The Call of Concrete Moral Conscience: Another Latin American Contribution to the Idea of Human Rights

Abstract

In this article, I argue that the contribution of the Latin American tradition of human rights includes, but does not limit itself, to being a crucible to unite different doctrinal trends in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; a contribution already recognized by Mary Ann Glendon. Besides this unifying function and the concomitant emphasis on common humanity, the Latin American tradition raises, since Bartolomé de Las Casas's defense of Amerindians, the question of concrete moral conscience. This conscience rests on an original aperture towards the Other; it conveys a sense of original responsibility towards the Other. These further Latin American contributions emerge from the need of addressing the challenge of structural injustice. This task requires an honest commitment to abandon, or at least to profoundly modify, some assumptions about the structure of the subject of human rights. This task can be developed guided by the ideas of Emmanuel Levinas. This philosopher urges us to work with an original sense of the rights of the Other that, in my opinion, represents an answer to the call for moral concrete conscience that makes distinct Latin American ethical thought.