The ruling by the German constitutional court emphasized the concept
of “dignity” in their judgment, and it is notable that dignity
has made an increased appearance in national constitutions and ethical
guidelines. Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar6
(human dignity is inviolable),
starts the German constitution, and the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights begins with the sentence
But imagine a dignified person. Whom do you see? Perhaps Nelson
Mandela who kept his poise and self-respect during 26 years of
imprisonment? Or Othello, who is said to have greater inherent nobility
and self-control than any other Shakespearian character? Possibly Nobel
Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent 9 of the past 15 years in some
form of detention in Burma without losing her serenity? Or Antigone,
daughter of Oedipus, who combined heroic courage with gentle care for
father and brother? Whomever you see, it is unlikely that it is a mass
murderer, a cowardly torturer, a rapist, or a pedophile. In general, one
associates dignity with certain character dispositions that prevent evil
behavior, for instance, rational self-control, composure, and calmness,
but also the power of self-assertion and belief in one's own
worth.
But if it is, how does it apply to a
convicted child murderer, as in the above case? The German constitutional
court did not convict the police president of violating the suspect's
dignity because of his virtues but because of his inherent worth and
nobility. Hence, there must be different types of dignity, and we shall
look at the main three in reverse order:
Quality of Being Worthy of Esteem
During the Enlightenment, privileging autonomous action guided by
reason over faith in authorities shifted the meaning of dignity from an
association with rank to a focus on individual action. The term
meritorious dignity (Leistungswürde11
Höffe O. Medizin ohne Ethik?
Frankfurt: Edition Suhrkamp; 2002:67.
) best describes this
concept. Dignity has to be earned, merited, through individual action; it
cannot be bestowed by rank only. The people mentioned at the outset of
this paper
merit the term
dignified; their lives
exemplify dignified action. But what exactly characterizes a
“dignified being”; when is one deserving of other
people's esteem due to one's dignity?
Dignity could be called the keynote of all virtues. To illustrate this
claim, it is necessary first to agree on a definition of virtue.
According to Aristotle, a virtue is a disposition to behave in a
certain way.12
Aristotle.
Nikomachische Ethik, Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag; 1985:33f
(1106a–b).
If someone has the virtue of courage, she has
the disposition to face up to dangers in a manner that is neither cowardly
nor reckless or rash. When Antigone buried her brother against her uncle
Kreon's wish, she was aware that she would probably die as a result
(and not a pleasant death). But her integrity and love for her dead
brother demanded a certain action, and having the right character
disposition, a disposition toward courage, allowed her to sacrifice her
own life for her beliefs.
If somebody has the virtue of magnificence, he has a disposition to
give to others in a manner that neither greedily holds on to resources nor
squanders them unnecessarily. If somebody has the virtue of temperance, he
has the disposition to resist harmful temptations arising from desires
without leading a passionless, lethargic life (verhaltene
Leidenschaft).
Those who always behave virtuously live life as it ought to be,
according to Aristotle, and will enjoy happiness, eudaimonia.13
See note 12, Aristotle:4–21
(1095a–1101b).
Could not a virtuous life be synonymous with
a dignified life? Could dignity not be another word for having all the
virtues, almost a tautology? If the answer to these questions were
“yes,” we would not be able to find a virtue that is
unnecessary for a dignified being. (Or we would need to find a
characteristic of “being dignified” that is not a virtue.)
In a brief tour de force, let us look at the four cardinal virtues,
under which all other virtues can be subsumed, according to Aristotle:
wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage.14
Aristotle. Politik. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag;
1981:272 (1334a).
It is perfectly plausible for somebody to be
courageous, but immodest, conceited, and self-indulgent (signs of
nontemperance) or for somebody to be just and impartial in their judgment
but cowardly and weak when faced with danger. Hence, the virtues are
separate characteristics, which can be displayed independently from each
other, with one exception. The cardinal virtue of wisdom (seeing the truth
through perfect reason) is considered the mother of all other virtues.
Wisdom is required to inform justice, temperance, and courage.
15 Pieper J. Über die Tugenden.
München: Kösel Verlag; 2004:21.
For instance, the first
and foremost principle of justice is to treat like cases alike.
16 To do so, one
needs empirical knowledge about the cases, but also wisdom in judging
their similarities and dissimilarities. Or, to distinguish a courageous
from a rash action one needs to be able to judge the situation, one's
own powers, and the difference one can make by acting in which way. Wisdom
is, hence, required to inform courage. And finally, wisdom is required to
inform self-discipline or temperance. Somebody who naturally (perhaps due
to illness or lethargy) refrains from desire-driven behavior is not
virtuous. Only when wisdom informs an action, in other words only if one
refrains from certain behaviors
because reason contradicts them,
can one meaningfully speak of temperance.
When it comes to dignity, all four virtues are required. A
dignified being cannot be unwise, unjust, willful, or cowardly.
Wisdom. A being who does not display wisdom can be ignorant,
foolish, silly, thoughtless, imprudent, irrational, or a bad judge of
character, to name just a few possibilities. None of these are compatible
with dignity. When Socrates famously said that the only thing he knows
with certainty is that he knows nothing,17
Plato. Platon Sämtliche Dialoge—Band
II, Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag; 1993:41 (St. 235).
he did
not display ignorance, but acute awareness of human limitations, another
instance of wisdom. Wisdom, the attempt to always seek the truth and act
through reason, which includes judgment of one's limitations, seems
to be an integral part of dignity. Otherwise it would have to be possible
to imagine a silly or imprudent action, for example, that is compatible
with dignity.
And wisdom has another side to it: a sense of one's own worth. A
sense of self-respect is essential to dignity, but must not lead to
brutish noisiness, self-complacency, self-pity, exhibitionism, arrogance,
and the like. Dignified beings take themselves seriously, but not too
seriously. According to this understanding of dignity, servility and
self-deprecation are moral defects. To be servile means to have an
attitude toward one's rightful place in the community of human beings
that is inappropriate.18
Hill TE. Servility
and self-respect. In: Dillon RS, ed. Dignity, Character and
Self-Respect. London: Routledge; 1995:76–92.
This
error of judgment signifies a failure to understand one's rights and
a failure of wisdom.
Justice. To be fair- and open-minded, unbiased, truthful,
honorable, and just seem to be essential characteristics of dignified
beings. Would Antigone enjoy our respect to the same extent if she had
cheated—for example, if she had lied to her uncle to avoid death
while surreptitiously burying her brother? Those who do not show justice
in their actions can be revengeful, prejudiced, intolerant, opinionated,
fanatical, disrespectful, and sleazy, to again name just some
possibilities. None of these are compatible with dignity.
Temperance is probably the cardinal virtue most strongly
associated with dignity, although one has to bear in mind that it always
combines with wisdom. Rational self-control is an integral part of
dignity, as are self-possession, poise, and passions controlled without
being negated.19
Tempered beings limit their excesses and respond
appropriately in difficult situations. Rage, annoyance, bad moods,
gluttony, overindulgence, immodesty, greed, hedonism, or insatiability are
all instances of failed temperance. On the other hand, a tempered person
does not have to be calm and austere all the time. When faced with a
serious injustice, controlled self-discipline requires righteous
indignation, which could easily take the form of anger, but not of
malicious revenge. Again, it becomes clear that temperance is required for
dignity, as are wisdom and justice.
Courage. Cowardice is unfailingly undignified, but so is
rashness in the face of danger. Although the latter might look heroic at
first sight, it can easily turn out to be careless, irrational, and
foolish—in other words, undignified. An event in Dortmund might
illustrate this point.20
Innenministerium
des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen. Innenminister. Dr. Behrens zeichnet 24
Lebensretter mit NRW-Rettungsmedaille aus. Internet NRW. At: http://www.im.nrw.de/pe/pm2001/news_1306.htm
(accessed January 10, 2005).
On March 11, 2002, Rolf Fritz dug a
4.5-meter-deep ditch with machinery, which required finishing off by hand.
When he had almost completed his work in the ditch, the walls tumbled in
and within minutes he was covered in heavy sand. He immediately developed
breathing difficulties, as only his head emerged from the sand. A
colleague shouted for help and Paolo Colella (31), who worked in a nearby
pizzeria, rushed to the accident. He carefully climbed into the ditch and
continued removing sand with his hands until the fire services arrived.
Together with three firemen, Colella managed to free Fritz. This is
clearly a case of heroic courage. On the other hand, if Colella had acted
too rashly, the walls would have collapsed further, burying him together
with Fritz and potentially even the firemen. Thereby, he would not only
have potentially lost his own life, but almost certainly created
Fritz's death. (Easy to say with hindsight, of course.)
It was already indicated above that wisdom is required to display all
other cardinal virtues and this example illustrates the point with regard
to courage. Men and women with heroic dispositions will risk their lives
and welfare for others, without knowing the outcome; otherwise they would
not need courage. But to achieve a beneficial result, they often need good
judgment, a judgment that aligns one's power with the challenge one
faces. That is why virtue theorists, particularly scholastic thinkers,
believed that wisdom is the core virtue, upon which all others were
dependent.
The characteristics associated with the cardinal virtues can all be
subsumed under dignity. A dignified being cannot be unwise, unjust,
willful, or cowardly, as we have seen.21
It
could be argued that this is not the case. All we have seen is that
dignity is not compatible with the opposite of the virtues. We did not
show that it is incompatible with neutral behavior. Although cowardice is
undignified, those who display neither cowardice nor courage could be
dignified. In this case, courage would not be needed for dignity. I
believe that this argument fails to see that neutral behavior is hardly
ever an option and can therefore be disregarded. Constantly, human beings
have to make decisions about moral issues. They have to commit! If one
tries to think of a situation that requires courage or temperance, where a
neutral position would be possible, it becomes clear that this is almost
impossible. Either one's action is courageous (to whatever degree) or
it is cowardly (to whatever degree). Hence, by showing that dignity is
incompatible with being unwise, unjust, unself-disciplined, and cowardly,
one shows that all the virtues are required, in their positive sense, for
dignity.
Returning to the term
Leistungswürde—dignity one has to earn through
action—we can emphasize three issues:
- Dignified action can be described as virtuous action in the
Aristotelian sense implying that perfectly dignified beings will display
all the virtues including a good sense of self-worth.
- Dignity thus understood, cannot possibly be a characteristic of
all human beings. In fact, it will be a characteristic of a
diminishingly small number of human beings. Leistungswürde
paints a picture of human ideals whose standard will cause almost
everybody to fail daily on several accounts.
- Dignified beings are led by wisdom, the guiding light for all other
virtues, the light of reason. Bonum hominis est secundum rationem
esse; the good or the virtuous lies in living/being aligned with
reason.
Intrinsic Worth and Nobility
With Kant's appearance on the European philosophy scene, the
concept of dignity changed a second time during the Enlightenment. This is
not the place to describe how Kant moved from the statement that nothing
can be considered good without limitation, except a good will22
Kant I. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of
Morals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1997:5
(4:392).
to intrinsic worth and nobility. Let us therefore start
with Kant's belief that the ability to separate good and bad depends
on the human faculty of reason. Only because human beings are rational is
it possible for them to be moral, to decide between right and wrong. And
now comes Kant's move to human dignity! Every individual rational
being sees him- or herself as an end in itself, somebody with life plans
and ideas to realize. Such a being cannot be bought by others as
commercial goods can be and used for their own purposes. Human beings have
worth, not a price for which they can be acquired.
23 See note 22, Kant 1997:42 (4:435).
As Thomas E. Hill
Jr. put it, explaining the Kantian position
24 Hill TE Jr. Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant's
Moral Theory. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press;
1992:202–3.
: Human beings have unconditional and
incomparable worth that unlike prices admits of no equivalence.
As an unconditional value, dignity does not depend on the
contingent fact that something is useful, desired or even liked. By
contrast, things with mere “price”, or conditional value, have
a value that is dependent upon utility (“market value”) or at
least upon individual sentiments (“fancy value”). Anything
with mere price has a value that “admits of equivalents” and
so is subject to calculated trade-offs; however great its value, there can
in principle be something else that could compensate for its loss and
justify its sacrifice. Material goods, reputation, and pleasures as such
have mere price, and so even great amounts of these things may at times be
reasonably sacrificed for other things with the same value. By contrast,
dignity is “above all price” and so one can never act contrary
to the dignity of someone for the sake of things with mere price, no
matter how great the price.
Why do human beings have absolute worth, an inner value—in other
words, dignity? Because of their reasoning faculties, which enable them to
distinguish moral from immoral actions. Because every rational human being
is identical in this regard, something that appears to be subjective to
each one of them, namely that they are ends in themselves, becomes an
objective principle.25
This, of course, is a
reasoning fallacy. Because every single being of a group subjectively
believes in principle x, x does not become a universal
principle, but this is not the place to criticize or defend Kant in
detail.
Every human being has an absolute worth, intrinsic
dignity, and nobility, and must not be used as a means only. One human
being must not instrumentalize another human being or, in Kant's own,
rather more obscure, words:
Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in
your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means,
but always at the same time as an end.26
See
note 22, Kant 1997:38 (4:429).
This demand is also known as the second categorical imperative. If we
previously talked about Leistungswürde, dignity one has to
earn, we can now talk about Mitgiftwürde27
(dowry dignity),
dignity one has intrinsically, without ever being able to lose it or give
it up. In this regard, the people we mentioned at the beginning of the
paper do not have more dignity than mass murderers, torturers, rapists, or
pedophiles. They all have dignity as a member of the human species,
zôon logon, animale rationale, the thinking animal.
