Europe Beyond Universalism and Particularism

S. Lindberg, S. Prozorov, M. Ojakangas, S. Lindberg, S. Prozorov, M. Ojakangas

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781137361813
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137361820
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Resulting from an interdisciplinary dialogue between philosophy, political science and International Relations about Europe as a political community this volume rethinks the European political project beyond the rigid opposition between universalism and particularism approaching Europe as a space of the exposure of differences to each other.

Part I

The Idea of Europe

1

European Political Universalism: A Very Short History

Mika Ojakangas

Introduction

If we are allowed to make an analytical distinction between nature – particularly human nature – and values, we can detect at least three forms of political universalism in the European tradition. First, there is a moral or political universalism based on the assumption that the highest moral standards – such as justice – are the same for all regardless of time and place. Second, there is a political universalism based on the assumption that by nature all human beings – especially when it comes to their rational capacities – are identical with each other regardless of spatiotemporal conditions. Third, there is a political universalism based on the assumption that people are absolutely equal in terms of their value and worth. Roughly speaking, these forms of political universalism – universalism of moral standards, universalism of human nature, and universalism of worth – have developed historically in sequence so that new dimensions are added to the previous ones without necessarily replacing them. In Stoicism, for instance, it was thought that the highest values are common to all human beings in the world and that people are identical by nature, but not that people are absolutely equal with each other. In early modern and modern declarations of human rights, on the other hand, it is implied that the highest moral standards are the same, that people are – more or less – identical with each other, and that they are absolutely equal when it comes to their worth as living beings.

Before locating these forms of universalism in the European tradition, however, let us define the notion of universality employed in this article. The universal is something that is the same for everybody. There is thus a semantic link between the universal and the same. Analogously, particularity and difference go hand in hand. If something is particular, it is different from something else. Although in the European tradition of metaphysics it is claimed that types, properties, and relations are universals – types as dogness and properties as redness – it is obvious that dogness or redness is not a universal in the sense that every being would be a dog or red. Moreover, even though every being has a color, color as such is not genuinely universal but something particular because it is different from other qualities or properties of beings, such as size and hardness. In the sphere of beings, only difference as such and being as such seem to be truly universal. Yet to the extent that difference can appear only in the sphere where there are differences between beings, that is to say, where beings are particular, it is only the very beingness of beings that is truly universal. Difference is the same for all beings on the condition that beings are not identical with each other, while the beingness of beings is the same for all beings without further qualifications. To the extent that every being is a being, it is identical with every other being – because it is a being.

However, although every being is a being, this does not yet entail that every being has the same value. All beings are equally beings but it can be said that one being is better than the other. For instance, individual A may be better than individual B in mathematics and once we say ‘better,’ we have moved to the sphere of values. In this sphere, too, things can be universal or particular. If we say that individual A is better than individual B, we pinpoint a difference, and this difference implies the particularity of each party. In the sphere of values, moreover, such a difference implies more than that, as it also entails – or might entail – a hierarchy between beings. Every being is equally a being but every being does not have the same value, at least not necessarily. This does not mean that beings cannot be equal in terms of worth. In today’s Europe, it is precisely in terms of worth that people are said to be equal because everybody is endowed with the same inalienable rights. This equality of worth has become a global standard exemplified by various declarations of human rights from the United States Declaration of Independence to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

Universal justice

Without even trying to detect the origin of European universalism, it is safe to assert that the universalism mentioned first – universalism of moral standards – becomes prevalent in Europe in Greek philosophy, particularly in the works of Plato and Aristotle. According to Plato, values – or virtues, as he called them – such as justice, the good, and the beautiful are the same for all, regardless of time and place. Although there are different laws (nomoi) among different people, there is, too, a universal law transcending particular cultures, a law not based on customs and habits but on nature (phusis) proceeding from reason (nous) (Leg. 10.890d).¹ However, when it comes to the nature and the value of human beings, Plato was convinced that there is no equality, for human beings are different by nature, and from this difference we can deduce the difference of their worth. For Plato, in other words, people are unequal in terms of both being and value – or more precisely, they are unequal in terms of value because they are unequal in terms of their being. Some are healthy thoroughbreds (gennaios), while others are ill-bred (agennês), ‘sickly and refractory beasts,’ ‘degenerate by nature’ (Leg. 5.735b–c). In this respect, not even education can do much, for it is impossible to undo natural moral degeneracy. With regard to such people, Plato’s advice for the statesman is that he should throw them out of the state ‘by killing them, sending them into exile, and punishing them with the most extreme forms of dishonor,’ although they can also be brought ‘under the yoke of the class of slaves’ (Polit. 308e–309a). Thus, although the Platonic idea of justice is universal, it does not imply the equality of human beings, because it is the very nature of Platonic justice to organize the human race in a hierarchical manner following the distribution of natural qualities of men.

The same can be said of Aristotle. According to him, there exists ‘justice based on nature’ that is ‘by definition in force regardless of opinions’ (Eth. Nic. 1134b). He also calls it the universal law of nature (Rhet. 1.1375a30–35). However, even though this law is universal and natural and thus the same for all, it does not entail that human beings are identical with each other by nature, let alone equal. Although all humanity shares in logos, meaning speech and reason, some participate in logos more than others on account of their nature. Thus it is nature that makes some inferior and some superior, some slaves and some freemen: ‘There exist certain persons who are essentially slaves everywhere and certain others who are so nowhere’ (Pol. 1.1255a30–35). Slaves are distinguished from free people by their bodily shape but particularly by their mental capacities. Slaves, although they do participate in reason (logos), do not possess it by themselves (Pol. 1.1254b20–25). Their participation is restricted to the apprehension that their masters possess reason and that they are therefore obliged to follow their masters. This is the lesson of Aristotelian natural justice:

It is manifest therefore that there are cases of people of whom some are freemen and the others slaves by nature, and for these slavery is an institution both expedient and just. (Pol. 1.1255a1–5)

In this respect, but perhaps only in this respect, the most Platonic-Aristotelian society has been the Nazi society. Justice is universal because it is based on nature, yet nature organizes itself in a hierarchical manner from which we can infer a hierarchy in the value of individual lives. Aryans are people who live closest to the nature, while Jews are most remote from it, and it is this distance that determines the value of an individual life as well as that of a race.

Universal human nature

In Stoicism, values – such as justice – are universal too, based on nature and not on particular convention. Following the Greek Stoics, Cicero writes: ‘Justice [iustitia] is not based on men’s opinions but on nature,’² and this justice of nature is the supreme law (lex) and thereby the ultimate measure of good and evil. It exists before any written laws and even before any human constitutions. Contrary to Plato and Aristotle, however, Cicero asserts that not only justice but also the nature of human beings is universal:

No single thing is so like another, so exactly its counterpart, as all of us are to one another. Nay, if bad habits and false beliefs did not twist the weaker minds and turn them in whatever direction they are inclined, no one would be so like his own self as all men would be like all others. And so, however we may define man, a single definition will apply to all. This is a sufficient proof that there is no difference in kind between man and man [nullam dissimilitudiem esse in genere].³

This is a remarkable statement. While Plato and Aristotle argued that nature distributes human capacities unevenly, rendering some degenerate and worthy only of enslavement or elimination, Cicero argues that the whole of humankind shares the same capacities, and that these capacities are evenly distributed among people. This holds true with regard to emotions but also and especially to reason (ratio) – reason by means of which we discern the universal precepts of natural law. Moreover, everybody is capable of following the precepts of natural law and thereby of becoming virtuous and worthy of respect: ‘Those rudimentary beginnings of intelligence to which I have referred, which are imprinted on our minds, are imprinted on all minds alike,’ Cicero writes, continuing that ‘there is no human being of any nation who, if he finds a guide, cannot attain to virtue.’⁴

To be sure, this kind of universalism was not entirely foreign in the classical Greece. The Sophist Antiphon, among others, had opined that ‘as to our natural gifts, we are all on an equal footing, on all points, whether we now happen to be Greeks or Barbarians.’⁵ Similarly, Socrates believed that even a slave is capable of learning geometrical truths because of inborn knowledge hidden in every human soul (Meno 85d). Yet it was the Greek Stoics of the Hellenistic period that made this universalism famous. Zeno had already argued that all human beings are compatriots, for there is only one order and one city, namely that of the world (kosmos), basing his argument – at least in part – on the presumption that there is no natural difference between humans. There are, Zeno argued, certain innate notions (ennoia) – or preconceptions (prolêpseis), as the Epicureans put it – in the mind of every man, regardless of natural origin or social status. Diogenes Laertius describes these notions as follows: ‘By preconception [prolēpseis] they mean a sort of apprehension of a right opinion or notion [ennoia], or universal idea stored in the mind.’⁶ According to the Stoics, these preconceptions are present in the mind in the mode of potentiality, as ‘seeds of knowledge’ (logoi spermatikoi) or ‘sparks of fire’ (ingiculi), which themselves are fragments of divine logos permeating the whole universe, as they had learned from Heraclitus. Although no Stoic stated it explicitly, they are likely to have thought that these notions provide the foundation for man’s knowledge of natural law as well. Through the common notions a man, naturally and spontaneously, regardless of his status as free or slave, Greek or Barbarian, comes to know the good, the wise, the just, the beautiful, and God.⁷ At any rat...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction: Transcending Europe
• Part I   The Idea of Europe
• Part II   Beyond European Identity
• Bibliography
• Index