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From Human Dignity to Natural Law shows how the whole of the natural law, as understood in the Aristotelian Thomistic tradition, is contained implicitly in human dignity. Human dignity means existing for one’s own good (the common good as well as one’s individual good), and not as a mere means to an alien good. But what is the true human good? This question is answered with a careful analysis of Aristotle’s definition of happiness. The natural law can then be understood as the precepts that guide us in achieving happiness. To show that human dignity is a reality in the nature of things and not a mere human invention, it is necessary to show that human beings exist by nature for the achievement of the properly human good in which happiness is found. This implies finality in nature. Since contemporary natural science does not recognize final causality, the book explains why living things, as least, must exist for a purpose and why the scientific method, as currently understood, is not able to deal with this question. These reflections will also enable us to respond to a common criticism of natural law theory: that it attempts to derive statements of what ought to be from statements about what is. After defining the natural law and relating it to human or positive law, Richard Berquist considers Aquinas’s formulation of the first principle of the natural law. It then discusses the love commandments to love God above all things and to love one’s neighbor as oneself as the first precepts of the natural law. Subsequent chapters are devoted to clarifying and defending natural law precepts concerned with the life issues, with sexual morality and marriage, and with fundamental natural rights. From Human Dignity to Natural Law concludes with a discussion of alternatives to the natural law.
Focused on the more practical level, volume 2 seeks to understand the work dignity may do as a foundation for law, how it is related to religious liberty, and how we should adjudicate religious liberty disputes at the individual and corporate level. What is the sphere of human dignity that the law should be trying to protect? Is the role of dignity helpful as a foundational legal concept, and if so, how exactly? What is the status of religious liberty as a component of human dignity, and how is it to be balanced with other individual rights, such as freedom of expression? And finally, to what extent can the law adjudicate corporate religious claims?
The concept of human dignity is already embedded in the constitutional architecture of the European Union and throughout the world, but it remains a slippery and elusive concept. In this volume, leading commentators from across the globe address the shift from the monolithic influence of major world religions in the past towards religious pluralism coupled with the increased secularism of civil society. The contributors, drawn from different backgrounds and traditions, explore how the deployment of a nuanced understanding of human dignity can provide a way to maximise religious liberty for all within liberal democracies. Specific consideration is given to the reasonable accommodation of religious practices through exemptions to generally applicable laws, conscientious objection on the grounds of religious beliefs, the interplay between religious pluralism and legal pluralism, balancing religious sensibilities with same-sex marriage, exercising the right to change one’s religion, both generally and with a particular focus on data protection, protecting the right to asylum in the light of recent changes in migratory flows and exploring its impact on those enjoying non-theistic beliefs, as well as the complex relationship between the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox Churches in these febrile times. Through the prism of informed investigation of these matters of specificity, the volume offers readers fresh insights and analysis which collectively contribute to an overall picture of governments in liberal democracies being encouraged and enabled to foster laws and practices whereby pluralism can be encouraged, and human dignity can flourish. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers and policy-makers working in the areas of Law and Religion, Human Rights Law, Constitutional Law and International Relations.
No one is against human rights. It is obviously a good thing-until one starts to think about the meaning of the term and its implications. Then it shows itself to be an idea that polarizes, encouraging uncritical support and also extreme reaction from both secularists and religionists. John Warwick Montgomery, who is both a lawyer and a theologian, is uniquely qualified to address the question of human rights. In clear, easily understood language, he analyzes what human rights are and addresses the crucial question, "How can human rights, properly understood, be legitimated?" Montgomery shows that is there is a foundation for human rights, it must be sought in a transcendent perspective, in the revelational content of the Bible.
This volume explores how national and international human rights courts interpret and apply human dignity. The book tracks the increasing deployment of the concept of human dignity within national and international courts in recent decades. It identifies how human-dignity-based arguments have expanded to cover larger sets of cases: from the right to life or to integrity or anti-discrimination, the concept has surfaced in disputes about political and social rights and rule of law requirements, such as equality or legal certainty. The core message of the book is that judges understand, interpret, and apply human dignity differently. An inflation in the judicial recourse to human dignity can saturate the legal environment, depriving the concepts as well as human-rights-based narratives of salience, and threaten the predictability of court decisions. The book will appeal to philosophers of law, constitutional theorists and lawyers, legal comparativists, and internal law specialists. Whilst being dedicated specifically to human dignity jurisprudence, the book touches on many aspects of judiciary and as such will also be of interest to researchers studying legal reasoning, interpretation and application of the law and courts, as well as social philosophers, political scientists, and sociologists of law, politics, and religion.
Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, this volume explores the reality of the principle of human dignity – a core value which is increasingly invoked in our societies and legal systems. This book provides a systematic overview of the legal and philosophical concept in sixteen countries representing different cultural and religious contexts and examines in particular its use in a developing case law (including of the European Court of Human Rights and of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights). Whilst omnipresent in the context of bioethics, this book reveals its wider use in healthcare more generally, treatment of prisoners, education, employment, and matters of life and death in many countries. In this unique comparative work, contributing authors share a multidisciplinary analysis of the use (and potential misuse) of the principle of dignity in Europe, Africa, South and North America and Asia. By revealing the ambivalence of human dignity in a wide range of cultures and contexts and through the evolving reality of case law, this book is a valuable resource for students, scholars and professionals working in bioethics, medicine, social sciences and law. Ultimately, it will make all those who invoke the principle of human dignity more aware of its multi-layered character and force us all to reflect on its ability to further social justice within our societies.
The Punta del Este Declaration, and this book dedicated to elaborating upon it, is devoted to exploring the ways that human dignity for everyone everywhere can be a useful tool in helping to address the challenges and strains facing human rights in the world today. In 2018, an initiative was instigated to revitalize the human rights project by way of engaging the notion of human dignity. This resulted in the Punta Del Este Declaration on Human Dignity for Everyone Everywhere (Punta Del Este Declaration), a declaration co-authored by over 30 human rights experts from all over the world. The Punta Del Este Declaration simplifies and brings coherence to the concept of human dignity in 10 brief statements that capture the many dimensions and aspects of human dignity and the practical ways that human dignity is useful in the promotion of human rights. This book provides an overview of how the notion of human dignity has been used to strengthen human rights. It discusses how human dignity playsmany different roles in human rights discourse and has the force to revitalize the human rights project; it is the foundational principle upon which the human rights project is built. But it is also the telos, or end goal, of human rights. At the same time, it is an important evaluative mechanism for assessing how well a country is doing in the implementation of human rights. The book will be a valuable resource for all those working in the areas of International Human Rights Law, Legal Philosophy, and Law and Religion.
Focused at the theoretical level, this volume seeks to clarify our understanding of various historical and contemporary concepts of human dignity. It examines the various meanings of the term ‘dignity’ before looking at the philosophical sources of dignity and both religious and secular attempts to provide a grounding for the notion. It also compares the merits and defects of older and newer concepts of dignity, including extensions of dignity to groups, animals, and machines.
The notion of human dignity plays a central role in human rights discourse. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognition of the inherent dignity and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. The international Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and on Civil and Political Rights state that all human rights derive from inherent dignity of the human person. Some modern constitutions include human dignity as a fundamental non-derogable right; others mention it as a right to be protected alongside other rights. It is not only lawyers concerned with human rights who have to contend with the concept of human dignity. The concept has been discussed by, inter alia, theologians, philosophers, and anthropologists. In this book leading scholars in constitutional and international law, human rights, theology, philosophy, history and classics, from various countries, discuss the concept of human dignity from differing perspectives. These perspectives help to elucidate the meaning of the concept in human rights discourse.
Do human rights apply only to a certain culture group or can they be demanded of all cultures and religions? This discussion about a common world ethos demonstrates how relevant and explosive that question is. In his study of ethical relativism and historical thinking, Eberhard Schockenhoff shows how the universal recognition of fundamental norms that guarantee the minimum conditions for human existence can be substantiated. Dealing critically with the two most important branches of research in present-day moral theology--autonomous morality and teleological ethics--the author presents a new theological-ethical theory of natural law. Integrating the theory of practical reason and Aquinas' understanding of natural inclinations, Schockenhoff compares this synthesis to the insights of present-day anthropology. This method allows him to re-establish a connection to classical natural law ethics. In so doing, he indicates how ethics can fulfill its most important duty: to arrive at the recognition of anthropologically grounded material norms without falling prey to a logical error. According to Schockenhoff, claims of natural law and of human rights formulate an indispensable minimum, while biblical ethics (the decalogue and the Sermon of the Mount) and the high ethos of the world religions point the way to an encompassing realization of the concept of the good life. Renowned moral theologian Eberhard Schockenhoff is professor at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. He is the author of numerous works and managing editor of Zeitschrift für Medizinische Ethik. Brian McNeil is a parish priest in Munich and a translator of theological literature. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK: "The book is impressive in many respects. It is thorough and precise about the specific problems associated with natural law theory, and the chapters on relativism and historicism exhibit impressive erudition and insight. Few books on natural law grapple so extensively and fairly with objectors as does this one, and its responses are admirable in their breadth and depth."- Mark Graham, Theological Studies "A masterly treatment of many of the most important issues in moral theology."--Brian V. Johnstone, Studia Moralia "This book demonstrates convincingly that natural law has not become obsolete in ethical discussions. . . ."--Peter Fonk, Theologische Revue "In regard to topics that are coined by the Roman-Catholic tradition, the author includes Protestant authors in his considerations with a naturalness that has to be seen as a fortunate sign of ecumenical openness. Schockenhoff manages to revive answers of the tradition that have sometimes been put aside, and to bring them up in the challenges of today."--Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, Theologische Literaturzeitung "An exceptional discussion of the concept of natural law as it applies to a modern world of moral relativism. . . . This is a high quality work, providing both a wide overview of the concerns of natural law and offering a respectable solution worth further consideration. Schockenhoff's work is highly recommended."--Matthew Ryan McWhorter, Catholic Books Review OnLine "This book by one of the leading Catholic moral theologians in Germany, teaching at Freiburg University, presents a simple thesis in an elaborate and sophisticated fashion....Schockenhoff's highly learned and impressive account deserves attention and critical engagement." -- Bernd Wannenwetsch, Studies in Christian Ethics