Progressive Convergence

At the end of his fourth chapter, Beitz introduces the concept of "progressive convergence." Unlike overlapping consensus, which surveys the current moral and philosophical beliefs that exist in cultures around the world, progressive convergence analyzes different cultures by their possible transformations following pressures for change. Much of this change would occur as a result of "evolutionary reinterpretation," or the introduction of new interpretations of central, cultural texts (such as religious texts) in a way that is compatible with most human rights doctrines. Beitz notes that while beneficial for consensus, it must "be understood that the point of a fresh elaboration is not simply to fit the tradition to the demands of the world, but to provide that tradition with its most compelling statement" (89). Thus, Beitz concludes with progressive convergence, we can judge a certain culture's "reachability from" certain human rights, or how much would a society need to change in order to have views that are compatible with certain human rights.

Beitz' introduction of progressive convergence seemed to model Amartya Sen's approach that I took discomfort with in my last blog post. In our previous reading, Sen sets out to demonstrate how many cultures have "constitutive elements of democracy" if they reinterpret the works of their prominent philosophers. Applied to human rights, Sen would probably agree with the idea of progressive convergence because it seeks to reconcile cultures through revisiting traditionally interpreted texts.

For this reason, I think that Beitz provides a really strong criticism of Sen. Discussing the possible (but ultimately insufficient) reasons for supporting a progressive convergence theory, Beitz explains that this approach may be appealing because it avoids unjustifiable paternalism. It does so because:

Members of the society could not complain that the interference imposes values that they have no reason to accept because, by hypothesis, those values would be potentially available to them as adherents of their own society's worldview; members of the society do, in fact, have reason to accept the values imposed, even if the reason is not apparent to them. (93)

This argument echoes Sen's approach with his interpretations; people should not object to democracy because there are qualities of it within their own societies. However, as Beitz responds,

The problem is that the values relied on to justify interference would not, in fact, be widely established in the society. If the progressive convergence hypothesis were accepted, it could be said that these values are potentially available to its members, but it would not follow that the values would actually be accepted by reasonable members of the culture at the time of the interference. (93)

Here, Beitz argues that simply demonstrating that societies have the potential to have compatible views with human rights is insufficient. Instead, a society must have reason to adopt these views, which requires a break with the customs of the society which is not fully solved for by this approach. Beitz can thus be seen as similarly responding to Sen's approach by arguing that it is not significant that there are constitutive elements of democracy within other cultures. For these elements to make an impact, Sen's identified cultures would need to shift their traditional interpretations to emphasize these qualities. Such shifts which would raise questions about whether or not the values of other countries were then being imposed onto these cultures, even though such values technically already "exist" in the cultures.