Human Rights and the Vulnerability of Rights-bearers

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-67
Author(s):  
Diana Tietjens Meyers ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Respect For Persons ◽  
Human Vulnerability ◽  
Vulnerable Subjects ◽  
Autonomous Agency ◽  
The Relationship

I seek to understand the relationship between human vulnerability and human rights as something more than a problem that respect for human rights solves. After characterizing vulnerability and noting that human rights are generally regarded as entitlements that respect the dignity of persons by securing their autonomous agency, I draw out the implications of these premises. I argue that human vulnerabilities are constitutive of the capacity for autonomous agency and therefore that the circumstances of respect for persons must include persons’ vulnerability to many sorts of harms. Given that the opportunity to lead one’s life in one’s own way—that is, the opportunity to exercise autonomous agency—is indispensable to human dignity, respect for persons entails respect for the vulnerability that underwrites autonomous agency. If so, rights-bearers are necessarily vulnerable subjects. I further defend this conception of rights-bearers by arguing that it comports with three types of human rights theory: agency-centered, needs-centered, and practice-based accounts of human rights.

scholarly journals Prisoners' right to education: A philosophical survey

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Vorhaus
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Respect For Persons ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Right To Education ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Right ◽  
International Conventions ◽  
And Training

Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares: 'Everyone has the right to education.' This implies that the right to education and training applies to all persons, including all persons in prison. This position is considered here from a philosophical point of view and it will receive some support. Yet it is not obvious that the position is correct, nor, if it is, how it is best explained. I will examine the basis for asserting a right to education on behalf of all prisoners, and consider what is required by way of its defence in the face of common objections. I illustrate how international conventions and principles express prisoners' right to education, and I look at how this right is defended by appeal to education as a means to an end and as a human right – required by respect for persons and their human dignity.

The Ontological Problem

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher McCrudden
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Legal Interpretation ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Specific Element ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Ontological Problem

This chapter deals with the third of three problems that dominate religious litigation, the ontological problem, which arises in two particular respects in the relationship between human rights law and religion. The first respect is in the need to give content to the ‘human’ in ‘human rights’, and we see religions and legal interpretation giving diverse, and sometimes conflicting, answers to this question. One of the contested sites of this conflict is over how we are to understand the idea of ‘human dignity’, which is seen by several religions and by the human rights system as a foundational concept for the understanding of human rights. The second respect in which the ontological problem arises has to do with a specific element in what it means to be human, namely the place of religion in that understanding. Is religion central to our view of what it means to be human, and are protections for religion central, therefore, to the human rights enterprise? Or should we, rather, view religion as marginal, or even contrary to our conception of what it means to be fully human, and query whether religion should be part of human rights protections at all?

Contours of Dignity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzy Killmister
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Significance ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Recognition Respect ◽  
Personal Dignity ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

Contours of Dignity develops a theory geared towards explaining the complex and varied role dignity plays in our moral lives. This includes the relationship between dignity and respect; the ways in which shame and humiliation can constitute dignity violations; and the relationship between dignity and human rights. Dignity, according to this theory, comes in three strands: personal dignity, social dignity, and status dignity. Each strand involves a specific form of respect. On the one hand, personal dignity involves self-respect while social and status dignity involve the respect of others. On the other hand, personal and social dignity both involve appraisal respect, while status dignity involves recognition respect. With these distinctions in hand, Contours of Dignity then explores the moral significance of dignity, offering a novel explanation of the source and scope of individuals’ claims to have their dignity respected. The book concludes with a discussion of the relationship between dignity and human rights, arguing that we should understand human dignity as a social construct, but one that nonetheless vindicates the human rights project.

scholarly journals Dignity and Human Rights in Correctional Practice

2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 112-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Ward
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Scientific Basis ◽  
Offender Rehabilitation ◽  
Ethical Perspective ◽  
Moral Equality ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
The Relationship

Interventions with offenders have a normative layer as well as a scientific basis and therefore it is not possible to quarantine ethical questions from discussions of best practice. My aim in this paper is to provide an expanded ethical canvass from which to approach correctional practice with offenders. The cornerstone of this broader ethical perspective will be the concept of human dignity and its protection by human rights norms and theories. I also explore the relationship between responses to crime and offender rehabilitation based on an enriched theory of punishment that is sensitive to offenders' moral equality and their attendant rights.

Democracy and development

1999 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-189
Author(s):  
Rüdiger Wolfrum
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human ◽  
Democratic Elections ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The discussion on the relationship of democracy and development has only become meaningful after being freed from a purely dogmatic approach. International law, in particular international human rights instruments, commit States' Parties to establish and sustain a government based upon democratic elections and which is politically accountable. Development requires a policy towards achieving conditions where human beings can enjoy freedom from want and fear. Both policies, on democratization and development, are meant to achieve conditions in which human dignity is fully respected and they are therefore mutually reinforcing.

scholarly journals The Judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court regarding assisted suicide: a template for pluralistic states?

2021 ◽  
pp. medethics-2021-107233
Author(s):  
Urban Wiesing
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
The State ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Federal Constitutional ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
German Federal Constitutional Court ◽  
German Federal Constitutional

The article presents the judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court from 26 February 2020 on assisted suicide. The statements regarding human dignity, human rights and the relationship between citizens and the state are examined. Furthermore, the consequences resulting from this interpretation of human dignity for states that are pluralistic and based on human rights will be laid out. The court’s judgment limits the power of parliaments and poses a challenge to many laws in states that see themselves as pluralistic, human rights-based states.

scholarly journals Human Dignity and Human Rights: Fostering and Protecting Pluralism and Particularity

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-106
Author(s):  
Peter G. Kirchschlaeger
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Justification ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Human rights and their universality can lead to restrictions for individuals resulting from duties, which correspond to human rights of all human beings. This characteristic of human rights emphasizes the need for an ethical justification. Addressing the question of how human rights can be justified represents, therefore, an expression of respect for pluralism and particularity. Beyond that, human dignity and human rights lay the foundation for pluralism and particularity as they see all human beings as individuals that are all different and unique, and not as members of a collective. Only human rights protection of the autonomy of each individual allows all human beings to be particular and fosters pluralism. Finally, the concept of “adaptation” contributes to an understanding of the interaction between pluralism and particularity and human dignity and human rights as their foundation by capturing the relationship between human dignity and human rights and religious and worldview-based communities.

scholarly journals Understanding Human Dignity

2013 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
The State ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Shared Meaning ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
Original Essays ◽  
The Relationship

The concept of human dignity has become central to political philosophy and legal discourse on human rights, but it remains enigmatic. Understanding Human Dignity is a book of original essays by a multi-disciplinary group of historians, legal academics, judges, political scientists, theologians, and philosophers, which aims to debate a broad range of current approaches to how to understand the concept. Some of the main issues considered include fundamental theoretical questions: Is there a minimum core to the meaning of human dignity? Is a person’s human dignity to be assessed subjectively from his or her point of view, or ‘objectively’? Can human dignity be understood in purely secular terms? Can there be a shared meaning of human dignity where there is religious and ideological pluralism? What ontological claims are implied by appeals to human dignity? Other questions are more directed at the implications of dignity for relations between individuals, and between individuals and the state: What are the implications of human dignity for the ways in which we should behave towards each other? What are its implications for the ways in which the state should treat those who fall under its authority? An important set of questions posed considers specifically the relationship between human dignity, human rights, and other values: Is human dignity more appropriately seen as attaching to some human rights rather than others? What is the relationship between human dignity and other values and principles connected with rights, such as autonomy, freedom, equality, social solidarity, and identity? What is the weight and status of human dignity? Does human dignity have a status superior to that of other values? Is it absolute, or can it be balanced against other values? Does human dignity essentially serve community or individual goals? Can it also serve moralistic and paternalistic goals? Is human dignity necessarily an emancipatory idea? Is it rights-supporting or rights-constraining? Also considered is how, if at all, the concept of human dignity helps us to deal with claims made in relation to several issues that are among the most divisive current political and social questions. Does dignity apply only to sentient humans, or can it apply to animals, dead humans, and human foetuses? What is the relation between the idea of dignity and what appears to be voluntary self-degradation (for example, in some instances of prostitution and pornography)? How far, if at all, can a person waive his or her human dignity? Does human dignity determine the boundaries of religious pluralism? A further set of questions considered are more institutional, or related to the relationship between disciplines: How appropriate is the use of the concept of human dignity for judicial decision-making? What is the role of courts and legal authorities in developing and elaborating the concept of human dignity? What role, if any, should human dignity play in adjudicating conflicts of human rights, philosophical and legal?

scholarly journals Human dignity: an illusory limit for the evolutive interpretation of the ECHR?

Amicus Curiae ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 20-28
Author(s):  
Pavel Bureš
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Senior Lecturer ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

In this article Pavel Bureš (Senior Lecturer in Public International Law in the Faculty of Law at Palacky University, Czech Republic) aims to portray some basic elements of the relationship between the concepy of human dignity and the evolutive interpretation, setting out key elements, notions and considerations for further thoughts. The article presents some basic issues related to the subject matter, then focuses on the evolutive interpretation, and finally outlines the role of human dignity in the case law related to the evolutive interpretation. Index keywords: Human rights, human dignity, European Court of Human Rights

scholarly journals 'Simply In Virtue of Being Human'

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
In Virtue Of

In this paper I raise some questions about the familiar claim, recently reiterated by James Griffin, that human rights are rights that humans have 'simply in virtue of being human'. I ask, in particular, how we are to read the words 'simply in virtue of'. Are we speaking of who has the rights (A has them if and only if he or she is human) or why they have the rights (A has them because and only because he or she is human)? Griffin brings the two readings together, as two sides of the same coin. He offers a (more or less) universalistic case for (more or less) universalistic rights. I try to show how the two readings can be driven apart, how the universality of human rights need not be undermined merely by there being no adequate universalistic case for them. On the strength of this discussion I suggest an inversion of the relationship that is often thought to hold between human rights and human dignity. In a way our rights give us our dignity, not vice versa. And in a way this helps to make the case for the universality of human rights.

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