Why Dignity is not the Foundation of Human Rights

Ratio Publica, 2023

This paper explores the possible relations between human dignity and human rights and identifies the appropriate account of the relations. There are at least three crucial issues concerning human dignity as a ground for human rights. The first is whether dignity is a useful notion for human rights. Some say dignity is a useless or incoherent notion by itself, while others say dignity cannot justify human rights because it cannot demonstrate why people have the rights equally. The paper rejects both of these. The second issue is about the connection between the two notions. Some say that support for dignity does not entail support for human rights, while others say that the support for human rights does not involve support for human dignity. Through examination, the paper supports the statement that the support for human rights entails the support for human dignity (primarily, the article supports the justification that grounds human rights, at least in part, on dignity). The third issue is that of grounding: How does human dignity ground human rights? Some claim capacities are appropriate for understanding dignity, while others claim that we should add vulnerabilities in understanding the notion when it grounds human rights. The paper offers a dualistic view that accommodates both by treating interests concerning agency and equality as grounds for human rights. Finally, the paper elucidates the advantages of dualism compared to the capacity-based pluralism recently posited by Pablo Gilabert.

The expression "human dignity" is nowadays commonly found in close proximity to that of "human rights", not only in official legal and political documents, but also in the discourse of political activists, lawyers, philosophers and ordinary citizens. We can distinguish at least three functions that invocations of human dignity perform in connection with human rights.

This paper challenges the claim that human dignity is not the foundation of human rights, but is rather a special kind of human right itself. The claim recognizes that human persons have a vulnerable and psychologically constructed identity called the Self which is continuously developed throughout their lifetime. Such a claim relies on moral Contractualism as the basis for human rights and the Self is said to be an integral part of the human person such that she both demands that it remain free from serious insult while agreeing to refrain from insulting any other person’s Self. The argument for human dignity as a right will be critiqued for too quickly dismissing alternative accounts of dignity which place it as the foundation, rather than a result of human rights. Dignity is, by definition, that which makes one worthy rather than the result of being worthy. Therefore, dignity is not the kind of thing which can be the result of human rights. Dignity is best understood as the foundation of human rights as articulated by the theory of “attribution-dignity” which argues that people have dignity based on their status as human beings. Human beings possess a self, and dignity is constituted by the possession of the Self by humans, rather than their demand that the Self which they possess be protected.

Human Rights Review

In this article, I intend to reframe and qualify Kant's moral philosophy for the understanding human dignity. Some Kant's formulas seem to grant to the human being an inherent and absolute worthiness, when they are read (often) in a very decontextualized way. To achieve this objective, I identify the basic characteristics we commonly attribute to the contemporary model of human dignity. This model has some expressions in the axio-logical field (inherent and absolute worth), and, at the same time, in the legal-political field (cornerstone of human rights and guiding principle of the Rule of law). I intend to see if we can find some of these latter characteristics in the mentioned usages that Kant gives to the term " dignity " and of formulas supposedly connected (" end in itself " , " autonomy " , " humanity "). When contextualizing these expressions, either in the motivations or in the results of Kant's philosophy, I arrived to the conclusion that Kant was less concerned with the intrinsic worthiness of the human beings, than with establishing the authority of morality.

This Chapter explores four prominent objections to the overarching role that human dignity plays in constitutional and human rights law. In the eyes of its critics, human dignity is objectionable because it (1) is too variable to be captured by a coherent constitutional theory; (2) stands in opposition to a liberal vision of constitutional governance; (3) fails to offer guidance for resolving constitutional disputes; and (4) is incapable of justifying anything until it is itself justified. My aim is to unearth the presuppositions that generate these objections, explain why these presuppositions are controversial, and to formulate a set of plausible alternatives that do not give rise to these objections. Since the leading objections stem from presuppositions that need not be accepted, these objections do not preclude the formulation of a comparative constitutional theory of human dignity.

Global Jurist Topics, 2000

The concept of Human Dignity has become more and more prevalent in legal, moral and philosophical discourses. However, as much as linguistic functions of the concept have become widespread, its meanings have become ambiguous and blurred. This paper seeks to map and depict the main functions and meanings that the concept of human dignity encompass, and, hence, to enable both those concerned with law and its interpretation, and moral-philosophers to discern the different linguistic-spheres and the different meanings this concept encircle. The analysis will show that the meanings of human dignity are socially constructed in accordance with particular cultural and historical contexts. There is no one "true" meaning of human dignity, but rather different levels of "thickness" and "thinness" that are culturally determined in each society. The paper advances insights regarding the use of human dignity in both the legal parlance -as a justification for human rights in legal documents; and in the moral-philosophical parlance -as compared to a worldview on the one hand, and as related to humiliation on the other.

Perspectives on Human Dignity (Springer, 2007), 43 - 58.

This paper explores two conceptions of dignity - a traditional one and a more modern one - and explores the question of whether our contemporary notions of dignity provide a coherent foundation for the idea of human rights. The version here was later revised for publication in Jeff Malpas and Norelle Lickiss (eds) Perspectives on Human Dignity, Springer 2007)