Solidarity as an essential value at the foundation of human rights

Abstract

This article explains in what sense solidarity can be understood as an essential value at the foundation of human rights, firstly, by contrasting the view that it is a value of individual ethics with its understanding as a value of Public Ethics; and then, by contrasting the predominant neoliberal assumptions in our society with the assumptions behind the understanding of solidarity as an essential value at the foundation of human rights. Thus, it concludes with the need to attend to the balance that must be understood to exist between the values of the Public Ethics of Modernity.