— Jeremy Waldron’s Philosophy of Dignity

 

ZHANG Zhuoming*

 

Abstract: Jeremy Waldron’s philosophy of dignity is not a moral philosophy, but a legal philosophy, as he argued that dignity is a concept created by law and it is not of moral value. His concept of dignity as status is based on historicism and positivism. He believes that the development from an unequal society in ancient times to an equal modem society is a progressive history in which the dignity of ordinary people is being constantly improved. In modem society, the dignity of man means that all men are at the same rank and everyone has a lofty status. To a certain extent, Waldron’s theory of dignity as status transcends the Western ideology of liberalism and individualism and provides a relatively neutral theoretical basis for the universal acceptance and wide application of international human rights. Meanwhile, it provides new ideas for understanding the internal connections between rights and responsibilities, dignity and the state, as well as the dignity of individuals and the dignity of groups. In addition to the universal concept of dignity as status, Waldron put forward the compound concept of particular dignity to contain the values of human dignity in modem society. However, he denied the logical priority of the concept of dignity as a value and promoted the concept of dignity as a status at the ontological level, which could have the limitation of misplacing value from the perspective of moral philosophy.

 

Keywords: status · rank · dignity · human dignity · Jeremy Waldron

 

Jeremy Waldron, a senior professor at New York University, is the most representative scholar in the circle of contemporary legal philosophy in the US.¹He has a wide range of research interests and four of his works, including Law and Disagreement, The Law, God, Locke, and Equality, and The Dignity of Legislation, have been translated into Chinese and published in China.² Among them, The Dignity of Legislation is mainly about legislation rather than dignity. However, the philosophy of dignity is indeed one of his most original academic contributions in recent years. Although The Dignity of Legislation is not on the subject of dignity, the meaning of the word “dignity” in the book is consistent with the concept of dignity advocated by Waldron, i.e., dignity in the sense of high status. Through this seemingly clumsy title, Waldron expressed his core proposition that emphasized the status and authority of legislation and called for legislation to be put back in the center of jurisprudential research, thus making him a powerful fighter in legislative jurisprudence. Just as he dared to challenge the mainstream jurisprudence centered on the judiciary in the West (especially in the United States), Waldron attempted to transcend the theory of dignity dominated by the Western ideology of liberalism and individualism³ and put forward the theory of dignity as status with a hint of historicism and positivism from the legal perspective. In his view, the original meaning of dignity is not of moral value, but of status or rank. In modern society, the dignity of man means that all men are of the same rank and everyone has a lofty status. Why did he propose this new concept of dignity? How is this concept of dignity possible? What is the significance and value of his theory of dignity? What are the characteristics and limitations of his theory of dignity? This paper will interpret Waldron’s philosophy of dignity around these above four questions.

 

 

Contrary to our common understanding, Waldron’s philosophy of dignity has a presupposition that the habitat of the concept of dignity is in the realm of law, rather than that of morality. We generally believe that there is a concept of dignity in the moral sense first, and as it is implemented in the realm of law, there is the concept of dignity in the legal sense. However, Waldron argued that the concept of moral dignity was borrowed from the concept of legal dignity, not the other way around and that the philosophical interpretation of dignity might have derived more from the law than from morality. Therefore, he advocated interpreting dignity from the perspective of legal philosophy and exploring the unique jurisprudential features of dignity. According to Professor Michael Rosen of Harvard University, the law is a special form of moral discourse.⁴ However, Waldron argued that there is a certain category of conceptions that is legal in nature, and such a category of conceptions is not borrowed from the realm of morality but constructed by law. Just as Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, an American analytical jurist, regarded rights first and foremost as a legal concept, Waldron advocated that dignity should be regarded first and foremost as a legal concept too.⁵ He made a methodological distinction between morality and law, and thought of law as a realm distinct from morality, having a unique function. 

 

His philosophy of dignity is different from the traditional moral philosophy of dignity because he regards the concept of dignity first and foremost as a concept constructed by law. The theory of dignity put forward by Waldron from the perspective of legal philosophy to a large extent effectively responds to the challenges faced by the concept of dignity in the modern world. On the one hand, the concept of dignity is criticized and accused of vacuity,ambiguity, and redundancy. For example, Christopher McRadden, a British professor of human rights law, noted, “That dignity’s being written into the preamble to the great Human Rights Convention was not intended to convey any particular meaning, but simply because the drafters wanted to make the preamble sound philosophical, yet they could not reach an agreement on how to express it, so they chose to fill it with this ambiguous concept.”⁶ According to Stephen Pinker, a psychologist at Harvard University, dignity is “a subjective and uncertain” concept.⁷ Ruth Macklin, a professor of medical ethics, also says that “this concept is definitely ambiguous” and that “dignity is a useless concept. It just means respecting people, or respecting their autonomy, and there’s no more to it than that.”⁸ In other words, the concept of dignity is redundant because it can be replaced by moral concepts such as autonomy, value, and respect.⁹ And Waldron’s response to it was to put forward the concept of dignity of legal nature, which has the core meaning that cannot be replaced by the concept of dignity of moral nature — dignity as status or rank. We can call this concept of dignity a status dignity from the perspective of legal philosophy. Contrary to the concept of dignity as a value in moral philosophy, it emphasizes the unique meaning of dignity in law.

 

On the other hand, when dignity is regarded as a moral value, the answers to the question about its connotations and basis might be very different in different cultural traditions and different moral philosophies. In the Christian tradition, human dignity derives from the assumption that God created man in his own image. According to the interpretation of Thomas Aquinas, God is rational and He can set goals for himself, so humans created in God’s image are also rational, capable of setting goals for themselves and having free will. This is where the dignity of man lies.¹⁰ According to the interpretation of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, compared with other creations, the dignity of man lies in their being free from any limitation, and that they can decide for themselves based on their “natural liberty”. Every man is “his own exalted and free image-builder.”¹¹ Kant’s theory of dignity is the most important secularized moral theory in modern Western times, in which human dignity is based on the moral self-discipline that only humans possess. Since“only humans are able to act according to morality and feeling the force of its categorical imperative,” therefore, only humans have dignity and na intrinsic value beyond all price. “In the kingdom of ends, everything has either a price or a dignity. What has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; what, on the other hand, is raised above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity.”¹² In the Islamic tradition, although humans are not created in the image of God, they are proof of God’s existence. When Allah created man, He gave him a special power — the power of thought. Therefore, man has a special status. In the final analysis, human dignity derives from that Allah loves human creation much more than any other creation.¹³ In the Chinese Confucian tradition, human dignity derives from the human potential for moral reflection. For example, Confucius proposed that everyone has “Ren (Virtue)”: “Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand.”¹⁴ Another example is Mencius’ “Heavenly Nobility” that every man has: “Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom, are not given from the outside, but something I was born with.” “The saint, is one of my kind.”¹⁵ “All men can be Yao and Shun (saints).”¹⁶ In the Confucian tradition, the basis of human dignity is neither a mysterious and transcendent creator nor the rational capabilities of isolated individuals as in Kant’s secularized philosophy of morality, but the moral potential conceived and developed in the relationship between man and man and between man and nature. Therefore, in the Confucian tradition, human dignity is manifested from self-reflection (“examining one’s conscience”) to consideration of others (“the learning of being benevolent”), and ultimately the awe-inspiring righteousness that coexists with the spirit of heaven and earth (“embracing heaven and earth for gestation”).¹⁷

 

Unlike the above-mentioned concepts of dignity from the perspective of moral philosophy, the concept of dignity from the perspective of legal philosophy effectively avoids the theoretical disagreement about the value connotation and ultimate basis of the concept of dignity in moral philosophy. It is of help for countries in the world to reach a consensus on the concept of dignity in the sense of international human rights law and promotes the concept of human dignity and its fundamental role in human rights to be widely accepted. For even if it is impossible to reach a consensus on the value connotations and ultimate basis of dignity, it is not difficult at all for people of all countries to agree on the fact that all men have and should have dignity (i.e. a lofty status). It has become a method and strategy to resolve differences in values and reach a basic consensus in formulating international human rights documents. For example, in deliberating Article 1 of the draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood,” some representatives proposed the word “born” to be taken away, and others suggested adding the expression that “all human beings are created in the image of God”. Pengchun Chang, the Chinese representative, however, stressing that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should transcend different cultural traditions to achieve its purpose of universal applicability, argued that Article 1 should neither mention the word “born” nor the expression “be endowed by God”. And eventually, the word “born” was removed.¹⁸ In June 1947, the Commission on the Philosophical Principles of Human Rights, established by the United Nations, produced after discussion a report entitled “The Basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” which suggested that “the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be not only an expression of beliefs to be upheld but also an action plan to be implemented.”¹⁹ To think of the concept of dignity as a lofty status, rather than as controversial value, can help resolve differences in values and build core consensus. In the preambles to both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which were passed in 1966, it is recognized that the rights contained in the Covenants “derive from the inherent dignity of the human person,” however, such an expression could not found in either the Charter of the United Nations (1945) or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Meanwhile, both the two major covenants on human rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaim in their preambles that “recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.” Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights even points out that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” From the juxtaposition of dignity and rights to the expression of dignity as the basis of rights, it might indicate that in the face of widespread controversies over the types and contents of human rights, the drafters of international human rights documents, were making efforts to reach a consensus, taking human dignity as the core. Consistent with such efforts, when Waldron interprets the concept of dignity as a lofty status, the controversies over the value connotations and ultimate basis of dignity cease to exist or become unimportant.

 

In short, the concept of dignity as status from the perspective of legal philosophy is formalized and the most widespread, therefore, it can be accepted by people of different cultural traditions in different countries. In this sense, Waldron’s theory of dignity as status that transcends the Western ideology of liberalism and individualism has political practicability and can provide a relatively neutral theoretical basis for the universal acceptance and wide application of international human rights norms.

 

 

In the presence of the Western mainstream concept of moral dignity, Waldron was able to put forward the concept of dignity as status from the perspective of legal philosophy because of his outlook on the historical development of dignity and law. In other words, his concept of dignity as status was based on historicism and positivism. He observed that in an ancient society, high dignity was enjoyed by just a few aristocrats, while in modern society, the subject of dignity has been universalized. Whether in an ancient hierarchical society or a modern egalitarian society, dignity has been maintained thanks to the protection and operation of the legal system. Likewise, the transition from unequal dignity to equal dignity has been achieved thanks to the changes in the legal system. Despite such dramatic changes in law and dignity over time — a process of equalization, according to Waldron, in which the dignity (status) of low-ranking groups (and individuals) is elevated — there is no difference in the concept of dignity as status or rank between ancient and modern times. In other words, the concept of dignity as status has existed since ancient times. However, a dramatic change has taken place in the scope of the subject of high dignity between ancient and modern times. The concept of “human dignity” has been widely recognized and praised in modern and contemporary thoughts of Enlightenment, and has been implemented to some extent through the concept and system of “human rights”. It contains the normative claim that all human beings are equal in dignity, which inevitably requires that dignity, rank, and due respect used to be possessed by the nobility only, shall be endowed to everyone in law.²⁰

 

Such an outlook on the progressive development of dignity and law is similar to what Tocqueville the French political thinker said in the “Introduction” of “Democracy in America” that “the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact”, and “so the gradual development of equality of conditions [{democracy}] is a providential fact; it has the principal characteristics of one: it is universal it is lasting, it escapes every day from human power; all events, like all men, serve its development”.²¹ If this judgment made by Alexis de Tocqueville more than 180 years ago was, to a large extent, an optimistic historical forecast, then it can be said that Waldron’s outlook on the development of dignity was based on the historical fact of legal development. Surely there is also an optimistic side to Waldron’s summary and judgment of the development of dignity, which causes other scholars to question whether it is possible for the dignity possessed by just a few aristocrats to be universally endowed by everyone. Herzog, a law professor at the University of Michigan, pointed out that the core of aristocratic dignity is the privileges, for instance, the privilege to act arbitrarily against subordinates without any liability. In an egalitarian society, such privileges must be abolished, rather than extended to all.²²

 

Indeed, it seems to be overly optimistic for Waldron to describe the historical development of dignity as a process of gradual leveling off from the bottom up. Even when Tocqueville was describing the historical development of equalization, he merely said that, “The noble has gone down on the social ladder, and the roturier has gone up; the one descends as the other rises. Every half century brings them nearer to each other, and they will very shortly meet.”²³ Compared with the leveling process of a oneway rise, the process that one descends as the other rises and eventually meet seems to be more in line with social facts. Otherwise, why is it so hard for us, as ordinary people, to feel like the nobility? Otherwise, why when do adult citizens, even with votes in their hands, often feel powerless against the political reality that they attempt to change?

 

However, in the author’s opinion, Waldron’s historical judgment on the upward leveling of dignity is not simply made from the external perspective of social-historical facts, but from the internal perspective of law. Therefore, for commoners and women, the extension of the right to vote is a process of empowerment, a process of “having something” from “nothing”, and a process of dignity enhancement. Although, with the expansion of the subject of voting rights, the weight of a single vote will inevitably be diluted to the point that its actual influence is negligible, however, the significance of the vote for dignity cannot be denied. Of course, Waldron also admits that some privileges of the nobility could neither be universalized nor be extended to all men and women, for example, the droit de seigneur²⁴ owned by a medieval Lord over the lower-class women in his domain in Western Europe. Waldron was concerned with dignity in terms of “basic equality.”²⁵ These kinds of dignity are all bottom-linear, and highlight the basic status of human beings that distinguish them from non-humans (animals, etc.). In a modern society under the rule of law, they are mainly expressed through the norms of human rights and the language of basic rights, while in the Middle Ages, they were possessed by just a few aristocrats. Today, we have become so accustomed to these kinds of bottom-linear dignity that many forget how precious they are.

 

For example, in the past, a commoner who failed to pay a debt could be arrested, but an aristocrat was exempt from such coercion because of his dignity. Today, few will be arrested, detained, or imprisoned simply because they fail to pay a debt. This may be attributed to the general value judgment that personal rights prevail over property rights. However, in ancient hierarchical societies, such personal rights or body dignity were reserved for the upper class only. As for the commoners, they don’t even deserve them. Similarly, in ancient criminal procedures, it happened that the commoners were tortured into confessing, or the commoners who gave testimony had to undergo such torture as being “rolled over a nail board” to ensure the reliability of the testimony. However, the nobility in the upper class was exempted from such physical torture, and they were more likely to be trusted with what they said in court than commoners. Modern law protects everyone’s physical rights indiscriminately. In modern judicial procedures, everyone has the right to due process, which include the right to advocate and defend oneself, and the judge must hear and give equal weight to both parties. In Anglo-American law system countries, the nobility has long had the right to be judged by their peers. Article 21 of the Magna Carta (1215) states: “Earls and barons shall not be amerced except through their peers.” Nowadays, trial by jury has become a basic right of every citizen in the US Constitution. In the past, a military officer who was captured by the enemy would be treated with dignity, while an ordinary soldier would often be tortured and even slaughtered. However, modern laws of war, such as the Geneva Conventions, provide universal rights for POWs and prohibit the degrading treatment of ordinary soldiers who fall into enemy hands.

 

By describing the historical development of the upward elevation of dignity, Waldron reveals the significance of dignity in modern laws. It is precisely because of the deep connections between human dignity and modern laws that the law is worth believing in, and that we must uphold it. So, in answering the question “How Law Protects Dignity,”²⁶ his argument is not simply descriptive but has a normative orientation. In fact, by describing the particularities of the language of rights, judicial procedures, public legal services, and “coercion with dignity” in modern laws, he reveals their promise of equal dignity. First of all, it is reflected in the form of rights as claims and qualifications. Modern laws generally give people the right to action, allowing people to decide whether or not to file a lawsuit when their rights are infringed. This in itself is a kind of recognition of their status and the manifestation of their equal dignity. “Anyone making a case of any sort in law makes it in the tones and language of rights, in the mode of entitlement rather than request or lobbying.” “He stands on his rights and in recognizing this standing the law accords him the dignity of a right-bearer.”²⁷ Second, as the enforcement agency of the law, the court is not only an institution that plays the function of dispute resolution but also an institution that ensures procedural justice. Therefore, the parties to any case have the opportunity to express their views and present their evidence. Hearings and fair judicial process embody an idea of dignity that the human person, as an object of norms, has dignity and shall be treated with respect. In accordance with the procedural characteristics of the court, the application of the law has the nature of argumentation. Therefore, the parties’ opportunity to argue must be protected, and the claims of both sides of the argument should be given equal weight and responded to by the court.

 

Third, equal dignity is not only manifested in the parties in judicial procedures having the right to equal treatment, but also in the parties having the capacity to participate in the proceedings on an equal footing. Therefore, a fair lawyer agency system is needed to protect the parties’ capacity to participate in legal proceedings on an equal footing. On the one hand, the legal service market should be able to provide sufficient services to meet the needs of the parties; on the other hand, basic legal services should be provided free of charge to vulnerable groups who cannot afford the fees. Only by establishing a fair lawyer agency system can equal dignity for everyone not be Utopian. Finally, modern law is not about no coercion, instead, it requires “coercion with dignity”. When coercive state power is used, by whichever institution against whoever, it must be guided, supervised, and bound by procedure mechanisms. Even criminal suspects and people on death row have basic dignity as human beings. It is alleged that instead of walking in and out of interrogation rooms, detainees at Guantanamo are placed on wheelbarrows and pushed around like scarecrows.²⁸ The US military’s practice of detainee abuse at the Guantanamo Base is undoubtedly a typical example of disrespect for basic dignity. According to the concept of equal dignity, even when the death penalty is to be carried out, the person condemned to death should also be allowed to live to the last breath with dignity as a member of the human race.

 

Surely, the modern law’s promise of equal dignity is to be safeguarded and fulfilled by states, governments, and various kinds of social organizations. For individual citizens, equal dignity is both a right and a responsibility. Waldron vividly describes that in a modern society, “every man is a duke, every woman a queen, everyone is entitled to the sort of deference and consideration, everyone’s person and body is sacrosanct, in the way that nobles were entitled to deference or in the way that an assault upon the body or the person of a king was regarded as a sacrilege.”²⁹ This is a normative ideal state, and to turn it into reality, people must dare to stand up and fight for dignity and rights when faced with personal and physical violations. Likewise, many rights are followed by responsibilities and should be exercised responsibly.

 

 

Based on the theory of dignity as status, Waldron was able to shake off the yoke of the Western ideology of liberalism and individualism and put forward new concepts and views such as “rights as responsibilities,” “dignity of citizens” and “dignity of groups,” which provides new ideas for the in-depth understanding of the intrinsic connection between responsibility and rights, dignity and the state, as well as the dignity of individuals and dignity of groups.

 

 

Once dignity is understood as a status, and that status is not only manifested as freedom and rights but also as responsibilities and powers, the concept of “rights as responsibilities” becomes possible. Waldron pointed out that rights not only take the form of interests and freedom but also of responsibilities. Some rights based on dignity and role contain this special form of right, which Waldron calls “responsibility-rights” (or “rights as responsibilities”). In the structure of “responsibility-rights,” the right-holder not only has specific interests and enjoys the freedom against the interference of others but also has the designation of a task and corresponding decision-making power, such as parental rights and the suffrage of citizens. To have dignity because of one’s status and role is not only to have rights but also to have responsibilities. Such responsibilities refer to neither “duties correlative to rights,” nor “duties as opposed to rights.” Moreover, they are even different from “duties governing the exercise of rights”. They are responsibilities inherent in rights.³⁰

 

In other words, such duties are integrated with rights. For example, as a parent of a child or a citizen of a state, one is in a particular status, playing a particular role and having a particular dignity. Parents have the right to guardianship over their children, which means that they should act in the best interests of their children, actively exercise guardianship, and fulfill the responsibilities of guardianship. Article 14 of the Family Education Promotion Law of the People’s Republic of China, which took effect on January 1, 2022, stipulates that parents “assume the primary responsibility for the implementation of family education of minors.” This obligatory provision can be regarded as the embodiment of guardianship as a responsibility-right. That citizens have the right to vote means that they must actively participate in the election process and cast their ballots responsibly, rather than giving up their right to vote at will. It can be seen from above that the form of “responsibility-rights” mainly appear in the rights manifested as “powers,”which are what Hofeld called the powers or abilities to change the existing legal relationships of “the person (or those people) whose will is dominant.”³¹ The responsibility in “responsibility-rights” does not refer to the “liability” on which “powers” depend in the legal sense, but to the“responsibility” in the sense of “duties to do.”³²

 

The significance of putting forward and applying a new concept is to open up new ideas. Men can’t think without concepts and the existing concepts may shackle our thoughts. Therefore, new concepts mean the expansion and renewal of thoughts. The concept of “rights as responsibilities” proposed by Waldron can help people shake off the yoke of the Western tradition of liberalism and provide new ideas for solving some old controversial problems. According to Waldron, the controversial right to bear arms in the US Constitution, for example, is a “responsibility-right,” rather than “simply a libertarian entitlement.” The right to bear arms as a responsibility-form of right is intrinsically linked to the dignity of US citizens because “as a citizen of a free republic, it is both the right and the duty of one to be ready to join a militia to defend the freedom of the Republic.”³³ This meant that tighter restrictions could be imposed to the right to bear arms as long as it does not compromise US citizen’s purpose of defending the freedom of the Republic. Moreover, according to the thinking of “rights as responsibilities,” such restriction is inherent in the right to bear arms itself. Similarly, in the case of the “Dwarf-throwing Competitions” in France, in which the body rights of the dwarfs were involved, although the dwarfs themselves agreed to be thrown by others, the competitions were stopped by the authorities due to the violation of human dignity. In the case of “Jordan v. State” in 2002, the legal provision prohibiting prostitution was upheld by the Constitutional Court of South Africa because it degraded body dignity. If the body right is regarded as a responsibility-right, it would be possible for the restrictions of the body right in both cases to be accepted, for having body rights does not mean being able to do whatever you want with your body, instead, it implies a responsibility not to degrade the dignity of your body. Of course, Waldron admits that there are many forms of rights, responsibility being one of them and that the concept of rights as responsibilities could be used to analyze some rights, but not all rights. For example, it cannot be used to analyze the right to freedom from torture.³⁴

 

In the circle of legal philosophy in the US, Waldron’s concept of rights as responsibilities has received some criticism. As Brian Bix pointed out, the so-called responsibility-right is more a compound form of rights and obligations common to some particular titles and roles than a special form of right.³⁵ However, in the author’s opinion, Waldron elevated the phenomenon of the combination of rights and obligations to the concept of rights as responsibilities with a view of providing new analytical thinking for the controversial issues concerning some particular rights whose boundaries are not clear and the related obligations undetermined and emphasizing the possible role of the concept of dignity in it. The concept of “rights as responsibilities” based on dignity has transcended the political stance of liberalism and individualism and provided a basis of legitimacy for the restriction of some individual freedom and the protection of public interests and social values.

 

 

Citizenship as a concept that implies identity and status is consistent with the concept of dignity as status. Therefore, the concept of dignity as status can help to reveal the connotation of dignity contained in the concept of citizenship and the significance of the state for the realization of human dignity. According to the theory of dignity as a value in the traditional philosophy of morality, human dignity is understood as the supranational universal dignity and inherent dignity, which tends to put the state on the opposite side of human dignity, but neglects its significance for the realization of human dignity. As mentioned above, Waldron’s concept of human dignity in modern society is a view of equal dignity from the perspective of legal philosophy, which reflects the legal position of international human rights documents and the international community after World War II. In democratic countries, the concept of equal dignity is directly embodied in the principle of the Constitution that “all citizens are equal before the law.” The political entities in today’s world are mainly composed of nation-states, so realistically, the dignity of citizenship is the best way to realize human dignity and human rights.

 

Waldron believes that once a person loses his nationality, he loses the recognition and protection of the national legal system, and his human rights cannot be effectively protected. “The most important right is the right to have rights, the right to be a member of an organized community,” because “only in an organized community one’s claims of right would matter.”³⁶ Therefore, human rights must be transformed into a legal structure to protect the status of citizens in every country, and human dignity must be implemented into the dignity of citizenship. Thus, the theory of the dignity of citizenship constitutes an important part of the theory of human dignity.

 

Although the identity of being a citizen is special compared with the identity of being a man, it is quite common within democratic countries. Citizenship, though common and ordinary, implies human dignity and is a status to be valued and respected. It is a noble status because such an identity contains basic rights such as the right to vote and the right to be elected, as well as basic obligations such as the duty of military service. A person’s citizenship means that he is the master of the state, rather than a mere conformist — the subject. “The state is to be treated as though it were a concoction of the citizens, something that they have made and that they sustain together for the benefit of them all.” This requires that the regime of a state shall be accountable to its citizens, and its government be open, transparent, and honest. Since modern politics cannot be separated from representative politics, the principle of political openness must be adopted so that political decisions are subject to public review and discussion, and that citizens are thus able to form their own opinions. This is the core of respect for the dignity of citizenship.³⁷

 

Through the exploration of the dignity of citizenship, Waldron associates citizenship with the dignity of Man. The dignity of citizenship not only helps to explain why citizens need to enjoy basic freedoms and rights but also helps to clarify why citizens need to assume basic obligations and responsibilities. In addition to the obligation to respect the dignity of other citizens, a citizen also must abide by the law and the responsibility to exercise his rights actively. Part of the reason for respecting the dignity of citizenship lies in that individual citizens have the capacity and responsibility to look beyond their own interests to policies, and laws and think for the good of all. So, on the one hand, the state should aim at maintaining the dignity of its citizens; on the other hand, the citizens must make full use of their capacity of reason to sustain the existence of the state.

 

 

Once dignity is understood as a status, it is possible to break the traditional thinking of Western individualism and accept the concept of the dignity of groups, for the status concept of particular groups is not difficult to accept. In the mainstream philosophy of dignity in the West, both Kant’s understanding of dignity as the intrinsic value of individuals and Dworkin’s understanding of dignity as the right to self-determination and self-responsibility are in the sense of the dignity of individuals. The dignity of Man in modern society mainly refers to the dignity of individuals. It is a product of liberalism and individualism in modern times, which is consistent with the forming of the Western concept of human rights. Because of this, Professor Michael Ignatieff, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, pointed out that dignity goes with individuals, “there is no way round the individualism implicit in the idea of dignity”;³⁸ and human rights go with individualism as well, “the discourse of rights is indeed individualistic,” “there will always be conflicts between individuals and groups, and the existence of rights is to protect individuals.”³⁹ In response, Waldron questioned, “Does the appeal of the concept of dignity necessarily reinforce (or contribute to) the idea of individualistic rights?” Obviously, some Western liberals would say: “Yes, of course, dignity is in the sense of individuals only,” or “it is impossible for groups to have dignity.” However, it seems to Waldron that such answers are ideological, without serious reflection on the concept of dignity.⁴⁰

 

Instead of being confined to the traditional views of dignity based on Western individualism, Waldron explicitly advocated the possibility of using the concept of the “dignity of groups” pragmatically. This was of course because, in Waldron’s opinion, groups can have value for themselves, and more importantly, with his concept of dignity as status, the concept of “dignity of groups” is logically possible. And so it was. For example, we often hear such phrases as “national dignity,” “dignity of the people,” and “dignity of the state.”

 

The concept of “group” in Waldron’s so-called “dignity of groups” mainly refers to social groups in the physical sense, which have a collective dimension, rather than just groups of people with common characteristics, such as men or women, black or white — the dignity of groups in this sense ultimately maintains the dignity of individuals, rather than the dignity of the groups themselves. In other words, the dignity of groups protects not only the rights of individual members of a group from discrimination but also the rights of a particular group of human beings from the contempt of other groups of human beings. According to Waldron, “to see the one as simply instrumental to the other, may neglect how individual values may be partially constituted by group values.”⁴¹ Therefore, Waldron does not agree with Ignatieff’s individualistic view of dignity.” There is no way as a matter of logic to rule out the idea of the inherent dignity of groups or group rights and we should not be trying to rule it out as a matter of liberal dogma.” “But it is also possible a people qua community has a human importance — in terms of culture, identity, destiny — that goes beyond what is severally or cumulatively good for the human individuals that it comprises, an importance that cannot be characterized except in communal terms.”⁴² However, Waldron also warned that there is a certain danger in the discourse of dignity of groups and that the discourse of dignity of groups may support and reinforce the system of hierarchy and stratum within groups, and that it may undermine “the transvaluation that lies at the heart of the association of dignity with human rights.”⁴³ It can be seen that, with regard to the relationship between the dignity of individuals (rights of individuals) and dignity of groups (rights of groups), Waldron did have some dialectical thinking and a relatively open attitude on the value standpoint. Therefore, he did not agree with the views of some liberalistic philosophers that “only liberal groups have dignity,” and argued that the dignity of groups should not be confused with the comments on the internal organization and specific practices within groups (for example, unequal or not free).⁴⁴

 

 

While elucidating the concept of dignity as status from the perspective of legal philosophy, Waldron advocated that status or rank is the most central, the most fundamental, and the most universal meaning of the concept of dignity, but did not completely deny the concept of dignity from the perspective of moral philosophy. What Waldron denied is the universal significance and the ontological status of the concept of dignity as value. In other words, the concept of dignity as value is still possible and meaningful in certain countries and cultures. Although in different cultures and among different groups of people, there are often different understandings of and even great controversies over the understanding of the concept of dignity from a moral perspective, however, it is undeniable that the concept of dignity as value has had a significant impact upon human politics and law in modern times, and is still widely used in daily political and legal life. So, in addition to the concept of dignity as status, Waldron also put forward the concept of compound dignity which contained various concepts of dignity. This is not only to accommodate the concept of human dignity popular in Western society but also to comprehensively understand the concept of human dignity in modern society. After all, the concept of dignity as status advocated by Waldron is only a view of dignity from the perspective of legal philosophy. According to Waldron’s view of dignity as status, dignity is a high rank in modern laws after transvaluation.⁴⁵ Apart from this view of dignity, there are at least two other influential views of dignity in modern society. The first one is the concept advocated by Kant that dignity is a non-fungible and non-tradable value. This is the most influential concept of dignity in modern times. The concept of dignity in important legal documents such as Das Grundgesetz and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been deeply influenced by Kant’s ideas. And the second one is Dworkin’s concept advocating that dignity is the right to self-determination and self-responsibility. Dworkin pointed out that human dignity contains two dimensions: “each human life has an intrinsic value as potentiality, and each person has a special responsibility for realizing the success of his own life.”⁴⁶ Dworkin later summarized the two principles as the “principle of self-esteem” and the “principle of responsibility.” The former requires that each one of us ”should acknowledge the objective importance of living well,” which refers to self-expression in life and choosing the way of life that fits yourself and the environment where you live; while the latter requires each one of us to assume ”responsibilities in the sense of virtue,” and to assume these “responsibilities” when appropriate.⁴⁷ According to Waldron, these three views of dignity are not mutually exclusive, but mutually complementary. They can therefore be brought together into a concept of compound dignity, with each of them being a respective part of the composite structure of the concept of dignity.

 

To illustrate the possibility of the concept of compound dignity, Waldron used the concept of democracy to make an analogy. Some say “democracy means rule by the people,” others say “democracy means political equality.” and still others follow Schumpeter in arguing that democracy is just a political system that secures stability over time by providing for regular competition for power among elites on an institutionalized basis. These three correlated and mutually complementary views of democracy can be integrated into a multi-layered concept of democracy: democracy is a system of regular competition for power among political elites, based on political equality, and ultimately designed to allow the people to have substantial control over the rule of the government.⁴⁸

 

Complying with the way of construction of a compound concept, Waldron pointed out: “as a foundational concept, human dignity implies that each person is of a very high rank, in relation to this, everyone’s body is sacred and inviolable, everyone has control over himself or herself, and everyone has the right to decide his or her destiny. These values and rights are so important that they cannot be traded for anything else.”⁴⁹ In this way, the three views of dignity are integrated to form the compound concept of human dignity. Among them, “the hierarchical view of dignity shows us the ontological basis of dignity, Kant’s view of dignity tells us the status of the value involved in dignity in the axiology, and Dworkin’s concept of dignity shows us the rights that we should give special protection to and cherish.”⁵⁰ From this we can see that Waldron elaborated the meaning of dignity in two contexts, expressing two dimensions of the concept of dignity: one is the concept of dignity in the universal historical sense, and the other is the concept of dignity in the modern sense. From the universal historical perspective, i.e., from what he called the ontological point of view, dignity means status or rank. Before modern times, the concept of “dignity of Man” already existed, i.e., compared with animals, people have a higher status, which can be called “general dignity.” In the meantime, there is also the “special dignity” of some particular groups, such as the special status held by the nobility relative tocommoners.⁵¹ Since modern times, dignity after “transvaluation” has gradually become the concept of dignity in the modern sense, i.e., all men are of the same rank, and everyone has a lofty status, which means the birth of the concept of human dignity in the modern sense. There is no doubt that Kant’s view of dignity has played a great role in promoting the historical process of “transvaluation” and laid a moral foundation for lofty status, while Dworkin’s view of dignity is committed to transforming the intrinsic value of everyone into practical basic rights and implementing everyone’s lofty status into an operational legal system. Therefore, these three views of dignity are not mutually exclusive, instead, each has its own focus and respectively constitutes a part of the modern view of dignity.

 

Although Waldron’s concept of compound dignity reveals the multiple dimensions of human dignity in modern society in a relatively comprehensive way, from the perspective of moral philosophy, it might be difficult to elevate the concept of dignity as a status to the level of ontology. Waldron seems to mix the ancient concept of dignity with the modern concept of dignity, highlighting the common divisor of the two — the implication of status or rank — while neglecting the difference between the ancient and the modern concepts of dignity as status, and denying the logical priority of the concept of dignity as value. Dignity in an ancient society is based on the cosmological moral order, and the social hierarchy constructed by political law is part of this order, while dignity in a modern society is built on the moral foundation centered on individual freedom and equality after the “disenchantment of value.”⁵²

 

Why in modern society is the dignity of Man understood as being everyone has an equal and lofty status? The answer itself relies on the concept of “the status of the value involved in dignity in axiology” acknowledged by Waldron. Habermas once pointed out that Waldron’s theory of dignity about the generalization of particularistic dignities cannot justify the inviolability of the dignity of individuals as a source of normative claims. Two decisive stages in the genealogy of the concept are still missing. First, universalization must be followed by individualization. The issue is the worth of the individual in the horizontal relations between different human beings, not the status of “human beings” in the vertical relationship to God or “lower” creatures on the evolutionary scale. Second, the relative superiority of humanity and its members must be replaced by the absolute worth of any person. The issue is the unique worth of each person. According to Kant, human rights not only derive their moral connotations from autonomy but also the universalist and individualistic view of the dignity of man.⁵³ Rosen has also pointed out: To avoid the metaphysical debate on the dignity of man, Waldron argued that there was no need for exploring the value basis of the dignity of man and that the dignity of man could be understood as the high status endowed to everyone. This was a reckless proposal. In Rosen’s view, this proposal would not bring peace to the metaphysical debate. For example, what is “everyone”? Does it include fetuses, embryos, fertilized eggs, people with severe mental disabilities and vegetative people? There are still widespread controversies over these questions.⁵⁴ Indeed, Waldron’s theory of dignity as status does not aim to answer these specific questions about the dignity of Man. Instead, it is to a great extent analytical and aims to provide conceptual tools for the understanding of the phenomena and conceptions of dignity in both ancient and modern times. Therefore, his theory of dignity as status is a thin theory with the avoidance of value. The point is, to endow “everyone” with a lofty status necessarily relies on a moral theory of dignity.

 

Dworkin, Waldron’s mentor, also realized in his later years that we don’t need to think of law and morality as two separate systems, instead, we can take “the law as part of political morality.”⁵⁵ From the perspective of moral philosophy, Waldron’s concept of compound dignity may have misplaced values and therefore have its limitations. Even so, the idea of his construction of the concept of compound dignity is still worthy of being affirmed, because it has revealed the multiple dimensions of the concept of dignity, which can provide us with a helpful conceptual tool to investigate the phenomena of dignity in different societies at different historical stages. Therefore, the author believes that his concept of compound dignity can be modified as follows: the concept of dignity as value serves as the noumenon, the concept of dignity as status being the form, and the concept of dignity as rights being the system. Therefore, the dignity of Man in modern society has threefold meanings: first, dignity is an intrinsic value owned by every human being; second, dignity is a kind of lofty legal status; and last, dignity is a right to self-determination and self-responsibility. The concept of dignity as value highlights the spirit of humanity, the concept of dignity as status highlights the spirit of great unity, and the concept of dignity as rights highlights the spirit of rule of law.⁵⁶ On the one hand, the concept of dignity as value has priority logically, because the concept of dignity as status and the concept of dignity as rights would inevitably presuppose the concept of dignity as value. On the other hand, the intrinsic internal dignity of every human person needs to be recognized through the external political and legal status, and ultimately be translated into a system of rights ensuring self-esteem and self-responsibility. Indeed, Waldron’s concept of compound dignity has been put forward through the use of Kant’s theory of dignity as value and Dworkin’s theory of dignity as rights, so eventually it is hard to get rid of the theoretical tint of Western liberalism and individualism. However, through further abstraction, the author puts forward a concept of compound dignity which is composed of value, status, and rights. It is relatively neutral and therefore culturally inclusive, which can provide a useful analytical framework for us to analyze dignity issues in different cultural traditions.⁵⁷ Although it cannot eradicate controversies over different views of dignity, it can at least promote the concept of dignity so it can be better understood and widely applied. In the meantime, it provides the basis and possibility for us to put forward a substantive theory of dignity that transcends Western liberalism and individualism.

 

 

In Waldron’s opinion, even if human dignity is understood as a status, it cannot be understood simply as an abbreviation of a list of human rights. The dignity of Man refers to not only a set of human rights but also the basic idea that various human rights can be combined. The idea of dignity as status can be used to explain both the importance of each human right to human beings and the importance of those human rights as a set to us.⁵⁸ It is not difficult to see that Waldron tried to use the concept of dignity as a status to provide a universal conceptual basis for our understanding of human rights. The concept of the dignity of Man is considered key to the understanding of human rights as well. It helps us interpret specific human rights provisions and can help us deal with such issues as conflicts of rights and arrangement of rights.⁵⁹ However, for the dignity of Man to play a substantial role in the practice of human rights, it is not enough to rely solely on the concept of dignity as status. As Waldron admitted: dignity as status is not necessarily the final foundation of human rights, and there may be other foundational concepts that can be used to illustrate and explain the importance of dignity as status.⁶⁰ This may also be one of the reasons why he proposed the concept of compound dignity. And thus, the concept of dignity as a value that Waldron tried to avoid from the beginning was given a chance to get into his theory of dignity.

 

Of course, Waldron simply just brought in the dominant concept of dignity as a value in modern Western society. The kernel part and original contribution of his theory of dignity is still the concept of dignity as status. If the concept of compound dignity is the concept of special dignity, then his concept of dignity as status is the concept of universal dignity. His concept of dignity as status is a thin concept, rather than a thick one; while his theory of dignity as status is an open theory rather than a complete and comprehensive one. It is through his theory of dignity as status that Waldron has, to a certain extent, transcended the Western ideology of liberalism and individualism.

 

(Translated by ZHANG Lianying)

 

* ZHANG Zhuoming ( 张卓明 ), Professor, Doctor of Laws, Law School and Institute of Human Rights, East China University of Political Science and Law. This paper is a phased achievement of the “Research on Human Dignity from the Perspective of the Rule of Law Culture”, a Ministry of Justice’s ministerial scientific research project on the Construction of the Rule of Law and Legal Theory in 2021 (21SFB2004).

 

1. Jeremy Waldron was born in New Zealand in 1953, and received his undergraduate and master’s education in New Zealand. In the 1980s, he studied the philosophy of law under the guidance of Ronald Dworkin, Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford, and received his PhD. His doctoral dissertation on Private Property Rights was published in 1988 by University of Oxford by Clarendon Press. （Continued on Next Page）（Continued）In the 1990s, he taught at Princeton University and Columbia University. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1998 and a Fellow of the British National Academy of Sciences in 2011. According to a statistic of citation rates published in 2021 by Professor Brian Leiter, a legal philosopher at the University of Chicago, Waldron was the most cited scholar in “law and philosophy” at American law schools between 2016 and 2020.

 

2. Jeremy Waldron, Law and Disagreement, translated by Wang Zhuguo (Law Press · China, 2009); Jeremy Waldron, The Law, translated by Ji Fazhe (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2015); Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality, translated by Guo Wei and Zhao Xuegang (Beijing: Huaxia Press, 2015); Jeremy Waldron, The Dignity of Legislation, translated by Xu Xiangdong (Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 2019). Of the four, the original work of The Law was published earlier. It was published in 1990 as one of A Series of Books on Theory and Practice in British Politics. Jeremy Waldron was one of the editors of the series of books. Apart from these four books already translated into Chinese, Waldron is also the author of other books including, Dignity, Rank and Rights, One Another’s Equals: The Basis of Human Equality, “Partly Laws Common to All Mankind”: Foreign Law in American Courts, Torture, Terror and Trade-Offs: Philosophy for the White House, The Harm in Hate Speech, Political Political Theory: Essays on Institutions, etc.

 

3. Liberalism is the dominant ideology in modern Western society. Liberalism is closely related to individualism, “Liberals to a large extent always hold an individualistic stance, and stick to the view of the supremacy of the individual... Most of them more or less regard society as a combination of individuals, rather than an organic community.” See Li Qiang, Liberalism (Beijing: Oriental Press, 2015), 18. 

 

4. Michael Rosen, “Dignity Past and Present,” in Dignity, Rank, and Rights, Jeremy Waldron (Oxford: Oxford Uni versity Press, 2012), 83.

 

5. Jeremy Waldron, Dignity, Rank, and Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 15.

 

6. Christopher McCrudden, “Human Dignity in Human Rights Interpretation”, European Journal of International Law 19 (2008): 675-8. Cited from Jeremy Waldron, “Is Dignity the Foundation of Human Rights?” in Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights, Rowan Cruft, S. Matthew Liao and Massimo Renzo ed., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 121.

 

7. Steven Pinker, “The Stupidity of Dignity,” The New Republic, May 28, 2008.

 

8. Ruth Macklin, “Dignity is a Useless Concept,” British Medical Journal 327 (2003): 1419.

 

9. Michael Rosen: Dignity, translated by Shi Ke (Beijing: Law Press · China, 2014), 15.

 

10. Aharon Barak, Human Dignity: The Constitutional Value and the Constitutional Right, translated by Daniel Kayros, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 22.

 

11. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the dignity of Man, translated by Gu Chaoyi and Fan Honggu (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2001), 25.

 

12. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, translated by Li Qiuling (Beijing: China Renmin University Press, 2013), 56.

 

13. Aharon Barak, Human Dignity: The Constitutional Value and the Constitutional Right, translated by Daniel Kayros (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 23.

 

14. The Analects of Confucius · Shuer.

 

15. Mencius·The First Part of Gaozi.

 

16. Mencius·The Second Part of Gaozi.

 

17. Wang Xu, Interpretation Principle of the Constitution: Interpretation and Discussion (Beijing: Law Press · China, 2016), 57.

 

18. Mary Ann Glendon, A World Made New (Beijing: China University of Political Science and Law Press, 2016), 146-147.

 

19. Xiayong, The Origin of Human Rights Idea (Beijing: China University of Political Science and Law Press, 2001), 183.

 

20. Jeremy Waldron, Dignity, Rank, and Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 33.

 

21. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol 1, translated by Dong Guoliang (Beijing: The Commercial Press, 1988), 4-7.

 

22. Don Herzog, “Dignity Past and Present,” in Dignity, Rank, and Rights, Jeremy Waldron, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 114.

 

23. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 1, 7.

 

24. Jeremy Waldron, Dignity, Rank, and Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 35.

 

25. In a modern society that believes in equality, there are still all sorts of status differences, however, “there is only one kind of humanity, only one rank of man, a special status that we all have,”, which Waldron describes as “the basic equality” or “the dignity of man.” See Jeremy Waldron, One Another’s Equals: The Basis of Human Equality, (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017), 6.

 

26. Jeremy Waldron, “How Law Protects Dignity,” 71 The Cambridge Law Journal 1 (March 2012).

 

27. Ibid., 204-205.

 

28. Jeremy Waldron, “How Law Protects Dignity,” 219.

 

29. Jeremy Waldron, Dignity, Rank, and Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 9.

 

30. Jeremy Waldron, “Dignity, Rights, and Responsibilities,” Arizona State Law Journal 43 (2011): 1110-1117.

 

31. Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, Fundamental Legal Conceptions As Applied in Judicial Reasoning (Beijing: China Legal Publishing House, 2009), 53. 

 

32. He Jiuying et al., Source of Words (Beijing: The Commercial Press, 2018, 3rd Edition), 3886.

 

33. Jeremy Waldron, “Dignity, Rights, and Responsibilities,” 1117 and 1121.

 

34. Ibid., 1117 and 1134.

 

35. Ibid., 1146.

 

36. Jeremy Waldron, “Citizenship and Dignity,” in Understanding Human Dignity, Christopher McCrudden ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 338.

 

37. Ibid., 341-342.

 

38. Michael Ignatieff, Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 166. Cited from Jeremy Waldron, “The Dignity of Groups,” Acta Juridica (Cape Town) (2009): 67.

 

39. Michael Ignatieff, “Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry,” translated by Hu Shuijun, Global Law Review 4 (2005): 396. 

 

40. Jeremy Waldron, “The Dignity of Groups,” 67 and 90.

 

41. Ibid., 82.

 

42. Ibid., 83.

 

43. Ibid.

 

44. Ibid., 88-89.

 

45. Ibid., 66-90.

 

46. Ronald Dworkin, Is Democracy Possible Here?, translated by Lu Nan and Wang Qi (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2012), 10. 

 

47. Ronald Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs, translated by Zhou Wang and Xu Zongli (Beijing: China University of Political Science and Law Press, 2016), 118 and 226-232.

 

48. Jeremy Waldron, Dignity, Rank, and Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 16.

 

49. Jeremy Waldron, “The Dignity of Groups”, 73.

 

50. Ibid.

 

51. With regards to the classification of “general dignity” and “special dignity,” Georg Lohmann, On Human Rights, translated by Li Hongyun and Zhou Aimin (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 2018), 57. 

 

52. Shi Yuankang, Contemporary Western Theories of Liberalism (Shanghai: Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, 2000), 39-40.

 

53. Jürgen Habermas, “The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights,” in Philosophical Dimensions of Human Rights: Some Contemporary Views, C. Corradetti ed. (Berlin: Springer Science + Business Media B. V. 2012), 71-73.

 

54. Michael Rosen, “Dignity Past and Present,” in Dignity, Rank, and Rights, Jeremy Waldron (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 94.

 

55. Ronald Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs, 440.

 

56. With regards to the spirit of humanity, the spirit of Great Unity and the spirit of rule of law, Xiayong, The Origin of Human Rights Idea, 176-180.

 

57. Although the concept of right was formed and the discourse of right became popular only after modern times, the constituent elements of right — interest, claim, qualification, power and freedom — existed more or less in the unequal society before modern times (as to the constituent elements of right, see Xiayong, The Origin of Human Rights Idea, 46-48). In this regard, such a framework of concept can even be used to analyze the phenomenon of dignity in an unequal society. 

 

58. Jeremy Waldron, “Is Dignity the Foundation of Human Rights?,” in Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights, Rowan Cruft, S. Matthew Liao and Massimo Renzo ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 134-136.

 

59. Ibid., 131.

 

60. Ibid., 136-137.