‘True dignity’ and ‘respect-worthiness’

Human Affairs ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-223
Author(s):  
Sunday Adeniyi Fasoro
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Rational Nature ◽  
Formal Condition ◽  
In Virtue Of

Abstract In the Groundwork, Kant seems to make two paradoxical claims about the source of human dignity. First, he claims that if “rational nature exists as an end in itself” (Kant, 1998, p. 36), it is because “humanity is… dignity, insofar it is capable of morality” (Kant, 1998, p. 42). Second, he claims that although “autonomy is the ground of the dignity of human nature and of every rational nature” (Kant, 1998, p. 43), the human being can only have “dignity… insofar he fulfils all his duties” (Kant, 1998, p. 46). This paper argues that neither claim is repugnant because Kant seeks to advance two kinds of dignity. Kant intends to elucidate that the human being possesses a basic ‘entitled dignity’ in virtue of his capacity for morality, but that he needs to become a moral being in order for him to realise his ‘true dignity’. This paper claims that the formal condition under which a person can be worthy of respect is identical with the condition of realising his ‘true dignity’.

Human Dignity and the Foundations of Human Rights

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Tasioulas
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
In Virtue Of

This chapter investigates whether or not human rights are grounded in human dignity. Starting from an interest-based account of human rights, it rejects two objections to that account that have been pressed in the name of human dignity: the deontological and the personhood objections. More positively, it contends that human dignity is the equal moral status possessed by all human beings simply in virtue of their possession of a human nature, and that so understood, it has an essential role to play in grounding human rights, but that it can only play this role in tandem with universal human interests. In particular, human dignity is central to explaining both why humans can possess rights and why these rights are resistant to trade-offs. The chapter concludes with some reflections on the implications of this view for whether each and every human being possesses all of the standard human rights.

scholarly journals On Being Human and Divine: The Coherence of the Incarnation

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-31
Author(s):  
Christopher Hauser
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Alternative Response ◽  
In Virtue Of

According to the doctrine of the Incarnation, one person, Christ, has both the attributes proper to a human being and the attributes proper to God. This claim has given rise to the coherence objection, i.e., the objection that it is impossible for one individual to have both sets of attributes. Several authors have offered responses which rely on the idea that Christ has the relevant human properties in virtue of having a concrete human nature which has those properties. I show why such responses should be rejected and, in light of that, propose an alternative response to the coherence objection.

scholarly journals Human Rights and Human Nature

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-534
Author(s):  
Jean Rhéaume
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Positive Law

At least two important consequences follow from the fact that human rights are based on human nature. First, they exist according to natural law even in cases where positive law does not recognize them. Secondly, they cannot evolve because the nature and purpose of the human being does not change: only their formulation and level of protection in positive law can vary according to the socio-historical context.

Reason, Development, and the Conflicts of Human Ends: Sir Isaiah Berlin's Vision of Politics

1980 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Kocis
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Human Values ◽  
The Political ◽  
Positive Liberty ◽  
Political Question

At the root of the conflict between Berlin and his critics is a fundamental disagreement over the possibility of certainty and over the relation of human ends to politics. Gerald MacCallum's formalist critique obscures the political question of whose values a free person is at liberty to pursue. Macpherson's attempt to defend positive liberty as not rationalistic is shown to fail because he (a) conflates liberty with its conditions and (b) assumes a rational pattern to human moral development. And Crick charges Berlin with ignoring politics, understood as active participation in the polis. Finally, Berlin's conception of politics as a form of human interaction aimed at creating the conditions of human dignity in a situation where we sincerely disagree over the ends of life is shown to be an effort to liberate us to live life for our own purposes. Yet Berlin's defense of liberty is problematic because it is too skeptical; to overcome this difficulty, a non-teleological yet developmentalist account of human nature and a weakly hierarchical account of human values is suggested.

The Human Person in Contemporary Philosophy

Philosophy ◽  
1950 ◽  
Vol 25 (92) ◽  
pp. 3-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick C. Copleston
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Individual Substance ◽  
Rational Nature

I. In the early part of the sixth century a.d. Boethius defined the person as “an individual substance of rational nature” (rationalis naturae individua substantia). This definition, which became classical and was adopted by, for example, St. Thomas Aquinas, obviously implies that every human being is a person, since every human being is (to employ the philosophical terms of Boethius) an individual substance of rational nature. If one cannot be more or less of a human being, so far as “substance” is concerned, one cannot be more or less of a person. One may act as a human person ought not to act or in a way unbefitting a human person; one may even lose the normal use of one's reason; but one does not in this way become depersonalized, in the sense of ceasing to be a person. According to St. Thomas, a disembodied soul is not, strictly speaking, a person, since a disembodied soul is no longer a complete human substance; but every complete human substance is always and necessarily a person.

scholarly journals La estructura intencional de la Ley natural, según Vázquez (s. xvi) / The Intentional Structure of the Natural Law According to Vázquez (16th century)

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 121
Author(s):  
Juan CRUZ CRUZ
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Moral Rule ◽  
Practical Judgment ◽  
Structural Requirements ◽  
Rational Nature ◽  
Intentional Structure ◽  
Self Consistency

Gabriel Vázquez (1549-1604) explained that natural law is properly «the whole of radical or structural requirements of human nature as such, which is biological and rational at the same time». Natural law has also «self-consistency» by its own nature, and not by the consent or will of anyone, not even God. There is a double natural law: the primary one is the rational nature, and the secondary one is the judgment of our reason. This secondary natural law, based on the rational nature —which is our first moral rule—, gives a guideline, a practical judgment about the morality and immorality of human acts. The first is properly rule (mensura), the second is properly law (lex). The present study examines this dual intentional structure of natural law.

scholarly journals Dijaloški odnos bioetike i biopolitike

Diacovensia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-456
Author(s):  
Mislav Kutleša
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Elderly People ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Value System ◽  
Independent Work

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.

scholarly journals Kepentingan Pendidikan Humanistik dalam Pengembangan Psikologi

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Khairul Nizam Bin Zainal Badri
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Psychological Development ◽  
Human Values ◽  
Humanistic Education ◽  
True Meaning ◽  
Human Intellect

This article aims to analyze the importance of humanistic education from a psychological standpoint. Humanistic education can be considered as a form of education that promotes positive psychological development. Through humanistic education, human dignity is elevated as much as human intellect can be, and thinking can be further developed. Humanistic education also enlivens human nature through the realization of one's existence. However, humanistic education must be in line with religion so that students will not be confused by the true meaning of freedom. True human values must be based on religion and not on mere logic

The Perfectionist Turn

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas J. Den Uyl ◽  
Douglas B. Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Living Things ◽  
Good For

This chapter argues against the claim advanced by Daniel Haybron, Daniel C. Russell, and Mark LeBar that human self-perfection is ultimately based on notions of well-being and human flourishing that we bring to our understanding of human nature and in favor of the idea that it is human nature itself that ultimately grounds our understanding of human well-being or human flourishing. In doing so, the question of whether there is some gap between (a) what it is to be a good human being and (b) what is good for a human being is addressed. It is shown that the arguments on behalf of a such a gap fail and that the version of perfectionism that is advanced—that is, individualistic perfectionism—is ideally suited to not only avoid such a gap but also to display their unity, especially when perfection is understood as a process of living things and not as some cosmic or metaphysical process.

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