Arendt Studies

published on May 1, 2021

Human Rights, Legalism, and the Parodox of Pluralism: Some Comments on Benhabib’s Exile, Statelessness and Migration

This article examines the theoretical pathways connecting Benhabib’s thoughts on ethical normativity, human rights, legality, democracy, liberalism, pluralism, and the tragedy of the political. It endorses Benhabib’s dialectical treatment of these paradoxical political tropes but notes a possible unresolved tension in her discussion of the ambiguous moral and legal nature of human rights. I propose a pluralist approach to the moral grounding of legal human rights that might be at odds with Benhabib’s approach.