Seyla Benhabib

Seyla Benhabib (born in 1950 with Istambul) is Professor of Political sciences and philosophy to the Université of Yale and directs the program of ethics, policy and economy.

She taught in the department of philosophy of the Université of Boston, with SUNY Stony Brook, the New School for Social Research and at the department of the government to the Université Harvard. She is the author of several books, of which most notable the philosophers Hannah Arendt and Jurgen Habermas concern. She also worked with several philosophers and academics such as Herbert Marcuse. Benhabib mixes critical theory and feminist theory. She is married with the journalist and writer Jim Sleeper, who also works in Yale. She belongs to the reading panel of the Ethics & International Affairs Journal .

Theory of the democracy

For Seyla Benhabib, the cultures are not monolithic but are formed in the dialog between the other cultures. They correspond to a constant renewal of the imaginary borders. For the democratic theorists, the individuals are more important than the safeguarding of the cultures. In democracy, each person should according to Seyla Benhabib decide her own life. She retains three conditions to ensure the coexistence of the Pluralisme and the Cosmopolitisme:

1) Levelling reciprocity: the members of Minorité S must have the same civic rights, political, economic and cultural that the majority;
2) Voluntary approval: When a person is born, it should not be regarded automatically as pertaining to a Religion or a Culture. The state does not decrait to let the communities define the lives of the individuals. The members of a company have the right to express themselves and it is desirable to ask the adults if they choose to belong to this Communauté.
3) Freedom of exit and association: Any individual must be able to leave his group. When the members of a group marry somebody of another group, they have the right to remain member about it. Compromises must be found for the marriages joint committees and their children.
The coexistence between cultural diversity and the democratic equality is a discussed subject. The first condition is indeed enfreinte per many cultures, each Nation state includes/understands groups which are not accepted by the majority. Certain governments do not do anything to put an end to these discriminations, or encourage them. The two other conditions are quite as problematic.

Borders

Seyla Benhabib privileges a world at the porous borders: " I think that it is possible to have an empire without borders; I do not believe possible to have a democracy without frontières". The political borders make it possible to define its members, but they also exclude some from the people. More and more of people live in another country that theirs; the sovereignty of state is not as powerful as in the past.

The cosmopolitan vision of Seyla Benhabib takes as a starting point the philosopher Emmanuel Kant and his perpetual Paix . According to Kant, in agreement with the right of universal hospitality, each person has the right to go where she wants it, without having to fear the hostility of her hosts. Seyla Benhabib takes this right like starting point of its reflection on the migration and the Réfugié S. It thus further goes than Kant while saying than the right of hospitality should apply not only for the visits but also for the long-term stays (case of the Political asylum)

Selected bibliography

The Rights off Others (Cambridge University Near, 2004)
The Reluctant Modernism off Hannah Arendt (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003)
The Claims off Culture (Princeton University Near, 2002)
Democracy and Difference (Princeton University Near, 1996)
Critical, Norm and Utopia

See too

Judith Butler
Iris Marion Young
Cosmopolitanism

External bonds

Page on the site of the university of Yale
Discussion with Seyla Benhabib

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