From the Pursuit of Control to Democratic Cooperation: Understanding and Self-Discipline in the New Human Rights Framework

Abstract

This conceptual working paper examines how the pursuit of control can be redirected from domination toward democratic cooperation within Jean-Pol Martin’s New Human Rights (NMR) framework. Its central hypothesis is that reflection can reveal how restricting others’ agency also suppresses knowledge, capabilities and opportunities for shared action. Self-discipline is proposed as a practical link between this insight and the willingness to limit one’s own power. Democratic institutions provide enforceable safeguards where voluntary restraint fails. The analysis connects six equal-ranking basic needs—thinking, health, security, social inclusion, self-realization and participation, and meaning—with a political assessment of exclusion, discrimination and authoritarian promises of strength. Equal rights are affirmed independently of a person’s productivity or usefulness. What this paper adds: It integrates control, cognitive insight, self-discipline and institutional accountability into a single NMR-based political argument. It distinguishes personal self-restraint from enforceable limits on power and proposes practical measures and questions for empirical investigation. Its role in the series: The paper extends the anthropological and organism-oriented foundations of the NMR framework toward political conduct and democratic institutions, connecting individual self-steering with collective agency and the preservation of shared living conditions. The paper presents a theoretical proposal, not an empirically validated general explanation of prejudice or democratization. It was developed through dialogue with ChatGPT; the nature of this assistance is disclosed in the document.