We often speak of the dignity owed to a person. And
dignity is a word that regularly appears in political speeches. Charters are
promulgated in its name, and appeals to it are made when people all over the
world struggle to achieve their rights. But what exactly is dignity? When one
person physically assaults another, we feel the wrong demands immediate
condemnation and legal sanction. Whereas when one person humiliates or
thoughtlessly makes use of another, we recognize the wrong and hope for a
remedy, but the social response is less clear. The injury itself may be hard to
quantify.
Given our concern with human dignity, it is odd
that it has received comparatively little scrutiny. Here, George Kateb
asks what human dignity is and why it matters for the claim to rights. He
proposes that dignity is an “existential” value that pertains to the identity
of a person as a human being. To injure or even to try to efface someone’s
dignity is to treat that person as not human or less than human—as a thing or
instrument or subhuman creature. Kateb does not limit the notion of dignity to
individuals but extends it to the human species. The dignity of the human
species rests on our uniqueness among all other species. In the book’s
concluding section, he argues that despite the ravages we have inflicted on it,
nature would be worse off without humanity. The supremely fitting task of
humanity can be seen as a “stewardship” of nature. This secular defense of
human dignity—the first book-length attempt of its kind—crowns the career of a
distinguished political thinker.
What
is human dignity? George Kateb, author of the new
book Human Dignity, discusses the
meaning of the term and its importance in the struggle for universal human
rights.
Listeners: What's
your definition of human dignity?
George Kateb is William
Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics, Emeritus, Princeton University. His
writings include Hannah Arendt: Politics,
Conscience, Evil (1984); The Inner Ocean: Individualism and Democratic Culture (1992); Emerson and Self-Reliance (1994); 2d ed, 2002); and most recently,Patriotism and Other Mistakes (2007). At Princeton, he was formerly Director of
the Program in Political Philosophy, Director of the Gauss Seminars, and
Director of the University Center for Human Values.
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