Da revolução inacabada à guerra ética: Bensaïd como defensor e crítico dos direitos humanos.

Abstract

This article intends to approach the work of  Daniel Bensaid exposing the main reflections and critical contribu - tions to the instrumental use of Human Rights. Using the deductive  repertoire, and based on the textual revision by the militant-philos opher, the article (i) demonstrates how the theme of Human Rights  crosses the work of Bensaid, marked by the conjuncture and artic ulating with other great themes of his life, exposing the elementary bases of his formulation; (ii) it shows how much Human Rights are perceived in his work as an unfinished bourgeois promise, which demand its recognition as a progressive, at the same time limited,  landmark of the political dispute in modernity; (iii) highlights how it  manifested itself in the course of the French Revolution in particular  with regard to non-owners, enslaved and women; also signaling (iv) the way in which at different socio-historical moments the defense of Human Rights is instrumentalized as a way of imperialist affir mation, demanding particular and careful approaches in contem porary times, especially in view of the escalation of what he called  “ethical war”.