Human Dignity and Political Criticism

That human dignity matters politically is widely affirmed, yet how it matters remains unresolved. This book aims to settle that question.

Colin Bird (Author)

9781108927628, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 24 August 2023

290 pages
27 x 18 x 1.9 cm, 0.489 kg

'Human Dignity and Political Criticism offers a fresh, insightful, and provocative approach to the topic of human dignity and its place in political philosophy.' Rachel Bayefsky, The Review of Politics

Many, including Marx, Rawls, and the contemporary 'Black Lives Matter' movement, embrace the ambition to secure terms of co-existence in which the worth of people's lives becomes a lived reality rather than an empty boast. This book asks whether, as some believe, the philosophical idea of human dignity can help achieve that ambition. Offering a new fourfold typology of dignity concepts, Colin Bird argues that human dignity can perform this role only if certain traditional ways of conceiving it are abandoned. Accordingly, Bird rejects the idea that human dignity refers to the inherent worth or status of individuals, and instead reinterprets it as a social relation, constituted by affects of respect and the modes of mutual attention which they generate. What emerges is a new vision of human dignity as a vital political value, and an arresting vindication of its role as an agent of critical reflection on politics.

Part I. The Contours of Dignitarian Humanism: 1. The tribunal of human dignity
2. Some remarks on method
3. Pressure points
4. Four concepts of dignity
Part II. Against Traditional Accounts of Human Dignity: 5. The inherent dignity of the person
6. The inner ocean
7. Passport-dignity
Part III. A Revisionist Approach: 8. Dignity-revisionism: Challenges and opportunities
9. Commercial and human economies
10. Marx on value and valorization
11. Love and respect: Attentional currencies
12. Attentional precedence
13. Human dignity
14. After respect
15. Human dignity and political criticism.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA], Social & political philosophy [HPS]