Dignity is a complex concept. In academic and legal contexts, it istypically used in the couplet “human dignity” to denote akind of basic worth or status that purportedly belongs to all personsequally, and which grounds fundamental moral or political duties orrights. In this sense, many believe that dignity is a defining idealof the contemporary world, especially in western society. However, theconcept of dignity has long been associated with many more meanings,some of which cut in distinctly different directions: rank, station,honor, uniqueness, beauty, poise, gravitas, integrity, self-respect,self-esteem, a sacred place in the order of things, supreme worth, andeven the apex of astrological significance. Some of these connotationshave faded with time. But most have enduring influence.

So, what exactly is dignity? Do its different connotations hangtogether in any principled way? Does dignity understood as“universal human worth”, for example, have any meaningfulconnection to “social rank” or “personalintegrity”? Is dignity primarily a moral concept or a politicaland legal one? Even assuming we can make sense of its differentmeanings, what does dignity demand of us? What does it mean torecognize or respect it? Does it ground rights? If so, which ones? Andwhere does the idea of dignity come from? What, in other words, is itshistory?

This entry will take up these questions, but without any pretense ofbeing exhaustive. The goal is to provide a general guide to existingtheory and debate, with a focus on philosophical approaches to humandignity, and mostly as it figures into the western tradition. The vastliterature makes anything more ambitious than this unrealistic, evenfor an encyclopedic survey.

• 1. A Historical Primer
  • 1.1 The legal history of dignity
  • 1.2 Four Origin Stories
    • 1.2.1 The revolutionary platitude
    • 1.2.2 The Kantian platitude
    • 1.2.3 Theimago Dei platitude
    • 1.2.4 The Ciceronian platitude
• 2. Formulating Dignity
  • 2.1 Dignity’s defining properties vs. dignity’s grounds
  • 2.2 Is a connection to rights a defining property of dignity?
  • 2.3 Are distinctiveness and fragility defining properties of dignity?
• 3. Human Dignity: Touchstones of Analysis
  • 3.1 Virtue, Value, Status, and the “distinctiveness” point reconsidered
  • 3.2 Individuals vs. species
  • 3.3 Inherent vs. constructed
  • 3.4 Respect: An alternative lens on dignity
• 4. Skeptical Worries
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. A Historical Primer

In the opening sentence of its preamble, the 1948 Declaration of HumanRights affirms the “inherent dignity” and “equal andinalienable rights of all members of the human family” as the“foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”(UN 1948). This claim would surprise our modern ancestors. Until about1830–1850, neither the English term “dignity,” norits Latin rootdignitas, nor the French counterpartdignité, had any stable currency as meaning “theunearned status or worth of all persons”, let alone the groundsof universal rights or equality. Instead, in everything fromHobbes’sLeviathan (1651) to Samuel Johnson’sDictionary (1755) to Webster’sCompendiousDictionary (1806), “dignity” was primarily used witha conventional merit connotation—something like the “rankof elevation” that Johnson officially gave it.

How did this sea change in meaning come about? The UN Declarationmakes clear that dignity’s moral-political meaning had becomenormalized by 1948. But what happened before 1948 that explains thistransformation? These are not easy questions to answer. Althoughtheorists often include historical remarks in their inquiries, theyare just as often brief and subservient to some further,non-historical point. The result is a great many half-told storiesabout dignity’s past.

There are some notable exceptions. For some time, legal theorists havebeen etching out the details of dignity’s historical role in lawand jurisprudence, especially in connection to rights. Second,theological inquiries into human dignity often engage an older historyof ideas, especially the Renaissance thinker Pico della Mirandola orscholastic debates about the biblical doctrine ofimago Dei.Third, there is a considerable body of literature on the Enlightenmentluminaire, Immanuel Kant, and his famous claim that humans do not havea “price”, only a distinctive and incomparable worth orWürde—usually translated as “dignity”(see, e.g., Korsgaard 1986; Meyer 1987; Hill 1992; Kofman 1982 [1997];Wood 1999; Kain 2009). Let us turn to these various exceptions, andtheir challenges.

1.1 The legal history of dignity

The connection between law and dignity strikes many as socially andmorally urgent. It is thus unsurprising that some serious history ofthis connection already exists, especially in relation to rightstheory (see, e.g., Eberle 2002 or Barak 2015). Nevertheless, the bulkof this history does not look back very far.

For example, Lewis (2007) gives a wonderful overview of the idea ofdignity in international law, but his focus is on the writing of, andreaction to, the 1945 UN Charter and 1948 Declaration of Human Rights.Or consider McCrudden’s impressive 2013 edited volume,Understanding Human Dignity. The historical chapters of thisvolume make important contributions, but again the focus is largelythe twentieth century. Scott’s chapter (2013), for example,begins by observing that the 1848 French decree to abolish slaverymotivates itself from the consideration “that slavery is anassault upon human dignity (la dignité humaine)”(2013: 61). She then nicely explores the idea of dignity in thecontext of post-slavery Louisiana c.1862–96. However, thechapter then jumps forward to a comparison with Brazilian societyc.1970–2012. Moyn’s chapter (2013) examines early andmiddle twentieth century constitutional debates to show that theconcept of dignity labors under poorly appreciated debts to aspecifically Christian conception of democracy, and for this reason,Moyn argues, we should be skeptical about the long-term utility ofdignity for secular rights theory. And Goos’s chapter (2013)offers a close examination of the role of dignity in German thought,but the focus is on post-World War II interpretation of the GermanGrundgesetz (Basic Law).^[1]

A longer legal history can be found in McCrudden (2008), whose concisereview of dignity reaches back to classical Roman thought. McCruddenargues that we can trace the merit connotation of dignity as“elevated social rank” to the Roman idea of“dignitas homini” (2008: 656); but also, andcrucially, he argues that we can trace our contemporarymoral-political notion of the “basic worth or status of humanpersons” to this same period, when Cicero introduced the idea of“the dignity of the human race” (see also, Cancik 2002).This claim about Cicero is echoed in Michael Rosen’s 2012,Dignity: Its History and Meaning, which is another importantentry into dedicated history that focuses on legal connections.Rosen’s history is mostly from a bird’s eye view, but,like McCrudden’s, Rosen’s history has the virtue of takinga long view that stretches back to antiquity. Moreover, Rosen offerssome nuanced reflections on eighteenth and nineteenth centuryconnections, including Kant’s influence on the writing of theGermanGrundgesetz.

Finally, when it comes to legal history, Darwall (2017) offers asophisticated analysis of dignity’s connections to westernEnlightenment conceptions of jurisprudence stretching back to thesixteenth century. Importantly, however, Darwall’s historychallenges McCrudden’s and Rosen’s appeal to Cicero as akey source. We will return to this scholarly disagreement andDarwall’s competing proposal below (§1.2.2 and§1.2.4).

1.2 Four Origin Stories

Given the present popularity of studying dignity, we should not onlyexpect the historical contours of dignity to become clearer in comingyears, but also for them to be occasionally redrawn. A few importantplatitudes have already been challenged.

1.2.1 The revolutionary platitude

The western creed of human dignity stems from the wisdom ofeighteenth-century revolutionary thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson,Alexander Hamilton, or Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette. Atthe founding of new liberal states like America, or the reformation ofexisting ones like England or France, political sages like thesepropounded the inviolable value of individual human beings.

In reality, one looks in vain for dignity in the founding documents ofthese new republics. The term appears a few times in the English Billof Rights (1689), but not with our contemporary moral-politicalmeaning. It appears once in the FrenchDéclaration desDroits de l’Homme et du Citoyen (1789), but the connotationis of the privileges that attend public or political office. And forall its fiery rhetoric about equality and the“inalienable” rights of man, the US Declaration ofIndependence does not mention human dignity at all. Nor does the USConstitution. In fact, it is not until the Mexican Constitution of1917 and the 1919 Weimer Constitution, that the term appears in aconstitutional contextpossibly with its moral-politicalconnotation (McCrudden 2008; Debes 2009 and 2017b). To this correctiveevidence, we should add the testimony of an entirely different set ofhistorical voices—from Sojourner Truth, David Walker, AnnaWheeler, and William Thompson, to Susan B. Anthony, FrederickDouglass, James Rapier, and Ida B. Wells—who remind us that therevolutionary platitude was contradicted by the lived realitywithin these new republics. These voices decried thesystematic oppression and often bloody inhumanity that stained thesupposedly egalitarian societies in which they lived.

1.2.2 The Kantian platitude

The early modern concept of dignity originates with Immanuel Kant, whoin his 1785Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, arguedthat all persons have an inherent value, or dignity, in virtue oftheir rational autonomy. This value commands a distinct kind of moralrespect, which we express by abiding by certain limits in ourtreatment of others. Thus, Kant argued that we have a categorical dutyto treat persons always “as an end” and “never merely asa means” (Groundwork, 4:429).

This is the greatest dogma about dignity in philosophy. But there aregood reasons to rethink it in favor of a more complicated history ofideas. First, although it is well known that Kant is indebted toRousseau in various ways (see especially Beiser 1992), recentscholarship suggests that when it comes to his ideas about“humanity” and “dignity”, the debt runs deeperthan is generally understood (James 2013; Hanley 2017; Sensen 2017).Sensen also argues that it is a longstanding interpretive mistake tothink that Kantgrounds the obligation to respect others onany “absolute inner value” that humans possess; and that“dignity” is not the name Kant gave to such a value anyway(Sensen 2011 & 2017; see also Meyer 1987). Relatedly, Debes (2021)argues that contemporary philosophers have greatly overestimatedKant’s influence on the historical development of our notion ofmoral respect for persons.

On top of these corrections, Darwall (2017) argues that the conceptuallink between dignity and rights does not originate with Kant.According to Darwall, only certain conceptions of dignity will supportthe kind of inferences about respect that could justify using dignityto ground human rights. Namely, those conceptions that render dignityas a kind of authoritative standing to make“second-personal” claims—that is, claims by onepersonto another. However, the original insight for thiscrucial point, Darwall further argues, comes from the natural lawyerSamuel Pufendorf (see also Darwall 2012).

Writing a century before Kant, Pufendorf argued that human beings haveperfect natural rights (rights owed to one another) in virtue of acertain moral “standing” that we assign to each other as aconstitutive part of being sociable. Whenever we address anotherperson directly—e.g., with a claim like “You must allow meto speak”—we implicitly treat them as an accountable,responsible being. Otherwise, why address them at all? And the same istrue when they address us. In other words, according to Pufendorf,being sociable implicitly involves areciprocal assumption ofbasic moral status—us of them, them of us—whenever weinteract, and even if the address is one that offends the equalstanding of the other. Indeed, this is precisely when“dignity” becomes most urgent. Thus, Pufendorf writes:

There seems to him to be somewhat ofDignity[dignatio] in the appellation ofMan: sothat the last and most efficacious Argument to curb the Arrogance ofinsulting Men, is usually,I am not a Dog but a Man as well asyourself. (1672: I.VII.I [2003]: 100)

1.2.3 Theimago Dei platitude

The moralized concept of dignity does not originate in the earlymodern era. It was celebrated as early as the Renaissance, in GiovanniPico della Mirandola’s 1486Oration on the Dignity ofMan. Moreover, Pico’s oration is drawn from the older,medieval Christian doctrine ofimago Dei (based on Genesis1:26 and Wisdom 2:23), which tells us that we are made in “inthe image of God”, and that this likeness grounds ourdistinctive moral worth or status.

This story about dignity is to Christian theology what the Kantiandogma is to philosophy. However, these claims are usually misleadingif not false. For example, Copenhaver (2017) flatly contradicts theclaim that Pico was talking about human dignity in a sense akin to ourcontemporary moral-political notion. First, Copenhaver notes that thetitle of the work, which draws our attention, postdates Pico (whonever published it). More substantively, Copenhaver argues thatPico’s speech was a public failure in large part because it wasentangled with Kabbalah mysteries for how humans can escape the bodytoincrease their status by becoming angels. Finally,Copenhaver points out that Pico uses the Latindignitas onlytwice; and

In neither case doesdignitas belong to humans, exceptaspirationally, and neither justifies “dignity” as atranslation, with all the Kantian baggage of the modern English word.(2017: 134–5)

Adding to this reversal of fortunes, Kent (2017) marshals extensiveevidence from the scholastic tradition against theimago Deiplatitude more generally. Although she confirms that both dignity andthe doctrine ofimago Dei were widely discussed by medievalChristian scholars in the Latin West, she convincingly demonstratesthat these discussions did not intersect in a way that supports aninference to our contemporary moral-political notion of the“basic worth or status of humans”. This said, not allinterpretations of the Christian tradition, including the doctrine ofimago Dei, are beholden to this historical platitude. And theimago Dei line of inquiry on dignity has a somewhat differentlife in the Jewish tradition.^[2]

1.2.4 The Ciceronian platitude

“Dignity” derives from the Latindignitas. Andwhile most Romans useddignitas only in its merit sense, afew, and Cicero in particular, had a proleptic understanding ofdignitas that anticipated today’s moral-politicalsense.

This historical view has attracted more attention lately, as evidencedby its earlier noted endorsement in McCrudden (2008) and Rosen (2012a)(see also, Englard 2000). However, it has been challenged on bothphilosophical and interpretive grounds. For example, Miriam Griffin(2017) carefully demonstrates that the textual support for this viewis very thin. She argues that straightforward lexical analysis ofRoman sources offers sparing evidence for connectingdignitasto our contemporary moral-political concept. Moreover, even if webranch out to other ancient Roman concepts to see if dignity might behiding under different terminology, we run into a fundamentalchallenge: “Stoics and Roman moralists”, Griffin explains,“think in terms ofofficia, obligations or duties orfunctions that our nature, properly understood, imposes onus”. Correspondingly, “[t]he entitlements andrights of those at thereceiving end of our actions is not aprominent aspect of their thinking” (2017: 49).

Admittedly, Griffin allows that in some cases these obligations orduties entail a kind of treatment of others thataccords withour contemporary notion of human dignity. Still, this result does notdepend on any right that persons have in virtue of “the worth ofa human being per se” (2017: 64; see also Meyer 1987; and Lebech2009, especially p. 46 n. 22.)

To these challenges, Darwall (2017) adds another problem for theCiceronian platitude. Borrowing from the exact quotations thatMcCrudden and Rosen use to defend attributing a moral-political notionof human dignity to Cicero, Darwall argues:

Human dignity for Cicero is nothing that could be establishedby conventional patterns of deference. It is the idea, rooted in theancient notion of a great chain of being, that distinctive capacitiesfor self-development “by study and reflection” give humanbeings a “nature” “superior” to that of“cattle and other animals”. Other species are motivatedonly by sensory instincts, whereas human beings can “learn thatsensual pleasure is wholly unworthy of the dignity of the humanrace”, and be guided by this understanding.

[Consequently] nothing in the Ciceronian notion of human dignityrequires, or even leads naturally to, basic human rights. Theproposition, for example, that “sensual pleasure” is“unworthy” of human dignity is less a thesis about whathuman beings are in a position to claim from one another by virtue oftheir dignity than it is an ethical standard to which we are to liveup. (2017: 182–3; Cicero quotations cited in McCrudden 2008: 657, andRosen 2012a: 12)

To be fair, Darwall’s critique hangs on two assumptions aboutthe concept of dignity: (1) that a satisfactory account of dignitywill involve a connection to, if not a grounding for, rights claims;and (2) that dignity is in no way an achievement. Both assumptionsresonate strongly with contemporary moral-political talk of dignity.Nevertheless, identifying these assumptions should remind us that wehave not yet clearly formulated a concept of dignity. So, let us turnto that task.^[3]

2. Formulating Dignity

There is no single, incontestable meaning of dignity. In fact, thereare so many possible meanings that it has become commonplace in theliterature to worry about the expansive variety of conceptions, and inturn to worry whether dignity is or has become essentially ambiguous.And while its defenders find ways to mitigate or explain away thisambiguity, the concept of dignity has its share of detractors. But wewill return to skeptical worries at the end of this entry. For now,and granting theprima facie force of the ambiguity worry,four broad categories of meaning stand out across context andhistory:

1. Dignity asGravitas: a poise or graceassociated with behavioral comportment; e.g., the sophisticatedmanners or elegant speech of nobility, or outward composure in theface of insult or duress.
2. Dignity asIntegrity: the family of ideasassociated with living up to personal or social standards of characterand conduct, either in one’s own eyes or the eyes ofothers.
3. Dignity asStatus: noble or elevated socialposition or rank.
4. Dignity asHuman dignity: the unearned worth orstatus that all humans share equally (either inherent orconstructed).

This “general schema” is rough and ready. Scholars dividethe conceptual space in different ways, often advocating intersectionsbetween the foregoing four categories, making elaborations on them, ornoting wrinkles within them.

For example, Kolnai (1976) argues that the primary function of theconcept is descriptive, not evaluative. Dignity is a quality ofpersons, which is the fitting object of a set of pro-attitudes relatedto both moral appreciationand aesthetic appreciation. Thus,to be dignified is to comport oneself in a way that is not simply areflection of authority, rank, moral uprightness, or a regimented orserious adherence to codes of conduct, but instead reflects somethingof “the beautiful”. As Kolnai puts it, our response todignity is characterized, at least in part, by “our devoted andadmiring appreciation for beauty” (1976: 252). Hence thedistinction between(1) and(2) above (see also Brady 2007).

By contrast, although Rosen (2012a) notes that the Latin termdignitas was once part of a critical vocabulary of classicalart and rhetoric, used “to characterize speech that was weightyand majestic, in contrast to discourse that was light andcharming” (2012a: 13), Rosen largely blends categories(1) and(2) into a single strand of meaning, which he identifies as“dignity as behavior, character or bearing that isdignified” (2012a: 54). Rosen then accepts(3) and(4) but adds his own further category, which he calls “dignity astreatment”: “To treat someonewith dignityis…torespect their dignity” (2012a: 58). As wewill see more fully in a moment, this addition reflects a commonobservation by scholars about a tight connection between dignity andits recognition (although, it is not common to claim that the properrecognition of dignity is a separate category of dignity).

Meanwhile, Kateb (2011) stresses the need to distinguish between humandignityqua individual humans, and human dignityquahuman species. According to Kateb, both have dignity. But whereas thedignity of individuals can be described as a special kind of“status”—as in category(4) above—the dignity of the human species requires a furtherconcept, namely, of “stature”. He writes, “Incomparison to other species, humanity has a stature beyondcomparison” (2011: 6). To be clear, Kateb does not think thatthe human species has an existence above and beyond its members: it isnot a natural kind. However, he argues that the interdependence ofhumans is,

so extensive, so deep, and so entangled…that for certainpurposes we might just as well make the human species a unified entityor agency, even though we know it isn’t. (2011: 6)

Correspondingly, we can sensibly talk about the “dignity”of the species. This conclusion cuts against some positions thatmaintain dignity “proper” can only belong to individuals(Stern 1975; Gaylin 1984; Egonsson 1998).

A more recent schema is offered by Killmister (2020). Killmisterproposes three “strands” of dignity: personal, social, andstatus. To have personal dignity, Killmister argues, is to takeoneself to be subject to personal “dignitarian” norms. Andto have social dignity is to be subject to social“dignitarian” norms. What are dignitarian norms?Dignitarian norms are norms that either the person themself, orsociety at large, take to be “ennobling” to uphold, orwhose transgression the person or society consider to be“disgraceful or debasing” (2020: 25, 29). Like Rosen,then, Killmister effectively blends categories(1) and(2), while at the same time drawing attention to a differentorganizational distinction one might make, namely, between thepersonal and the social. As for “status dignity”,Killmister argues that explaining this category of dignity requires adistinctive concept of respect. And her argument is worth elaboratingbecause it exemplifies and fleshes out two closely related pointsshared by many existing theories:

1. that any satisfactory theory of dignity must explain what it meanstorecognize dignity; and
2. that this recognition is best described as a kind ofrespect.

So, consider: Dignitarian norms, according to Killmister, cantypically be redescribed as articulating the grounds ofrespect—either self-respect (in the case of personal dignity) orrespect from others (in the case of social dignity). Moreover, thekind of respect relevant to personal and social dignity, she argues,is what Stephen Darwall (1977) influentially named “appraisalrespect”. This kind of respect is a positive evaluativeattitude orfeeling, which we express towardsourselves or others, for some merit of character. In this sense,respect is akin to esteem. Killmister writes:

to be highly personally dignified is to be such that, by our ownlights, we ought to hold ourselves in high esteem…to be highlysocially dignified is to be such that, by the light of our community,they ought to hold us in high esteem. (2020: 23)

By contrast, Killmister connects status dignity to what Darwallcalled, “recognition respect”. Recognition respect is away ofthinking about oneself or others. To recognize-respectsomeone (at least as Darwall first explained it) is to giveappropriate weight to some fact about them in our practicaldeliberations, and to restrict our choices or actions accordingly.

Killmister thus argues,

We come to havestatus dignity, when we fall within aparticular [social] category, membership in which commands respectfultreatment from others in our community. (2020: 22)

She elaborates,

status dignity does not call on others toesteem us, butrather totreat us in ways appropriate to the kind of thingwe are. (2020: 23, emphasis added)

Correspondingly, human dignity ends up as “an especiallyimportant instance” of status dignity. And all humans deserverecognition respect in virtue of the “fact” of theirmembership in the category “human” (2020:129–30).

This said, Killmister’s conclusion diverges from Darwall’sown account of human dignity, which is tied to a revision he made tohis theory of recognition respect, which connected recognition respectto the reciprocal “authority” of second-personal address,as discussed in the earlier historical reflection on Pufendorf (see§1.2.3 above; and Darwall 2006, esp. p. 14). Note also that Killmister, likeKateb, eschews thinking of “human” as a natural kind, infavor of understanding it as a social kind.

2.1 Dignity’s defining properties vs. dignity’s grounds

The previous section offered examples of how the general schema ofdignity’s meaning gets modified in existing theory, as well ashow each category of meaning might be fleshed out. More examples couldbe given. But to decide between any of them, it seems crucial to ask,howshould we formulate the concept of dignity? In otherwords, instead of simply cataloging first-order views about itsmeaning, we need to introduce some second-order criteria.

On the one hand, we need to determine thedefining propertiesof dignity: the distinguishing characteristics or explanatory demandsthat are supposed to apply to any contentful account of dignity. Suchcriteria might include, for example, that dignity is“inherent”; that it is “incommensurable” withother values; that it has a “distinctive normativefunction”; that it has an essential connection to rights; and soon.

On the other hand, we need to determine whatgrounds dignity:we need to say what it is about humans, or any being with dignity,that satisfies the defining properties. In other words, we need toanswer the question: In virtue of what do we have dignity? The mostcommon answer to this question, historically speaking, especially whenit comes to human dignity, involves a claim about autonomy. Or if notautonomy tout court, then the “capabilities” for suchautonomy (see, e.g., Nussbaum 1995, 2006a, and 2006b). Thus, onefinds many variations of the claim that humans have dignity in virtueof their capacity for (or exercise of) “choice” or“rational agency”—claims that are often tethered tothe earlier discussed historical platitude about Kant. This said,alternatives to the grounding question about human dignity includebrute species membership, sentience, the creative power of humanity,creation “in the image of God”, a politically conferredstatus as “rights bearer”, the capacity for empathy andcaring relationships, the earlier mentioned “personality”,the concrete “particularity” of an individual person, andthe possession of “perspective”.

Sorting these views is not easy for a few reasons. First, some of theoperative concepts, such as “autonomy”, are themselveshotly disputed. Second, there is no pre-theoretical reason to denymultiple ways of satisfying any given definitional criteria. That is,any given proposal for the defining properties of dignity might besatisfied by more than one ground. For example, depending on thecriteria, humans might “have” dignity in virtue of bothautonomyand sentience, or both divine creationandour capacity for empathy, and so on. Third, twentieth centurytheorists rarely took a second-order view on their subject andmethods. In turn, they often confused or at least failed to clarifywhich of the two foregoing challenges they were trying to tackle,articulating dignity’s defining properties or articulatingdignity’s grounds.

Thankfully, twenty-first century formulations of dignity are marked byincreasingly conscientious attempts to articulate the definingproperties of dignity, and to do so in a way that might guidediscussion about dignity’s grounds. For example, in“Bedrock Truths and the Dignity of the Individual”,Iglesias (2001) distinguishes between historically older,“restricted” meanings of dignity associated with generalschema(1),(2), and(3); and, on the other hand, what she calls “universal”meanings associated with schema(4), “human dignity”. She further argues that any satisfactoryuniversalist account must render human dignity as(4a) in some sense “inherent” or “intrinsic”; and(4b) the “grounds” of basic rights. Regarding the latter, Iglesiaswrites:

The connection is essential. It is rooted in the concept of the humanperson, in human self-understanding as constituted by the bedrocktruths about what and who we are…The universal meaning of theconcept ofdignity, as inherent to every human being,expresses theintrinsic good that the human being is. Thedistincthuman rights articulate those basicintrinsicgoods proper to, and expressive of, each one’s dignity,individually and in community relationships—as dimensions of ourvery being. These basic goods—guaranteed as rights—must berecognized, respected, and promoted so that the intrinsic good thatthe human being is himself or herself, personally and as anindividual, may be preserved and assured. Thus, the ground foradvocacy and defense of human rights resides on what and who the humanbeing is,as a human being, namely on his or her dignity.(2001: 130)

By comparison, Shultziner (2007) adopts a“philosophical-linguistic” method to distinguishmoral-philosophical uses of dignity from political and legal“functions” of the concept, especially the use of dignityto ground specific rights and enforceable duties. Regarding thelatter, Shultziner stresses that in real world contexts, the rightswhich the concept of dignity is used to ground vary considerably:

There is no fixed and universal content that spouts out of humandignity and, hence, its content and meanings are determined separatelyin each legal document in accordance with the political agreementachieved at the time. (2007: 78)

This might seem to express skepticism about the possibility of anygeneral, stable concept of dignity. In fact, it underlines the pointof Iglesias’s final criterion(4b); namely, that a defining property of dignity is the groundingconnection to rights. In other words, strictly speaking, Shultzineragrees with Iglesias that at leastone defining property ofhuman dignity—in political contexts—is that dignitygrounds rights, even though the content of these rights vary greatlybecause the grounds of dignity itself vary greatly.^[4]

Another example of second-order thinking can be found in Debes (2009),who argues that any satisfactory “formal” account of humandignity—by which he means an account of its definingproperties—must pick out a “distinctive” value orstatus belonging to humans. And it must be distinctive in the sensethat it (a) is not merit based, but instead unearned; (b) is in somesense “incommensurable” with other values; and (c) makessense of the basic “normative function” of the concept.Regarding (c), Debes argues that the concept of dignity does notpurport to be only or even mainly descriptive. Instead, it has anormative purpose or role, namely, “toset off in ourpractical deliberations whatever ‘dignity’ is appliedto—to guard or protect whathas dignity” (2009:61–2).

Or consider Waldron (2012), who tracks a confusion in legaldiscussions of dignity between (on the one hand) definitional claimsabout dignity’s defining properties and (on the other hand)claims about dignity’s practical conditions; that is, theconditions of its moral, social, or political recognition. Thus,Waldron notes the way that various human rights charters claim thatdignity is “inherent” in the human person; but also“command us to make heroic efforts toestablisheveryone’s dignity” (2012: 16, emphasis added). Suchclaims, he writes, may look like an equivocation akin to claiming, asRousseau once did, that “Man is born free but everywhere is inchains”—a claim that Jeremy Bentham later called“miserable nonsense”. However, Waldron argues that Benthammissed an easy explanation of Rousseau:

[A person] might be identified as a free man in a juridicalsense—that is his legal status—even though he is found inconditions of slavery…So, similarly, one might say that everyhuman person is free as a matter of status—the status accordedto him by his creator—even though it is the case that somehumans are actually in chains and need to have their freedomrepresented as the content of a normative demand. (2012:16–17)

To be clear, Waldron quickly adds that one might shy away from thespecific premise of divine creation as a way of grounding humanfreedom. That metaphysical premise is only an example. His overarchingpoint is that it is not incoherent to make thiskind ofclaim. Because the operative claim about the status of humanpersons—namely, that they are free—is a claim about adefining property of the concept of “man” (in a juridicalsense), it follows that we can distinguish this claim from any furtherclaim about what grounds this “free” status, as well anyclaim about the worldly conditions that are required for this statusto be expressed, realized, or recognized.

Keeping this in mind, we can now understand why Waldron thinks that weare not necessarily equivocating if we claim that dignity isinherent, but nevertheless enjoin others toestablish it in practice. He writes,

On the one hand, the term [“dignity”] may be used toconvey something about the inherent rank or status of human beings; onthe other hand, it may be used concomitantly to convey the demand thatrank or status should actually be recognized. (2012: 17)

Importantly Waldron further argues that dignity finds its properconceptual home not in morality, but in the legal context of rights.He writes, “law is its natural habitat” (2012: 13). Thisis because, he argues, rights articulate, or flesh out, the kind ofstatus that modern conceptions of dignity typically include or alludeto; but also, which his own theory depends on. Thus, for Waldron, itis historically mistaken and theoretically confused to ground ourcontemporary concept of human dignity on thick metaphysicalbases—some inviolable value that “inheres” inhumans, whether by dint of divine creation or otherwise. Instead, onWaldron’s view, the contemporary notion of human dignity isessentially Samuel Johnson’s old idea of “elevatedrank”, albeitrefashioned in the modern consciousnessto apply to all humans.

In other words, Waldron explains the historical revolution in ourconcept of dignity as turning on a levelingup of all peopleto the kind of social status once reserved only for the noble elite.We simply reappropriated the term “dignity” to describethis high status, ditching its original “sortal”connotation for a new egalitarian one (2012: 57–61).Furthermore, he claims that all this happened through (or mainlythrough) the paradigm of rights. Oversimplifying for sake of argument:Waldron thinks that people of lower social rank successfully annexedthe rights reserved to those of higher ranks, by reinterpreting thoserights ashuman rights. Hence why rights remain the criticalapparatus for fleshing out the kind of status relevant to“dignity”, and why the proper home of dignity is law, notmorality.

Waldron’s view on dignity has been influential, so a few morenotes about it are fitting. First, in making these claims aboutdignity-as-elevated-rank, Waldron partly aligns himself with Appiah(2010), although Waldron does not seem to notice this. Second,Waldron’s claim about the “home” of dignity iscontentious. It isprima facie hard to square with everydayclaims about human dignity, which seem evenly spread over moral,political, and legal contexts. And it contradicts Shultziner (2007),discussed above. Moreover, Dimock (2012), Herzog (2012), and Rosen(2012b) challenge it directly, among others (see, e.g., Bird2013).

Most important, however, in the greater context of discussing thedefining prosperities of dignity, it is to register Waldron’sunderlying suggestion about an “essential” connectionbetween dignity and rights. As we have seen, this claim finds widetraction in the literature, even in accounts of dignity that are atodds with the Appiah-Waldron view of“dignity-as-elevated-rank”. For example, considering onlyaccounts reviewed so far, Iglesias (2001) made the same claim; Darwall(2017) implies it; and both Kateb (2011) and Killmister (2020) endorseit in different ways. This raises an obvious question: What exactly isthe connection between dignity and rights?

2.2 Is a connection to rights a defining property of dignity?

It is beyond the scope of this entry to answer this question inanything close to a comprehensive way. (Good starting points includeMeyer and Parent 1992; Gewirth 1992, Carozza 2008 and 2013;and Tasioulas 2013). Instead, let us draw out a few points about theconnection between dignity and rights as it bears specifically onattempts to make it a defining property of dignity itself. To get atthese points, consider a final proposal about the definitionalcriteria of dignity, from Fitzpatrick (2013):

The primary notion of dignity is the idea of a certainmoralstatus involving possession of aninherent, unearned form ofworth or standing—a basic worth or standing that is neitherdependent on one’s being of use or interest to others nor basedon one’s merits, and which essentially calls for certain formsof respect. (2013: 5546)

Fitzpatrick presents this definition within the context of anencyclopedic effort to capture its meaning. As such, he isunderstandably aiming at something generic. However, in the light ofour analysis so far, the tensions in his attempt are manifest, albeitinstructive.

First, describing dignity as primarily a “status” insteadof a “value” aligns with those like Waldron, who make aprincipled distinction between their accounts and all kinds of“worth” or “value” conceptions of humandignity (see, e.g., Killmister 2020, who emphasizes this distinction;and Dan-Cohen 2012, for analysis on its import to Waldron).However, Fitzpatrick immediately equivocates on this point, redefiningstatus as, “worthor standing”. Similarly,consider that those like Appiah-Waldron who think human dignitydepends on a refashioned idea of high social rank, must, strictlyspeaking, reject the property of “inherentness” thatFitzpatrick appeals to. But theymight allow for thealternative description of “unearned”, especially if thisis interpreted as historically indexed to the refashioned conceptionof status.

More important for the question about rights is to considerFitzpatrick’s final remark that dignity, “calls forcertain forms of respect”. At first blush, this appeal mightseem to be merely a refinement of Debes’s (2009) claim thatdignity has a distinctive “normative function”. If so, itwould be a refinement that is common to many theorists, as we alreadynoted in§2.1. However, Fitzpatrick immediately connects this generic claim aboutrespect to two specific elaborations of dignity’s normativefunction. He writes:

It is in this sense [of an inherent worth or standing that calls forrespect] that many hold that all persons possess a fundamental,inalienable dignity, which grounds[1] basic rights…or[2] the authority to make claims and demands of others. (2013: 5546)

Both claims merit elaboration.

The firstclaim [1] gives voice to the strongest, or at least the most direct way to makethe connection to rights a defining property of dignity, by makingdignity thenormative basis of rights. Thus, suppose one asksof any given rightx, what justifies the claim that“x is a human right”? The answer for those whotake this line is, “dignity”. Or at least, “humandignity”.

Now, in one sense,claim [1] is unsurprising given that it has legal reality. For example,although the claim is only implicit in theUniversal Declarationof Human Rights (1948) as well as the originalCharter of theUnited Nations (1945), a 1966 amendment to theChartermade it explicit, declaring that rights “derived from theinherent dignity of persons”. Moreover, claims like this havebecome increasingly common in state constitutions, especially in thewest, as well as other international charters and humanitariandeclarations (see, e.g., Schachter 1983, Iglesias 2001, Shultziner2007, and McCrudden 2008, for summaries and analysis).

And yet, it is important to note that such legal claims are almostalways brute assertions. They are not conscientious attempts attheory. More exactly, they do not claim that any adequate theory ofdignity (as a concept)must account for the groundingrelationship between dignity and rights. This is important because,pace FitzPatrick, or those like James Griffin (2008) whoadamantly stress dignity as the foundation of rights, some theoristschallenge or avoid or even rejectclaim [1]. This includes skeptics who challenge the viability of any existingsubstantive accounts of dignity to ground rights (discussed later).But it also includes some theorists who defend dignity (in one form orother). For example, Waldron skirts around the kind of commitment atissue in claim [1]. He allows that dignity involves each personthinking of themselves, “as a self-originating source of legaland moral claims” (2012: 60), but the overarching implication ofhis argument is that rightsarticulate the nature of the“high” status humans have been elevated to. Dignity isthus not the normativebasis of rights on his view. Instead,legal systems, and rights in particular, “constitute andvindicate human dignity, both in their explicit provisions and intheir overall modus operandi” (2012: 67).

Killmister (2020) follows Waldron’s lead, but she is moreexplicit. “[H]uman rights”, she argues, “form partof our articulation of how members of the human kind ought to betreated” (2020: 143). And, like Shultziner (2007), she warnsagainst attempts to derive the content of rights directly fromdignity, a warning that further tells against makingclaim [1] part of the definitional criteria. Relatedly, Meyer (1989) concludesthat insofar as we aim to explain rights, we can never successfullyexplain dignity: “While having and exercising certain rights isimportant to our dignity as human beings”, Meyer argues,

what we commonly regard as essential to human dignity would not beexplained even if we were able to delineate all of the relevant rightsand the particular ways in which each of them expresses or protectshuman dignity. (1989: 521)

Meyer’s point is enhanced (perhaps even preempted) byDonnelly’s (1982) sociological claim that in cultures where“rights” are or once were a relatively foreign concept,human dignity is not. If Donnelly is correct, then exceptingmotivational purposes, rights theory is arguably a non-starter for aproper account of dignity’s defining properties (see also,Howard 1992, who partly recapitulates Donnelly’s point).

Piling onto this, Schroeder (2012) and Moyn (2013) warn that the“normative basis” version of the connection claim betweenrights and dignity—i.e.,claim [1]—leaves dignity vulnerable, because our contemporary concept of human dignitycarries underappreciated debts to non-secular, theological traditions(see also Addis 2013). And Valentini (2017) argues that theplausibility of claim [1] depends on which other defining propertiesof dignity we want to defend. Specifically, if dignity is taken to beinherent, she argues, then claim [1] becomes not only“uninformative” because “the notion of inherentdignity is opaque”; it also becomes counterproductive to theaims of most rights theories. This is because, she continues, theinherentness claim pushes rights debates, “into deepmetaphysical waters”, and distracts us from the main politicalfunction of rights (especially, human rights), namely, toconstrain, “the conduct of powerful actors” (2017:862–3).

Now consider connectionclaim [2]: dignity grounds theauthority to make claims in general.Some have argued that the first connectionclaim [1], which makes dignity the normative basis of rights, is ultimately justa special case of the second claim [2], about authority. Perhaps mostwell-known in this respect is Feinberg (1970 [1980]), who, in thecourse of arguing that the act or practice of making interpersonalclaims is what “gives rights their special moralsignificance”, adds this passing remark about dignity:“what is called ‘human dignity’ may simplybe the recognizable capacity to assert claims” (1970[1980: 151]). Admittedly, Feinberg does not unpack the point. And itis not perfectly clear if authority per se is part of his conceptionof this “capacity”. Still, the point seems to resonatewith claim [2], especially if we pair Feinberg’s point withDarwall’s views about second-personal authority, consideredearlier. Indeed, Meyer (1989) tries to unpack Feinberg in a way thatseems to anticipate Darwall’s view. (See also, Forst 2011, whooffers a similar line of argument to Darwall, which he credits partlyto Ernst Bloch. But see Sangiovanni 2017, who objects to both Darwalland Forst, esp. pp. 50–60).

2.3 Are distinctiveness and fragility defining properties of dignity?

It is possible to take an even wider view on the defining criteria ofdignity. For example, consider Etinson (2020), who represents anothercase of conscientious second-order theorizing. Etinson argues that acomplete theory of dignity should explain not only what“grounds” dignity—“that is, how and why onecomes to possess or lose it”—but also its“proper” method—that is, “how inquiry into allof this should proceed and be understood” (2020: 356). Thelatter demand is akin to calling for an articulation of the definingproperties of dignity, in the sense that we have been discussing.However, Etinson adds an important substantive claim about thismethod: He agrees that dignity is partly distinguished by somethinglike a distinctive “normative function”, but sharpens thisclaim by suggesting that to explain this function, we should focusspecifically on the conditions of dignity’s violation. Thisrefinement is important for two broad reasons.

First, over its long history, inquiry into human dignity has oftenbeen conjoined with considerations of what it means to harm dignity:What constitutes disrespect of dignity? Can we lose it? Can it bedestroyed? And so on. Call this, the question of dignity’s“fragility”. Sometimes, this question is taken up within adirect examination of dignity (see, e.g., Kaplan 1999 or Dussel2003). At other times, the motivation is pragmatic. For example, inhis reflection on legal appeals to dignity, Schacter (1983)writes:

When [dignity] has been invoked in concrete situations, it has beengenerally assumed that a violation of human dignity can be recognizedeven if the abstract term cannot be defined. “I know it when Isee it even if I cannot tell you what it is”. (1983: 849)

And in some cases, these reflections go the other way around; that is,from an analysis of a specific kind of dehumanizing harm(slavery, torture, rape, genocide; alienation, humiliation,embarrassment)to dignity, or one of its close cognates like“humanity” (see especially, Neuhäuser 2011; Morawa2013; Haslam 2014; Frick 2021; Mikkola 2021).^[5]

But whatever the context, it is crucial to distinguish betweenfirst-order encounters with dignity’s fragility, andsecond-order efforts that try to draw a connection between a negativemethodology centered on the question of fragility and the positiveeffort to articulate the defining properties of dignity. It is thelatter claim that Etinson makes, illustrated in the following incisivepoint:

Not all moral wrongs convincingly register as violations of humandignity…And this suggests that dignity is normativelyspecial—that its violation represents a particular type ofwrong. (2020: 357)

Essentially, Etinson is arguing that (1) we should add to the definingproperties of dignity, that the value or status “dignity”picks out is in some sense “normatively distinctive”; and(2) in order to articulate (positively) what makes it distinctive, wemust investigate (negatively) what it means to harm it. Thus, forEtinson, dignity does not simply have the normative function to“set off” the special status of humans in our practicaldeliberations; it sets off humans in a special way. And this“way” can only be understood through a consideration ofdignity’s fragility.

The second reason for underlining this kind of negative methodologycomes from Killmister (2020), who also makes second-order claims aboutthe proper method for theorizing dignity. On her view, all the primarysenses of dignity in the general schema can be harmed in some way orother. Each can be injured, lowered, embarrassed, humiliated,threatened, frustrated, even destroyed. Correspondingly, it is acriterion of any satisfactory theory, that it explains the nature andconditions of dignity’s fragility inall its primarysenses (categories 1–4 in the general schema).

The emphasis on “all” is important. Killmister’stheory stands out for being an attempt to use the criterion offragility to offer a unified theory of dignity. And this raises aquestion beyond whether fragility is a defining property of dignity.Namely, for any given theory of dignity, does it purport to theorizedignity in general, orhuman dignity in particular? Mostliterature bearing the term “dignity” in its title willsay at some point that it is really or mostly about human dignity. Butif so, then are such theories in some sense incomplete? Must acomplete theory ofhuman dignity (category 4 in the general schema) reconcile itself with the other primary sensesof the term (categories 1–3), as Killmister implores?

The next section attempts to offer some footholds for answering thesenew questions. But there is one more point to make here, because it ispertinent to second-order questions about how to formulate dignity.Part of what motivates Killmister’s effort at a unified theoryis an attending argument that theories of dignity should fit witheveryday ways of speaking about dignity. And everyday talk of dignity,she argues, often refers to the other primary senses of dignity in thegeneral schema. Moreover, she claims that all these ways of talkingare connected by the fragility criterion, as well as some of the otherdefining criteria we have discussed, especially (A) the idea of anormative function and (B) an essential connection to respect.Finally, she treats this “fit” between her account of thedefining properties of dignity and everyday talk about dignity asimportant evidence for the correctness of her own criteria. Nor is shealone in staking evidentiary value on fitness to everyday language.For example, Bird (2013) and Etinson (2020) make similar arguments.^[6] Do we agree? Surely, a good theory of dignity will not run roughshodover everyday usage. Still, exactly how beholden should a theorybe?

3. Human Dignity: Touchstones of Analysis

The conclusion of the last section raised the following question aboutthe conceptual landscape of dignity research: Which of the many pointsbeing made are relevant to theorizing dignity in general, and whichpertain specifically to human dignity? To answer this question, itwill help to distill a few enduring themes that characterize thedebate over specifically human dignity. These are hardly all thethemes that could be identified. Also, because each theme has beenintroduced in one way or other already, the following is intentionallycondensed, with the understanding that any of these leads could befollowed into a forest of nuance.

3.1 Virtue, Value, Status, and the “distinctiveness” point reconsidered

One could take all the existing literature on human dignity andarrange it into three groups, depending on whether any given argumentrenders dignity as a kind of (i) virtue or quality of character; (ii)value or worth; or (iii) status or standing. Our analysis already laidout the most important aspects in deciding between theseclassifications. We also noted that the trend in secular accounts isto articulate dignity as a kind of status rather than as a virtue orvalue. To this it should be added that virtue accounts make up theminority of all modern positions, no doubt because most contemporarypositions eschew the hierarchical drift that comes with tying dignityto virtue.

Perhaps less obvious in the literature, is the agreement to articulatewhat is distinctive about dignity, regardless of which way it isrendered: virtue, value, or status. This “distinctiveness”point is pressing, given Etinson’s (2020) argument that anegative analysis of dignity’s fragility is crucial tounderstanding what is “special” about dignity as anormative concept. On his view, a good theory of dignity will pick outa “meaningful distinct set of concerns” (2020: 354), if itis to justify using the term at all. The force of this point extendsbeyond the question of whether fragility is a defining property ofdignity. But to appreciate fully why, we need to contextualize it. So,consider the following:

The idea that human beings are morally special or distinctive hasfound expression in the religion, philosophy, literature, and art ofall societies, modern and ancient. And connected to that idea andthose expressions is an enduring struggle to understand what thispeculiar “value” is. Since antiquity many have leveragedthis idea about human distinctiveness into the idea that humans aresupremely valuable. The chorus in Sophocles’Antigone (c. 441 BCE), for example, lauds man as the most“wondrous” of all things in the world, a prodigy who cutsthrough the natural world the way a sailor cuts through the“perilous” surging seas that threaten to engulf him(verses 332 ff., cited in Debes 2009 at p. 52). Similarly, theJudeo-Christian doctrine ofimago Dei trumpets human dominionover the earth and the distinctive value of humanity. Excluding Godand angels, the doctrine implies that humankind is preeminentlyvaluable.

Admittedly, these are not references to theory, strictly speaking.However, the historical development of dignity has long been tangledup with this kind of widespread attempt to explain humandistinctiveness, even if only implicitly or under cognate terms like“uniqueness” (e.g., Muray 2007 and Rolston 2008). Indeed,one might say that the most basic point of theconcept ofdignity, especially as it was molded into the category of “humandignity”, just is to describe the distinctive virtue, value, orstatus of humans. From Cicero’s ancient claim about the specialworth of the “human race”; to Schacter’s (1983)anti-Waldron argument that dignity’s importance outside of legalcontexts highlights the need “to treat it as a distinctsubject” (1983: 854); to Iglesias’s (2001) attempt toexplain our “distinctiveness” as human beings; toKateb’s (2011) claim that human dignity involves the unique rolehumans have as “stewards” of the earth—in all thesearguments the distinctiveness point is in play. Or consider SimoneWeil, writing in the shadow of World War II, and who inspiredIglesias:

There is something sacred in every man, but it is not his person. Noryet is it the human personality. It is this man; no more norless… The whole of him. The arms, the eyes, the thoughts,everything. Not without infinite scruple would I touch anything ofthis. (first published 1957 [1986: 50–51])

Similarly, Malpas (2007) explicitly argues that insofar as we areinvestigating human dignity, it seems we are inquiring into what isdistinctively valuable about “being” human, by which hemeans something like theexperience of being human.

This said, we must understand Etinson as arguing that it is not enoughto claim that what explains the moral distinctiveness of humans istheir “dignity”. We have to say what about human dignityitself is distinctive. And we must do so in a way that wouldsubstantiate (in part or in whole) the more general claim of humandistinctiveness. After all, Etinson argues, not all kinds of harms tohumans count as harms to their human dignity. Not even all harms totheir status are obviously harms to their human dignity. Slappingsomeone in the face is certainly an affront to their status in somesense, and perhaps even necessarily to their social-status dignity ((3) in the general schema), but not necessarily to theirhumandignity ((4) in the general schema). (See also, Valentini 2017.)

So, what is distinctive about human dignity itself? There is more thanone way to answer this question. Etinson’s own suggestion, as wehave seen, is to use a negative normative lens to articulate whatkinds of harms to humans count distinctively as harms against theirdignity. But rather than tracing out further particular answers tothis question, let us note a few final general observations about thedistinctiveness point.

First, most theorists of dignity do not explicitly parse out the needto explain the distinctiveness of dignity itself, as contrasted withhuman distinctiveness in general. However, I submit that explainingthe distinctiveness of dignity (itself) is oftenpart of whatmany theorists take themselves to be doing, however indirectly. Inother words, explaining dignity’s “distinct set ofconcerns”, to use Etinson’s phrase, seems to beconstitutive of many theories of dignity. There is no space tosubstantiate this contention here, but we risk losing valuableinsights about dignity’s distinctiveness if we don’t takethis charitable approach.

Second, it is important not to run together the normative upshot ofany claim about thegrounds of dignity, with adefinitional point about dignity’s distinctiveness. Forexample, if one thinks humans have dignity in virtue of their rationalagency, then in one sense, this will entaila kind ofdistinctiveness. For, it will necessarily inform the substance ofwhatever rights or duties we think dignity justifies. In other words,the content of such rights and duties will need to be“distinctively” tied to rational agency, and what it meansto protect, harm, or nurture this agency. Likewise for any othercandidate account of dignity’s grounds. Nevertheless, this isdifferent than talking about distinctiveness as a defining property ofhuman dignity. Scholars like Etinson and Killmister are trying toarticulate the distinctive normative function thatdefinesdignity, regardless of its grounds—indeed, which anysatisfactory account of dignity’s grounds must be able toexplain.

Finally, Debes (2009) adds the following qualification to the“distinctiveness” point:

A proper account of dignity must pick out a distinctive valuebelonging to humans. This is not equivalent to demanding a value thatbelongs distinctively to humans.

The latter demand (which some theorists do insist on), not onlyarbitrarily rules out a shared space of dignity between differententities but also risks ruling out the best options fordignity’s grounds:

For example, if rationality should after all turn out to be the mostdefensible basis for a theory of human dignity, we [humans]wouldn’t want to yield it simply because we discovered thatchimps and whales were rational or that Martians really have beentrying to communicate with us for millennia. (2009: 61).

3.2 Individuals vs. species

The conclusion of the last section brings to mind another theoreticaldividing line in the literature, between those arguing for humandignityqua human individual, and those arguing for humandignityqua species. Which is it?

Some say, both. For example, Kateb (2011) argues that we must explainthe uniqueness of personsand the species: “I am whatno one else is, while not existentially superior to anyone else; wehuman beings belong to a species that is what no other speciesis” (2011: 17). According to Kateb (echoing Cicero), humans arepartly divorced from the natural order both individually andcollectively, in virtue of possessing unparalleled and morally specialcapacities for self-creation. Moreover, Kateb is clear that thedistinctiveness of human dignity also grounds human normativesupremacy. Indeed, on his view, human supremacy is one of the definingproperties of dignity: “The core idea of human dignity is thaton earth, humanity is the greatest type of being” (2011:3–4); we are “the highest species on earth—sofar” (2011: 17).

Of course, such claims are contentious. But if we want to engage them,it is important to be clear about whether we are doing so at thedefinitional level, or at the level of dignity’s grounds. Forexample, recall Cicero’s claim that it is in virtue of ourdistinctive capacities for self-development “by study andreflection”, that human beings have a “superior”“nature” to that of “cattle and otheranimals”. This Ciceronian idea about the grounds of dignityshares affinities with many other extant views, including Kant, Pico,and obviously Kateb. And we have considered reasons for rejecting thisline of argument. But even if one accepts it, the present point isthat one mightnot endorse Kateb’s claim about the“core idea” of dignity being essentially about the humanspecies. That is, one could agree with Kateb about what groundsdignity but disagree that part of what defines dignity, is theproperty of species superiority. Stern (1975) and Gaylin (1984), forexample, agree that the concept of dignity is most essentially abouthuman worth or status, but argue that this does not imply that thehumanspecies possesses dignity. It only implies that eachindividual human has dignity.

Finally, any claim about the dignity of the species or collectivehumanity must confront worries about speciesism, and in turn all theobjections of those who think that non-human animals have a purchaseon the normative space of dignity (see, e.g., Rachels 1990; Pluhar1995; LaFollette & Shanks 1996; Bekoff 1998; Meyer 2001; Rolston2008; Singer 2009; and especially Gruen 2003 [2010], who explores theidea of “wild dignity”.)

3.3 Inherent vs. constructed

It is common to talk of human dignity as “inherent”. Whatthis means, however, is often unclear. Sometimes it is redescribed tomean “intrinsic”, other times “inalienable”.It is also often conjoined with claims that dignity is“inviolable”—although this is dubious ifinviolability is supposed to beentailed by inherentness.After all, one might agree that human dignity cannot be entirelydestroyed because dignity is inherent, but nevertheless allow thathuman dignity can be harmed, insulted, frustrated, and humiliated.

This is not to suggest that all that is inherent is indestructible.Whether human dignity can really be destroyed depends entirely on whyone thinks human dignity is inherent. If one thinks that human dignityis inherent because we have dignity in virtue of possessing a soul,then they probably do not think dignity can be truly destroyed(although they may think it can be degraded; or even, if theysubscribe to Christian dogma, that it was in fact degraded by the“fall” from grace). On the other hand, if one thinks thathuman dignity is inherent because we have dignity in virtue of ourcapacities for rational agency, then they probably do think dignitycan be lost or destroyed, whether by extreme psychological trauma or asharp blow to the head.

It must also be reiterated that secular theorists of dignity haveincreasingly turned away from “inherentness” as a definingproperty of dignity (see, e.g., Darwall 2006; Debes 2009; Kateb 2011;Rosen 2012a; Waldron 2012; Valentini 2017; Killmister 2020). Thereasons for doing so vary. Most reflect suspicion about themetaphysical baggage, especially of the theological kind, thathistorically has gone hand in hand with inherentness claims. But thereare often other reasons. For example, for those that think humandignity is defined by the authority or standing to hold othersresponsible with second-personal claims, dignity only comes intoexistence within actual second-personal encounters (see, e.g., Meyer1989, Darwall 2006, Forst 2011, and perhaps Feinberg 1970 [1980]). Orrecall Valentini, who argues that the problem with the metaphysicalclaims needed to back up inherentness is not simply that they are“heavy”, but that they distract us from the core politicalfunction of rights. Meanwhile, for those committed to a negativemethodology, like Killmister or Etinson, the starting assumption isthat dignitycan be destroyed. And while this does not entailthat dignity is not inherent, Killmister persuasively argues that suchfragility strongly tells against inherentness.

All this raises the question: If not inherent, then what? The simpleanswer is that on many theories dignity is socially constructed. Ofcourse, there are many theories about what it means for something tobe socially constructed, with many important differences between them.There is, for example, a chasm of difference between claiming thatdignity is constructed as a constitutive part of second-personalrelationships (à la Darwall or Forst) and claimingthat it is constructed through the transformation of an old idea about“elevated rank” (à la Appiah or Waldron).So, the simple answer must be turned into a complicated one, which wecannot do here.

3.4 Respect: An alternative lens on dignity

A complete theory of human dignity must articulate the demands thatdignity places on us, morally and politically. Some theories, as wehave seen, build this expectation into the defining properties ofdignity. But even when they do not, there is almost always someappeal, positive or negative, to some claim about what it means torecognize dignity, and most often to some claim aboutrespect—which, furthermore, is usually claimed to beboth what dignity demands and what it means to recognize dignity. Thesubject of respect, however, is its own labyrinth. It boasts an arrayof meanings, diverse applications, and extensive commentary. Thissaid, two very general points about respect stand out in connection tohuman dignity.

First, the connection between dignity and respect has been madeconcrete in various political contexts. For example, Schachter (1983)notes that Article 10 of theInternational Covenant on Civil andPolitical Rights provides that,

all persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanityand with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person. (1983:848)

He marks a similar provision in Article 5 of theAmericanConvention on Human Rights (Ibid). And this connection generatesdistinct challenges in the political context that reach beyond thehuman rights discourse. Schachter explains:

In the political context, respect for the dignity and worth of allpersons, and for their individual choices, leads, broadly speaking, toa strong emphasis on the will and consent of the governed. It meansthat the coercive rule of one or the few over the many is incompatiblewith a due respect for the dignity of the person. (1983: 850)

However, Schachter further points out, many political theoriescontend,

that substantial equality is a necessary condition of respect for theintrinsic worth of the human person…In particular, relations ofdominance and subordination would be viewed as antithetical to thebasic ideal [of human dignity]. If this is so, great discrepancies inwealth and power need to be eliminated to avoid such relations.(ibid)

The question thus becomes, how can we achieve such egalitarianobjectives, without the kind of “excessive curtailment ofindividual liberty and the use of coercion” that human dignityisalso thought to eschew (1983: 850)? This question figuresinto some of history’s most influential political theories, fromHegel to Rawls. (For an inroad to understanding the Hegelian line, seeHonneth 2007; for the Rawlsian line, see Bird 2021.)

Second, as already hinted, the introduction of respect raises its owndistinctive challenge, namely, to explain what respect is. To do this,many theorists appeal, explicitly or implicitly, to what we earliercalled “recognition respect”. When we make plans or chooseto act, we recognize-respect others when we appropriately take accountof some fact about them, by adapting, revising, or even foregoing ourplans and choices in the light of that fact. So, which“fact”? Well, if we are talking about respecting personsas persons, in a moral sense, many theorists have answeredthathuman dignity is the operative fact. Or, if they drilldown further, then whatever they end up defending as thegrounds of human dignity—whether rational autonomy,species membership, an immortal soul, etc.—is the relevant fact.^[7]

However, the last few decades have witnessed a wave of new theorizingabout respect. And this has consequences for theorizing about humandignity. The most notable consequence stems from the field of careethics, where empathy, compassion, and caring have been conceived asdistinct kinds of respect. Thus, although human dignity did not figureexplicitly into early formulations of care ethics, as conceived bythose like Noddings (1984) or Held (2006), care ethics hasincreasingly been developed in ways that does bring dignity to thefore, e.g., by those like Dillon (1992), Kittay (2005 and 2011), andMiller (2012). Dillon, in particular, gives voice to a profoundalternative to rationalist paradigms of human dignity, notedfrequently in this entry, and associated especially with Kant. Shewrites:

[Care respect] grounds respect for persons in something which,considered in the abstract, nearly all human beings have and can besaid to have equally - the characteristic of being an individual human“me” - a characteristic which each of us values and thinksis both morally important and profoundly morally problematic not onlyin others but in ourselves as well, and which pulls our attention tothe concrete particularities of each human individual. We are, on thecare respect approach, to pay attention not only to the fact thatsomeone is a “me” but also to which particular“me” she is. (Dillon 1992: 118)

The core idea Dillon expresses here about the grounds of dignityqua the concrete “particularity” of an individualperson (as she puts it on 1992: 115), traces to Iris Murdoch (1970)and Elizabeth Spelman (1978). It also resonates with the thinking ofSimon Weil, noted above in§3.2. More generally, Dillon’s argument illustrates how taking theconcept of respect as our starting point might lead to very differentviews about human dignity.

4. Skeptical Worries

The conceptual complexity surrounding dignity has sparked a longhistory of disagreement about the utility of the concept, with someconcluding that it is hopelessly messy or essentially ambiguous. Oneof the more cited versions comes from the Yale bioethicist RuthMacklin, who made this complaint in a widely read 2003 editorial.“Dignity”, she asserted, “is a useless concept. Itmeans no more than respect for persons or their autonomy” (2003:1419).

Macklin’s claim was not backed by much argument. And judging bythe literature, her complaint did nothing to slow down the applicationof dignity in bioethics, where it is now discussed in the context ofeverything from disability studies, elderly care, human research,cloning, “chimeras”, enhancement, transhumanism, andeuthanasia (see the bibliography for leads to each of these). Still,one does not have to look hard to find Macklin’s allies.

For example, Rosen (2012a) claims that “animus against dignityis widely shared among philosophers, in my experience, and goes back along way” (2012a: 143). He buttresses his claim by recountingthe encouragement of a colleague to give the concept “a goodkicking”, and by quoting his favorite historical challenges bySchopenhauer and Nietzsche, the former of whom called dignity,“the shibboleth of all the perplexed and empty-headedmoralists” (1840 [1965: 100] cited in Rosen 2013: 143).Importantly, however, for Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, the problemwasn’t simply the ambiguity of the concept. They thought thatthe moralized notion of inherent or distinctive human worth garnerswidespread credence only because it flatters our pride and allows usto slip into self-deceptive moral complacency. This deflationaryhypothesis strikes at the heart of our modern dignitarian ethos.

So, exactly how widespread is skepticism of dignity? There is nosimple answer to this question because it depends greatly on what onetakes dignity to be. Even defenders of one conception of dignity oftenexpress skepticism about other conceptions. For example, we alreadynoted the trend away from thick metaphysical claims about dignity,which make dignity depend on anything like a divinely implanted“soul” or Kant’s “noumenal” idea of theself. Rosen calls such views, “internal kernel” theories,and further notes that reservations about these views are often bothmetaphysical (no such thing exists) and epistemological (we cannotjustify our belief in such things). The present point, however, isthat if one’s skepticism about human dignity in general turns onthe specific reservation about internal kernel theories, then oneshould stay open minded. For, as we have seen, there are manyalternatives for theorizing dignity that do not depend on suchmetaphysical commitments.

Still, because there is more than one way to interpretSchopenhauer’s claim that dignity is a “shibboleth”,it may prove helpful to trace out a little further a few possibleskeptical lines of argument, albeit briefly. So, here are four waysskepticism tends to play out in the existing literature:

1. Rosen suggests that Schopenhauer’s main complaintis that “dignity” is an impressive“façade” obscuring the harsh reality behind theidea, namely, that the concept lacks the substance to do the work weassign to it. More exactly, dignity cannot serve as a foundation formorality, including, serving as the normative basis of rights (Rosen2012a: 143). We encountered this line of thinking already in theearlier discussion of the connection between dignity and rights.Essentially, the complaint is that no extant account of thegrounds of dignity (e.g., Kantian rationalist arguments,Judeo-Christianimago Dei arguments, etc.) can satisfactorilyexplain and justify the kind of normative work dignity is supposed todo. See especially, Sangiovanni 2017, who rejects Aristotelian,Kantian, andimago Dei accounts of dignity as insufficientfor the tasks dignity is typically set to, including groundingrights.

2. A related but distinctively different way of takingSchopenhauer’s objection, is the worry that dignity has beenpolitically manipulated to capitalize on its deceptivepotential. As Rosen notes, the general point here is not new.“The idea that illusions are essential to the politicalorder”, he writes, “runs through the Western tradition ofpolitical thought from Plato” (2012a: 144). However, Rosensuggests that Nietzsche gets the credit for understanding how powerfulan illusion human dignity, specifically, can be, for such politicalpurpose. “Such phantoms as the dignity of man”, Nietzschewrites,

   are the needy products of slavedom hiding itself from itself. Woefultime, in which the slave requires such conceptions, in which he isincited to think about and beyond himself! (from “The GreekState”, 1871; quoted in Rosen 2012a: 144)

   In fact, this skeptical line goes back further than Rosen seems toappreciate. Thus, in his 1714,Fable of the Bees, BernardMandeville essentially made the same argument. Speaking conjecturallyabout the origins of morality, Mandeville writes:

   Making use of this bewitching Engine [of flattery], [the Politicians]extoll’d the excellency of our Nature above otherAnimals…Which being done, they laid before them how unbecomingit was the Dignity of such sublime Creatures to be solicitous aboutgratifying those Appetites, which they had in common with Brutes, andat the same time unmindful of those higher Qualities that gave themthe preeminence over all visible Beings. (1714 [1988: 43])

3. Dignity is vacuous. Bracketing any worries about how anygiven political institution manipulates the idea of dignity to achieveits ends, or how human pride might capitalize on the idea of dignityto facilitate self-deception about our personal moral failings,perhaps the idea of dignity is simply unnecessary. For example,consider the first sentence of Article One of theUniversalDeclaration of Human Rights: “All human beings are bornfree and equal in dignity and rights”. What would be lost, Rosenasks, “if one were just to say, ‘All human beings are bornfree and equal in rights’?” (2012a: 149). A slightlydifferent version of this complaint is that, because of itsvacuousness, dignity has become mere dogma. For example, in the legalcontext, Theoder Heuss, called dignity a “non-interpretedthesis” in law. And Costas Douzinas argued dignity was an emptyplaceholder in a “hegemonic battle” of competing legalideologies (see also, McCrudden 2013a for some analysis of both; also,Bargaric & Allan 2006).

4. Dignity is ambiguous. The thrust of this frequentcomplaint is that dignity has become a useless concept, not so muchbecause it is empty, but because it has too many meanings. (A few haveeven claimed that the concept is “essentially” ambiguous,though it is not clear what this is supposed to mean; see, e.g.,Shultziner 2007 or Rotenstreich 1983.) When focused, this worry comesin three forms:

   1. the ambiguity of meaning makes “dignity”incomprehensible;
   2. the ambiguity of meaning makes “dignity” susceptibleto abuse;
   3. the ambiguity of meaning conceals objectionable subjective opinionor substantive baggage in the concept of “dignity”.

Examples of all these positions can easily be found. But perhaps thebest illustrations once again come from the legal context. Regarding(1): see, e.g., Bates (2005), who acknowledges the problem but then triesto defend dignity. Regarding(2): see, e.g., Gearty (2014) and Moyn (2013), who argue that thecontinuing ambiguity of dignity make it too easily abused in courtroomdeliberation and democratic theories of rights. Regarding(3): see Pinker (2008), who argues that dignity is a subjectivephenomenon, “relative, fungible, and often harmful”; alsoRosen (2012a) and Moyn (2013), both of whom argue that our modernconcept labors under underappreciated debts to Christian theology;

These are not all the possible reasons for skepticism about dignity,only the most prevalent. And each is usually sharpened in various waysthat make the argument cut deeper than what this summary suggests.This said, the merits of these critiques are disputable. Indeed, muchof the foregoing analysis in this entry suggests strategies ofresponse to each.

But perhaps the most fitting way to conclude is with a different kindof question entirely. Namely, howought we respond to suchskeptical attacks, if at all? Thus, it is hard not to think ofFrederick Douglass’s warning, delivered in his 1852“Fourth of July” speech, about the dangers of demanding ofanyone, that theyargue for their equal and basic human worthor status—especially when so many people remain not simplyoppressed, but exposed to vitriolic hate in a world that constantlyproclaims its faith and commitment in the ideal of human dignity.“At a time like this”, Douglass said, “scorchingirony, not convincing argument, is needed” (1852: 20).

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• Council of Europe, 1997, “Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with Regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine” (ETS No. 164), Oviedo.
• 1689, “English Bill of Rights”
• 1789,Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen.
• NHS Confederation, Local Government Association, Age UK, 2012, “Delivering Dignity: Securing Dignity in Care for Older People in Hospitals and Care”.
• The Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949
• UNESCO, 2005,Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, 19 October 2005, Paris.

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Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to my anonymous referees, who provided careful,generous, and thorough feedback on initial drafts of this entry. Forresearch assistance on various elements of this article I am gratefulto Zachary Neemah, Samuel Munroe, Reese Faust, and Alejandro Toledo.The history section draws on my own introduction toDignity: AHistory (2017a), by permission of Oxford University Press.