ABSTRACT
This article proposes to analyze the migratory conjuncture of the European Union from an ethical approach that takes into account the process of “inferiorization” of the other. With reference to European emigration to Latin America in the 15th and 16th centuries, the article aims to show some continuities between the “conquest of America”, as analyzed by Tzvetan Todorov and Henrique Dussel, and contemporary European migration policies. According to the author, a point of union between the two phenomena is the creation of a “selective ethic” that legitimizes human sacrifices and generalized rights violations, criminalizes the victims, considers them guilty of the violence received and their tormentors innocent. In a specific way, the process of softening religion and the devices that transform it into an instrument of legitimization of “selective ethics” are also analyzed. In this context of denial of the “egalité” of human beings, of the attempts to criminalize the “fraternitè” and the growth of displacements without any “liberté”, the aim is to recover a “universal ethic” that recognizes the dignity of each human being.
