Natural Law and Human Dignity

1988 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-130
Author(s):  
Aidan Donaldson ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Tina Beattie

Drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s idea of homo sacer and on the Catholic natural law tradition, Beattie explores the paradoxes and tensions inherent in the Christian understanding of divine justice and human laws. While natural law resists the pessimism of some Protestant theologies and their secularized postmodern derivatives, the doctrine of original sin means that all human laws are flawed in their quest to maintain justice through the imposition of order. Beattie argues that Christ is homo sacer in whom God is profaned, the human is made sacred, and the crucified body of the dehumanized other on the cross becomes the bearer of an absolute dignity outside the law.


1990 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 427-428
Author(s):  
Otto Begus ◽  
Keyword(s):  

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-68
Author(s):  
Jan Podkowik

Abstract The article discusses the concept of personal autonomy as a constitutional fundamental right protected by the Polish Constitution of 1997. Autonomy is not only a constitutional value of an unspecified character but also a right with its own specific normative content. Personal autonomy, also called the right to self-determination, is rooted in natural law. The scope of its constitutional protection is determined and – simultaneously – limited by constitutional standards of an absolute character such as human dignity, non-discrimination, and the like. Autonomy as a constitutional right may be subjected to further restrictions imposed by the legislator in accordance with the principle of proportionality. The legal status of an individual’s right to self determination is thus determined by all the prohibitions and orders resulting directly from the Constitution as well as sub-constitutional statutory provisions which respect the principle of proportionality requirements.


Phainomenon ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 22-23 (1) ◽  
pp. 441-454
Author(s):  
Ana Paula Loureiro de Sousa

Abstract The justification of Natural Law is a very controversial issue, not only after the Positivist’s rebuttals, but since its very anthropological foundations in the early modern age. In this paper, I try do give an account of Natural Law and natural rights in terms of a phenomenological description of the background of normative intentionality. Taking a genetic stance, I go from the positive norm and the intentionality that constitutes it to the underling pregiveness that supplies the condition of its possibility. I exhibit it as the experience of the live-world, and I analyze it as an intersubjective world, where persons are given as equals and worth-counting. This is the very root of the concept of human dignity. Starting from it, I develop an account of the sense and content of the concept of Human Rights as a set of eidetic laws creating the framework for authentic human relationships.


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