I have argued for a broadly anti-foundationalist account of the human, but what, precisely, does this mean? The term is closely associated with the work of Richard Rorty, the classic anti-foundationalist, who rejected appeals to human nature and insisted on the mobilising force of empathy over the colder logic of reason as what enables solidarity with others. But anti-foundationalism could also describe the work of Hannah Arendt, who similarly rejected essentialisms of human nature, yet endorsed a strongly normative account of what it is to be human. Arendt was far more suspicious than Rorty of the power of empathy: she likened compassion to being ‘stricken with the suffering of someone else as though it were contagious’ and saw it as constrained by its focus on individual suffering. Though she thought somewhat more highly of pity, she warned that it has ‘as much vested interest in the existence of the unhappy as thirst for power has a vested interest in the existence of the weak’. I use my discussion of these two to further clarify my arguments about the politics of the human. My version of anti-foundationalism leans towards Arendt, though I diverge from her on some important points.

Richard Rorty and the ever expanding circle

Rorty had no truck with the idea of ‘proving’ essential human characteristics, and is known for his celebration of literature rather than philosophy as what best alerts us to cruelty and promotes solidarity. In his 1993 contribution to the Oxford Amnesty Lectures, he argues that human rights derive their political and moral force not from essential defining features of humanity, but from the everyday stories we tell about others that enable us at last to see them. Positioning himself closer to Hume than to Plato, Aquinas or Kant, he suggests that ‘to get whites to be nicer to Blacks, males to females, Serbs to Muslims, or straights to gays, to help our species link up into what [Eduardo] Rabossi calls a “planetary community” dominated by a culture of human rights, it is of no use whatever to say, with Kant: Notice that what you have in common, your humanity, is more important than these trivial differences.’