CHAPTER 3 ON HUMAN DIGNITY
honoured with regard and respect."259 Although for Cicero, as for the Romans, the word dignitas was associated mainly with the dignity of the state or the citizen, meaning something like ornament (decus, decorum), majesty (maiestas), greatness (amplitude), conviviality, charity, or eloquence, he does on one occasion use dignity with reference to the human person:
“It is essential to every inquiry about duty that we keep before our eyes how far superior man is by nature to cattle and other beasts: they have thought except for sensual pleasure and this they impelled by every instinct to seek; but man's mind is nurtured by study and meditation … from this we see that sensual pleasure is quite unworthy of the dignity of man … One's physical comforts and wants, therefore, should be ordered according to the demands of health and strength, not according to the calls of pleasure. And if we will only bear in mind the superiority and dignity of our nature (natura excellentia et dignitas), we shall realize how wrong it is to abandon ourselves to excess and to live in luxury and voluptuousness, and how right it is to live in thrift, self-denial, simplicity and sobriety".260
It has been suggested that the particular meaning given by Cicero to the expression human dignity relates to Stoic notions of personae (person), natura (cosmos, physis, nature), and ratio (logos, reason). Human dignity, as in the passage cited above, constitutes a characteristic of human nature, a human nature which is common to all, and in which reason is the distinctive quality. It is reason that allows the human being to distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil.The dignity of man resides in the human person endowed with reason and thus with a capacity freely to make moral decisions.261 It is Stoic philosophy that conceives the individual as possessing a human dignity within a context of human morality. Moreover, within their political context, philosophers such as Seneca, and Cicero himself, developed the notion that a human being has entitlements prior to the existence of any type of political state. Note also that
259 Hubert Canick, “Dignity of Man” and “Persona” in Stoic Anthropology: Some Remarks on Cicero, De Officiis I 105-107” in The Concept of Human Dignity in Human Rights Discourse D Kretzmer and E Klein (eds.), 2002, p. 23 Citing Cicero, De Inventione. 2.55.166 “dignitas est alicuius honesta et cultu et honore et verecundia digna auctoritas.”
260 Donnelly, above note 3, p. 17 footnote 15; translation of Walter Miller from Cicero’s “De Officiis” (on Duties (1.30.105-107) in Latin (only 106) “Ex quo intellegitur corporis voluptatem non satis esse dignam hominis praestantia, eamque contemni et reici oportere ; sin sit quispiam, qui aliquid tribuat voluptati, diligenter ei tenendum esse eius fruendae modum. Itaque victus cultusque corporis ad vale- tudinem referatur et ad vires, non ad voluptatem. Atque etiam si considerare volumus/ quae sit in natura excellentia et dignitas, intellegemus, quam sit turpe diffluere luxuria et delicate ac molliter vivere quamque honestum parce, continenter, severe, sobrie”. See also Canick, above note 259, pp. 22-23.
261 Canick, ibid., pp. 22-23.
the notion of a universal "civitas humana" emerged in this period.262 However, it is necessary also to highlight that Stoic ideas of rational man were understood as justification of his perceived superiority over animals.
2 Christianity
Stoic philosophy was rediscovered by Christianity, if with important differences.
Christians conceived the dignity of the individual in terms of human superiority over all that is not human. They grounded this notion of human superiority in the idea that the individual was created in God's own likeness (imago Dei).263 For Christians, the human person is not complete; that is, the human being is mortal, if occupying a central role in creation. Human dignity, theologically, is a reflection of the dignity of God. The difference from stoicism is that, instead of grounding this superiority in nature, or in the laws of nature, it is grounded in the sacrosanct supremacy of the human being as created by a transcendental God: human worth and value are gifts from God.264 Nevertheless, certain Christian philosophers were already laying the ground for an anthropological turn within Christiany; this turn would eventually flow into the Enlightenment.
Stoic notions of human dignity were further elaborated during the Italian renaissance, in the Middle Ages, by such thinkers as Giannozzo Manetti (1396-1459)265 and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494). In the renaissance humanist tradition, the Oratio de hominis dignitate of Pico della Mirandolla was a work of particular significance.
Mirandola wrote in his Prayer that it is a gift of God that "Man chooses that what he wants to be and have".266 This example demonstrates how, within Christianity, thinkers were beginning to disassociate themselves from the prevailing theological views on the status of the human individual. But it was not until centuries later that Samuel von Pufendorf (1632-1694) brought stoic notions of human dignity to the centre of the
262 Verdroß, above note 9, p. 6.
263 Bibel, Genesis 1,26. “Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness (…)”
264 Kurt Bayertz, “Human Dignity: Philosophical Origin and Scientific Erosion of the Idea” in Sanctity of Life and Human Dignity Kurt Bayertz (ed.) 1996 p.73 See also Lazaros Sidiropoulus, “Die Würde des Menschen als Leitprinzip in den ethischen und rechtlichen Diskurse der Moderne” 2008, p.246 See also Theo Kobusch, “Die Würde des Menschen –ein Erbe der christlichen Philosophie” in Des Menschen Würde –entdecken und erfunden in Humanismus der italienischen Renaissance R Gröschner S Kirste und O W Lembke (eds.), 2008, pp. 235-248.
265 Giannozzo Manetti, “De dignitate et excellentia hominis” in Iannozzo Manetti De dignitate et excellentia hominis G Manetti, Elizabeth R Leonard, 1975, Vol. 12 See also Alexander Thumfahrt,
“Giannozzo Manetti: Wir sind für die Gerechtigkeit geboren” in Des Menschen Würde –entdecken und erfunden in Humanismus der italienischen Renaissance R Gröschner et al. (eds.) 2008, pp. 73-90.
266 Giovanni Pico della Mirandolla Oratio de hominis dignitate : Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486) 1953.
revolutionary thought of rational naturalism. This jurist from Saxony used the idea of human dignity to support his natural law doctrine, which itself is structurally framed around such stoic concepts as nature, the unity of mankind, and the equality of man.267 Following Pufendorf, it is the dignity and pre-eminence of the human being, excelling over all other living beings that in fact makes us equal. According to him, the dignity of man is derived from the fact that the human being has an immortal soul, distinguished by the light of intelligence, and by a unique capacity for deciding and choosing.268 3 Immanuel Kant
The next fundamental step in the history of human dignity is found in Kant’s moral philosophy. Historians agree that the influence of stoicism upon Kant's moral philosophy was considerable.269 It is also generally agreed that Kant's conception of human dignity is of a secular type; he avoids escaping into metaphysical speculation or an idealistic (transcendental) super elevation of the potential and power of human reason. For Kant, human dignity is grounded in the individual's moral autonomy270; that is, the individual's capacity to act according to moral principle. For Kant, since human dignity has no equivalent, it cannot be compared to other values. In this sense, the intrinsic dignity of one man cannot be measured in relation to another.271 In contrast to animals, which have a price only in so far as they serve a human purpose, for Kant, the philosopher of Koenigsberg, the human individual has an intrinsic worth, above all price. Kant develops extensively the distinction between intrinsic worth and price. This intrinsic worth is an absolute value; it is distinct from the relative value of things. Kant's understanding of human worth is given expression in his practical, or second categorical imperative, which is itself derived from his categorical imperative. Kant's categorical imperative reads as follows: "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law".272 According to the categorical imperative, the right thing to do is not determined through the pursuit of one's own interests; it exists according to that which all human beings consider to be universal law.
267 Canick, above note 259, p. 33 See also Kari Saastamoinen, “Pufendorf on Natural Equality, Human Dignity and Self-Esteem” Journal of the History of Ideas 2010 Vol. 71 No. 1, pp. 39-62.
268 Canick, above note 259, p. 31 Citing Samuel Pufendorf „De iure naturae et gentium 1672 (2.1.5) [Ovid, Methamorphoses 1.76 ff].
269 Ibid., p. 35 footnote 863.
270 Immanuel Kant, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. “Autonomie ist also der Grund der Würde der menschlichen und jeder vernünftigen Natur” p.71
271 Sidiropoulus, above note 264, p. 247.
272 Kant , above note p. 52 The first formulation of the categorical imperative: “Handle nur nach derjenigen Maxime, durch die du zugleich wollen kannst, dass sie ein allgemeines Gesetz werde”
According to the second imperative, to have dignity means to be entitled to be treated as an end and never used as a means. Kant's formulation of his second categorical imperative reads as follows: "Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only".273 These imperatives are at the heart of Kant's moral philosophy; they are the core of his system of ethics and positive laws.274 The teachings of Kant notwithstanding, the notion of human dignity was viewed with a certain scepticism throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. It was thought that such an abstract notion was susceptible to manipulation.
That risk has not yet disappeared; indeed, it still constitutes the main obstacle to such thought becoming fully substantiated.