Abstract

The debate on human rights is one of the themes that Ricoeur discusses, in Oneself as Another, while examining the practical wisdom and the dialectic that characterizes it between “the requirement of universality” and “the recognition of contextual limitations”. This shows, above all, his awareness both of the difficulty and the importance of justifying the protection of fundamental freedoms and capacities, in particular considering the accusations of eurocentrism that this struggle has received. He was convinced that one cannot remain indifferent to the “cry of the victims”: the constitutive vulnerability of human beings requires a defence which must cross the political borders. However, the concept of “humanity” in this context remains problematic, especially in a hermeneutical framework. In order to find a clearer foundation for this thesis, we will look for fruitful elements in a dialogue with Martha Nussbaum’s theory of “capabilities” and in Ricoeur’s early phenomenology of the will.