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.     

Hysteria and Humiliation

The phenomena of hysteria are first considered from a historical perspective that emphasizes the role of domination and power relations between the sexes. This permits an examination of the dynamics and impact of humiliation in interpersonal relations on the formation of hysteric symptomatology. Humiliation is viewed as having a powerful deleterious effect on the development of the capacity to think and feel in a coherent and meaningful manner. The relationship between humiliation and hysteria is explored theoretically and illustrated with clinical material that emphasizes developmental dynamics through which relationally based injuries fracture the ability to know and communicate one's experience.     

On Dignity,a Sense of Dignity,and Inspirational Shame

ABSTRACT

The word dignity encompasses more than we can say of it. It is difficult to define, and yet we work with it every day in our offices. I explore various ideas about dignity, and then examine the place of dignity in the process of analysis and therapy. I draw out psychological components of dignity that are often strong themes in our psychoanalytic work. Many patients come to therapy as a result of assaults on their dignity, or from the effects of family situations that are so corrosive that they never developed a sense of their own dignity. For these patients, I think of therapy as a process of either finding or restoring dignity.     

Political Humiliation and Conversion

In this article, I explore political humiliation and its relation to conversion, as seen in the autobiographies of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. In brief, I argue that before and during the time that Martin Luther King and Malcolm X lived, political structures, laws, policies, and programs gave rise to and supported social behaviors and communications of the dominant group that were aimed at humiliating a subjugated, marginalized group—African-Americans. These experiences of political humiliation served to motivate Malcolm X and Martin Luther King to make changes in their religious commitments and attitudes. I argue further that their conversions, while different in a number of ways, cannot simply be understood as religious acts. Rather, their conversions represent political-religious acts that involved a turning away from the individual and social political subjugation to acts of political resistance against the pervasive barrage of humiliations at the hands of whites. Their political-religious acts of resistance also included a redemptive telos, which was a quest for a present and future political, social, and religious realization of human dignity and freedom.     

Dignity,Disability, and Lifespan

In the Paraplegia Case, we must choose either to preserve the life of a paraplegic for 10 years or that of someone in full health for the same duration. Non‐consequentialists reject a benefit‐maximising view, which holds that since the person in full health will have a higher quality of life, we ought to save him straightaway. In the Unequal Lifespan Case, we face a choice between saving one person for 5 years in full health and another for 25 years in full health. Frances Kamm has recently unfurled an Equal Respect Argument in an effort to support the position that while we ought to give each person a 50% chance of being saved in the Paraplegia Case, we are morally permitted to save straightaway the person who would live longer in the Unequal Lifespan case. The article tries to show that a Kant‐inspired account of the dignity of persons is far more successful than Kamm's argument in supporting this position. The Kant‐inspired account owes this success to its conceiving of respect for persons not primarily as respect for their pursuit of what is of value for them, but rather as respect for the value in them.     

Dignity,Capability, and Profound Disability

Martha Nussbaum has sought to establish the significance of disability for liberal theories of justice. She proposes that human dignity can serve as the basis of an entitlement to a set of capabilities that all human beings either possess or have the potential to develop. This article considers whether the concept of human dignity will serve as the justification for basic human capabilities in accounting for the demands of justice for people with profound learning difficulties and disabilities. It examines the relationship between dignity and capabilities, suggesting that Nussbaum fails to distinguish between several conceptions of human dignity, whilst also identifying one of these conceptions as coming close to meeting several of her demands. It is difficult enough, however, to show how dignity is related to just one of our basic entitlements, and even that requires more than the resources available in Nussbaum's approach.     

Hate Speech,Dignity and Self-Respect

This paper engages with the recent dignity-based argument against hate speech proposed by Jeremy Waldron. It’s claimed that while Waldron makes progress by conceptualising dignity less as an inherent property and more as a civic status which hate speech undermines, his argument is nonetheless subject to the problem that there are many sources of citizens’ dignitary status besides speech. Moreover, insofar as dignity informs the grounds of individuals’ right to free speech, Waldron’s argument leaves us balancing hate speakers’ dignity against the dignity of those whom they attack. I suggest instead that a central part of the harm of hate speech is that it assaults our self-respect. The reasons to respect oneself are moral reasons which can be shared with others, and individuals have moral reasons to respect themselves for their agency, and their entitlements. Free speech is interpreted not as an individual liberty, but as a collective enterprise which serves the interests of speakers and the receivers of speech. I argue that hate speech undermines the self-respect of its targets in both the agency and entitlement dimensions, and claim, moreover, that this is a direct harm which cannot be compensated for by other sources of self-respect. I further argue that hate speakers have no basis to respect themselves qua their hate speech, as self-respect is based on moral reasons. I conclude that self-respect, unlike dignity, is sufficient to explain the harm of hate speech, even though it may not be necessary to explain its wrongness.     

Dignity

Abstract

Empathie self‐transformation and a healing presence are key to successful therapy. Empathy, the willingness and ability to understand and care about the suffering of another person, requires a loving attitude. Love, in this context, is defined as joyful awareness, accompanied by a desire to nurture and to treasure. Empathie self‐transformation is a process of overcoming our personal barriers to feeling empathy and love for our client. Healing presence is a way of being with others that inspires confidence, security, hope and the opportunity to be understood and appreciated. The goal of therapy is to help clients maximize their ability to be empathie and loving toward themselves and others. In contrast, biological psychiatry views people as objects and suppresses their feelings, thus interfering with empathy and the creation of a healing presence.     

尊严:自尊、受尊重与尊重

尊严是个体的一种权利。尊严包括自尊、受尊重、尊重三个成分。早在上个世纪初,斯金纳就对尊严与个体的自由、自主,与社会的控制和公正的关系进行过认真的思考。后来的研究发现,尊严也与人们在社会互动中的能力、力量、权势、地位有关联。     

Political Animals: Luck, Love and Dignity

Human beings are both needy and dignified. How should we think about the relationship between our neediness and our worth? Card argues well that our vulnerability to luck is intertwined in the very conditions of moral agency. We can see the merit of her approach even more clearly by turning to some difficulties the Stoics have in preserving dignity while removing vulnerability. Stoicism does, however, help us to sort through the difficulties involved as we try to combine love of particular people with respect for all human life. Richardson is correct to suggest that love itself can animate the concern for all humanity; I also agree with him that institutions must play a major role in any solution to problems of inequality between nations. Although the “capabilities approach” offers an attractive account of one part of the goal of just political institutions, combining, as Moody-Adams suggests, respect for difference with a commitment to universal norms, I now believe that the capabilities account should be combined with a form of Rawlsian political liberalism that protects spaces within which citizens may pursue the good as they understand it.     

Pain,Suffering, and Humiliation: The Systemization of Violence in Kidnapping for Ransom

This study explores how violence is used to manipulate a victim during a kidnapping for ransom. A particular interest was to understand the degree of intensity, its pattern, and its function during the offense. To investigate, 181 kidnapping cases were examined from 32 countries, and 34 variables were identified that characterized violence toward the victim. A multidimensional scaling procedure was used to explore the structure of violence. Cruelty was found to be systematic and varied in the degree of intensity and focus. Kidnappers directed their attacks on the body or the psyche of the victim, and did so in a strategically calculated manner. This suggested that violence toward a victim is not random but a highly systemized form of torture.