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A Theory of Indifference1

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Responsibility in Context

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Abstract

This paper seeks to develop a theoretically based explanation of how it can be that commitments to principles of human rights can co-exist with indifference towards concrete human rights abuses. The paper opens with a discussion of a reflection by Jacques Maritain, one of the French delegates to the congresses which lead to the Universal Declaration. The argument moves on to suggest that indifference is an integral dimension of the human condition and that indifference is exacerbated by the dominance of a hermeneutical culture in modernity. It is proposed that since the hermeneutic culture is inescapable (and that escape from it is in any case dangerous and illicit), so indifference is also unavoidable. Social actors are faced with the problem of having to choose how to act morally in the conditions of this paradox.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Tester, Keith (2002) “A Theory of Indifference” Journal of Human Rights Volume 1, Number 2, pp. 173–186. Reprinted with permission of the Publisher (Taylor & Francis, http://www.informaworld.com).

  2. 2.

    Maritain (1954).

  3. 3.

    Ibid., 69–70.

  4. 4.

    MacIntyre (1985).

  5. 5.

    Ibid., 263.

  6. 6.

    Maritain (1954), Man and the State, 72.

  7. 7.

    For an expansion of this line of argument see Mestrovic (1997) and Tester (1997).

  8. 8.

    Arendt (1958).

  9. 9.

    Weber (1968).

  10. 10.

    This tendency is only partly avoided in Heller (1990).

  11. 11.

    It is possible to read Zygmunt Bauman’s important sociology of adiaphorization as a study of the transformation of the potential Thou into It, The social manipulation of morality: moralizing actors, adiaphorizing action. Bauman (1991).

  12. 12.

    This involves the strategy of “blaming the victim”. For more on this see Tester (2001).

  13. 13.

    Arendt (1958), The Human Condition, A Study of the Central Dilemmas Facing Modern Man, 10.

  14. 14.

    Simmel (1950).

  15. 15.

    This is a point which is stressed in Weber (1968). Typology of social action which is, itself, explicit within the sociological account of morality that underpins and informs this paper.

  16. 16.

    Maritain (1954), Man and the State, 73.

  17. 17.

    Feher (1989).

  18. 18.

    Ibid., 79, 84.

  19. 19.

    Heller and Ferenc (1988).

  20. 20.

    Feher (1989, 81).

  21. 21.

    Ibid., 83.

  22. 22.

    Ibid.

  23. 23.

    Ibid., 88.

  24. 24.

    Ibid.

  25. 25.

    Ibid.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., 89.

  27. 27.

    Ibid.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., 91.

  29. 29.

    And, as MacIntyre (1985) points out, the elevation of preference to ethical importance heralds the condition of emotivism.

  30. 30.

    Bauman (2000).

References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, The University of Hull, Hull, UK

    Keith Tester

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  1. Keith Tester
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Correspondence to Keith Tester .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Blomsterveien 27, Nesoddtangen, 1450, Norway

    Gorana Ognjenovic

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Tester, K. (2010). A Theory of Indifference1 . In: Ognjenovic, G. (eds) Responsibility in Context. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3037-5_6

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