This post is a summary of the book with the title above, it was published in 2011 at http://www.corteidh.or.cr/tablas/r30885.pdf
Human dignity is the main philosophical foundation of human rights, as expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and many other documents. The concept of human dignity is meant to distinguish human beings from other creatures, notably animals. It underlines the uniqueness of human beings among all creatures, above all their free will, individual autonomy and capacity of independence decision-making based on reason and free moral choice. By focusing on violation of human dignity, the authors adress the question what it means for human beings all over the world to be degraded, humiliated and dehumanized. What do victims of serious human rights violations have in common? In my opinion, it is the experience of absolute powerlessness. By addressing various aspects of human dignity and ways how human beings continue to be deprived by other human beings of this essential aspect of being human, the present volume constitutes an important contribution to the contemporary inter-disciplinary discourse on the relationship between human rights and human dignity. The concept of human dignity is one of few philosophical notions that has gained popular currency beyond academic discourse. Immanuel Kant and other philosophers has found its way into our colloquial vocabulary. Appeals to human dignity are an important part of ethical, legal and political discourse nowadays and appear in constitutions, U.N. documents, and in NGO publications. It is our convinction that any satisfactory conception of dignity should be able to explain the reality of its violation and should not be detached from concrete occurrences and interpretation in social life, since this is what motivates us to talk about dignity. Instead of deducing moral principles from an abstract conception of human dignity, our contributions start from some act or practice that often is or can be characterized as a violation of human dignity. Of course, in order to develop a philosophical concept of human dignity abstract values and human capacities have to be considered as well. We do not want to deny the importance of these matters, but at the same time, we want to emphasize that the phenomena should not be lost from sight. This volume demonstrate the complexity of the phenomena that may be labelled as violation of human dignity. But they also show how conceptions of dignity can bring order to this complexity. This book consist of three parts. In the first part we proceed from what we understand to be some general forms of dignity violations such as humiliation, degradation or dehumanization. Kaufmann and Webster, analyze degrading treatment. From different starting points both draw attention to the role that the concept of dignity might play in describing the wrong that is captured in these general expressions of dignity violations. For example, they point to the close interrelation between dignity and autonomy. Neuhauser shows us that certain forms of humiliation can not be understood without accepting the idea that the dignity of a collective can be violated as well as the dignity of an individual. Though varying in their methods, focus and conclusions, the contributions to this anthology are united in their shared conviction that the widening of interest in dignity beyond the gaze of academic philosophy is to be welcomed, The concept now figures prominently in debates on many social and moral problems of global concerns. Historical accounts of human dignity distinguish four different sources: the Greek and Roman heritage culminating in Cicero's notion of "Dignitas" ; the biblical conception of man and woman as being created in the image of god; Kant's Wurde as opposed to price; and finally, the concept that turned up after 1945 in numerous declarations and constitutional laws. If we want to understand human dignity, we should start with instances of its violations. Instead of attempting to derive a conception of human dignity from normative ethics or anthropology, we should choose start from situations which we are inclined to describe as violations of human dignity and then ask what it is that makes it so appealing to use this concept of referring to, for example, harming, infringing autonomy or violating human rights. In Germany the debate on human dignity flared up some 10 years ago as part of the bioethical discussion on the status of the human embryo, particularly in the context of stem cell and preimplantation diagnostics. In the 1960s and 1970s, nobody would have expected that a conversation about human dignity concerned embryos. In those days people were worried about violations of human dignity in Latin America, in the USSR, or Vietnam, for example. Or they used the notion of dignity to describe the situations of the inhabitants of psychiatric clinics and jails. And 20 years before that, this notion was necessary and appropriate to express the horrendous nature of the deeds of the Nazis. Any satisfying explanation of human dignity has to take into account how broad the scope of its application is. Even a coarse survey shows many different areas in which we are confronted with morally questionable actions that we are inclined to describe as violations of human dignity: terror and torture, killing and rape, slavery, racism, sexism, severe hunger and poverty, endemic unemployment, political and religion suppression, the refusal of citizenship, being prohibited from maintaining personal relations, state control and the restriction of liberty, flagrant injustice, disregard of privacy, isolation, and insult. No doubt these cases differ in several aspects, but they have in common that they are regarded as threats to our human dignity. From the perspective of a moral philosopher, it would be unjustified to simply follow social practice and obligation to obey whatever behavioral demands flow from individual identity. Our identities are subjected to continuous reconstruction. What is not so morally innocuous is whether we care about our identities at all, since this is at the very heart of our conception of self-respect: self-respect is an evaluative attitude we have towards our individual dignity. And from the ethical perspective is something valuable that has to be respected. I wanted to sketch the understanding we arrive at if we take the three turns that I regard as crucial in the inquiry into human dignity. The negative turn, to start with violations, not only provide us with a philosophical motivation to look into human dignity but also gives us an idea of which features maybe be essential. The inductive turn, to consider the while range of applications in different areas of ethics, is a good antidote to rash solutions. And the historical turn, to take into account the historical bonds between human dignity and traditional conceptions of dignity, leads in the direction of an understanding of human dignity as universal, which is probably the best way of seeing ourselves. There are two possible understanding of the idea of a collective dimension of humiliation. One is: Can collectives violate human dignity? and the other is: can someone violate the human dignity of a collective? We ask questions like: Are the Germans responsible for the Holocaust? And : Do men add to the subjection of women by downplaying its importance? There is an ongoing debate over the question whether there can be collective agency and responsibility and how it should be understood if it exist at all. Although is a important debate, it is not the question I want to focus on. My concern is the second understanding of the question: Can someone violate the dignity of a collective? The initial response seems to be no, because collectives have no dignity. I think this answer is wrong because it rests on a confusion of methodological and ethical individualism. It is correct that collectives entities do not have dignity apart from their human members, but this does not mean that we have to look at individuals alone and not at groups when being concerned about humiliation. Humiliation is any sort of behaviour or condition that constitutes a reason for a person to consider his ir her self-respected injured. It is important to see what humiliation in the normative sense are about: They attempt to lower someone below the status of a human being as a person with dignity through an improper attitude ir treatment. In this normative sense, humiliation is close to dehumanization. Although there is a lot to be said about group rights, I will summarize. The view I presented on the different dorms of the humiliation of groups, of shared dignity, and of group rights can help is to overcome the danger of an evanescence of dignity which could come about through an attitude of radical individualization. On such account, persons are seen as atomic entities that do not need to have social ties. At the same time it should be clear that groups rights have to be based in ethical individualism in order to overcome totalitarian tendencies and the attempted justification of humiliation attitudes towards other groups. Only under these conditions will a peaceful coexistence of cultural diverse groups that nonetheless respect each other become possible. The scope of our autonomy is, according to Hegel, the reason why we recognize the other as person. If the other proves to be willing to risk his own life, we acknowledge or recognize this other as an equal human being. To some extent, Hegel comes close to Kant's notion of respect here. Hegel puts the existential absolutness in this way: "Self-consciousness exist in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it exist only in being acknowledge. The demand for recognition might become so strong that I am willing to put life at risk simply for the sake of honor. According to Hegel, these struggles are based in the fact that identities can be threatened or wounded by acts of misrecognition or disrespect. This because recognition is constitutive of personal identity. Within the horizon of recognition theory, we can conceive dignity preliminarily as a fundamental aspect of identity. The relation to oneself, which meakes up identity is, as we have seen a normative relations. This normative dimension is grasped in terms like "self-respect or " self-worth". Both of these terms refer to internal relation of a person to herself, but both terms also have an external dimension. Human rights law provides an example of the conceptual interaction between degradation and human dignity, embodied in the interpretation and application of the prohibition of degrading treatment, one form of harm within the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Is there not a sense in which we all know degradation when we see it? But then what do we respond when asked to give a practical example of degradation? Degradation is portrayed as a conceptual opposite of human dignity. And the right is interpreted as aiming to protect human dignity. Certain conditions are simply viewed as unacceptable and improper for a human being. The Court admonishes a lack of respect for the person, including for a person's physical and mental health. Questions related to the significance of the individual experience of degradation are pivotal, yet they are not straightoward. Insight into this dimension of the concept of degradation emerges via the concept of humiliation. This principle is not explicitly clarified in the jurisprudence, but rather is substantial through its application. In exploring humiliation and this related principle, that humiliation is recognized as an emotional or feeling, but also as a state or social fact. The distinction between emotion and social fact entails that a person can feel humiliated without being directly humiliated.
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