Inherence of Human Dignity

Angus J. L. Menuge is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Concordia University Wisconsin and past President of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Barry W. Bussey is Director of Legal Affairs, at the Canadian Centre for Christian Charities and Associate Adjunct Professor of Law at University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney.

• Introduction, Angus J. L. Menuge; Part I Grounding Human Dignity; Chapter One Human Dignity in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: ‘Old’ or ‘New’?, Laura Kittel; Chapter Two How Do We Justify Human Rights and Dignity?, Keith Thompson; Chapter Three May Critics of ‘Inherent Dignity’ Be Answered? Rejoinders from Christian Anthropology, David Guretzki; Chapter Four Three Sources of Human Dignity, Erik J. Wielenberg; Chapter Five Atheism and Theism: A Comparison of Metaphysical Foundations for Human Dignity, Paul Copan; Chapter Six Dignity and Tolerance: A Tension and a Challenge, Claudia Mariéle Wulf; Chapter Seven Human Dignity: What to Do with It? From Fruitless Abstraction to Meaningful Action, Hendrik Kaptein; Part II Competing Conceptions of Human Dignity; Chapter Eight Two Concepts of Dignity: On the Decay of Agency in Law, Åsbjørn Melkevik and Bjarne Melkevik; Chapter Nine Human Dignity as Law’s Foundation: An Outline for a Personalist Jurisprudence, Michał Rupniewski; Chapter Ten The Social Ontology of Human Dignity, Nicholas Aroney; Chapter Eleven How Not to Interpret Human Dignity: A Common Fallacy, Friedrich Toepel; Chapter Twelve The Nominalist Foundations of Constructivist Dignity, R. Scott Smith; Chapter Thirteen Artificial Dignity: The Humanizing and Dehumanizing Implications of Polanyi versus Turing’s Ontology, Andy Steiger; Notes on Contributors; Index.

Occupying a place front and center among important moral phenomena in need of robust explanation is the dignity of human persons. As such this perennially fascinating topic constitutes a powerful test case for rival explanatory candidates, an eminently telling clue to the import of the human condition and the very nature of reality. The essential dignity and unspeakably great worth of each and every human being is both a vital humanistic and humanizing doctrine, and an ineliminable moral datum that veritably cries out for adequate explanation to do it justice. The most penetrating explanations of human dignity refuse to domesticate or deflate it, but rather allow its full reverential and evidential force to be felt. This diverse collection adds a chorus of intelligent and insightful voices to this timely and timeless exploration, providing clarifying analysis, points of resonance and common ground across divergent views, as well as tensions and disagreements that ultimately, and instructively, may prove insuperable. — David Baggett, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Moral Apologetics at Houston Baptist University, USA