The Shock of Recognition by R.J. Snell

Classical liberal theory grounded natural rights in “substantial equality,” as French political theorist Philippe Bénéton terms it. In theory, not always in practice, the liberal taught that humans were equal in their humanity. All were equal in their substance even if differing in religion, politics, class, race, sex, ability, and so on. Consequently, natural rights were acknowledged in recognition of sameness. Others were the same flesh and blood and soul as me, and I was to look at others and recognize that this “other” is morally equal to me in dignity and rights.

Now it is not so. Bénéton argues that classical liberalism and its assumption of sameness is undone by subversive and radical versions of contemporary liberalism. Having refused to accept any limitations on freedom, radical liberalism must also lose human equality, for a substantial human nature would imply a stable, fixed order wherein some actions would be considered more or less worthy of a human. But such order and its assumption of value is antithetical to a purely indeterminate freedom whereby one is entitled to each and every identity one claims for oneself.

Of course, a refusal of human commonality renders recognition of the substantial equality of the other impossible, for if neither I nor other persons are defined by our common humanity, what could possibly oblige me to treat them with the same dignity I demand for myself? How can we claim human dignity when a common measure of humanity is refused?