Raymond Aron on human rights: a potential contribution to the debate between Claude Lefort, Marcel Gauchet, and Pierre Manent
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5380/dp.v21i1.93887Keywords:
Human Rights, Democracy, Power, Law, Individualism, Contemporary French Political Philosophy.Abstract
I will present some of Raymond Aron’s texts as a contribution to the debate on human rights between Claude Lefort, Marcel Gauchet, and Pierre Manent (three authors who have an intellectual dialogue with Aron). On one hand, Aron will be presented as a source of inspiration for Gauchet’s and Manent’s critique of the “politics of human rights”. The core of this critique consists in the effort to think together the points of view of power and law, in contrast with the dissociation between power and law seen by Lefort in the modern democratic revolution. On the other hand, I will argue that Aron comes close to Lefort, and distances himself from Gauchet and Manent, by his refusal to assimilate human rights to an individualistic philosophy. Both Aron and Lefort emphasize the critical dimension of human rights: they express a critique of modern society in the name of the ideals of that same society.

