A New Guarantee on Earth: Hannah Arendt on Human Dignity and the Politics of Human Rights

1996 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey C. Isaac

While the writings of Hannah Arendt have received an extraordinary amount of scholarly attention, few commentators have seen her as a theorist concerned with questions of human rights. I argue that the problem of human rights was central to Arendt's political theory. While she does not elaborate a theory of human rights as such, and while she avoids the juridical approaches so common among human rights theorists and advocates, her conception of political action is intended to secure an elemental human dignity that is systematically jeopardized by the imperatives of national sovereignty.

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Mathias Daven

If we wish to understand a totalitarian system as a whole, we need first to understand the central role of the concentration camp as a laboratorium to experiment in total domination. Arendt’s analysis of totalitarianism in the twentieth century shows how a totalitarian regime cannot survive without terror; and terror will not be effective without concentration camps. Experiments in concentration camps had as their purpose, apart from wiping out any freedom or spontaneity, the abolishing of space between human beings, abolishing space for politics. Thus, totalitarianism did not mirror only the politics of extinction, but also the extinction of politics. As a way forward, Arendt analyses political theory that forces the reader to understand power no longer under the rubric of domination or violence – although this avenue is open – but rather under the rubric of freedom. Arendt is convinced that the life of a destroyed nation can be restored by mutual forgiveness and mutual promises, two abilities rooted in action. Political action, as with other acts, is identical with the ability to commence something new. Keywords: Totalitarisme, antisemitisme, imperialisme, dominasi, teror, kebebasan, kedaulatan, kamp konsentrasi, politik, ideologi, tindakan


2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (9) ◽  
pp. 1011-1024 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Staples

This article considers the ongoing difficulties for mainstream political theory of actualizing human rights, with particular reference to Rorty’s attempt to transcend their liberal foundations. It argues that there is a problematic disjuncture between his articulation of exclusion and his hope for inclusion via the expansion of the liberal human rights culture. More specifically, it shows that Rorty’s description of victimhood is based on premises unavailable to him, with the consequence that stateless persons are rendered inhuman, and, further, that his accounts of sentimentality and solidarity have limited potential for the inclusion of such victims within the liberal ‘community of justification’. In the final analysis, the article argues that there is a substantial mismatch between Rorty’s dependence on both liberal norms and international political practice, and his hopes for the human rights culture to include those stripped of human dignity.


Author(s):  
Janilce Silva Praseres ◽  
Marcelo Ramos Saldanha

Abstract: human rights are a set of ethical values whose purpose is to protect and enable the realization of human dignity in its various dimensions and also prevent the reduction of the individual to the condition of object or, above all, the reduction of his condition as subject of rights, such as the right to life, freedom, security, equality. The universal character of human rights protection demonstrates some weaknesses, especially in the transposition into concrete legal systems, so what we propose is a brief analysis of human rights from Hannah Arendt.Uma Breve Análise Acerca dos Direitos Humanos a partir da Crítica de Hannah ArendtResumo: os direitos humanos são um conjunto de valores éticos que têm por finalidade proteger e possibilitar a realização da dignidade humana em suas várias dimensões e, ainda, impedir a redução do indivíduo à condição de objeto ou, sobretudo, a diminuição da sua condição na qualidade de sujeito de direitos, a exemplo o direito à vida, à liberdade, à segurança, à igualdade. O caráter universal de proteção aos direitos humanos demonstra algumas fragilidades, principalmente, na transposição para ordenamentos jurídicos concretos, assim, o que propomos é uma breve análise acerca dos direitos humanos a partir de Hannah Arendt.


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-382
Author(s):  
Michał Paździora

The article is divided into two parts. In the first part, I present the main assumptions of foundationalism and, using selected examples from general reflection on law, reconstruct related strategies of justifying claims. Then, I discuss the anti-foundationalist method of justifying the universalism of human rights. Referring to the arguments of Hannah Arendt and Alessandro Ferrara, I give the example of the Holocaust as the so-called point of no return, whose exemplary validity justifies the idea of human rights without the need to refer to substantive human dignity. In the second part of the article, I use the anti-foundationalist argument to build a conception of anti-authoritarian legal education. The proposed concept of education based on a collaborative, democratic, nonhierarchical, and pluralistic discussion of historical examples should complement traditional legal education.


2009 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriano Pessina

La Dichiarazione universale dei Diritti dell’uomo del 1948 dell’ ONU ha posto in termini politici, e non soltanto filosofici o religiosi, al centro stesso della logica della cittadinanza l’affermazione della dignità umana e della libertà come qualità innate e non acquisite. Affermare che tutti gli uomini nascono liberi ed eguali in dignità significa affermare di fatto che la dignità è un attributo ontologico, una qualità intrinseca (e quindi inalienabile) dell’essere umano, al di là di differenze di sesso, di salute, di stato sociale. L’uso della nozione di persona come sinonimo delle qualità dell’adulto rischia di frantumare questo guadagno della politica. La biopolitica liberale rischia di essere fonte di discriminazioni tra gli uomini quando adotta un concetto di persona distinto da quello di essere umano. In essa rivive il dualismo antropologico proprio del platonismo. Le tesi di Hannah Arendt, di Eva Kittay e di Martha Nussabaum ci permettono di evidenziare i caratteri della persona umana sia come soggetto sia come essere corporeo diveniente nel tempo, secondo quell’intuizione che fu propria di Tommaso d’Aquino. Se si torna a pensare alla persona umana come essere umano diveniente nel tempo, è possibile salvaguardare i diritti di tutti e in particolare difendere quelle fasi della vita umana in cui la persona umana è esposta, per le fasi dello sviluppo o per la malattia, alla dipendenza. Solo così si può pensare ad una giustizia che includa tutti e tutte le fasi dell’esistenza, anche quelle segnate dalla disabilità. ---------- The United Nations Universal declaration of human rights (1948) has centred the assertion of human dignity and freedom as innate (not acquired) qualities in the logic of citizenship itself; this claim has been made not only in philosophical and religious terms, but also in political terms. Affirming that all men born free and equal for what concerns their dignity means to affirm actually that dignity is an ontological attribute, an intrinsic quality (and therefore inalienable) of the human being, beyond sex, health and social standing differences. The use of the notion of person as synonym of the qualities of adult risks to crush this gain of politics. The liberal biopolitics risks to be a source of discriminations among men when it adopts a concept of person different from that of human being. According to this view, the anthropological dualism peculiar to the Platonism lives again. Hannah Arendt, Evas Kittay and Martha Nussabaum’s thesis allow us to underline the human person characteristics as both subject and bodily being, according to the Thomas Aquinas’ intuition. If we think again human person as human being, it is possible to safeguard the everybody rights and particularly to defend those phases of human life in which human person is exposed, for the phases of the development or for the illness, to the dependence. Only in this way justice could be thought including all and all the phases of the existence, also those marked by disability.


2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (Special Issue) ◽  
pp. 87-103
Author(s):  
Noémi Bíró

"Feminist Interpretations of Action and the Public in Hannah Arendt’s Theory. Arendt’s typology of human activity and her arguments on the precondition of politics allow for a variety in interpretations for contemporary political thought. The feminist reception of Arendt’s work ranges from critical to conciliatory readings that attempt to find the points in which Arendt’s theory might inspire a feminist political project. In this paper I explore the ways in which feminist thought has responded to Arendt’s definition of action, freedom and politics, and whether her theoretical framework can be useful in a feminist rethinking of politics, power and the public realm. Keywords: Hannah Arendt, political action, the Public, the Social, feminism "


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-241
Author(s):  
Mirko Pecaric

This paper explores recent notions in public administration, which are intertwined and addressed to the administration of public affairs. On this basis it demonstrates that content of legal system is filled through the static legal principles and rules, but they receive their real content through the informal practices and conditions of the human mind. The paper concludes that discussed notions could have only one name, because they all are the synonyms of reciprocal relation between the human dignity and efficient administration.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-36
Author(s):  
Wojciech Szczerba

This article aims to examine how the concept of Imago Dei can serve as a symbol for the broadly understood idea of religious inclusion and human dignity. The article explores the concept of Imago Dei primarily from a protological perspective, analyzing its usage in biblical writings, theological tradition and modern philosophy. The substantial, relational and functional—which three usages of the concept can be found in the inclusive theology of Gregory of Nyssa—are analyzed in this article. Arguably, in the context of religious inclusion, the relational angle of Imago Dei seems to be the most important. Similarly contemporary Protestant theologian, Jürgen Moltmann states in his book, God in the Creation, that the “relational” concept of Imago Dei underscores the fundamental dignity of every person. In his book, God for Secular Society, Moltmann states that properly understood human rights should include democratic relationships between people, cooperation between societies, concern for the environment in which people live, and responsibility for future generations. From these perspectives, the concept of Imago Dei can be utilized as a symbol indicating the dignity of every person and human community, but also a symbol against any types of racism, nationalism or xenophobia.


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