Richard rorty and moral progress in global relations

Abstract

Richard Rorty's navigation of the pitfalls of the cosmopolitan-communitarian debate, concern with human suffering, recognition of the contingency of communal identities and relationships, and his endorsement of liberal societies, by definition inclusive and always in search of a greater justice, make it appear as though his thought can guide us towards greater concern for the world's poor. However, this article questions the progressive potential of Rorty's thought. Obstacles to such (global) moral progress include Rorty's unquestioned statism and his focus on internal outsiders who are suffering and/or oppressed, instead of external outsiders beyond national borders; his insistence on a public-private split that legitimises social indifference, coupled with a narrow understanding of responsibility; the undemandingness of his liberalism; and his emphasis on the excluding notion of ‘solidarity’, as prerequisite for moral concern. However, continuous Rortian ‘sentimental education’ can lessen the objectification of and indifference to the global poor.

Notes

1. While Rorty appears to disdain cosmopolitan ‘Platonism’, he hopes for a ‘global, cosmopolitan, democratic, egalitarian, classless, casteless society’ (1999, p. xii).

2. On Rorty and international relations, see Cochran (1996; 1999), and a Special Issue of Millennium: Journal of International Studies devoted to pragmatism and international relations theory (2002). On the cosmopolitan-communitarian debate, see Brown (1992, 2002).

3. For criticism of the ‘intellectual vacuity’ of this definition of a liberal, see Kekes (1996, p. 74).

4. For a critique, see Putnam (2000, p. 63).

5. For an associated criticism, see Pogge (2002, p. 7).

6. For similar criticism, see McCarthy (1990, p. 187).

7. Rorty does say that the predicament of the suffering must be put ‘into language’ (1989, p. 94). It must be said that Rorty is scornful of a lack of political engagement, deriding the ‘Foucauldian left’ in America for being too ‘busy unmasking the present that they have no time to discuss what laws need to be passed in order to create a better future’ (1998a, p. 139).