human dignity essay pdf

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5 Understanding Human Dignity in Human Rights

• Published: November 2018
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This chapter offers an interpretation of the idea of human dignity that explains how it can play certain valuable roles in human rights discourse. The idea contributes to the articulation of a distinctive set of norms that are universalist and humanist, the justification of specific human rights, the grounding of the great normative force of these rights, the combined generation of both negative and positive duties correlative to them, the explanation of the significance of political struggles against their violation, and the illumination of the arc of humanist justice running from basic requirements mandating people’s access to a decent life to maximal requirements to support people’s access to a flourishing life. The idea of human dignity is articulated through a conceptual network that includes an organic set of more specific ideas. These ideas include status-dignity, condition-dignity, dignitarian norms, the basis of dignity, the circumstances of dignity, and dignitarian virtue.

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A History of Human Dignity (public facing essay in The Forum)

2018, The Forum

Related Papers

Zaynab El Bernoussi

Filimon Peonidis

Ethiki, Journal of Philosophy

Eleni Kalokairinou

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

What exactly is dignity? Do its different connotations hang together in any principled way? Does dignity understood as "universal human worth", for example, have any meaningful connection to "social rank" or "personal integrity"? Is dignity primarily a moral concept or a political and legal one? Even assuming we can make sense of its different meanings, what does dignity demand of us? What does it mean to recognize or respect it? Does it ground rights? If so, which ones? And where does the idea of dignity come from? What, in other words, is its history? This entry takes up these questions. The goal is to provide a general guide to existing theory and debate, with a focus on philosophical approaches to human dignity, and mostly as it figures into the western tradition. (Direct Link: https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=dignity)

Obnovljeni život

Kateryna Rassudina

The concept “dignity” is neither clear nor unambiguous. The author presents two ways in which to typologise this concept as proposed by Daniel P. Sulmasy and Adam Rodziński. The problem is that different philosophers attach different meanings (types) to the term. The author tries to analyse these meanings, which have taken shape in the course of the history of Western philosophy, and also to provide a short review on the development of its most common contemporary interpretation which equates dignity with the presence of autonomy.

Human Affairs

Vasil Gluchman

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.

Richard McClelland

Global Jurist Topics

Doron Shultziner

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

Andrew Brennan

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)

Journal of Bioethical Inquiry

Bernard Baertschi

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A Brief History of Human Dignity: Idea and Application

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• Milton Lewis  

1994 Accesses

7 Citations

Although the explicit application of the idea of human dignity in international politics and law is very recent, its roots stretch back to the early stages of Western civilization. Two characteristics of the West are important as preconditions for the development of the idea: the West’s belief in the universal validity of its norms and its eventual basing of its norms in secular principles.

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University of Tasmania, Australia

Jeff Malpas

University of Tasmania and University of Sydney, Australia

Norelle Lickiss

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Lewis, M. (2007). A Brief History of Human Dignity: Idea and Application. In: Malpas, J., Lickiss, N. (eds) Perspectives on Human Dignity: A Conversation. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6281-0_8

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The Concept of Human Dignity in Human Rights Discourse

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On the Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for the Emergence of the Doctrine of the Dignity of Man and His Rights

‘dignity of man’ and ‘ persona ’ in stoic anthropology: some remarks on cicero, de officiis i, 105–107, legal roots of human dignity in german law, blood and the image of god: on the sanctity of life in biblical and early rabbinic law, myth, and ritual, can ethical maxims be derived from theological concepts of human dignity, human dignity in a rabbinical perspective, the founding function of human dignity in the universal declaration of human rights, human dignity in international law, human dignity as a constitutional value, human dignity in german law, human dignity in israeli jurisprudence, the religious and philosophical background of human dignity and its place in modern constitutions, dignity as a modern virtue, humiliation, dignity and self-respect, honor and dignity cultures: the case of kavod and kvod ha-adam in israeli society and law, honor, dignity and the framing of multiculturalist values, list of contributors, table of contents, share link with colleague or librarian, product details.

• Human Rights
• Public International Law

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• Human Rights and Humanitarian Law - Book Archive 2000-2005
• Brill Book Archive Part 1

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