Naming the source of human dignity: A student's question

Today we concluded a very satisfying (from my perspective anyway) seminar on Catholic Perspectives on American Law.  One of our readings was Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon's chapter, "International Law:  Foundation of Human Rights - The Unfinished Business." One of my students was interested in our thoughts to the following: 

"Glendon writes:

The shift from nature to dignity in modern thinking about the foundations of human rights thus entails a host of difficulties. The common secular understandings are that human beings have dignity because they are autonomous beings capable of making choices (Kant), or because of the sense of empathy that most human beings feel for other sentient creatures (Rouseau). But the former understanding has alarming implications for persons of diminished capacity, and the latter places all morality on the fragile basis of transient feeling. Most believers, for their part, would say that dignity is grounded in the fact that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, but that proposition is unintelligible to nonbelievers.

According to Glendon, then, Kant and Rouseau present incomplete explanations of the source of human dignity because some people lack the very characteristics that, by definition, qualify them for such. Believers, on the other hand, attribute human dignity to the Creator. Since all human beings are children of a loving God, all have dignity regardless of condition or circumstance. Glendon recognizes, however, that this conception of human dignity is not readily accessible to nonbelievers.

This discussion seems to necessarily require determining which of the choices is better: an arguably incomplete human anthropology (like Kant’s, for example, based on autonomous choice) or a correct conception of human dignity that is “unintelligible to nonbelievers.”

I’m interested to hear the thoughts of others."

 

BTW, the Catholic Perspectives on American Law book, linked above, would make a great Christmas present for the lawyer or law student in your life.