L'universalite des droits humains dans le contexte du pluralisme axiologique inherent aux relations internationales: Le cas du confucianisme.

摘要

The demonstration elaborated here is similar, to a certain extent, to the one developed by Amartya Kumar Sen in The Argumentative Indian .4 In his work, Sen discusses India's intellectual and political inheritance, and the way this tradition is essential for the success of the democracy and secular politics of the Indian State. For our part, our interest lies not with India, but with China, quite particularly with the intellectual, political and moral legacy of the early Confucian scholars, and the relevancy to revisit, nowadays, Classical Confucian teachings in order to conceive and establish human rights in China.;In our thesis, we refute this point of view. By the intervention of an analysis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and an examination of four texts founders of the Classical Confucianism who are: the Analects (Lunyu)5, the Mencius (Mengzi), the Great Learning (Daxue), and the Practice of the Mean (Zhongyong)6, we demonstrate that this understanding of things is unjustified. Human rights are not incompatible with Confucian values and their adoption is desirable in Asia (including China), quite as it is in Western countries. Actually, the philosophy of human rights and the Classic Confucian thought have numerous conceptual, axiological and normative affinities. Far from being in opposition, these theoretical views converge, because they both care about the human being, his vital needs, and his self-fulfillment within the community. Our demonstration leans, for the most part, on the analysis of a key concept of the Confucian ethical and political thought that is the notion of humanity, or humaneness (ren) and the closely related notion of gentleman, or morally noble person ( junzi).;Keywords: Asian values, Human Rights, Classical Confucian thought, Confucianism, Confucius, Mencius, humanity, benevolence, humaneness, ren, and junzi.;4 Amartya Kumar Sen, The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity, New York: Picador, 2005. 5 We adopt the phonetic transcription of Chinese characters called pinyin. The pinyin has been established by the Chinese in 1957 and is the transcription mostly used today by Sinologists. A glossary can be found in the appendices, which indicates cited transcriptions in this thesis (see the Appendix 5). 6 Andre Levy, Les Entretiens de Confucius et de ses disciples [Lunyu], Paris: Flammarion, 1994 et Mencius [Mengzi], Paris: You-Feng, 2003; Andrew Plaks, Ta Hsueh and Chung Yung (The Highest Order of Cultivation and On the Practice of the Mean) [Daxue et Zhongyong], New York: Penguin Books, 2003.;More precisely, our reflection lies within the contemporary debate, which takes place on an international scale, surrounding the so-called Asian values and human rights. For the advocates of the Asian values thesis, Asian values would be associated with the so-called Asian development model, which would distinguish itself from the "Western" model by resisting for instance human rights. These rights, having a western origin and being, in many respects, in breach with Asian values, would be neither desirable in Asia (particularly in China) nor compatible with Asian values (specifically with Confucian values).