Preview: Human Dignity and the Law

“If individuals are able to become authors of their lives in a substantive way, we can say they have lived a dignified life.”

Introduction

In October, my book Making Human Dignity Central to International Human Rights Law: A Critical Legal Argument will be released with the University of Wales Press (the Amazon page is already up). This book is important to me for a variety of reasons. To begin with, it will be the first major book of mine published. Secondly, the book is dedicated to my recently deceased friend Connor O’Callaghan, who was going to write the introduction before tragically passing away last summer. Connor and I wrote together frequently, and the dedication is intended to help keep the memory of an extraordinary young scholar alive. Finally, the text owes a great deal to my father, who was the first individual to truly inspire me with a passion for human rights, and he remains a mentor to this day. His insights and patience while reading over the book were vital to its completion.

In this short piece, I will sketch out my argument for how human dignity can be the central ideal of law. I will argue that dignity can be seen as the fundamental “mother right” or “archetype” from which all other rights flow. These are both different ways of expressing the point that protecting and amplifying human dignity is the central moral ideal of law.

Human Dignity and Self-Authorship

The goal of a moral approach to jurisprudence should be amplifying the dignity of individuals. This is consonant with the Kantian position, well articulated by Arthur Ripstein in his great book Force and Freedom: Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy. He argues that retaining a moral right to sovereignty should be conditional on state institutions maintaining a “rightful condition” for the positive development of all people living within their territory. A state can achieve this moral ambition by making the amplification of human dignity the central ideal of law.