Human Rights

Understanding Human Dignity

By Christopher McCrudden
Oxford University Press November 2013

Specifications

ISBN-13
9780197265642
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Publication
November 2013
Format
Hardback , 600 pages
Jurisdiction
European Union, U.K., U.S. ? Countri(es) for reference only

Details

  • Outstanding calibre of contributors to the volume, including Baroness Hale of Richmond and the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols
  • International team of contributors from UK, USA and Europe
  • Includes a section on application of theory to current political debates, e.g. abortion, same-sex marriage, socio-economic rights, religious freedom and animal rights

Understanding Human Dignity aims to help the reader make sense of current debates about the meaning and implications of the idea of human dignity. The concept of human dignity has probably never been so omnipresent in everyday speech, or so deeply embedded in political and legal discourse. In debates on torture, abortion, same-sex marriage, and welfare reform, appeals to dignity are seldom hard to find. The concept of dignity is not only a prominent feature of political debate, but also, and increasingly, of legal argument. Indeed, courts tell us that human dignity is the foundation of all human rights. But the more important it is, the more contested it seems to have become. There has, as a result, been an extraordinary explosion of scholarly writing about the concept of human dignity in law, political philosophy, and theology. This book aims to reflect on these intra-disciplinary debates about dignity in law, philosophy, history, politics, and theology, through a series of edited essays from specialists in these fields, explored the contested concept in its full richness and complexity.

 

Readership: Scholars and postgraduate students in law, political theory and theology

Table of Contents

1: Chris McCrudden: In Pursuit of Human Dignity: an introduction to current debates
Part I: Historical perspectives
2: Rebecca J. Scott: Dignité/ Dignidade: Organizing Against Threats to Dignity in Societies After Slavery
3: Christopher Goos: Würde des Menschen: Restoring Human Dignity in Post-Nazi Germany
4: Samuel Moyn: The Secret History of Constitutional Dignity
5: Catherine Dupré: Constructing the Meaning of Human Dignity: Four Questions
6: David Hollenbach: Human Dignity: Experience and History, Practical Reason and Faith
Part II: Dignity critiques
7: Michael Rosen: Dignity: the Case Against
8: Connor Gearty FBA: Socio-economic rights, basic needs and human dignity: A perspective from law's front line
9: Christoph Möllers: The Triple Dilemma of Human Dignity: a case study
10: Bernard Schlink: The Concept of Human Dignity: Current usages, future discourses
11: John Milbank: Dignity Rather Than Rights
Part III: Theological perspectives
12: James Hanvey: Dignity, Person and Imago Trinitatis
13: Janet Soskice: Human Dignity and the Image of God
14: David Walsh: Dignity as an Eschatological Concept
15: Tina Beattie: The Vanishing Absolute and the Deconsecrated God: a theological reflection on revelation, law and human dignity
16: David P. Gushee: A Christian Theological Account of Human Worth
Part IV: Philosophical perspectives
17: John Tasioulas: Human Dignity as a Foundation for Human Rights
18: Thomas Hill: In Defence of Human Dignity: Comments on Rosen and Kant
19: Jeremy Waldron FBA: Citizenship and Dignity
20: Roger Brownsword: Human Dignity, Human Rights, and Simply Trying to do the Right Thing
Part V: Judicial perspectives
21: Aharon Barak: Human Dignity: The constitutional value and the constitutional right
22: Dieter Grimm: Dignity in a Legal Context: Dignity as absolute right
23: Jean-Paul Costa: Human dignity in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights
Part VI: Applications
24: Julian Rivers: Justifying Freedom of Religion: does dignity help?
25: Patrick Riordan: Which Dignity? Which Religious Freedom?
26: Sergio Dellavalle: From Imago Dei to Mutual Recognition: the Evolution of the Concept of Human Dignity in the Light of the Defence of Religious Freedom
27: Joel Harrison: A Communion in Good Living': Human Dignity and Religious Liberty beyond the Overlapping Consensus
28: Edwin Cameron: Dignity and Disgrace: Moral Citizenship and Constitutional Protection
29: Christopher Tollefsen: The Dignity of Marriage
30: Robert P. George: Response to Tollefsen and Cameron
31: Reva Siegal: Dignity and the Duty to Protect Unborn Life
32: David A. Jones: Is dignity language useful in bioethical discussion of assisted suicide and abortion?
33: Denise Réaume: Dignity, Choice, and Circumstances
34: Clemens Sedmak: Human dignity, interiority, and poverty
35: Joseph Vining: Dignity as Perception: Recognition of the Human Individual and the Individual Animal in Legal Thought
Part VII: Ways forward?
36: Matthias Mahlmann: The good sense of dignity - six antidotes to dignity fatigue in ethics and law
37: Paolo Carozza: Human Rights, Human Dignity, and Human Experience
38: Gerald L. Neuman: Discourses of Dignity
39: Alexandra Kemmerer: Dignified Disciplinarity: Towards a Transdisciplinary Understanding of Human Dignity

About the Author

Edited by Christopher McCrudden, Queen's University Belfast

 

Contributors: 
Baroness Hale of Richmond FBA (Justice of the Supreme Court)
Vincent Nicols (Archbishop of Westminister)

Christopher McCrudden FBA (Law, Queens University Belfast/Michigan)

Rebecca Scott (History/Law, Michigan)
Christoph Goos (Law, Bonn)
Samuel Moyn (History, Columbia)
Catherine Dupré (Law, Exeter)
David Hollenbach (Theology, Boston College)
Michael Rosen (Political Theory, Harvard)
Conor Gearty FBA (Law, LSE)
Christoph Möllers (Law, Humboldt)
Bernhard Schlink (Law, Humboldt/Cardozo)
John Milbank (Theology, Nottingham)
James Hanvey (Theology, Heythrop)
Janet Soskice (Theology, Cambridge)
David Walsh (Politics, Catholic University of America)
Tina Beattie (Theology, Roehampton)
David Gushee (Theology, Mercer)
John Tasioulas (Philosophy, UCL)
Thomas Hill (Philosophy, North Carolina)
Jeremy Waldron FBA (Political Philosophy/Law, NYU/Oxford)
Roger Brownsword (Law, Kings)
Aharon Barak (Law, Herzliya)
Dieter Grimm (Law, Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin)
Jean-Paul Costa (Law, International Institute of Human Rights, Strasbourg)
Julian Rivers (Law, Bristol)
Patrick Riordan (Political Philosophy, Heythrop)
Sergio Dellavalle (Law, Turin/Max Planck Institute, Heidelberg)
Joel Harrison (Law, Columbia)
Edwin Cameron
Christopher Tollefsen (Philosophy, South Carolina)
Robert George (Philosophy, Princeton)
Reva Siegel (Law, Yale)
David A Jones (Anscombe Bioethics Centre, Oxford)
Denise Réaume (Law, Toronto)
Clemens Sedmak (Theology, Kings)
Joseph Vining (Law, Michigan)
Matthias Mahlmann (Law, Zürich)
Paolo Carozza (Law, Notre Dame)
Gerald Neuman (Law, Harvard)
Alexandra Kemmerer (Law, Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin)

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