”they constitute a hierarchy,” with attachment to humanity atthe summit.

Yet in addition to these explicit postulates, it is clear that Durkheimalso presupposes the other two. On the one hand, our attachments are directedtoward determinate objects or groups (postulate 1), and on the otherhand, our attachments can be extended to quantitatively larger groups ofpeople (postulate 3). This passage is, therefore, a model of the picture ofmorality and moral progress that Two Sources will extensively criticize.

What is Bergson’s objection to it? Well, there are several. We will seethat it is confused, moralistic, and ineffective. But his most basic criticismis that it doesn’t fit the facts. In particular, it is at odds with the fact of war.How, he asks, is war so much as possible if the picture of morality is accurate?If our duties and attachments expand all the way to humankind—orbetter, if some countries do in fact profess respect for humanity and havemature human rights institutions—how do we account for the omnipresenceof war?

This is how Bergson sets out the problem:

When we lay down that the duty of respecting the life and property of othersis a fundamental demand of social life, what society are we talking about? Toanswer we need only consider what happens in time of war. Murder and pillage,as well as perfidy, fraud and lies become not only lawful; they are praiseworthy.Just like the witches of Macbeth, the belligerents will say: “Fair is foul, and foul isfair.” Would this be possible, would the transformation take place so easily, generallyand instantaneously, if it were really a certain attitude of man toward man[i.e., of human beings toward human beings] that society had recommended uptill then? Oh, I know what society says (it has, I repeat, its reasons for saying so);but to know what it thinks and what it wants, we must not listen too much towhat it says, we must look at what it does. It says that the duties it defines areindeed, in principle, duties toward humanity, but that under exceptional circumstances,regrettably unavoidable, they are for the time being suspended in practice[l’exercice s’en trouve suspendu]. (DS 1000–1001/31)

Here we have the single most important critique Bergson makes of humanrights. Indeed, to my knowledge, it is the only critique he makes of them!Granted, it may not look like much. But I believe this passage is of singularimportance for two reasons.

First, the vision of human rights it sets out is the consistent expressionof the picture of morality. This, Bergson is saying, is what humanrights look like if they are based on it. And so considering that the criticalapparatus of chapter 1 of Two Sources is given over to a critique of the pictureof morality, we can use this passage to see precisely how it undermineshuman rights. Now, on its own the fact that the picture of morality vitiateshuman rights may not seem so terrible; it just looks like another thingthat, according to Bergson, it gets wrong. Why make a mountain from amolehill? But this brings us to the second reason why the passage is important.It is that human rights are not “just another thing” for Bergson.Properly understood, they are the best-placed institution to realize the social,moral, political, and religious ideal that he will call the “open society.”In light of the stakes, therefore, it does not seem to me excessive to puttremendous emphasis on this passage and make it carry the full weight ofBergson’s critique of the picture of morality.

What Society Says and What the Belligerents Do

Our aim is to use this passage in order to pinpoint how human rightsare seen from within the picture of morality. I propose to read the passageas a dialogue among three different voices, set in motion by the openingquestion, “What society are we talking about?” They are:

1. Belligerents: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”

2. Bergson: “Would this be possible …?”

3. Society: “Oh, I know what society says … It says that the duties itdefines … “

Who are these characters? We should start with “society,” as it is not altogetherobvious to whom or what Bergson refers. In having society speak, Ibelieve that Bergson plays on two different yet complementary meaningsof the word, one commonplace and the other technical. On the one hand,there is the sense in which society refers to general opinion or to the publicat large. Society is the voice of doxa, not in the sense of a particular opinionthat we all hold but of a way of thinking that we all share. That wayof thinking, of course, is the picture of morality. But on the other hand,I believe it also stands for something much more specific. I have said thatDurkheim is the principal interlocutor of chapter 1 of Two Sources. A fundamentalprinciple of Durkheim’s social theory is that society has an existenceindependent of its individual members. Society, in other words,is not an abstraction but a real force. It makes sense then for Bergson tocast it as a living, breathing character. He simply follows Durkheim’s lead;or, more exactly, by agreeing to posit the independent existence of society,Bergson writes Durkheim’s voice into the dialogue.

How does society respond to Bergson’s question? It says that the dutyto respect the life and property of others applies to all human beings. Thatis, asked whether when we speak of duties to “others” we refer to our fellowsor to humankind, society affirms that it means the latter. I recognize,of course, that Bergson has society speak the language of “duties towardhumanity” rather than “human rights.” Yet this is perfectly understandableif we acknowledge that Bergson channels Durkheim in this passage.For his part, Durkheim systematically favors the term “human duties” over”human rights” in order to reflect his view that a genuine right must alwayscorrelate with a concrete duty. On this view, rights do not attach tous “from birth” but are based in posited, substantial duties that are the truefoundation of rights. In underemphasizing the language of human rights,however, Durkheim by no means dispenses with it. Instead, his purpose isto stress that “human rights” and “duties toward humanity” are convertibleconcepts. This is his take on the old adage that behind every right isa duty. And so, when Bergson has society say that it affirms that duties tolife and property apply to all humankind, society will at one and the sametime uphold human rights. Or, to phrase it in the form of the questionposed in the dialogue, when society is asked “which others” have rights tolife and property, society will reply that it means humanity as a whole andnot this or that society.

Now, it must be said that in peacetime this question doesn’t mattermuch. When there is no conflict between the duties owed to our fellowsand those owed to humankind, it is easy enough to assert their compatibility.But this is not the circumstance in which Bergson presses his question.Instead he wants to know, within the context of war, whether the rights andduties that we profess apply to our fellows or to humankind. And here thequestion elicits two different answers, one given by society, the other bythe belligerents.

Faced with war, society will maintain its support for universal duties,though with a crucial qualification. It says that while war does noteliminate rights due to all human beings, nor show them to be imaginary,it does suspend their application for the time being. Duties toward humanityare, therefore, affirmed in principle but temporarily denied in fact.This is how society reconciles its commitment to human rights with thereality of war.

It should be clear that Bergson distrusts this answer. But it is crucialto see why. He does not object that this response is insufficient, as if societyreally should uphold human rights, even in wartime. No, his criticismis that it is mendacious. And the basis for this accusation stems from thecontrast between “saying” and “doing” that structures the dialogue. In fact,it is this contrast that establishes the other interlocutor of the dialogue: thebelligerents.

Who are they? First of all, they are not a class of people separatefrom society. Society and belligerents are, instead, two faces of the samepeople at war, as distinguished by what they say (society) and what theydo (belligerents). Whereas society may pronounce at length on its commitmentto universal obligation (in this sense, they are talkers in line withanother great Bergsonian persona, homo loquax), the terse motto of thebelligerents—”fair is foul, and foul is fair”—verbalizes the actually effectivestandards and values of a people at war. Which is to say that when welook at the actual conduct of a people at war, acts that are normally praiseworthybecome contemptible and acts that are normally abhorrent becomelaudatory.

And here we come back to Deleuze’s sense that concrete situationsare the touchstone of philosophical concepts. For Bergson wants to understand,quite plainly, how it is that a reversal of values can happen so suddenlyand so completely, from one morning to the next. Society has anexplanation, but it is theoretically empty and practically discouraging. Onthe one hand, it explains the apparent reversal of values as a lapse or deviationfrom the standards it professes. But this leaves unresolved how such acomplete transformation could have taken place. And on the other hand,society reaffirms its commitment to universal duties but suspends them inthe present instance. Here, Bergson has all the more reason to be disappointed.For if society suspends universal duties precisely when they aremost required, what are they besides a moralistic irony? Or in other words,if human rights are a piety that folds when the nation is threatened, theybecome, as in Hannah Arendt’s cutting phrase, “the uncertain sentimentof professional idealists.” At once sanctimony and scold, it appears thatsociety will not back human rights when it counts.

Restatement of the Problem of War

What about the third character in the dialogue, Bergson’s own voice?It appears in the middle of the passage in the form of a question: “Wouldthis be possible, would the transformation take place so easily, generallyand instantaneously, if it were really a certain attitude of man toward manthat society had been enjoining on us up till then?” As we said, Bergsonhomes in on the theoretical inadequacy of society’s explanation of war: ifsociety genuinely does enjoin duties to all of mankind, then how can thesebe so completely set aside in times of war? It would appear that society’saccount leaves an inexplicable discontinuity between peacetime (“fair isfair, and foul is foul”) and wartime (“fair is foul, and foul is fair”) morality.

But the phrasing of Bergson’s question hints at his answer. What if,Bergson seems to suggest, war is not a break from the morality of society?What if it is instead fundamentally continuous with it? Maybe it is not areversal. Maybe, in fact, the very idea of a “reversal” or of a “sudden transformation”of morality by war is already too much tied into the perspectiveof society. In short, it could be that the very attempt to explain the “reversal”of morality during war—or, more exactly, to assume that a reversal hasin fact taken place—only makes sense from within the perspective of societythat Bergson argues against.

Here we come to the great restatement of the problem of war inchapter 1 of Two Sources. We can introduce it as a methodological principle:if the attempt to account for war from the perspective of the moralityof society leads to a dead end, then perhaps it would be more fruitful touse war to explain the morality of society. From this new perspective, waris not a mysterious departure from the morality of society; it is instead thekey to bringing that morality clearly into view. In Bergson’s hands war willbecome the ratio cognoscendi of moral obligation.
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