Hostname: page-component-68945f75b7-l9cl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-06T01:36:00.326Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Natural Good Theories and the Value of Human Dignity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2016

SEBASTIAN MUDERS
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

One of the widely recognized facts about human dignity is its vastly divergent applicability—from highly controversial issues in bioethics to broader topics in political philosophy. A group of theories that this article subsumes under the header “natural good theories” appears to be especially fitted for normatively multifaceted notions like dignity. However, the heavy normative weight the concept of dignity has to bear due to the central position it occupies within these theories creates its own difficulties. As is shown in a discussion of Martha Nussbaum’s capability conception of dignity, dignity appears to be unable to mirror the special normative relevance people want to assign to it in cases of great moral misconduct. The article provides a suggestion on how to solve this problem by means of paradigmatic cases that work as material constraints regarding the exact boundaries of dignity violations.

Keywords

human dignitynatural goodMartha Nussbaumparadigmatic casesspecial normative relevance of dignity
Type
Special Section: Responsibility, Vulnerability, Dignity, and Humanity
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , April 2016 , pp. 239 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. See, e.g., Keown, J. Beyond bland: A critique of the BMA guidance on withholding and withdrawing medical treatment. Legal Studies 2010;20:66–84CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Gorsuch, NM. The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 2006;Google Scholar and Paterson, G. Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. Hampshire: Ashgate; 2008.Google Scholar

2. See, e.g., Dworkin, R, Nagel, T, Nozick, R, Rawls, J, Thomson, JJ. Assisted suicide: The philosophers’ brief. New York Review of Books 1997;44:41–7Google Scholar; and Battin, MP. Ending Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Spaemann R. Essays in Anthropology: Variations on a Theme. De Graaf G, Mumford J, trans. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books; 2010, at 52.

4. Schroeder, D. Dignity: One, two, three, four, five, still counting. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2010;19:118–25, at 119.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed This is not to say that all usages of human dignity can be merged into one. As Schroeder indicates, there are several nonmoral meanings of dignity—e.g., as a social term to separate different classes within society (Schroeder, D. Dignity: Two riddles and four concepts. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2008;17:230–8CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, at 233). Another example is the aesthetic usage of dignity (cf. Schaber P. Instrumentalisierung und Würde. Paderborn: mentis; 2010, at 48).

5. Debes, R. Dignity’s gauntlet. Philosophical Perspectives 2009;23:45–78, at 46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Macklin, R. Dignity is a useless concept. British Medical Journal 2003;327:1419–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Killmister, S. Dignity: Not such a useless concept. Journal of Medical Ethics 2010;36:160–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Rosen, M. Dignity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 2012, at 61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Kaufmann, P, Kuch, H, Neuhaeuser, C, Neuhäuser, C, Webster, E. Introduction. In: Kaufmann, P, Kuch, H, et al., eds. Humiliation, Degradation, Dehumanization: Human Dignity Violated. Dordrecht: Springer; 2010:1–5, at 1.Google Scholar

10. See note 9, Kaufmann et al. 2010, at 1.

11. For more on this distinction, see George, RP, Lee, P. The nature and basis of human dignity. Ratio Juris 2008;21:173–93, at 174f.Google Scholar

12. Even scholars like Doris Schroeder who think that a violation of the offender’s dignity might have been justified in the Daschner case still point out that one has to commit a most severe crime in order to loose one’s dignity. See Schroeder, D. Dignity: A child’s life or a “little bit of torture”? Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2006;15:188–201, at 199.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

13. A further qualification apparent in the first sentence of the current paragraph is the phrase “aiming to give a satisfying general account of the concept”: I do not deny that there are a number of theories on human dignity that deliberately confine their analysis to a specific usage of its concept without caring much about the implications for other applications of the term. In contrast, our present enterprise is to see whether a group of normative theories with promising perspectives regarding a general account of human dignity do have the philosophical resources to provide such a conception.

14. See note 11, George, Lee 2008.

15. Nussbaum, MC. Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2000, at 78n82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. Nussbaum, MC. Human dignity and political entitlements. In: Pellegrino, ED, Schulman, A, Merrill, TW, eds. Human Dignity and Bioethics. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press; 2006:351–80,Google Scholar at 351, my emphasis.

17. See note 16, Nussbaum 2006; cf. Finnis J. Natural Law and Natural Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2011, at 100.

18. See note 15, Nussbaum 2000, at 82.

19. Nussbaum, MC. Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 2011, at 34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. See note 15, Nussbaum 2000, at 88.

21. See note 15, Nussbaum 2000, at 87.

22. See note 15, Nussbaum 2000, at 87.

23. See note 15, Nussbaum 2000, at 91.

24. See note 19, Nussbaum 2011, at 20f.

25. See note 16, Nussbaum 2006, at 363.

26. See note 15, Nussbaum 2000, at 72.

27. See note 19, Nussbaum 2011, at 41.

28. Nussbaum, MC. Non-relative virtues: An Aristotelian approach. In: Nussbaum, MC, Sen, A, eds. The Quality of Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1993:242–69,CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 262, my emphasis.

29. See note 15, Nussbaum 2000, at 5.

30. See note 19, Nussbaum 2011, at 30; cf. Malpas J, Lickiss N. Introduction to a conservation. In: Malpas J, Lickiss N, eds. Perspectives on Human Dignity. Dordrecht: Springer; 2007:1–7, at 1f.

31. See note 9, Kaufmann et al. 2010, at 1f.

32. See note 9, Kaufmann et al. 2010, at 2.

33. Stoecker, R. Three crucial turns on the road to an adequate understanding of human dignity. In: Kaufmann, P, Kuch, H, Neuhäuser, C, Webster, E., eds. Humiliation, Degradation, Dehumanization: Human Dignity Violated. Dordrecht: Springer; 2010:7–17, at 11.Google Scholar

34. Beylefeld, D, Brownsword, R. Human Dignity in Bioethics and Biolaw. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2001.Google Scholar

35. See note 16, Nussbaum 2006, at 373.

36. See note 15, Nussbaum 2000, at 87.

37. See note 16, Nussbaum 2006, at 373.