Technologies of the Self and Subjectivity

Towards a minimum foundation of human rights

Abstract

This text presents an analysis of the meaning of human rights, conceived as a distinctive attribute inherent to human beings by virtue of their humanity. By critically examining this definition, the essay offers a reflection on the assumptions and potential risks of grounding human rights in the framework of natural law and in universalist conceptions of the human. Drawing upon Michel Foucault’s notions of technologies of the self, power, and biopolitics, the argument seeks to trace an alternative set of premises for rethinking the foundations of human rights. The central thesis posits that it is possible to articulate a minimal principle of intelligibility for human rights by reconstructing the notion of subjectivity developed by the French philosopher, particularly during the final years of his intellectual trajectory in the 1980s.