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Ethics and Social Welfare : Human inter dependency and un conditional rights. Hartley Dean London School of Economics. Outline . Ethics and morality The hegemonic liberal-individualist ethic Human (inter-)dependency Human (co-)responsibilities Unconditional rights ?.
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Ethics and Social Welfare:Human interdependency and unconditional rights Hartley Dean London School of Economics
Outline • Ethics and morality • The hegemonic liberal-individualist ethic • Human (inter-)dependency • Human (co-)responsibilities • Unconditional rights ?
1. Ethics and morality • A contested distinction • A dialectical relationship Ethics Cognitive ‘ethos’ Values (what is ‘right’) Abstract principles Doctrines (eternal) Systemic/universal Morals Cultural ‘mores’ Norms (what is ‘good’) Customary practices Codes (agreed) Living/local
2. The hegemonic liberal-individualist ethic • Regards dependency and responsibility as inimical • Deep-rooted contractarian assumptions • The sovereignty of the bargaining/competitive human subject must be ‘traded’ to secure the minimum necessary level of social order • Civil and political rights take precedence over social rights which must remain (a) subordinate to political and legal processes; and (b) subject to ‘progressive realisation’ • Social rights and social liberalism • ‘Reluctant collectivism’ of Keynes and Beveridge • The Roosevelt legacy and the UDHR • The re-construction of social rights in a post-social era? • Equality of (moral) worth and the ‘covenant of opportunities and responsibilities’ • A test of ‘worth’: avoidance of (welfare) dependency • Welfare conditionality: no help without strings
3. Human (inter-)dependency • Alternative solidaristic conceptions of rights • The sovereignty of the attached/co-operative human subject must be ‘pooled’ to secure the maximum achievable level of social cohesion • Rights as a system of mutual protection premised on a collectively held recognition of individual vulnerability/frailty (Turner) • The struggle for recognition (Honneth) • The ‘ethical life’ depends on recognition through: • Love: self-identity • Solidarity: collective identity • Rights: mutual recognition of each other’s claims
3. Human (inter-)dependency(Contd…./) • The right to (ontological) security • The distinction between categorical and ontological identity (Taylor): the noumenal self • Frailty and the right to social protection, social inclusion and ‘asylum’ • An ethic of care • Self-alienation from social humanity: capitalism’s fetishised notions of work, dependency and justice • Re-constituting individuals as interdependent ‘selves-in-relationship’; and social policy in terms of the organisation/ negotiation of how we care for and about each other (e.g. Sevenhuijsen/ Williams)
4. Human (co-)responsibilities Competing conceptions of responsibility ethical individualist/ collectivist/ contractariansolidaristic moralistic co-responsibility civic duty conditional obedience moral obligation
4. Human (co-)responsibilities(Contd…./) • An (alternative) ethic of co-responsibility • The social negotiation of mutual obligation: beyond the mechanistic calculus of policy prescription • Apel: co-responsibility requires • Rational judgements, not moral traditions • An effective (global) communication community capable of acknowledging the needs/claims of all its members • Equal respect for scientific and ethical claims to truth • Constituting personhood • Minimum material provision is as constitutive of personhood as liberty or autonomy and reflects extent to which we each have ethical responsibility for everybody else (Griffin)
The evidence (from UK): • Popular discourse • Is capable (reluctantly) of acknowledging human interdependency • Is ensnared by a narrow (ethically individualistic) notion of responsibility • Accedes to the inalienability of certain human rights, but is inhibited from translating awareness of interdependency into support for universal social rights
ConclusionTo promote an ethically premised unconditional rights-based approach to social welfare provision would be: • Jolly nice (Pooh) • Ever so difficult (Eyore) • Tremenously exciting (Tigger)