An approach to Levinas and Human Rights (or how postmodernity can surprise us)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4013/5140Abstract
The article investigates the possibilities of an ethical foundation for Human Rights on the basis of the thinking of Emmanuel Lévinas thought. Levinas’ new ethical proposal makes it possible to develop a new foundation for Human Rights, which are no longer grounded on the essential ontological constitution of humankind, but on a new philosophy of otherness, which constitutes an asymmetrical movement which goes from the self to the other and never from the other to the self. Starting from these premises, the idea of human community is established by the language between brothers, in which fraternity as an inter-subjective phenomenon caused by the irruption of the other in being implies to situate metaphysics on the social level. Finally, the paper points out the need of approximation between human beings and, as a consequence, the idea of equality as a fundamental pillar of justice.
Key words: foundation of Human Rights, ethics, otherness.Downloads
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