Human Rights After Deleuze: Towards an An-archic Jurisprudence

Having as its starting point the ferocious, yet brief, critique on human rights by one of the most prominent French philosophers of the 20th century, Gilles Deleuze, the thesis aims to critically examine - and, to that extent, to function as a possible 'exodus' from the current, predominant human rights mode of thought - other possibilities of thinking beyond human rights, in an ethico-political mode of, what we call an an-archic jurisprudence. Despite the indisputable influence of Deleuze's thought on a multiplicity of disciplines and areas of research, the philosopher's critique of human rights remains, fundamentally, underexamined not just within the legal field but more generally. Despite this, the thesis' main hypothesis is that Deleuze's critique is not only compatible with his broader philosophy (as well as an outcome of it), but it has the potential to provide a new impetus to the late modern critiques of human rights and especially so within the 'disciplinary borders' of legal and political philosophy.

The thesis delves into an examination of two of the most central notions of Deleuze's thought and investigates how they are specifically linked to the philosopher's critique of human rights. In particular, the thesis focuses on Deleuze's account of a philosophy of immanence (as opposed to a transcendent one) and on how such an approach leads to an understanding of an an-archic ethics as opposed to a dogmatic morality (where human rights, for Deleuze, remain a predominant manifestation of such a mode of being and thought). It further examines the philosopher's notion of becoming as something that opposes or disorients a 'fixed' notion of a 'sovereign' human subject as a 'holder' of rights by virtue of its 'humanity' (i.e. an otherwise central component of current human rights thought).

Ultimately, the thesis investigates and expands on the enigmatic use of the term 'jurisprudence' that Deleuze offers as an alternative to the dogmatism and archism of human rights. We argue that Deleuze's idiosyncratic use of jurisprudence as a creative philosophy of 'law,' opens up new possibilities of thinking about (human) rights, law and our relation with them. Thus, by examining and expanding on the meaning of the term, the thesis aims to think in terms of and to point, in a preliminary manner, towards a non-dogmatic account of an an-archic jurisprudence that could facilitate thinking beyond human rights but also law and rights, in general.