El irresistible ascenso del derecho a la vida. Razón humanitaria y justicia social

Abstract

During the recent decades, in the general economy of human rights, the right to life has taken a crucial place, whereas the economic and social rights have become secondary. This evolution occurred in an almost invisible way as the moral obviousness of the value of human life imposed itself in an apparently consensual manner in the international public space. On the basis of a case study about the social drama of AIDS in South Africa, I attempt to show how two ethical communities constituted around these two rights entered in conflict. Broadening the analysis to other situations, I propose the concept of biolegitimacy, the legitimacy of “mere life”, in Walter Benjamin’s words, not through the study of its metaphysical foundations as he does, but examining the anthropological meaning of the progressive substitution of humanitarian reason to social justice.