Faculty colloquium with Arnd Pollmann on the contingency of Human Rights

Crisis-Proof or Contingent? Human Rights Between Pre-Political Justifications and Decisionist Realpolitik

In times of political crises—such as migration, climate change, wars, and epidemics— "eternal" human rights are increasingly perceived as "disposable". This perception reveals a conceptual contradiction that demands clarification. On one hand, human rights are regarded as entitlements historically fought for, meant to be asserted against arbitrary political rule and historical injustices. On the other hand, once these rights are enshrined as constitutionally codified basic rights, they must be immediately withdrawn from the political decision-making process to limit even the rule of democratic majorities. Arnd Pollmann will discuss the question of whether and to what extent human rights can be understood as both "contingent" and "crisis-proof". He will clarify that, in the context of political crises, governmental anticipation of a merely supposed democratic consent quickly leads to disproportionate encroachments on fundamental rights and must therefore be criticized as a form of "hostile takeover" of constitutional law by paternalistic politics.

After the talk, we will open the discussion with pitches from Jamie van der Klauw (ESPhil) about his research on democratic legitimization, and Michał Stambulski (ESL) about ‘The Politics of Human Rights and Right-Wing Legal Mobilization’.

Arnd Pollmann is Professor of Ethics and Social Philosophy at Alice Salomon University in Berlin. After guest professorships in Berlin, Zurich, and Hamburg, he was appointed Professor at Alice Salomon University in 2018. His interests in research and teaching lie in the areas of ethics, moral philosophy, and applied ethics as well as in the social philosophy of modern societies and above all in the political philosophy of human rights. His most recent book has been published by Suhrkamp-Verlag: "Menschenrechte und Menschenwürde. Über die philosophische Bedeutung eines revolutionären Projekts" (2022). He is co-editor of the Zeitschrift für Menschenrechte (zfmr/Journal for Human Rights). He regularly comments on political issues from a philosophical perspective, e.g. on radio programmes or in daily newspapers. Pollmann lives in Berlin with his wife and daughter. For further information see: www.a-pollmann.de. 

This faculty colloquium is organized by the research programme Human Conditions.