The Kingdom of Ends as an Ideal and a Constraint on Moral Legislation

2021 ◽  
pp. 90-105
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Hill, Jr.

In this broadly Kantian account of deliberation about moral principles, human dignity is not a metaphysical ground for the norms that we associate with it. Rather it is a comprehensive status defined by the basic moral principles and values, such as the requirements of justifiability to all and treating humanity as an end in itself. The essay comments on the sense in which dignity is an elevated though inclusive status, in contrast to a conventional status, and an inner worth, in contrast to a derivative value. Human dignity has an important role in practical deliberations, but its specific requirements must be determined and justified by the theory in which it is embedded. Many have discussed the constraints and limits required to respect the dignity of every human person, but this essay emphasizes that this also calls for certain positive attitudes and ideals beyond these negative duties.

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (41) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirceu Pereira Siqueira ◽  
Maria Luiza De Souza Rocha ◽  
Rodrigo Ichikawa Claro Silva

RESUMOPauta-se por reflexões circundantes a determinados princípios e valores que alicerçam ordenamentos pretensamente promovedores da pessoa humana como eixo vital de proteção e fomento, em consonância com a efetivação de direitos, em especial aqueles primordiais ao núcleo medular da personalidade e dignidade humana, na contraposição de aspectos e influências que derruem a legitimidade social de certas escolhas políticas eivadas de intenções particulares antagônicas ao melhor interesse público. Visa promover certa conscientização pela necessidade de (re)consideração de determinadas atuações político-sociais, notadamente no âmbito legislativo, para que sejam debelados obstáculos os quais se opõem ao reconhecimento e à real participação de cada pessoa na formação de elementos garantidores do livre desenvolvimento da personalidade e de uma vivência digna a todos. No que concerne ao aspecto metodológico desenvolve-se este trabalho, principalmente, pelo método dedutivo, através de pesquisa bibliográfica em escritos componentes do direito, rumo à formulação de considerações pretensamente conclusivas acerca da temática posta ao debate.PALAVRAS-CHAVEDireitos fundamentais. Pluralismo. Desenvolvimento da personalidade. Dignidade humana. ABSTRACTIt is guided by reflections surrounding certain principles and values that underpin laws that are supposed to promote the human person as a vital axis of protection and promotion, in line with the realization of rights, especially those primordial to the core core of personality and human dignity, in contrast of aspects and influences that overturn the social legitimacy of certain political choices and of private intentions antagonistic to the best public interest. It aims to promote a certain awareness of the need to (re) consider certain political and social actions, especially in the legislative sphere, so that obstacles are overcome, which oppose the recognition and real participation of each person in the formation of elements guaranteeing the free development of personality and a worthy experience to all. As far as the methodological aspect is concerned, this work is developed mainly by the deductive method, through bibliographical research in written components of the law, towards the formulation of supposedly conclusive considerations about the subject matter under debate.KEYWORDSFundamental rights. Pluralism. Personality development. Human dignity


Diacovensia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-456
Author(s):  
Mislav Kutleša

The paper seeks to establish a relationship between bioethics and biopolitics in the context of elderly people. Although aging itself is not a phenomenon, the attitude towards elderly people is highlighted as a phenomenon. Given that they often lose their psychophysical abilities and are faced with personal limitations, they inevitably face both the value system and the treatment of society. In this sense, biopolitics is manifested as the force and power whose instruments allow it to transform and shape a new culture, however, not by independent work, but relying on the help of bioethics, whose main concern is the attitude towards human dignity, life and health. Contrary to the culture of materialism and consumerism, bioethics has the task to reawaken in the modern society the meaning and value of human nature as the basis of ethics and healthy biopolitics in order to raise awareness of virtues as part of the nature of the human person. This aims to highlight the ethics of virtues as a new paradigm of biopolitics because it corresponds to that original and primordial human.


2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 493-510
Author(s):  
Qianfan Zhang

This article discusses the Daoist contribution to the idea of human dignity in the classical Chinese philosophy, particularly in aspects that had been ignored by the Confucians and the Moists. By criticizing the traditional morality and reviving the faith in a primitive, self-sufficient life, Laozi and Zhuangzi add an important dimension to the classical understanding of human dignity: individual freedom, particularly the freedom of living under minimum burden, direction, and oppression of the state. By comparing the Daoist conception of human dignity with those of the Confucians and Moists, the article concludes that all three classical schools, if rationally construed, should support the view that the establishment of a liberal constitutional scheme is necessary to preserve and protect minimum/basic dignity in both physical and spiritual well-being of every human person who lives in a modern society.


2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakobus M. Vorster

In die huweliksetiek van die postmoderne era pleit verskeie christelike teoloë vir ’n eietydse inkleding van die huwelikskonsep. As beginpunt word die standpunt oorweeg dat daar nie sprake van ’n sogenaamde ‘bybelse huwelik’ kan wees nie omdat die huwelik as instelling ’n sosiale konstruk is wat kultureel en tradisioneel bepaal word. So kan alternatiewe saamblyverhoudings deur christene in die huidige postmoderne era as geldig aanvaar word. Na die bespreking van sommige van die outeurs wat hierdie mening huldig se standpunte, pleit hierdie artikel vir die siening dat die huwelik verbondsgegewe en ’n instelling van God is. As sodanig is dit ’n instelling waar man, vrou en God verbind word in ’n interdimensionele spirituele verhouding wat uitstyg bo die patriargalisme en androsentrisme wat tradisioneelaan ’n christelike huwelik toegeskryf is. Deur te let op die skeppingsaard van die huwelik (imago dei en verbond) en die christologiese en pneumatologiese perspektief op hierdie instelling, word betoog dat dit nie maar net ’n sosiale konstruk is nie, maar dat dit ’n goddelike instelling is wat deur hoër beginsels, ontgin uit bybelse openbaring, ingerig behoort te word. As kerke die gedagte van die huwelik as ’n verbondsgegewe bedien, kan hulle bydra tot die vestiging van huwelike wat deur menswaardigheid, liefde, getrouheid en die ontwikkeling van die geestesgawes van man sowel as vrou gekenmerk word.The Christian marriage – a social construct or a covenantal relation. In the postmodern ethics of marriage several christian theologians plead for a contemporary definition of the concept of marriage. They choose as a point of departure that the concept biblical marriage cannot be accepted as valid, because marriage is a social construct determined only by tradition and culture. Alternative forms of cohabitation should also be accepted by christians as valid in the contemporary postmodern environment. Following a discussion of the works of some of these authors who hold this opinion, this article attempts to make a case for the view that marriage should regarded as an institution of God and a covenantal reality, where husband, wife and God are bonded in an interdimensional relationship that overarches the patriarchalism and androcentrism that is usually ascribed to a christian marriage. By paying attention to the creational character of marriage (imago dei and covenant) and the christological and pneumatological perspectives on this institution, the article argues that marriage cannot be seen merely as a social construct, but that it is a divine institution that should be constructed according to the higher moral principles derived from the unfolding biblical revelation. If churches minister the idea of marriage as a covenantal relation, they can contribute to the establishment of christian marriages qualified by human dignity, love, faithfulness and the development of the spiritual gifts of both husband and wife.


Author(s):  
John G. Brungardt ◽  

The Catholic Church has increasingly invoked the principle of human dignity as a way to spread the message of the Gospel in the modern world. Catholic philosophers must therefore defend this principle in service to Catholic theology. One aspect of this defense is how the human person relates to the universe. Is human dignity of a piece with the material universe in which we find ourselves? Or is our dignity alien in kind to such a whole? Or does the truth lie somewhere in between? The metaphysics of creation properly locates the human being in the universe as a part, ordered to the universe’s common good of order and ultimately to God. Human dignity is possible only in a cosmos; that this is concordant with modern scientific cosmology is briefly defended in the conclusion.


Author(s):  
Maureen Junker-Kenny

Abstract The enquiry whether human dignity as the translation of the biblical designation of the human person as imago Dei should continue to be the framework used to ground human rights and specify their realisation, is developed in five parts. The first identifies two understandings of dignity in the public realm, one inherent-transcendental, the other empirically verifiable. The second section compares the use of “dignity” in three traditions of Catholic Theological Ethics: virtue, natural law, and autonomy. In view of doubts whether theological anthropology should still be the primary location for expounding the meaning of imago Dei, the third section discusses attempts to absorb anthropology into ecclesiology. The modern history of reception of this biblical term by J.G. Herder is outlined in section four, before drawing conclusions from the previous enquiries for the question which language theological ethics should use in public discourse, imago Dei or dignity.


2021 ◽  
pp. 127-141
Author(s):  
Bogumił Gacka

The article presents the notion of person in Confucianism in the context of biographical background of Confucius (551-479 B.C.). As an itinerant sage Confucius taught the practical significance of moral values in the social and political life. His disciples collected his teachings in Analects, in which Confucius noticed that at his age of 50 he knew the will of Heaven (A 11:4). He began to teach Humanism with respect to Transcendence (T’ien).According to the great specialists, Prof. Tu Wei-Ming (Harvard University) and Prof. John Berthrong (Boston University), “the social dimension” of the human person in Confucianism is important and the person is conceived as “a center of relationships” and as a self of personal development (selfhood as creative transformation). There are five universal ways in human relations which are governed by five moral principles. The five ways are those governing the relationships between ruler and minister, between father and son, between husband and wife, between elder and younger brothers, and those in the intercourse between friends. The core of the human person is humanity (jen or ren).Just as “compassion” is the greatest Buddhist virtue, and “love” the Christian, jen is the ultimate goal of conduct and self-transformation for the Confucian. According to Confucius, education reforms a personal life as well as a social and political life in order to realize a universal love and a personal development of man (juncy).


Author(s):  
Pablo Gilabert

Human dignity: social movements invoke it, several national constitutions enshrine it, and it features prominently in international human rights documents. But what is it, and why is it important? This book offers a sophisticated and comprehensive defence of the view that human dignity is the moral heart of human rights. First, it develops the network of concepts associated with dignity, highlighting the notion of human dignity as an inherent, non-instrumental, egalitarian, and high-priority normative status of human persons. People have this status in virtue of their valuable human capacities rather than as a result of their national origin and other conventional features. Second, it shows how human dignity gives rise to an inspiring ideal of solidaristic empowerment, generating both negative duties not to undermine, and positive duties to facilitate, people’s pursuit of a flourishing life in which they develop and exercise their valuable capacities. The most urgent of these duties are correlative to human rights. Third, the book illustrates how the proposed dignitarian approach allows us to articulate the content, justification, and feasible implementation of specific and contested human rights, such as the rights to democratic political participation and decent labor conditions. Finally, the book’s dignitarian framework illuminates the arc of humanist justice, identifying both the difference and the continuity between basic human rights and more expansive requirements of social justice such as those defended by liberal egalitarians and democratic socialists. Human dignity is indeed the moral heart of human rights. Understanding it enables us to defend human rights as the urgent ethical and political project that puts humanity first.


Author(s):  
Iran Chaves Garcia Junior ◽  
Clovis Demarchi

This chapter deals with the dignity of the human person and moral harassment, bringing some specific considerations about Brazilian reality. The scientific objective is to demonstrate the concrete existence of an impact on the principle of human dignity when harassment occurs in the environmental work. It is a theme that is in the discussion guide mainly from the beginning of this century, although abuse and humiliation have always been practiced in labor relations, with the same current scope, which is a tool to achieve generally derogatory ends of the human condition and intensified by the action of globalization in the contemporary world. Besides impact directly on the person, moral harassment in the work environment results in consequences for society, for company (organization), and the state.


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