Ethics and abolitionist argumentation: (notes to a José do Patrocínio text)

Abstract

This text aims to analyze some movements of designation and argumentation in the Manifest of the Abolitionist Confederation of Rio de Janeiro, by José do Patrocínio, from 1883, aiming to create conditions to reflect on the consideration of ethical values, based on specific semantic analyzes. The analysis will be made on clippings of the text, on three fundamental points: 1. the urban space of Rio de Janeiro as a scenario of the struggle for abolition; 2. the argument about abolition from the natural freedom argument. 3. the relation of the way of establishing the concept of freedom, in the text, and the question of ethical values. These analyzes seek to find in the enunciation of the text the constitution of meanings based on the argument of freedom as an imprescriptible natural right, and the designation of freedom in the text. In this way, it seeks to understand how the sense of equality can be considered, according to the text, a fundamental ethical value. The analysis concludes, among other things, that freedom appears less in the text as a characteristic that describes the society of the time, and more as a value, as in the plan of the should be, and as such a value that projects a being, one is, future. And the consideration of the value of freedom means equality as a value that guarantees the value of freedom for all.