Human Dignity and Political Criticism

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.

Colin Bird is Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. He is author of The Myth of Liberal Individualism (Cambridge University Press, 1999), An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2006, 2020) and numerous journal articles.