Normative Versus Taxonomic Humanity: Varieties of Human Dignity in the Western Tradition

Abstract

Today we see human dignity and human rights as inextricably linked. As the International Human Rights Covenants put it, “these rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person.” This article highlights the recent and radical nature of this connection by offering an episodic overview of the history of (human) dignity in the Western tradition. It is now widely accepted that the idea of human rights—equal and inalienable rights held by every human being that can be exercised against the state and society—first appeared in the modern Western world. I argue that much the same is true of human dignity, understood as an inherent, morally defining feature of homo sapiens that demands social respect. For nearly all of Western history, dignity and humanity functioned as particularistic principles of hierarchy rather than universal principles of equality. I also argue that rather than human dignity providing a prior moral foundation for human rights, ideas and practices of human rights and human dignity mutually constructed each other as the class of “taxonomic humans” (members of the species homo sapiens) gradually came to be seen as co-extensive with those “normative humans” that had an inherent dignity that demands social recognition and respect.