Did [Danes and Italians] say, about their Jewish neighbors, that they deserved
to be saved because they were fellow human beings? Perhaps sometimes they
did, but surely they would usually, if queried, have used more parochial terms
to explain why they were taking risks to protect a given Jew – for example, that
this particular Jew was a fellow Milanese, or a fellow Jutlander, or a fellow
member of the same union or profession, or a fellow bocce player, or a fellow
parent of small children. Then consider those Belgians: Surely there were some
people whom they wouldhave taken risks to protect in similar circumstances,
people whom they dididentify with, under some description or other. But Jews
rarely fell under those descriptions.
(Rorty, 1989: 190–1, his emphases)
Rorty’s interpretation of the motivations of the rescuers has been challenged.
Norman Geras argues, first, that there were prosaic reasons why a greater proportion
of the Jewish population was deported in some countries than in others – sometimes,
it came down to the availability of escape routes, such as from Denmark to Sweden
in what has become termed the ‘Danish rescue’, the availability of pre-war records
of religious affiliation, and the actual form of administrative occupation, which
varied considerably from one country to another (Geras, 1995: 10–11). Second,
and more importantly, Rorty quotes no testimonies of rescuers or their friends and
family. After working his way through a large number of such testimonies Geras
found only one case in which a rescuer expressed his reasons for rescuing Jews as
that they were fellow citizens (in this case, fellow Dutch). Almost all used the
language of ‘common humanity’ – in other words, the kind of universalism which
Rorty rejects (Geras, 1995: 36).
Geras argues for a universalism based on the recognition of a common human
nature, but it is not clear why Rorty rejects the feelingfor humanity as the basis
for human rights. Certainly, Rorty rejects any categorically binding conception of
human reason, such as that advanced by Habermas, but it is consistent with Rorty’s
anti-foundationalism to be moved by another’s suffering – to feel revulsion at cruelty
towards that person – without any appeal to a shared membership of a parochial
group. Perhaps what worries Rorty is that the recognition of humanity will take
the form of a ‘cold’ Kantian duty, which we then applyto human beings.Conclusion: Article 18
At the beginning of the chapter we posed the question whether Article 18 of the
UDHR was compatible with respect for cultural diversity. If it is not then it is quite
possible to respond by saying ‘so much the worse for culture’. But this would be
an inadequate response: human rights must be justified and not simply asserted,
and so a defence of human rights must explain how such rights are universal.
In his book Multicultural Citizenship(1995), Will Kymlicka discusses the right
to religious freedom, and identifies three elements to this right: (a) freedom to pursue
one’s (existing) faith (practice); (b) freedom to seek new adherents to that faith
(proselytisation); (c) freedom to renounce one’s faith (apostasy) (Kymlicka, 1995:
155–65). He also makes a distinction between internal restrictions and external
protections, arguing for the latter against the former: a religious group must beChapter 18 Human rights 419