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A Concept of Dignity*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2013

Meir Dan-Cohen
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Abstract

The concept of dignity I discuss has two main historical sources: the religious, biblical idea of humanity's resemblance to God, and the philosophical, Kantian view of human autonomy. I offer an interpretation of the two sources that highlights a common ground, and then point to some aberrations that may result from confounding theological or metaphysical issues with the concept of dignity and its normative implications.

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Articles
Information
Israel Law Review , Volume 44 , Issue 1-2: Symposium: Human Dignity and the Criminal Law , 2011 , pp. 9 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2011

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Footnotes

**

Milo Reese Robbins Chair in Legal Ethics, University of California at Berkeley School of Law.

*

This essay is an expanded version of the opening talk given at the Human Dignity and Criminal Law Symposium held at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on 5-6 January 2009.

References

1 Pinker, Stephen, The Stupidity of Dignity: Conservative Bioethics' Latest, Most Dangerous Ploy, The New Republic (May 28, 2008, 12:00 AM), http://www.tnr.com/article/the-stupidity-dignityGoogle Scholar. The subsequent quotes are from this article.

2 See Debes, Remy, Dignity's Gauntlet, 23 Philosophical Perspectives 45 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Debes canvasses a range of different conceptions of dignity and concludes that “there is no single concept of ‘dignity.’” Id. at 61. He nonetheless maintains that “a conscientious metatheory about what dignity is, might remedy the manifest ambiguity in how we talk about it.” Id. at 47. I have no objection to such a project, but pending its successful completion one might prefer to reserve judgment.

3 Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (Eliot, George trans., Harper & Row 1957) (1841)Google Scholar.

4 With an apology to my bearded friends.

5 Karl Barth summarizes Feuerbach's view as holding “that man is not only the measure of all things, but also the epitome, the origin and end of all values.” See Karl Barth, Introduction, in Feuerbach, supra note 3, at x, xxviii.

6 The derivation or, to use Kant's term, deduction of human dignity that I sketch here is Kantian even if it is not quite Kant's. My aim is not to contribute to Kant scholarship (I leave this to the experts) but to elucidate the concept of dignity. Kantian themes are indispensable tools; no less, but no more. Also, like many others, I appeal exclusively to Kant's moral theory, which is where he develops the idea of human dignity. Consequently, I ignore the difficulties that arise in translating this moral notion into political and legal terms.

7 Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals 90, 96–97 (Paton, Herbert James ed. & trans., Hutchinson 1976) (1948/1785)Google Scholar.

8 For a particularly acute version of this strand, see Korsgaard, Christine M., The Sources of Normativity (O'Neill, Onora ed., 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 For an illuminating discussion of Kant's uses of “intelligible” in this connection, see Allison, Henry E., Kant's Theory of Freedom 214–29 (1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 See, e.g., Paton, Herbert James, The Categorical Imperative: A Study in Kant's Moral Philosophy 189 (University of Pennsylvania Press 1971) (1947)Google Scholar.

11 Cf Bird, Colin, Status, Identity, and Respect, 32 Political Theory 207, 213 (2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (“To recognize persons as self-legislators in a Kantian sense just is to recognize a kind of authority that they bear.”).

12 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Dignitas Personae on Certain Bioethical Questions (2008) available at http://ww.usccb.org/comm/Dignitaspersonae/Dignitas_Personae.pdf.

13 Id. at 1.

14 Human Dignity and Bioethics: Essays Commissioned by the President's Council on Bioethics (2008) available at http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/pcbe/reports/human_dignity/human_dignity_and_bioethics.pdfGoogle Scholar.

15 See supra note 1.

16 This is not surprising in light of the composition of the Council, which, as Pinker points out, consisted for the most part of religious scholars. Id.

17 See Raz, Joseph, The Morality of Freedom 380 (1986)Google Scholar.

18 For a discussion of this notion in a different context, see Raz supra note 17, at 35-37.

19 I discuss these issues in somewhat greater detail in Dan-Cohen, Meir, Defending Dignity, in Harmful Thoughts: Essays on Law, Self, and Morality (2002)Google Scholar.

20 See Congregation, supra note 12, at 3 (“The body of a human being, from the very first stages of its existence, can never be reduced merely to a group of cells.”).

21 It may be objected that the example does not reveal the gap I claim, since it can be said that what Mary does, though in some ways injurious to the body, is designed to heal John's body, and so does not require a shift from body-talk to person-talk. I do not find this objection persuasive in this case; talk of healing the body is to use “body” as a metonym for the person. But if you are troubled by the example, think of electrical shocks, psychoactive drugs, and brain dissection, where the body is interfered with for the sake of healing the mind.

22 For a general discussion of the issues involved, see, for example, Radin, Margaret Jane, Contested Commodities (2001)Google Scholar.

23 della Mirandola, Giovanni Pico, Oration on the Dignity of Man (Caponigri, A. Robert trans., Washington, DC, Regnery Gateway 1956)Google Scholar.