What's So Special About Human Dignity?
2020; Wiley; Volume: 48; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/papa.12175
ISSN1088-4963
Autores Tópico(s)Political Philosophy and Ethics
ResumoI must confess that I don't know exactly what that is: human dignity.1 – Jean Améry, At the Minds Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities (1980). What a sorry state for the human mind to be in, that the most remote and trivial ideas about the revolution of the heavens should be better known than the moral notions which are near to hand and of the greatest importance… This apparent paradox vanishes if we consider how objects too close to our eyes become blurred.2 – Cesare Beccaria, “Of Honor” (1764). Human dignity is something special. Or so it seems to us humans at least. As one prominent theorist recently explains: “The core idea of human dignity is that on earth, humanity is the greatest type of being.”3 And who could deny it? Don't our unique human capacities (for reason, technological mastery, freedom, self-control, etc.) mark us out from the beasts, as it were? Don't they grant us a special dignity—an elevated place in the order of creation?4 It is a wonderful piece of self-flattery. But nothing in the concept of human dignity actually commits us to it. Dignity can be shared across species. There is no logical rule against this. Indeed, chickens may well have a dignity (i.e., chicken dignity) that rivals that of human beings, even if it may not impose the same practical requirements (such as the right to vote). At its core, talk about human dignity is simply talk about the kind of dignity attributable to human beings; it need not make any assumptions, positive or negative, about the dignity attributable to other animals. This is not a trivial point. As Michael Meyer puts it, it would be a “cruel irony” if human dignity, a foundational moral idea of our time if anything is, turned out to be an inextricably speciesist concept.5 This paper argues that human dignity is special in a rather different sense. If we think of normative concepts (justice, mercy, charity, freedom, equality, utility, etc.) as plural—that is, if we think there is more than one, and that each picks out a meaningfully distinct set of concerns—then we might wonder how the concept of human dignity fits into this varied landscape. Is there anything special about the concerns it raises, or the practical directives it issues? And if so, what? In what follows, I suggest that dignity's concern is with social status and its markings—or what we sometimes call “honor.” What it requires is that we avoid subjecting people to the specific (socially oriented) harm of humiliation or degradation and, more positively, that we help protect them from such harm, too. In arguing this, I am taking sides in an established debate.6 But I offer new reasons for taking this side, and develop the technicalities of the view. Theories of dignity are often stipulative.7 Some associate dignity with a duty to respect the moral inviolability of persons;8 others, with a duty to promote basic capabilities;9 others, with the virtue of self-control;10 and so on. Apart from observing certain obvious constraints—e.g., that human dignity must belong to all human beings, and generate reasons and/or duties—thinkers just seem to plonk down in favor of their preferred (stipulated) view. And this fuels a common perception that dignity is, in the end, just a placeholder (“nothing but a phrase”) on which nearly any theoretical agenda can be projected—a quality that some have argued is, ironically, key to its success.11 But dignity is not just a placeholder. On the contrary, it is rich in normative content. And this content is, once again, special; it has to do with our social lives, and social vulnerabilities, in particular. Moreover, we can demonstrate this by examining considered judgments about particular cases.12 A complete philosophical theory of human dignity should have four main components. First, it ought to tell us something about human dignity's nature, or “what” it is. Is it a kind of value, status, or virtue?13 Second, once we understand what human dignity is, we'll want to know what grounds it—that is, how and why one comes to possess or lose it. Third, as a normative concept, a complete theory of human dignity should tell us what its practical requirements are: what duties and/or reasons it generates. And fourth, there are methodological questions about how inquiry into all of this should proceed and be understood. One natural way to construct such a theory is to begin by answering the first question, about human dignity's nature, and then to address the other questions accordingly. For instance, if we start by thinking of dignity as a virtue, this will structure our thinking about its grounds and practical requirements. On the one hand, it will have to be grounded in aspects of one's character and behavior (e.g., the tendency to “stand up for oneself,” or to keep composure under challenging circumstances). And as for its practical requirements, these will depend, at least in part, on our understanding of the correct response to virtue (or vice), such as praise (blame), admiration (contempt), or reward (punishment). My strategy here will be different, and in a sense opposite. Instead of starting with an account of its nature, I start with some observations about human dignity's practical requirements—in particular, about the conditions of its “violation.” The various accounts or theories of human dignity I consider below should be understood as accounts of these requirements, first and foremost. Once we are satisfied that we have the right practical account, we can then use it as a benchmark for understanding the idea more generally.14 Bicycle Theft: Sheila bikes to work one morning. Upon arrival, she responsibly locks her bicycle to a rack on which plenty of other bicycles are also locked. At the end of the workday, she once again emerges only to discover that her bicycle has been mercilessly stolen. Sheila is, of course, morally wronged in this instance. If, like her, you own a bicycle, others have a corresponding duty not to take it without your consent. But however obvious it is that Sheila is wronged, it is not as clear that her human dignity is at stake, or in any way undermined. Indeed, I think most would resist understanding this as a violation of human dignity, at least on the current description. Vandalism: One evening, a group of adolescents get up to no good and, in a fit of juvenile delinquency, throw a rock through the window of a local corner store. Thankfully, it is after closing hours, so the shop is empty, and no one is hurt. This too, of course, is wrongful treatment—a senseless (and dangerous) attack on private property. But do the reckless adolescents violate anyone's human dignity? Once again, this seems less clear. Not all moral wrongs convincingly register as violations of human dignity, then. And this suggests that dignity is normatively special—that its violation represents a particular type of wrong. Such a claim might seem obvious, in the abstract. But it happens to be at odds with a large body of existing theory. According to many theorists, human dignity is concerned with humanity's membership in the moral community, with “moral status,” rather than the provision of some particular moral good. This is what we might call a Gateway theory. Any treatment short of what is owed to human members of the moral community—to anyone residing within that gateway, as it were—will violate dignity, on such a view.15 Just what sort of conduct this includes will depend on the type of Gateway theory one adopts. On a standard version of the view, human dignity requires respect for the moral “worth” of Homo sapiens—for the fact that, unlike rocks, cloud formations, and kitchen cabinets, human beings are objects of intrinsic (rather than merely instrumental) concern, and are owed a full gamut of moral observances in light of this.16 On another version, popularized by thinkers like Joel Feinberg and Stephen Darwall, dignity demands respect for the moral “authority” of persons: the right to claim moral treatment, or “stand up” and insist that one actually gets what one is owed.17 This is sometimes understood as a requirement of respect for rights, i.e., an agent's authoritative claims against others.18 But it is also understood in contractualist terms, as a basic demand to treat others in “justifiable” ways.19 Either way, Gateway theories can hardly make sense of our judgments about Bicycle Theft and Vandalism. Not only do these cases both involve (“unjustifiable”) moral wrongs, they both involve rights violations, and thus violations of dignity, on the Gateway view. Perhaps this moves too fast, though. It is possible that the cases do register as attacks on human dignity: just very minor (nearly indetectable?) ones. After all, as far as moral wrongs go, these are relatively harmless. Worse things can happen to a person. And if minor wrongs like these come across as minor violations of human dignity, this is conceivably all well and good from the point of view of Gateway theories. But this conciliatory strategy won't work. For one, even if there is room for disagreement about this, it seems entirely natural to understand Bicycle Theft and Vandalism as posing no threat to human dignity. And that's of course not something that can be explained by appealing to the minor nature of the wrongs themselves. More importantly, though, we shouldn't confuse the gravity of a crime with its patency. Even if they aren't especially grave, the two cases patently involve moral wrongs—indeed, rights violations. According to Gateway theories, they should also patently involve dignity violations. But they do not. These cases give us reason to think human dignity is special: that not all moral wrongs violate, attack, besmirch, or undermine it. This only raises a further question, however. If dignity is special, what's so special about it? What distinguishes “dignitarian” from “non-dignitarian” harms? To answer this, we need more data. And for that, we can consider variations on the preceding cases, as well as others. If we discover patterns in these variations, or factors that consistently trigger (or assuage) concerns about dignity, this will be instructive. For instance, while the average bicycle theft isn't naturally (or normally) pegged as a violation of human dignity, much depends on the details. What if Sheila is a disabled person, and the theft is a premeditated attack designed to take away her only means of independent transportation: a modified bicycle custom-built for her at great cost? If this is part of the case description, it becomes more natural to think it describes an assault on dignity.20 Or imagine, in Vandalism, that the adolescents involved are young members of the Ku Klux Klan, and attack the store in order to intimidate its owners: an African American family that has just recently moved into a mostly white neighborhood. Once again, these details change things. They make it difficult not to think of the case as an attack on human dignity. Homicide: Late one evening, Charlie is walking home. As he nears the doorstep of his apartment building, two armed assailants approach him, and attempt to steal his backpack. This creates a struggle, in the midst of which one assailant fires a gun, striking Charlie in the chest. The injury proves fatal. Unlike the previous cases, this is a grave crime from the start. Like those cases, however, altering its details can transform its dignitarian significance. Suppose, once again, that we introduce an element of discrimination: Charlie is attacked because he is an immigrant who, according to the assailants, does not “belong” in their country. Or, suppose we alter details about the manner in which Charlie is killed. What if Charlie is shot, not haphazardly in “the heat of the moment,” as it were, but in cold blood, at point blank range, in the head? Or what if Charlie is made to kneel or lie down before being shot from behind, in the style of a summary execution? What if he is beheaded on his doorstep? These excruciating details transform the nature of the crime in a profound way. They inject a kind of offense (or outrage) into it that strongly triggers concerns about human dignity. But what, if anything, does this tell us about the nature of such concerns? The philosophical literature provides us with a litany of interpretive options here. There are a number of influential theories that, unlike Gateway theories, tie human dignity to a specific moral value, principle, or injunction—one which, crucially, may be at issue in the case of some moral wrongs but not others. To simplify things, we can group these theories under two broad headings: Autonomy and Inviolability theories. The former link human dignity to a requirement of respect for human autonomy. The latter link it to respect for the moral inviolability of persons or the rights thereof. Consider each group in turn. Some Autonomy theories focus strictly on so-called “negative” liberty: that is, simple duties of noninterference.21 But most incorporate positive duties as well. For instance, James Griffin links human dignity to respect for “personhood”—our capacity to independently formulate a life plan and then to act on it.22 Respecting this capacity involves noninterference, but it also requires material and educational assistance (what Griffin calls “minimum provision”).23 Similarly, Martha Nussbaum understands human dignity to require “creating the conditions” in which individuals can exercise and develop their “central human capabilities,” such as capacities for health, imagination, thought, sensation, emotion, practical reasoning, friendship, play, and so on.24 This isn't just a matter of leaving people alone. It requires providing them with reliable access to various life-enhancing goods. These are attractive theories, considered on their own terms. But they have questionable interpretive power in the present context. It is true that, in Bicycle Theft, part of what distinguishes the more egregious, dignity-violating version of the crime is that, in it, Sheila loses not just a bicycle but her sole means of independent mobility—an important aspect of her personal autonomy. So, Autonomy theories do have some hope of explaining why that version of the case more naturally registers as an attack on dignity. But consider Homicide. Why, if Autonomy theories are correct, does a coldblooded gunshot to the head strike us as more of an affront to human dignity than a frightened gunshot to the chest? After all, both are squarely against the wishes of the victim, and equally likely to result in death and the destruction of agency. Why do factors like the posture and position of a victim and perpetrator at the moment of killing so strongly amplify (or relax) our sense that human dignity is at stake? Why, when all else is equal, do facts about the subjective attitudes of a perpetrator toward their victim, and whether these attitudes are discriminatory or not, demeaning or not, so strongly affect our sense of whether the perpetrator commits a dignitarian crime? These questions are not easily answered by Autonomy theories. Inviolability theories face even graver interpretive difficulties. According to such theories, human dignity requires that every individual enjoy a set of basic entitlements (e.g., to life, privacy, autonomy, equality, minimum welfare, etc.) that, barring only the most extraordinary circumstances, are not to be overridden or traded off, even when this would serve some demonstrably greater good.25 As John Rawls puts it, it means that persons “possess an inviolability… that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.”26 This idea is often associated with Kant, and his “Formula of Humanity,”27 but it also finds expression in Catholic ethical doctrine, where dignity is similarly associated with an “inviolable” right to life—often in a markedly absolutist mode.28 This is a popular way of understanding the practical import of human dignity: that it erects a strong (normative) “shield” around individual rights or persons. Still, it too has limited heuristic value in the present context. The main reason for this is that all of the cases described above, regardless of variation, break this shield, as it were. They all violate “inviolable” rights— e.g., to life, liberty, and property. According to Inviolability theories, the cases should therefore all come across as blatant violations of human dignity. But again, they do not. Some register as more obvious attacks on dignity than others. And it is not clear how Inviolability theories can explain this. Where else might we look for insight, then? In 1970, Peter Berger, an Austrian-American sociologist, published a short essay entitled, “On the Obsolescence of the Concept of Honor.”29 In it, he argues that the idea of “honor” has grown outdated: today, an individual asserting it “hardly invites admiration, and one who claims to have lost it is an object of amusement.”30 In place of honor, Berger argues the modern West has rallied around the notion of “human dignity,” which he understands to be importantly different. Berger explains that the acquisition and maintenance of honor is a social achievement. It requires public display, external approval, and the fulfillment of social roles. Human dignity, by contrast, is a more inward-looking concept, in Berger's view. It is something one is meant to possess and pursue outside of the strictures of society, as part of a romantic search for individual authenticity or self-enlightenment.31 Berger's thesis is interesting because it draws a stark contrast that we should reject. As several others also note, it turns out to be more illuminating to focus on the continuities between the “old” notion of honor and the “new” concept of universal human dignity.32 Much like insults to honor, violations of human dignity characteristically humiliate, shame, or degrade. They attack our social standing, above all—undermining our sense of pride and belonging in society. This is, in short, what I think is special about human dignity. What it demands is that we avoid subjecting others to gross humiliation or degradation, and that we help protect them from such harm, too. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to “degrade” means to “reduce from a higher to a lower rank, to depose from a position of honor or estimation.”33 If we think of human dignity as essentially concerned with a harm of this sort, we can make good sense of the cases (and variations) examined in Sections III and IV. Consider Bicycle Theft, for example. Part of what separates the dignity-violating version of that case from its ordinary counterpart is not just its greater overall impact on the victim's life, but its degrading or humiliating character. The variant case is degrading for a number of reasons. For one, unlike its more benign counterpart, it strips its victim of something ordinarily considered (and that we expect Sheila herself considers) crucial to one's pride or self-respect: independent mobility. In this regard, the sheer impact of the crime degrades its victim in a way that ordinary cases of bicycle theft do not. Then there is the matter of the crime's intent. Unlike most ordinary cases of bicycle theft, this is a malicious and premeditated attack on a disabled person, which is significant in two ways. First, it means that there is something distinctly personal about the theft. It is no mere coincidence that Sheila's bicycle is the one stolen that day; rather, the perpetrator steals Sheila's bicycle precisely in order to attack her. It is humiliating (not to mention terrifying) to be targeted for attack by others, particularly when this is to exploit a vulnerability (in this case, a physical disability) that is already a source of stigma for the victim involved. In this way, the dignity-violating theft reinforces, or forms part of, a more general pattern of social exclusion and discrimination that is degrading in its own right. Second, the intended impact of the crime—to render Sheila dependent and immobile—suggests that it is meant not just to harm or disable but, indeed, specifically to humiliate its victim: to attack her sense of pride and equal membership in society. Actions can degrade unintentionally. Torture, for instance, is degrading even if this is unintended. But when actions are purposefully designed to insult, humiliate, or degrade, this typically heightens the sense in which they do.34 By the measure of both its impact and intentions, then, the dignity-violating version of Bicycle Theft is notably more degrading than its counterpart. There is a positive fit, here, between the degrading character of a crime, on the one hand, and the patency of its status as a violation of human dignity, on the other. This correlation bears out across the other cases as well. Vandalism, for instance, violates human dignity only when it becomes degrading in intent: that is, once it transforms from a product of ordinary juvenile delinquency into a hate crime. As a hate crime, Vandalism's intent is degrading in much the same way as above. First, it is no longer a random but, now, a targeted attack on an African American family, because they are African American (in our world, already a source of social stigma and systematic discrimination). Moreover, it is now meant not just to harm but to socially terrorize its victims: to make them feel unwanted, excluded, humiliated, and afraid. Or consider Homicide. When the assailants make Charlie kneel down for formal execution, it is clear that they are interested in more than just a backpack. Their aim must be to add insult to injury—to say something demeaning about the victim (e.g., that he is worthless, base, despicable, etc.) and their relationship toward him (e.g., that it is one of subordination and/or antipathy). This makes the crime viscerally degrading in a way that it otherwise isn't, and a blatant offense to human dignity as a result. This completes the basic argument of this paper. If we put abstract theory aside for a moment, and look instead at our concrete (“applied”) judgments about what human dignity practically requires, and when it is violated or most at stake, we see that it is preoccupied not simply with moral status (or even specific moral goods like autonomy or inviolability) but with social status—with “honoring” a person, as opposed to humiliating or degrading them. But just what is it to degrade or humiliate (or, by contrast, to “honor”) someone? If we can't say anything more about the nature of such a harm (or good), then it won't mean very much to say that dignity is concerned with it. This is not the place to offer a complete account. But we can make decent sense of the preceding observations, at least. If we start, once again, from the idea that to humiliate or degrade is to “reduce from a higher to a lower rank, to depose from a position of honor or estimation,” we can identify at least three general ways of perpetrating this kind of harm. First, and perhaps most straightforwardly, an agent can degrade or humiliate by adopting a disrespectful attitude toward others. An attitude, as I shall understand it here, is “a complex set of dispositions to perceive, have emotions, deliberate, and act in ways oriented towards [someone].”35 And an attitude is disrespectful if it has, quite simply, some contemptuous or demeaning component. This may involve moral disregard: a belief that someone has no (or lesser) moral value or authority—like a mere object or plaything.36 Or it might involve something closer to disesteem: a failure of what Darwall calls “appraisal” (as opposed to “recognition”) respect.37 If we think about the degradations of a caste society, for example, these are not just about moral discrimination, i.e., the assignment of lesser rights, value, and opportunities to certain members of the population. They are also about the attitudes of disgust, contempt, and condescension directed toward such persons, e.g., those deemed “untouchable.” Attitudes can degrade because they are fundamental constituents of social relationships, and of social status in general. To fully inhabit a social position (friend, colleague, ruler, citizen, celebrity, etc.) others must reliably take one to have it—that is, one must be “seen” as having it.38 Chloé and Lesley are not really friends, they do not really enjoy “friendship,” unless they both regard each other as friends (itself a socially constructed category). When others fail to adopt relevant attitudes toward us, then, this can threaten, undermine, and even obliterate our social position, humiliating or degrading us.39 This seems true even if others treat us as if we hold a position they do not regard us as holding, or as worthy of holding. A white supremacist may treat their black neighbor as an equal without regarding them as one—that is, without regarding them as genuinely deserving of such treatment. It may be better, all else equal, for the racist to dissemble here. But their supremacist attitude is degrading nonetheless.40 In addition to holding disrespectful attitudes, agents can degrade or humiliate by treating others in ways that express such attitudes.41 Expressing an attitude involves manifesting it in one's actions or statements in some way—including via gesture, tone of voice, posture, forms of art, or other expressive media.42 And the attitude expressed or manifested by an agent's behavior partly depends on intent, i.e., the reason(s) for which the agent acts. This is because intentions reflect the attitudes one has. For instance, to borrow an example from Thomas Scanlon, if I call my sick relative because I am concerned about her welfare, the call expresses my care for her. But if I call because I hate her and expect I will enjoy hearing how weak she sounds, the same act now expresses an entirely different (disturbingly sadistic) attitude.43 Some actions express attitudes more overtly, because they are specifically designed to communicate them, i.e., to make others aware of an agent's attitudes by “sending a message.” This is of course a particularly important form of expression.44 Consider Vandalism, once again. If the attack on the shop window is a matter of ordinary juvenile delinquency, it demonstrates a certain idiocy and recklessness, to be sure. If this is a hate crime, however, it transforms in two respects. First, it expresses a different (and notably darker) set of attitudes: hatred, domination, and exclusion. This alone is enough to mark the crime as an insult to human dignity. But there is something else. As a hate crime, Vandalism is also designed to communicate those attitudes, to make the shop owners (and perhaps others) aware of their unwantedness by hurling an insult—as if to say, aloud: “You don't belong here!” All this helps us understand why intent matters in the way the foregoing analysis suggests. First, it explains why it is humiliating to target someone for mistreatment. I may be brazenly cut off by a fellow driver in rush hour traffic. This is of course a nuisance. And it is undoubtedly “jerkish” behavior. But it is not an attack on my human dignity because it is not really (at least not normally) an attack on me. Like an indiscriminate bicycle theft, it won't usually matter to the driver that I am the person they cut off; indeed, they may hold no specific attitude toward me. They just want to get home as quickly as possible (and I just happen to be in the way). But all this changes if, as in the variations on the cases above, this somehow becomes a targeted attack; if the driver cuts me off because, say, I am from a low-income neighborhood, and they hold no regard for people “like me.” In that case, the act comes to express a kind of social contempt that it otherwise does not. Second, we can now better understand why expressly intended humiliations tend to be more profound examples thereof. Deliberate communications of disrespect—e.g., insults “to one's face”—have unique social consequences. It is one thing, as discussed above, for someone (x) to hold me in low regard, or to think of me as, say, less than equal. Because my social position depends on the attitudes of others, this already makes me less than equal, so far as my relationship with x is concerned. But when x communicates this disrespectful attitude to me, at least if the communication is successful or “received,” my social demotion (vis-à-vis x) is more complete. Had I never known x's true feelings, we could at least engage under the pretense of relational equality; now that they are out in the open, this becomes impossible, and the relationship must proceed on new, degraded terms.45 Of course, I may not accept these terms. I may openly defend my equality, my honor. But the publicity of x's attitude denies me even the sad privilege of feigned respect.46 This is what the young Klan members deny the shop owners in the variation on Vandalism. Important as intentions are, however, the expressive content of behavior is not wholly determined by them. For one, sometimes the revealing thing is what an agent fails to intend. A government that fails to fit public buildings with access for disabled persons shows disregard toward such persons, even if this is inadvertent.47 An agent may also act on reasons, or express attitudes, that they are not consciously aware of.48 And third, there are social norms to consider. In some instances, I may be unaware of what we might call the “public meaning” of my actions, i.e., “social conventions or norms that set public standards for expressing certain attitudes.”49 If I tell a sexist joke to my female colleague, this expresses a certain disrespect toward her (and, indeed, toward all women), even if I am somehow clueless about this.50 Or consider again the variations on Homicide. It is (in theory) possible that the perpetrators have no real intention of humiliating Char
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