Dignity, Human

Abstract

Abstract Since World War II the idea of human dignity has been a prominent feature of political thought, and to a degree of political practice. The language of human dignity indelibly entered the world of practical politics in 1945 in the United Nations Charter, a document inspired by revulsion against the many affronts to humanity and human dignity experienced during and prior to that war: “We the people of the United Nations determined … to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person.” A link between human dignity and human rights and of both to justice, or, rather, the claim that human dignity and rights are the basis of justice, was explicitly made three years later in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world …”