Outline of a Social Theory of Rights: A Neo-Pragmatist Approach

Filipe Carreira da Silva

University of Lisbon - Social Sciences Institute

2013

European Journal of Social Theory, Forthcoming

Abstract:     
In this article I articulate a neo-pragmatist theory of human rights by drawing and expanding upon the American classical pragmatism of G.H. Mead. I characterize this neo-pragmatist theory of rights by its anti-foundationalist, relational, fictive, and constitutive nature. I begin by providing a reconstruction of Mead’s social pragmatist approach to rights, a contribution systematically ignored by contemporary sociologists of rights. Next I detail the cost of this disciplinary oblivion by examining how much neo-pragmatism, critical theory, and legal consciousness studies have meanwhile gained by engaging with Mead’s work on rights. Finally, I discuss the contributions of this historical-theoretical exercise to the rapidly growing sociology of rights. I show that by supplementing my neo-Meadian approach with a recent interpretation of Hobbes’s fictional theory of politics, there appear substantive gains in the empirical study of the origins, consequences, meaning, and denial of rights.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 46
Keywords: Rights, pragmatism, G.H. Mead, legal consciousness

Full text available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2241525