ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: Human rights debate in history of economic thought. An alternative approach to the arguments of Marx and Bentham
Author: Özel Emre
The idea of human rights has increasingly become to take a substantial part in the recent political debate while economic theory has given too little consideration. Human rights has been considered as only individual rights in the context of economics. However, there is a place in economic theory where human rights can be purposeful. While the term human rights refers to a comprehensive idea, the controversy of the idea of human rights in the context of history of economic thought is much more complicated. Here, I try to provide a distinct approach through the arguments of Marx and Bentham on human rights; the Kantian idea of public use of reason. I tend to consider the conception of “public use of reason” as an important component through my examination and I try to analyze the perplexities of human within economic thought by focusing particularly Marx and Bentham's works. Study of economics is, as a matter of fact, mostly concerned with a particular set of motives and relations which are sourced by self-interest and private incentives. Yet, the main form of these motives and relations lead to the conception of civil society in relation with the conception of state. Although there are different interpretations, the conception of civil society has been central to the development of political economy. Yet, the relationship between the idea human rights and political economy is more complex especially when we consider the role of “self interest” or “self-love”. The motive of self interest appears to consist of some certain behavioral attitudes of the agents which are sometimes considered to be irrelevant to the social justice and some sorts of basic rights. Herein, concerning the debate on civil society, Marx, In “On Jewish Question”, draws a distinction between “species being” (public) and “monad” (private) as a center argument against the conception of human rights wherein politically emancipated community leads man to become a part of material life by only seeking his own interest. On the other hand, Bentham criticizes human rights by pointing out the “theoretical errors” and “mischiefs” of the idea of human rights in his manuscript “Anarchical Fallacies”. Consequently, a major controversy emerges in history of economic thought concerning the idea of human rights . This paper aims to re-examine the two different approaches in Marx and Bentham’s arguments on human rights in the context of the idea of public reason. Therefore, my main purpose here is simply to analyze the focal point of the claimed controversy over human rights and political economy.
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