Rights and the Heart: Emotions and Rights Claims in the Political Theory of Edmund Burke

Abstract

AbstractEdmund Burke's emphasis on emotional phenomena is often seen as a rejection of reason. The relationship between reason and the emotions in Burke's work is paralleled by the relationships between the individual and society and between rights and duties. Emotions support duties because they bind us to social life and a particular social location. Burke filters rights claims through our emotional attachment to specific circumstances, thus creating social rights of man in contrast to the individualistic, abstract rights of men of the social contract theorists. Prejudice is presented as an example of a Burkean filter for rights that moderates rights claims by binding individuals to society. Thus, Burke sees reason and emotion as interconnected phenomena that support the balancing of the claims of both individual and the community.