Rights that call for duties: Simone Weil and the need for a declaration of obligations toward the human being

Abstract

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights constitutes one of the major ethical and legal consensuses of the twentieth century. Yet its contemporary reception is frequently marked by a separation between the affirmation of rights and the assumption of duties. This article offers a philosophical and didactic reflection on the need to recover the category of obligation toward the human being, drawing especially on Simone Weil's L’Enracinement, a work conceived as a prelude to a declaration of duties toward the person. From a hermeneutic-critical perspective, the article argues that human rights are not weakened when they are linked to duties; rather, duties constitute their ethical, social, and institutional condition of possibility. Human dignity therefore appears as the common foundation of both rights and obligations. Particular attention is given to the categories of safeguarding the human and safeguarding truth, understood as fundamental educational and civic tasks. Finally, the article proposes a didactic application for Social Sciences Education, including an assessment rubric designed to evaluate students’ conceptual understanding, critical argumentation, and pedagogical transfer.