FROM PLURAL WORLDVIEWS TO GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS DISCOURSES: ON MULTICULTURALISM, INTERCULTURALISM, AND THE POSSIBILITY OF AN OVERLAPPING CONSENSUS

This paper discusses the implications of a pluralistic approach to human rights and cosmopolitanism. This goal is pursued in a few steps. First, I introduce the topic of pluralism in terms of multicultural plurality and intercultural plurality in light of Karl Jaspers’ philosophy of the Axial Age, which is a way of recognizing a variety of cultural and religious worldviews. Second, I turn to philosophers such as John Rawls, Martha Nussbaum, and Charles Taylors in order to discuss the possibility of an overlapping consensus among different cultural and religious views and postulate that they see this possible unenforced consensus as a way to a