The Old \u2018New\u2019 Dignitarianism

Raffael N Fasel

doi:10.1007/s11158-018-09411-2

Abstract

Developments in fields as diverse as biotechnology, animal cognition, and computer science have cast serious doubt on the common belief that human beings are unique and that only they should have dignity and basic rights. A movement referred to as ‘new dignitarianism’ has recently reclaimed human dignity to fend off the threats to human uniqueness that it perceives to arise from these developments. This ‘new’ dignitarianism, however, is not new at all. Drawing on a debate between two Enlightenment philosophers, this article shows that dignitarianism has already surfaced in the eighteenth century as the negative image of another movement: naturalism. Building on this historical account, I propose to understand dignitarianism and naturalism as opposing ideal-types on a normative spectrum. Doing so allows us to see a thus-far neglected problem, which I call the Zero-Sum Problem: any gains a concrete theory makes by approximating one ideal-type, it loses by moving away from the other. I end by showing how accepting this fact is a first step to more practically viable theories that attempt to find a middle ground between the two ideal-types.

Highlights

Recent times have witnessed a resurrection of human dignity
In a world in which scientific advances have opened up new possibilities of altering the human being, in which newly discovered cognitive capacities of nonhuman animals reveal remarkable similarities between them and their human brethren, and in which artificial intelligences (AIs) are beginning to surpass humans in domains formerly monopolised by humanity, the essence of what it means to be human seems to be shaken to its very foundations
Dignitarianism and naturalism were only just budding in the Enlightenment, which is why, if we study them in this formative period, we can acquire an understanding of the central elements of these conceptions and the reasons people had for adopting them that would remain hidden to us in the thicket of today’s debate

Summary

Introduction

Recent times have witnessed a resurrection of human dignity. In a world in which scientific advances have opened up new possibilities of altering the human being, in which newly discovered cognitive capacities of nonhuman animals reveal remarkable similarities between them and their human brethren, and in which artificial intelligences (AIs) are beginning to surpass humans in domains formerly monopolised by humanity, the essence of what it means to be human seems to be shaken to its very foundations. Keywords Dignitarianism · Human dignity · Naturalism · Animal rights · Spectrum · Zero-Sum Problem To the extent that human beings differ in their capacities from other animals, de la Métherie argued, they should possess special rights to protect the interests that result from these capacities.

Results

Conclusion