Adam Etinson: What’s So Special About Human Dignity

Lecture by Adam Etinson (St Andrews), organized by the Department of Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy

This article challenges two prominent ways of understanding the meaning and practical import of the concept of human dignity. These include (i) what we might call “gateway” understandings of human dignity: theories that take it to be a general indicator of moral status, or perhaps of one’s status as a rights-bearer. And they include (ii) broadly Kantian theories that understand concerns about human dignity to be, in essence, concerns about autonomy, capability, or the inviolability of persons. The article argues...(continue reading...)