Abstract This paper argues that the concept of dignity should be understood as a concept that we use to describe an aggregate of values and qualities of a person or thing that deserves esteem and respect. The primary value that creates the right to have dignity is life. The degree of dignity a life form has depends on its place in the evolutionary scale. Human beings are the highest form of life so they possess the highest degree of dignity.
Suzanne Killmister sets out an original approach to understanding dignity, not according to the dominant conception as an inherent feature of all human beings, but in terms of the norms to which we hold ourselves and others. She argues for a tripartite conception, comprised of personal dignity, social dignity, and status dignity.
In everything from philosophical ethics to legal argument to public activism, it has become commonplace to appeal to human dignity. Dignity refers to the fundamental moral worth or status supposedly belonging to all persons equally. But this is relatively new. In this volume, leading scholars across a range of disciplines attempt to clarify the variegated and murky history of "dignity," and explain how it arrived it is current and historically unusual meaning.
This special issue investigates the meaning of justice and dignity and how they have changed over time. What do we mean by human dignity? How do we understand and interpret that meaning? How has it evolved? Showcasing a selection of papers responding to this critical central question, the authors delve into issues such as the foundational roles of justice and dignity in practical philosophy and the idea that human dignity must be understood as the right to be recognized as a participant in the institutional practice of human and fundamental rights, analysing how this modern conception was incorporated into the practice of human rights after Auschwitz as a response to a crisis in the modern model of the practice of rights. Furthermore, the authors study examples of misinterpretation of the philosophical term and historical concept of human dignity in contemporary legal theory and practice alongside Kant's notion of human dignity, that is understood as a novel 'care of the self'. Self-violation of dignity and the exposure to violation by others - thoughtlessly or intentionally - gives way to an exploration of the language of anti-violence activists, university coordinators, and due process activists concerned with Title IX and campus sexual violence. Providing a comprehensive look at historic and contemporary meanings of human dignity, this edited collection is an appealing read for scholars interested in the intersection of dignity with philosophy, law, human rights, legal theory, social theory, and more.
Dignity, as equal high standing characterized by nonhumiliation and noninfantilization, is democracy's third core value. Along with liberty and equality, it is a necessary condition for collective self-governance. Dignity enables robust exercise of liberty and equality while resisting both neglectful libertarianism and paternalistic egalitarianism. The civic dignity required for democracy is specified through a taxonomy of incompletely and fully moralized forms of dignity. Distinctive features of different regimes of dignity are modeled by simple games and illustrated by historical case studies. Unlike traditional meritocracy and universal human dignity, a civic dignity regime is theoretically stable in a population of self-interested social agents. It is real-world stable because citizens are predictably well motivated to defend those threatened with indignity and because they have resources for effective collective action against threats to dignity. Meritocracy and civic dignity are not inherently liberal, but may persist within a liberal democracy committed to universal human dignity.
This inaguaral address shows the links between democracy and dignity. The discussion proceeds from ethics to political science, and then to history. Ober begin by sketching a neo-classical theory of civic dignity. The goal is to show how a concern for defending dignity among citizens yields rules and cultural habits for a stable democracy. At the end, Ober turns to the historical practice of democracy and dignity in classical Greece.i
We often speak of the dignity owed to a person. And dignity is a word that regularly appears in political speeches. Charters are promulgated in its name, and appeals to it are made when people all over the world struggle to achieve their rights. But what exactly is dignity? When one person physically assaults another, we feel the wrong demands immediate condemnation and legal sanction. Whereas when one person humiliates or thoughtlessly makes use of another, we recognize the wrong and hope for a remedy, but the social response is less clear. The injury itself may be hard to quantify. Given our concern with human dignity, it is odd that it has received comparatively little scrutiny. Here, George Kateb asks what human dignity is and why it matters for the claim to rights. He proposes that dignity is an "existential" value that pertains to the identity of a person as a human being. To injure or even to try to efface someone's dignity is to treat that person as not human or less than human--as a thing or instrument or subhuman creature. Kateb does not limit the notion of dignity to individuals but extends it to the human species. The dignity of the human species rests on our uniqueness among all other species
In: ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAW, PART OF THE INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF ESSAYS IN LAW AND LEGAL THEORY, 2nd Series, Christopher McCrudden, ed., Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing, 2004, reprinted from (2003)