Human Rights and Human Dignity

Why should all human beings have certain rights simply by virtue of being human? One justification is an appeal to religious authority. However, in increasingly secular societies this approach has its limits. An alternative answer is that human rights are justified through human dignity. This paper argues that human rights and human dignity are better separated for three reasons. First, the justification paradox: the concept of human dignity does not solve the justification problem for human rights but rather aggravates it in secular societies. Second, the Kantian cul-de-sac: if human rights were based on Kant’s concept of dignity rather than theist grounds, such rights would lose their universal validity. Third, hazard by association: human dignity is nowadays more controversial than the concept of human rights, especially given unresolved tensions between aspirational dignity and inviolable dignity. In conclusion, proponents of universal human rights will fare better with alternative frameworks to justify human rights rather than relying on the concept of dignity.     

人的尊严与生命伦理

“尊严”是频繁出现在生命伦理学中的一个概念,但关国学者麦克琳却在最近认为,尊严在生命伦理学中是个无用的概念,可以毫无损失地用其它概念,比如尊重人的自主性概念所代替。反驳了麦克琳的观点,定义了尊严的含义,认为生命伦理学的使命就是在当代生命科技高度发达的情况下如何尊重和保护人的尊严。     

Grounding Human Dignity

Abstract: What is the future of human dignity? Is there a limit on what can be done to human organisms? To approach such questions this article reviews some traditional understandings of human dignity and then offers a shift in perspective. Traditional areas in which human dignity has been grounded include the doctrine of the image of God, the notion of humanity as a reconciliation of opposites, the chronological place of humans in the process of creation, God's free grace, and the human capacity for union with the divine. Maintaining that dignity is reserved for the later stages of human development, the author suggests we shift our thinking from notions of dignity to those of value. A fertilized egg as a living organism is to be valued for its uniqueness and nature, but it does not acquire dignity until it individualizes within the larger process of embryogenesis.     

Human Dignity and Assisted Dying

The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in its preamble, affirms ‘the inherent dignity and … the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family’ as ‘the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world’. However, advocates of assisted dying have proposed that human dignity is not inherent and that individuals should be able to determine their own dignity and quality of life. In response to this, it is suggested that persons who consider that their lives are no longer worth living, or believe that they have lost their ‘dignity’, are discriminating against themselves. Moreover, with assisted dying, as opposed to suicide, another person must also believe that it would be preferable for a person wishing to die not to continue living. In other words, assisted dying is a reflection of the unacceptable belief by a person that human dignity is not inherent and that another person can lose his or her dignity to such an extent that his or her life is no longer worth living and should be ended.     

论生命伦理学中的人的尊严概念

人的尊严概念亟需得到清晰说明。在生命伦理学语境中,人的尊严可以在三种意义上合理地使用,即人类物种的尊严、普遍尊严和获得性尊严。人类物种的尊严是作为一个整体的人类物种所拥有的尊严,它的基础是人类物种的典型本质,它的道德要求是保护人类的本质不受侵蚀。个体层面的尊严分为普遍尊严和获得性尊严。普遍尊严是每个人平等具有的道德地位,为全体人类成员赋予了平等的基本权利。获得性尊严是每个人通过体现了人类卓越性的行为在不同程度上获得的。它不是一种道德地位,但可以给人树立更高的道德目标。     

God's Free Grace and the Freedom of the Church: Theological Aspects of the Barmen Declaration

This article explores the fundamental theological decisions of the ‘six evangelical truths’ of the Barmen Theological Declaration of 1934 on the occasion of its 75th anniversary. Seeing it in close proximity to the theology of Karl Barth, the essay considers in turn the substance and ongoing significance of the Declaration's reaffirmation of the First Commandment, its iteration of the threefold form of the Word of God, its repudiation of natural theology, its ringing affirmation of the positive freedom of the church and, finally, its ecumenical importance as an impulse to Christian unity.     

Dignity,Torture, and Human Rights

This paper focuses on a distinct puzzle for understanding the relationship between dignity and human rights. The puzzle is that dignity appears to enter human rights theory in two distinct roles: on the one hand, dignity is commonly pointed to as the foundation of human rights, i.e. that in virtue of which we have human rights. On the other hand, dignity is commonly pointed to as that which is at risk in a subset of human rights, paradigmatically torture. But how can dignity underpin all human rights, and yet only be at stake in very specific human rights violations? And if dignity is lost in torture, how can the tortured retain their human rights? In this paper I offer a solution to these puzzles, in the form of a new theory of dignity. On this new theory, an individual’s dignity can be constituted via either of two pathways: the agent’s own normative competencies, or the authority of her community. The former is what’s typically at stake in practices such as torture; it in virtue of the latter that we have human rights.     

The Moral Depth of Human Dignity

In 1971, Herbert Spiegelberg challenged philosophers to refine and deepen the vivid idea of human dignity to prevent its degeneration. Although philosophers, including Michael Rosen and Jeremy Waldron, have responded with valuable insights, the full moral depth of dignity has remained philosophically elusive. Furthermore, many philosophers still think human dignity a limited ethical concept. By integrating important alienable and inalienable dimensions of human dignity, this essay attempts to do justice to our vivid contemporary experience of dignity's moral depth. It seeks to illuminate the profound, universal worth of all humans, and the ethical force of human rights protections.     

The Relational Structure of Human Dignity

This article argues that received accounts of the concept of human dignity face more difficulties than has been appreciated, when explaining the connection between human dignity and the duty of respect that dignity is supposed to generate. It also argues that a novel, relational, account has the adequate structure to explain such connection.     

论人的尊严之向度

人的尊严是人之为人的基本属性和内在价值,它在哲学上具有两个向度,即人的尊严一方面是普遍性的,这是确保人的生存地位的基本尊严,是人之为人的根本标志。作为普遍性的人的尊严是授予性的,是平等的、客观的,这是人所共有的生物性使然。另一方面,人的尊严又是独特性的,是我之为我的特殊符号,这是由于每个人在后天的自我发展中都会凸显个我性。作为独特性的人的尊严是获得性的,是差异的、主观的、相对的,这是人所区别的社会性使然。作为独特性的尊严,既可获得,使之丰厚、高尚,也可丧失,使之薄寡、卑劣。     

The Political Ecology of Dignity: Human Dignity and the Inevitable Returns of Animality

Human dignity names a two‐tier political ecology: one moral‐political community whose members bear a special status of inviolability, and another larger community where violence and degradation are routine. Because ecological relations are never uni‐directional, the routinized violence that “belongs” in interactions with nonhuman animals returns, normalizing violence across gendered, racialized, and politicized lines of human difference. An account of dignity that begins from creaturely vulnerability rather than anthropological exceptionalism not only better expresses key theological insights of the Christian tradition, it also resists the repressed and disavowed violence generated by prevalent accounts of dignity.     

Human Rights and Human Dignity: A Reply to Doris Schroeder

According to Doris Schroeder, the view that human rights derive from human dignity should be rejected. She thinks that this is the case for three different reasons: the first has to do with the fact that the dominant concept of dignity is based on religious beliefs which will do no justificatory work in a secular society; the second is that the dominant secular view of dignity, which is the Kantian view, does not provide us with a justification of human rights, i.e. rights all humans have; and the third reason has to do with the fact that dignity is understood in too many different ways to provide us with a justification of human rights. It is argued in this paper that none of these reasons for separating human rights from human dignity is convincing. It is true, it will be argued, that some accounts of dignity will not be successful in justifying human rights. But there is no reason to assume that no account of human dignity is capable of doing this. In the final part of the paper a concept of human dignity is presented that could indeed provide us with a justificatory basis for human rights.     

守卫人类的神圣与尊严

主要由基因技术实施导致的人类自然身体的技术化,以及由智能技术完成的人类智力和精神的技术化,正在将人类的身和心推向双重的非自然化,使人类生命的神圣与尊严受到严重的挑战。守卫人类身体的自然本真,守卫人类大脑思维、意识的主体性,守卫人类与生俱来独有的人格特征,守卫人是目的而非工具的底线,是当代医学伦理学和生命伦理学面临的紧迫任务,是保卫人类神圣与尊严的要旨,也是发展生命技术不可逾越的红线。大力发展那些不伤害、不是再造人类生命自然本真的弱高新生命技术,为预防和治疗那些遗传性和复杂性疾病服务,抑制那些旨在再造人类生命的强高新生命技术,是发展生命技术策略的最佳选择。