The atheist public intellectual, Steven Pinker, penned an influential essay nearly 20 years ago titled “The Stupidity of Dignity.” Pinker argues that appeals to human dignity are “squishy” and “subjective” and fail to support “the heavyweight moral demands assigned to it.” He prefers “autonomy” as an alternative.
Autonomy, however, is also subjective and squishy. Indeed, from a purely materialist atheistic perspective, we can’t coherently claim that autonomy exists because it’s not “matter.” Using autonomy to justify morality also means, unsettlingly, that babies, the elderly, the mentally and physically impaired, and, if we’re consistent, those who are asleep have little or no value because they are not fully autonomous.
Autonomy thus has trouble supporting the moral weight assigned to it, too.
Yet Pinker remains right that human dignity is often misused as a catch-all justification. Like “diversity,” “inclusion,” and “social justice,” appeals to dignity frequently assume that the meaning of the term is self-evident and that its very utterance establishes the moral supremacy of the position it’s advancing.
Pinker’s critique was aimed at dignity’s use in bioethics. However, invocations of dignity are also prominent in contemporary foreign policy and immigration debates.
Why, for example, is it wrong to question indiscriminately sending money to international NGOs? Because it’s an offense to human dignity.
Why should we never challenge the constitutionality of birth citizenship? Because it’s an offense to human dignity (an “offense” currently committed by every country in Europe, none of which recognizes American-style birth citizenship).
Why must we remain silent about the harms caused by mass migration? Because it’s an offense against human dignity.
Why should the national census, which determines political representation, include illegal aliens? Because failing to do so, yes, is an offense against human dignity.
And how does dignity lead to these conclusions?
Because it does.
The tragedy is that human dignity, rightly defined, should form the foundation of the moral and political order. To recognize dignity is simply to affirm that all human beings have inherent and equal worth sheerly by virtue of being human.
Defined this way, human dignity generates two kinds of moral imperatives: a) negative prohibitions (things we should not do), and b) positive mandates (things we should do). What’s prohibited? Everything that, until recently, everyone in the West believed was wrong: murder, mutilation, abuse, torture, false imprisonment, theft, and exploitation. What’s mandated? Caring for those unable to care for themselves.
But here’s the crucial point: The only way to respect the negative prohibitions that human dignity generates is not to act — not to kill the innocent, not to mutilate, not to abuse, not to imprison without just cause, not to take what’s not yours, not to take advantage of others, etc.
What about the mandate to care for those in need? Like the negative prohibition, the moral imperative itself is categorical: All things being equal, we should take care of those who cannot care for themselves. Yet there is a crucial distinction. While there’s only one way to respect the negative prohibition on violating human dignity (not doing it), there are manifold ways to respect human dignity by providing aid.
A host of questions arise: Whose needs should I focus on and in what order of importance? What is the most effective method of giving assistance? What may appear to be helpful but is actually harmful? How can I provide aid in a way that does not cause an injustice to another, including my own family, community, and country? How can I be sure that the need is authentic and not fraudulent? How do I respond when those receiving aid appear to be taking advantage of it? How do I respond when those receiving aid are using it to cause harm to themselves or to others?
The complexity rises exponentially when the “I” becomes a “we” in the form of government policy, especially when recognizing that public expenditure to assist the needy comes from public funds — and public funds come from taxation, which is backed by the coercive power of the state. Respecting people’s dignity in the form of giving them something — especially if that something includes the benefits of citizenship — thus quickly becomes a highly contested political question, one that can be addressed only by wading through a sea of competing moral assertions based on an incomplete and often distorted understanding of the causes and effects of the problems we are seeking to address.
UN STRUGGLING TO PROTECT FOREIGN AID PROGRAMS FROM BAD ACTORS UNDER RUBIO AGREEMENTS, DOCUMENTS SHOW
The point is that, beyond the general imperative not to harm people and to do what’s possible to care for those in need, human dignity, by itself, does not have much to say about what we should and should not do in the political realm. This is not a criticism of human dignity. It is only a recognition of its moral and political limits.
To identify these limits, however, is to criticize those who engage in the rhetorical abuse of dignity, those who brazenly and carelessly toss it about in political discourse as both a weapon to advance their aims and as a shield from scrutiny. The end result — and I fear we’re already there — is that “dignity” loses both its rhetorical and moral force, fading into just another word partisans employ to get what they want.
Matthew Petrusek, Ph.D., is the senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and co-editor of Value & Vulnerability: An Interfaith Dialogue on Human Dignity.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
