There are and have been multiple theories concerning human dignity across the years; but there is no definitive consensus on what constitutes human dignity within western civilzation. For example, status is the foundation of most if not all religious arguments involving human dignity. As the catechism of the Catholic Church says, this is because “the dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God.”1 It is a theory that bases itself upon a god given status, which in turn promotes one’s position in the world. But as such, it is not without controversy. As many societies experienced, such a foundational definition was often used to justify the position (status) of kings and princes and the like–and their accompanying means—over, say, craftsman or other subjects. It is why philosophers across the ages have tried to ground a more universal definition in politics or community (Aristotle), in philosophical arguments involving humans having the innate ability to choose (Kant), and in human rights granted by the nation (Burke).
This may well be why most people and the hundreds of human rights organizations around the world tend to view human dignity in terms of human and civil rights. A person can readily think of the various United Nations documents and various conventions, or the specific pieces of civil rights legislation in the United States. But on close analysis, even those documents fail to account for the substantive belief most people have that they are possessed of something called "dignity” or even the complexity of what might be involved in living a dignified human existence. The United Nations
has admitted such in its “Human Rights in Action,” claiming “doctrines of national security and sovereignty were often invoked to conceal, excuse or justify human rights abuses.” Because of this recognition, the United Nations recommended “a newly emphasized right to development, which can provide the basis for a strategy for a more comprehensive human rights programme.”
It may also be why, more recently, legal theorists have tried to find a more foundational explanation of human dignity that develops from a bottom up, rather than top down, methodology. Rejecting the notions of natural or inalienable rights, theorists such as Dworkin and Waldron tried to ground and explain human dignity in terms of the meanings that have come through various conventions, constitutions, and legal rulings: for example, the United Nations Charter (1945), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and West German constitutional Basic Law (1949).2
But this raises additional problems, as Waldron noted when referencing Neomi Rao:
At least one scholar has argued that if we treat dignity as the foundation of rights, we are likely to end up with different conceptions of rights matching different conceptions of dignity. This, she suggests, may already be happening so far as constitutional alternatives on the two sides of the Atlantic are concerned.3
This recognition leaves us in a very difficult position. Acknowledging the increasing
importance of human dignity to philosophers
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Briefing ...
Western Notions of Dignity