Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and Note on Text Structure
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter One Introduction: The Distinction of Dignity
- Chapter Two Dignity, Freedom and Reason: From Ancient Greece to Early Modernity
- Chapter Three The Sense of Dignity in Moral Philosophy: From the Ethical Intuitionists to the Irrationalists
- Chapter Four Marx's Critique of Morality: Natural Law, the State and Citizenship
- Chapter Five Classical Sociology's Regard for Human Dignity
- Chapter Six The Human Face of Dignity Reflected in Phenomenology and Existentialism
- Chapter Seven A Fresh Term for Dignity: Attending the Frankfurt School (Both ‘Old’ and ‘Young’)
- Chapter Eight Notes Sampling Research and Practice: Making Dignity Work; Making Dignity Care
- Chapter Nine The Slighting of Dignity: The Critic's Charter
- Chapter Ten Conclusion: After the Recognition of Dignity
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter Ten - Conclusion: After the Recognition of Dignity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 June 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and Note on Text Structure
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter One Introduction: The Distinction of Dignity
- Chapter Two Dignity, Freedom and Reason: From Ancient Greece to Early Modernity
- Chapter Three The Sense of Dignity in Moral Philosophy: From the Ethical Intuitionists to the Irrationalists
- Chapter Four Marx's Critique of Morality: Natural Law, the State and Citizenship
- Chapter Five Classical Sociology's Regard for Human Dignity
- Chapter Six The Human Face of Dignity Reflected in Phenomenology and Existentialism
- Chapter Seven A Fresh Term for Dignity: Attending the Frankfurt School (Both ‘Old’ and ‘Young’)
- Chapter Eight Notes Sampling Research and Practice: Making Dignity Work; Making Dignity Care
- Chapter Nine The Slighting of Dignity: The Critic's Charter
- Chapter Ten Conclusion: After the Recognition of Dignity
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Nature still recognizes the dignity of humanity; for when you wish to keep the birds away from the trees, you fix up something to resemble a man, and even this faint resemblance to a human being which a scarecrow has is enough to inspire the birds with respect. (Kierkegaard 1959, 1: 28)
The Final Reckoning
So what, then, do we make of dignity? More to the point, perhaps, what on earth (yes, out there) is actually being made of dignity? It could be argued that dignity is no better or worse than any other moral ideal by which people choose to lead their lives and that we lack the moral vocabulary to judge such ideals against each other as being of greater or lesser value. As we have seen, dignity has something of an elastic quality about it, and we are left wondering just how far it might be stretched before it finally snaps altogether. What is less a source of wonder is that dignity appears to be held taut by the abstract nature of metaphysics and morality (reason reaching as far as, perhaps, aesthetics), on one post, and by the concrete agency of the state or supra- state (including such things as citizenship and human rights), on the other. To bring the present discussion to a close, then, we shall consider one last time the material strung out for us between both ends of this particular line of thought. Reason is, in fact, both the ally and enemy of dignity. It is the tool of the accountant that may be put to use to arrive at a solution to the problem of an inconveniently stubborn bottom line: infamously, there has been the counting in of persons in one column to become finally written off in the next – just a banal blank, instead of all those human lives to be lived. Within the bounds of reason, there is always made available an excuse, an explanation and a justification for just why it had to happen as it did (Himmler was studiously good at making use of this). But more innocently, reason is the means to cut through such sordid exercises simply by keeping human dignity always in mind. It is only in this way that reason actually is dignity. Here is a final word, then, on the legacy of metaphysics within the realm of reason.
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- Social Thought and Rival Claims to the Moral Ideal of Dignity , pp. 155 - 166Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2018