Rights-Pragmatism and the Right of Humanity

The article opens with the analysis of a 2013 legal memorandum of the U.S. Department of Justice that sanctions state ordered killings of citizens on foreign soil, as well as the violation of foreign sovereignty that may have to accompany such killings. This document, together with arguments of contemporary juridical pragmatist like M. Ignatieff, functions in the article as a prototype of the kind of juridical thinking that has been explicitly countered in classical philosophies of (international) right. Section I outlines Kant's theory of the common ethical ground of morals and politics, his criticism of Christian Garve, and his distinction of politics (aimed at the right of humanity) from pseudopolitics (supported by philanthropic justifications). Section II presents Hegel's scrutiny of the central role of public hypocrisy and its casuistry, especially with regards to the concealment of crimes against humanity under the philanthropic veil.