Human Dignity: Philosophical, Moral, and Legal Dimensions

Patrick S. O’Donnell (June 25, 2023)

The principal philosophical dimensions introduced here are metaphysical and moral or ethical,
while the legal dimensions are found in municipal or State constitutions as well as in international
law and human rights.

After Kant, because human animals alone have dignity they can make necessary and
compelling or objective claims on each other (hence reciprocal notions of ‘obligation’ or ‘duty’
and ‘right’), and thus our actions are capable of embodying or expressing the “motive” proper
to morality, one that also accounts for the (rational) recognition of the objective worth of others
as “ends in themselves.” Dignity is an intrinsic value that signifies absolute worth, “a value that
cannot be compared to, traded off against, or compensated for or replaced by any other value”
(Allen Wood). Our dignity is owing to our rational hence normative agency (or ‘autonomy’), as
we are beings that bring, so to speak, moral value or goodness into the world. Acting morally
here means, in one sense, acting for the sake of humanity in one’s person, thereby respecting the
objective worth of humanity as an end in itself and calling upon us to treat every person with
equal dignity (as the worth of all rational beings is equal). It means that we accept moral
constraints on our action if we are to make sense of the notion of our (reciprocal) capacity
(potentiality) for rational agency (i.e., the intrapersonal and interpersonal capacity to will and
act).

1
And with Wood, let’s not forget that “our capacities for feelings and emotion and even our
animality are parts of our rational nature.” Such a conception is metaphysical in nature (I use
this description loosely, sans any commitment to Kant’s specific metaphysical edifice and
propositions, but more as a way to indicate a possible or probable transcendence of naturalism,
at least insofar as that denotes a realm of strict causation or what Raymond Tallis terms ‘wall-
to-wall’ naturalism). It means persons are to be construed as both infinitely valuable and
irreplaceably valuable. As Kant said, we should always treat people as “ends” (‘self-sufficient’
ends at that, and thus not in the sense of some thing or state of affairs to be brought about by
us) and never merely just as “means” (the ‘Formula of Humanity as End-in-Itself’). The
(democratic) polity of ends, if you will, finds us acting in our capacity as a self-governing (be it
participatory, deliberative, or representative or some combination thereof) community or
society insofar as we are, ideally or normatively, a collective group of (in one sense, would-be)
rational agents who act within the constraints of common, self-imposed, and objective norms.
Dignity, we might conclude, at once—like constitutions—both constrains and empowers.

In an incisive and discriminating discussion of Michael Rosen’s treatment of Kant and the idea
of dignity in the former’s book, Dignity: Its History and Meaning (2012), Thomas E. Hill provides
us with a defense of Kant’s views so as to weave together the “different strands of thought …
commonly associated with dignity” as canvassed by Rosen: “(a) rank or status, (b) intrinsic
value, (c) ‘measured and self-possessed behavior,’ and (d) respectful treatment.” Hill takes up
the arduous challenge of explaining how these different elements make for a coherent if not
compelling and even wondrous tapestry in Kant’s work.

I am selecting and summarizing parts of Hill’s article for our purposes. Later we’ll attempt to
explain how these ideas may or may not (or should or should not) be directly relevant or
applicable to the oft-noted prominent role played by the concept of dignity in the founding
documents and conventions of the international legal human rights system. Thus we will introduce
some general thoughts on these matters by Paolo G. Carozza and Allen E. Buchanan
respectively (and several titles in the list of ‘references and further reading’ can further aid in an
extended and sustained exploration of this topic). I should note that, unlike Michael J. Perry in
Toward a Theory of Human Rights: Religion, Law, Courts (Cambridge University Press, 2007), I
believe that we not only can but should provide a perfectly non-religious or secular ground for the
fundamental morality of international legal human rights as incarnate in the idea “that every
human being has inherent dignity and is inviolable.” At the same time, I welcome Perry’s
attempt to proffer a specifically religious—in this instance, Christian—ground for this idea in as
much as it represents a worthy contribution to the Rawlsian-like project of an “overlapping
consensus” (in this instance, as it applies to the international legal and political order) toward
endorsing or legitimizing a Liberal political conception of justice that is descriptively as

2
pluralistic as is reasonable or possible. In other words, it is a welcome if not necessary
philosophical project that often finds members of different political and cultural traditions and
worldviews (what Rawls somewhat misleadingly terms a ‘comprehensive doctrine’*) around
the globe capable of either discovering or constructing a conception of the concept of human
dignity—at least in part—from the presuppositions, assumptions, and premises of their
respective traditions and worldviews. Recall that

“Rawls’s solution to the challenge of legitimacy in a liberal society is for political power to be
exercised in accordance with a political conception of justice. A political conception of justice is an
interpretation of the fundamental ideas implicit in that society’s public political culture.
A political conception is not derived from any particular comprehensive doctrine, nor is it a
compromise among the worldviews that happen to exist in society at the moment. Rather a
political conception is freestanding: its content is set out independently of the comprehensive
doctrines that citizens affirm. Reasonable citizens, who want to cooperate with one another on
mutually acceptable terms, will see that a freestanding political conception generated from
ideas in the public political culture is the only basis for cooperation that all citizens can
reasonably be expected to endorse. The use of coercive political power guided by the principles
of a political conception of justice will therefore be legitimate. [….]

Political power is used legitimately in a liberal society when it is used in accordance with a
political conception of justice. Yet the challenge of stability remains: why will citizens willingly
obey the law as specified by a liberal political conception? Legitimacy means that the law may
permissibly be enforced; Rawls still needs to explain why citizens have reasons, from within
their own points of view, to abide by such a law. If citizens do not believe they have such
reasons, social order may disintegrate.

Rawls places his hopes for social stability on an overlapping consensus. In an overlapping
consensus, citizens all endorse a core set of laws for different reasons. In Rawlsian terms, each
citizen supports a political conception of justice for reasons internal to her own comprehensive
doctrine. Recall that the content of a political conception is freestanding: it is specified without
reference to any comprehensive doctrine. This allows a political conception to be a ‘module’
that can fit into any number of worldviews that citizens might have. In an overlapping
consensus each reasonable citizen affirms this common ‘module’ from within her own
perspective.”

With such an overlapping consensus we have achieved what in philosophical or theoretical and
political terms what has already been accomplished “on the ground,” that is, the “practical
consensus” represented by the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

3
(UNDHR), namely, a complementary metaphysical and moral justification that accords normative and
even democratic legitimacy to the international legal system of human rights. Alongside several other
legal and philosophical students of international legal human rights, Allen Buchanan reminds
us of the conspicuous part played by the concept—and conceptions—of dignity in this system:

“Whether or not the notion that international legal human rights system is grounded in and
serves to affirm the inherent dignity of humans [a]s a central feature of the system, it is surely a
desideratum for a justification for the system that it can make sense of this notion given its
prominence. [….]

The preambular rhetoric of the major human rights documents, including the UDHR [Universal
Declaration of Human Rights] and the two Covenants (ICCPR [International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights] and ICESCR [International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights]), refers not just to dignity, but to the inherent dignity of the human individual. The most
plausible interpretation of this language is that the documents take seriously the idea that each
human being is a subject of moral concern on her own account or, as one might also put it, that
each has moral worth that is not in any way derivative.”

We will return to this topic below by way of concluding our post, but for now back to Hill, who
writes that when dignity refers, as in (a) above, to rank or status, it means that

“every human person has a status of dignity, which consists of rights, duties, and respect-
worthiness that [non-human] animals lack. It is the status of equality before the moral law and
the status of a moral ‘lawmaker,’ that is, a person who shares in the common practical reason
that specifies what the basic law requires. The kinds of protections, responsibilities, and honour
that are due to a person …. depends on many complex factors that determine how the
fundamental moral law (for Kant, ‘the Categorical Imperative’) should be interpreted and
applied.”

With regard to the notion of (b) “inherent dignity”(Buchanan) or “intrinsic value,” Kant’s
interpretation is fairly unique insofar as it hones in on the idea that persons

“with dignity are ‘ends-in themselves,’ and so are not to be treated merely as means or treated
with indifference. They are … beings with a special status and value that Kant contrasts with
‘relative value.’ As members of a possible ‘kingdom of ends,’ their dignity is contrasted with
mere price—‘market price’ and ‘attachment price.’ Dignity is also described as an ‘inner worth’
and an ‘unconditional and incomparable worth. This implies that dignity is a worth not
dependent on a person’s talents, accomplishments, class, race, gender, sexual orientations, or

4
even moral record. More strikingly, dignity is not merely ‘above price,’ but is also ‘without
equivalent.’ That is, dignity is not a commensurable value that permits trade-offs. [….] In effect,
… to say that persons have the special intrinsic value of dignity is just to say that any fully
rational and reasonable person would (and so we should) grant them the special status (rights,
responsibilities, and honour) that the moral law (a law of reason [as it is, incidentally, with
Hobbes]) requires. Kant describes this status in abstract and relatively formal terms in his
earlier work, and then, taking account of real human conditions, he develops a thicker, more
substantive conception in his later work.”

Much like Confucius reconfigured the notion of the junzi, which had meant the “son of a lord”
(denoting aristocratic rank, specifically, the male child of a noble family and thus ‘nobility of
blood’), to refer instead to (a moralized) “nobility of character,” Kant likewise proffers a
transvaluation in meaning for the notion that (c) “measured and self-possessed behaviour,” or
the historic idea that “that one should act in a dignified way as befitting one’s class and social
status.” Kant’s moral theory, writes Hill,

“transforms the idea, making it appropriate to his conception of all human persons as
fundamentally moral equals with basic capacity and rational predisposition to relate to others
with due respect for standards that can in principle be justified to all. Thus the relevant class
and status is that of human beings with dignity, and the ‘dignified’ behaviour that this calls for
is whatever in context expresses one’s valuing of this status. Although Kant does not make the
point explicitly, the relevant standards for dignified behaviour must include the duties to
oneself not to debase humanity in one’s person—by servility, lying, gluttony, drunkenness, or
any sexual practices incompatible with respect for oneself and others.”

“Finally, regarding (d), Kant held that we acknowledge the dignity of humanity by treating every
person with respect. Respect for the moral law demands basic respect for every human person, no
matter how disliked, useless, or misbehaving. [….] The duty to respect others is not … the
general requirement to treat persons with dignity as ends-in-themselves, but rather a derivative
and more specific duty comparable to the duties of love, gratitude, and friendship.”

* * *

My “lifeworld”* (as the individuation—idiosyncratic or otherwise—of one or more

worldviews) happens to have a strong Marxist orientation, thus if only for that reason, I want to
briefly highlight Marx’s affinity with the Kantian concept of human dignity, this being a poorly
appreciated fact intrinsic to Marx’s philosophical anthropology, his views on human nature,
and his overarching humanist framework. Perhaps the best treatment in this regard is found in

5
R.G. (Rodney) Peffer’s Marxism, Morality, and Social Justice (Princeton University Press, 1990).
Peffer discusses Marx’s conception of human dignity in the context of an argument
characterizing Marx’s overall moral viewpoint as that of a “mixed deontologist.” We need not
go into the specifics of that argument but it’s helpful to have a shorthand description of same:

“ … [A]lthough Marx does not have a fully developed philosophical theory about morality, he
does have a normative moral perspective, in which there is a fundamental continuity, at least
from the formation of his original systematic views in 1844 through his later works. This moral
perspective is based on three primary moral values: freedom (as self-determination), human
community, and self-realization, as well as on some sort of principle demanding an egalitarian
distribution of these goods—at least the good of freedom.”

Peffer goes so far as to claim that Marx “takes the nonconsequentialist notion human dignity
rather than pleasure, happiness, or human perfection as the ultimate court of appeal in moral
reasoning.” The “notion of ‘human dignity’ is even more fundamental to [Marx than the notion
of freedom as self-determination],” for he is “committed to the equal intrinsic dignity of human
beings and thus to equality in the distribution of freedom.” Human dignity for Marx serves as a
unifying thread explicit in the early writings and implicit in his later works, evidencing a
consistent fidelity to its function as an “evaluative concept.” Thus human dignity and the
corollary good of self-respect might arguably be defined as axiomatic for Marx, more
fundamental therefore, than freedom (as self-determination), human community, and self-
realization, all of which, in turn, are presupposed or assumed by, or stand as one of the
premises of any analysis of such pivotal and well-known Marxist concepts as alienation and
exploitation.

Finally, the notion of human dignity in Marx appears in his idea (and ideal) of a communist
society:

“There is, in fact, much textual evidence that Marx accepted the evaluative notion of human
dignity. As Eugene Kamenka writes, Marx ‘is simply not concerned to portray communism as a
society of plenty; he is concerned to portray it as a society of human dignity: a society in which
labour acquires dignity and become free because it is carried out by full and conscious
participants in a community given over to co-operation and common aims.’”

* * *

“At a very high level of generality, one can find human dignity invoked across legal systems of
widely divergent traditions [here’s where the Rawlsian notion of an ‘overlapping consensus’ is

6
germane] to denote two interrelated ideas: (a) and ontological claim that all human beings have
an equal and intrinsic moral worth; and (b) a normative principle that all human beings are
entitled to have this status of equal worthy respected by others and also have a duty to respect
it in all others. The normative principle includes within it the obligations of states to respect
human dignity in its law and policy as well. Based on this core common meaning of human
dignity, there is broad consensus across legal systems that certain ways of treating other human
beings ought always to be prohibited by law. Prohibitions on genocide, slavery, torture, forced
disappearance, and systematic racial discrimination, for instance, represent some important
examples of universal acceptance of the implications of the status and basic principle of human
dignity. It is not surprising that in international human rights law many of these clearest
instantiations of the requirements of human dignity also coincide with the strongest and
exceptionless norms of international law, found for example in the definitions of crimes against
humanity or jus cogens.

In the same way, the most widespread and evident use of dignity in human rights adjudication
can be found in cases dealing with the protection of life itself and the integrity (physical or
mental) of human persons. Cases are legion where inhuman and degrading treatment is found
to violate the inherent dignity of the victims, and references to the requirements of human
dignity pervade the case law of virtually all systems in these areas.” — Paolo G. Carozza

* * *

… [T]he relevant notion of dignity can be understood to include two aspects. First, there is the
idea that certain conditions of living are beneath the dignity of the sort of beings that human
are. Thus, for example, we say that when prisoners of war or victims of ethnic cleansing or the
elderly or institutionalized persons with mental illness are kept in severely crowded, filthy
conditions, this is an affront to their human dignity. [….] The implication is that, given the kinds
of beings they are, namely, human beings, such a life is unfitting for them, beneath them,
incompatible with their dignity as beings of that kind, and that for them to live in those
unfitting conditions is an injury or something that is contrary to what they are due. Let us call
this first aspect of dignity the well-being threshold aspect.

The second aspect of dignity is the interpersonal comparative aspect, the idea that treating people
with dignity also requires a public affirmation of the basic equal status of all and … if they are
not treated in this way they suffer an injury or a wrong. This second aspect of dignity is difficult
to grasp is one approaches it by trying to define the term ‘basic equal status’ in a positive way.
The prospects are brighter if one takes a kind of via negativa, focusing on cases where we have
strong and stable intuitions about how unequal treatment constitutes an insult to a person’s

7
dignity. When women’s testimony in court is systematically discounted because it is the
testimony of women … or when a person of color is required to eat in a separate facility or use
separate toilets, or when a woman receives less pay than a man doing the same job simply
because she is a woman, … there is an affront to the person’s dignity in the interpersonal
comparative sense, regardless of whether this kind of behavior tends to undermine their
prospects for a minimally good or decent human life. [….]

If dignity includes both a well-being threshold aspect and an interpersonal comparative aspect,
then a system of international legal human rights that affirms and protects the dignity of all
people will include rights that function to ensure that all have the opportunity to lead a
minimally good or decent life—a life fitting for human beings—and that all are treated in ways
that recognize their equal basic status [‘fitting for human beings,’ explains Buchanan, ‘includes
the idea that a good life for human beings typically requires some significant scope for
autonomy’].” — Allen Buchanan

* * *

International Legal Human Rights & Human Dignity

“Was it really possible for a fledgling organization to produce a document acceptable to
delegates from all the countries in a constantly expanding United Nations? By 1948, when the
Declaration was put to a vote, the United Nations had fifty-eight member states containing
four-fifths of the world’s population—twenty two from the Americas, sixteen from Europe, five
from Asia, eight from the Near and Middle East, four from Africa, and three from Oceania.
Could any values be said to be common to all of them? What did it mean to speak of certain
rights as universal?

Anticipating such questions, the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) recruited some of the leading thinkers of the day for a Committee on the Theoretical
Bases of Human Rights. This blue-ribbon panel, chaired by Cambridge historian E.H. Carr,
included University of Chicago philosopher Richard McKeon as rapporteur and French social
philosopher Jacques Maritain, who became one of its most active members. In January 1947, as
this group was coming together, UNESCO’s director, noted scientist Julian Huxley, had sent the
poet Archibald MacLeish to the Human Rights Commission’s Lake Success meeting to apprise
the commissioners of UNESCO’s interest in their work and its desire ‘to be as useful as
possible.’ The philosophers’ group began its work in March by sending a questionnaire to
statesmen and scholars around the world—including such notables as Mohandas Gandhi,
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Benedetto Croce, Aldous Huxley, and Salvador de Madariaga—
soliciting their views on the idea of a universal declaration of human rights. [….]

8
In 1948 the framers of the Universal Declaration achieved a distinctive synthesis of previous
thinking about rights and duties. After canvassing sources from North and South, East and West
[emphasis added], they believed they had found a core of principles so basic that no nation
would want to openly disavow them [the General Assembly of the UN eventually adopted the
Declaration without a single dissenting vote]. They wove these principles into a unifying
document that quickly displaced all antecedents as the principle model for the rights
instruments in force in the world today. [….]

The story of the parent document of the human rights movement [i.e. the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights] is the story of a group of men and women who learned to cooperate
effectively despite political differences, cultural barriers, and personal rivalries. It is an account
of their attempt to bring forth from the ashes of unspeakable wrongs a new era in the history of
rights. [….] [It] is to a large extent the story of a journey undertaken by an extraordinary group
of men and women who rose to the challenge of a unique historical moment. The brief interlude
between the end of World War II and the definitive collapse of the Soviet-American alliance
lasted just barely long enough to permit major international institutions such as the UN and the
World Bank to be established and for the framers of the Universal Declaration to complete their
task. The members of the Human Rights Commission were well aware that they were engaged
in a race against time: around them, relations between Russia and the West were deteriorating,
the Berlin blockade raised the specter of another world war, the Palestinian question divided
world opinion, and conflict broke out in Greece, Korea and China. [….] They had to surmount
linguistic, cultural, and political differences and overcame personal animosities as they strove to
articulate a diverse set of principles with worldwide applicability. [….]

With the exception of Eleanor Roosevelt, most of the members of the committee that shaped the
Declaration are now little remembered outside their home countries. Yet they included some of
the most able and colorful public figures of their time: Carlos Romulo, the Filipino journalist
who won a Pulitzer Prize for his articles predicting the end of colonialism; John P. Humphrey,
the dedicated Canadian director of the UN’s Human Rights Division, who prepared the
preliminary draft of the Declaration; Hansa Mehta of India, who made sure the Declaration
spoke with power and clarity about equal rights for women before they were recognized in
most legal systems; Alexei Pavlov, the brilliant nephew of the conditioned-reflex scientist, who
had to go the extra verst [the Russian equivalent of the ‘extra mile’] to dispel suspicions that he
was still bourgeois; and Chile’s Hernán Santa Cruz, an impassioned man of the Left who helped
assure that social and economic rights would have pride of place in the Declaration along with
political and civil liberties.

9
Among the Declaration’s framers, four in particular played crucial roles: Peng-chun Chang, the
Chinese philosopher, diplomat, and playwright who was adept at translating across cultural
divides; Nobel Peace Prize laureate René Cassin, the legal genius of the Free French, who
transformed what might have been a mere list or ‘bill’ of rights into a geodesic dome of
interlocking principles; Charles Malik [a Lebanese academic, diplomat, philosopher, and
politician], existentialist philosopher turned master-diplomat, a student of Alfred North
Whitehead and Martin Heidegger, who steered the Declaration to adoption by the UN General
Assembly in the tense cold war atmosphere of 1948; and Eleanor Roosevelt, whose prestige and
personal qualities enabled her to influence key decisions of the country that had emerged from
the war as the most powerful nation in the world. Chang, Cassin, Malik, and Roosevelt were the
right people at the right time. But for the unique gifts of each of these four, the Declaration
might never have seen the light of day. [….]

For everyone who is tempted to despair of the possibility of crossing today’s ideological
divides, there is still much to learn from Eleanor Roosevelt’s firm but irenic manner of dealing
with her Soviet antagonists; and from the serious but respectful rivalry between Lebanon’s
Charles Malik and China’s Peng-chun Chang. There is much to ponder in the working
relationship between Malik, a chief spokesman for the Arab League, and René Cassin, an ardent
supporter of a Jewish homeland, who lost twenty-nine relatives in concentration camps. When
one considers that two world wars and mass slaughters of innocents had given the framers
every reason to despair about the human condition, it is hard to remain unmoved by their
determination to help make the postwar world a better and safer place.” — Mary Ann Glendon,
A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Random
House, 2001)

Comparative philosophy can be more than a well-motivated philosophical, intellectual, and

theoretical or speculative exercise, more than just a genuine “meeting of minds,” however
significant that alone happens to be within the conditions of multiculturalism and pluralism,
conditions defined and shaped by religious and secular worldviews in conjunction with cultural
and political traditions and philosophies, conditions conspicuous for the perseverance of
varying degrees of episodic and intransigent conflict that at times descends into famine, war or
genocide. In other words, on occasion comparative philosophy can be part of if not central to a
utopian or idealistic endeavor in the best sense, one with cosmopolitan pretensions that have
profound and far-reaching political consequences capable of transcending the moral
weaknesses and limits of political realism and raison d’état, thereby achieving a Rawlsian-like
“overlapping consensus” with world-historical ramifications, as was the case with the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. In this instance, comparative philosophy was in some respects an
unintentional by-product of the Human Rights Commission which met with and overcame

10
considerable skepticism, uncertainties, and various obstacles that arose from “facts on the
ground” (including great power politics and anti-colonialism):

“Was it really possible for a fledgling organization to produce a document acceptable to

delegates from all the countries in a constantly expanding United Nations? By 1948, when the
Declaration was put to a vote, the United Nations had fifty-eight member states containing
four-fifths of the world’s population—twenty two from the Americas, sixteen from Europe, five
from Asia, eight from the Near and Middle East, four from Africa, and three from Oceania.
Could any values be said to be common to all of them? What did it mean to speak of certain
rights as universal?

Anticipating such questions, the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) recruited some of the leading thinkers of the day for a Committee on the Theoretical
Bases of Human Rights. This blue-ribbon panel, chaired by Cambridge historian E.H. Carr,
included University of Chicago philosopher Richard McKeon as rapporteur and French social
philosopher Jacques Maritain, who became one of its most active members. In January 1947, as
this group was coming together, UNESCO’s director, noted scientist Julian Huxley, had sent the
poet Archibald MacLeish to the Human Rights Commission’s Lake Success meeting to apprise
the commissioners of UNESCO’s interest in their work and its desire ‘to be as useful as
possible.’ The philosophers’ group began its work in March by sending a questionnaire to
statesmen and scholars around the world—including such notables as Mohandas Gandhi,
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Benedetto Croce, Aldous Huxley, and Salvador de Madariaga—
soliciting their views on the idea of a universal declaration of human rights. [….]

In 1948 the framers of the Universal Declaration achieved a distinctive synthesis of previous
thinking about rights and duties. After canvassing sources from North and South, East and West
[emphasis added], they believed they had found a core of principles so basic that no nation
would want to openly disavow them [the General Assembly of the UN eventually adopted the
Declaration without a single dissenting vote]. They wove these principles into a unifying
document that quickly displaced all antecedents as the principle model for the rights
instruments in force in the world today. [….]

The story of the parent document of the human rights movement [i.e. the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights] is the story of a group of men and women who learned to cooperate
effectively despite political differences, cultural barriers, and personal rivalries. It is an account
of their attempt to bring forth from the ashes of unspeakable wrongs a new era in the history of
rights. [….] [It] is to a large extent the story of a journey undertaken by an extraordinary group
of men and women who rose to the challenge of a unique historical moment. The brief interlude

11
between the end of World War II and the definitive collapse of the Soviet-American alliance
lasted just barely long enough to permit major international institutions such as the UN and the
World Bank to be established and for the framers of the Universal Declaration to complete their
task. The members of the Human Rights Commission were well aware that they were engaged
in a race against time: around them, relations between Russia and the West were deteriorating,
the Berlin blockade raised the specter of another world war, the Palestinian question divided
world opinion, and conflict broke out in Greece, Korea and China. [….] They had to surmount
linguistic, cultural, and political differences and overcame personal animosities as they strove to
articulate a diverse set of principles with worldwide applicability. [….]

With the exception of Eleanor Roosevelt, most of the members of the committee that shaped the
Declaration are now little remembered outside their home countries. Yet they included some of
the most able and colorful public figures of their time: Carlos Romulo, the Filipino journalist
who won a Pulitzer Prize for his articles predicting the end of colonialism; John P. Humphrey,
the dedicated Canadian director of the UN’s Human Rights Division, who prepared the
preliminary draft of the Declaration; Hansa Mehta of India, who made sure the Declaration
spoke with power and clarity about equal rights for women before they were recognized in
most legal systems; Alexei Pavlov, the brilliant nephew of the conditioned-reflex scientist, who
had to go the extra verst [the Russian equivalent of the ‘extra mile’] to dispel suspicions that he
was still bourgeois; and Chile’s Hernán Santa Cruz, an impassioned man of the Left who helped
assure that social and economic rights would have pride of place in the Declaration along with
political and civil liberties.

Among the Declaration’s framers, four in particular played crucial roles: Peng-chun Chang, the
Chinese philosopher, diplomat, and playwright who was adept at translating across cultural
divides; Nobel Peace Prize laureate René Cassin, the legal genius of the Free French, who
transformed what might have been a mere list or ‘bill’ of rights into a geodesic dome of
interlocking principles; Charles Malik [a Lebanese academic, diplomat, philosopher, and
politician], existentialist philosopher turned master-diplomat, a student of Alfred North
Whitehead and Martin Heidegger, who steered the Declaration to adoption by the UN General
Assembly in the tense cold war atmosphere of 1948; and Eleanor Roosevelt, whose prestige and
personal qualities enabled her to influence key decisions of the country that had emerged from
the war as the most powerful nation in the world. Chang, Cassin, Malik, and Roosevelt were the
right people at the right time. But for the unique gifts of each of these four, the Declaration
might never have seen the light of day. [….]

For everyone who is tempted to despair of the possibility of crossing today’s ideological
divides, there is still much to learn from Eleanor Roosevelt’s firm but irenic manner of dealing

12
with her Soviet antagonists; and from the serious but respectful rivalry between Lebanon’s
Charles Malik and China’s Peng-chun Chang. There is much to ponder in the working
relationship between Malik, a chief spokesman for the Arab League, and René Cassin, an ardent
supporter of a Jewish homeland, who lost twenty-nine relatives in concentration camps. When
one considers that two world wars and mass slaughters of innocents had given the framers
every reason to despair about the human condition, it is hard to remain unmoved by their
determination to help make the postwar world a better and safer place.” — Mary Ann Glendon,
A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Random
House, 2001)

As Jack Donnelly has persuasively argued, this international consensus on human rights came
about as (or prefigured) something much like—if not identical to—John Rawls’s later idea of an
“overlapping consensus,” which provides us with a “descriptively accurate and morally
attractive explanation” of how this particular international legal agreement emerged as a
definitive expression of the “normative universality of human rights” (of course Rawls
envisioned the possibility of this overlapping consensus arising on the political terrain of a
liberal democratic nation-state, not necessarily in the international arena of nation-states, which
is composed of both liberal and non-liberal ‘peoples’). In other words, individuals, representing
different states around the globe, and arguing from the premises of or taking a perspective generated
from within their different “comprehensive doctrines” or religious and secular worldviews, were
able to arrive at a consensual endorsement of the model of human rights embodied in the
Universal Declaration, and thus this groundbreaking international human rights instrument was not
founded upon or derived from any one particular religious or secular philosophy or worldview or
“comprehensive doctrine.” This is one quite inspiring and ennobling exemplification of what is, in
effect, the comparative philosophy of practical reasoning, deliberation and negotiation enlisted
on behalf of exemplary (and cosmopolitan, utopian, or eunomian) political and emancipatory
values and purposes for the general benefit or welfare and well-being of individuals and
humanity itself.

In addition to the Glendon title cited above, please see Jack Donnelly’s Universal Human Rights
in Theory and Practice (Cornell University Press, 2003) as well as Johannes Morsink’s The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting, and Intent (University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1999). For further research, one might consult my bibliography, Human Rights:
Philosophical, Legal, and Political Perspectives.

References & Further Reading:

 Alexy, Robert. Law’s Ideal Dimension (Oxford University Press, 2021).
 Allott, Philip. Eunomia: New Order for a New World (Oxford University Press, 1990).

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 Allott, Philip. The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State (Cambridge
University Press, 2002).
 Block, Ernst (Dennis J. Schmidt, trans.) Natural Law and Human Dignity (MIT Press, 1986).
 Appiah, Kwame Anthony. The Ethics of Identity (Princeton University Press, 2005).
 Berman, Paul Schiff. Global Legal Pluralism: Jurisprudence of Law Beyond Borders
(Cambridge University Press, 2012).
 Besson, Samantha and John Tasioulas, eds. The Philosophy of International Law (Oxford
University Press, 2010).
 Bromell, Nicholas Knowles. The Powers of Dignity: The Black Political Philosophy of
Frederick Douglass (Duke University Press, 2021).
 Buchanan, Allan E. Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations for
International Law (Oxford University Press, 2004).
 Buchanan, Allan E. The Heart of Human Rights (Oxford University Press, 2013).
 Capps, Patrick. Human Dignity and the Foundations of International Law (Hart Publishing,
2010).
 Cassese, Antonio. International Criminal Law (Oxford University Press, 2008).
 Cassese, Antonio, Editor-in-chief. The Oxford Companion to International Criminal Justice
(Oxford University Press, 2009).
 Carozza, Paolo G. “Human Rights, Human Dignity, and Human Experience,” in
Christopher McCrudden, ed. Understanding Human Dignity (2011): 615-629.
 Clarke, Kamari Maxine. Affective Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Pan-
Africanist Pushback (Duke University Press, 2019).
 Cryer, Robert, et al. An Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure
(Cambridge University Press, 2007).
 Daly, Erin. Dignity Rights: Courts, Constitutions, and the Worth of the Human Person
(University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013).
 Debes, Remy, “Dignity,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023 edition),
Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman, eds.
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2023/entries/dignity.
 Debes, Remy, ed. Dignity: A History (Oxford University Press, 2017).
 Donnelly, Jack. Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice (Cornell University Press,
3rd ed., 2013).
 Düwell, Marcus, et al., eds. The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity: Interdisciplinary
Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
 Estlund, David. Utopophobia: On the Limits (if any) of Political Philosophy (Princeton
University Press, 2020).
 Freeman, Samuel. Rawls (Routledge, 2007).

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 Gallant, Kenneth S. The Principle of Legality in International and Comparative Criminal Law
(Cambridge University Press, 2009).
 Heller, Kevin Jon and Markus D. Dubber, eds. The Handbook of Comparative Criminal Law
(Stanford Law Books/Stanford University Press, 2011).
 Hill, Thomas E., Jr. Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant’s Moral Theory (Cornell University
Press, 1992).
 Hill, Thomas E., Jr. “In Defense of Human Dignity: Comments on Kant and Rosen,” in
Christopher McCrudden, ed. Understanding Human Dignity (2011): 313-325.
 Kateb, George. Human Dignity (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011).
 Kraynak, Robert and Glenn Tinder, eds., In Defense of Human Dignity: Essays for Our
Times (University of Notre Dame Press, 2003).
 Luban, David. Legal Ethics and Human Dignity (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
 May, Larry. Crimes Against Humanity: A Normative Account (Cambridge University Press,
2005) [Please see, especially, the first three chapters.]
 May, Larry. Global Justice and Due Process (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
 May, Larry. Limiting Leviathan: Hobbes on Law and International Affairs (Oxford University
Press, 2013).
 May, Larry and Shannon Fyfe. International Criminal Tribunals: A Normative Defense
(Cambridge University Press, 2017).
 May, Larry and Zachary Hoskins, eds. International Criminal Law and Philosophy
(Cambridge University Press, 2010).
 McCrudden, Christopher, ed. Understanding Human Dignity (Oxford University Press,
2014).
 Morsink, Johannes. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting, and Intent
(University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999).
 Morsink, Johannes. Inherent Human Rights: Philosophical Roots of the Universal Declaration
(University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009).
 Nussbaum, Martha C. Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach (Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, 2011).
 Orakhelashvili, Alexander. Peremptory Norms in International Law (Oxford University
Press, 2006).
 Peffer, R.G. Marxism, Morality, and Social Justice (Princeton University Press, 1990).
 Rachels, James. The Elements of Moral Philosophy (McGraw-Hill, 4th ed., 2003): 130-140.
 Ragazzi, Maurizzo. The Concept of Obligations Erga Omnes (Oxford University Press,
1997).
 Rosen, Michael. Dignity: Its History and Meaning (Harvard University Press, 2012).
 Simmonds, Nigel E. Law as a Moral Idea (Oxford University Press, 2007).

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  Slim, Hugo. Humanitarian Ethics: A Guide to the Morality of Aid in War and Disaster (C.
Hurst & Co., 2015).
 Slim, Hugo. Solferino 21: Warfare, Civilians and Humanitarians in the Twenty-First Century
(C. Hust & Co., 2022).
 Steiner, Henry J. and Philip Alston. International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics,
Morals (Text and Materials) (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2000).
 Sztucki, Jerzy. Jus Cogens and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Springer
Verlag, 1974).
 Táíwò, Olúfémi. Against Decolonisation: Taking African Agency Seriously (C. Hurst & Co.,
2022).
 Tamanaha, Brian Z. Legal Pluralism Explained: History, Theory, Consequences (Oxford
University Press, 2021).
 Waldron, Jeremy (et al.) Dignity, Rank and Rights (Berkeley Tanner Lectures, 2009)
(Oxford University Press, 2015).
 Werle, Gerhard. Principles of International Criminal Law (T∙M∙C∙ Asser Press, 2005).
 Wood, Allen W. Kantian Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

* Given the reality if not inevitability of “metaphysical” and “worldview” pluralism (understood
in a manner compatible with a minimal or modest ‘realism’ of sorts) such that this is not
something we lament, regret or struggle to overcome; and, given that many if not most of us
(implicitly or explicitly) subscribe to idiosyncratic lifeworlds that are derived from or inspired by
more or less “official,” doctrinal, or popular worldviews as found in humanist and religious
traditions and philosophies around the globe, these “lifeworlds,” “on the ground” or in
everyday life, as we might say, “are more like a collage than a Canaletto,” as well-characterized
and explained by the late Ninian Smart, a pioneering exemplar in the study of (religious and
non-religious) worldviews and philosophies, East and West, North and South. They may, in
some respects attain minimal or reasonable coherence, but they are invariably neither consistent
nor systematic or even, on the whole, “rational” (although they may contain rational elements).
In other words, provided we are honest with ourselves, thus assuming epistemic fallibility; the
breadth and depth of our (often motivated or willful) ignorance; the widespread and obdurate
influence of ideology; the ubiquity of vehement passions; such psychological mechanisms and
processes as wishful thinking, denial, self-deception; as well as the myriad vices of “self-
evaluation” (Alessandra Tanesini), it is safe to conclude with Smart that, at the very least, “we
tend to live in a certain amount of aporia:”

“Do we, when it comes to the crunch, really have a systematic worldview? We have an
amalgam of beliefs, which we may publicly characterize in a certain way. I may say that I am an
Episcopalian, but how much of my real worldview [what I term above a ‘lifeworld’]

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corresponds to the more or less ‘official’ worldview which tells me nothing directly about
cricket, being Scottish, having a certain scepticism about nationalism, thinking there is life on
other worlds, shelving the problem of evil, or other matters. Our values and beliefs are more
like a collage than a Canaletto [cf. Lévi-Strauss’s use of the term ‘bricolage’]. They do not even
have consistency of perspective.”

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