Sketch of a Theory of Duties in Times of Precariousness and Exclusion

Abstract

In recent decades the discourse of human rights has increased its hegemony, becoming adopted as an approach and tactic methodology by multiple actors, local and global. Our target in this paper aims to analyze the loss of legitimacy that the discourse of human rights being acquired. One of the main reasons is the lack of relevance that the concept of duty and responsibility acquire in many rights-discourses. For this purpose, we will make a brief tour throughout we consider the main symptoms that have contributed to a fragile culture of rights, as the weakness of the concept of rights; the breaking of solidarity bonds; the multiplication of antagonistic and incompatible discourses of rights; the emergence of a new culture of violence. All are symptoms that help to forge a neglect of duties as the irreducible core of human rights. We will finish this essay talking about the importance of the duties in our present time to reconstruct a critical speech on human rights, as well as suggesting some strategies for recovering them.