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Human Dignity after Auschwitz: Some Animating Ideas

Saulo Monteiro Martinho de Matos (Federal University of Pará)

Human Dignity

ISBN: 978-1-80382-390-4, eISBN: 978-1-80382-389-8

Publication date: 12 July 2022

Abstract

The central thesis developed during this study is the idea that human dignity must be understood as the right to be recognised as a participant in the institutional practice of human and fundamental rights. This form of association between human dignity and human rights is a response to the various barbarities of the twentieth century, whether by fascist, Nazi, and socialist regimes in Europe, either by South African apartheid or by military dictatorships in Latin America. Human dignity after Auschwitz is the foundation for the construction of a post-metaphysical institutional morality, independent of an idealised concept of rational subjective personality and closer to the historical and material conditions to guarantee the political personality of every human being. In order to defend this thesis, the study is conducted in two steps. First, two conceptions of dignity will be discussed, namely dignity of man and human dignity. Second, it is intended to discuss how the modern conception was incorporated into the practice of human rights after Auschwitz as a way of responding to a crisis in the modern model of the practice of rights.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

The discussion of some ideas of this paper at the 2019 IVR World Congress was made possible by a travel grant from the Brazilian Higher Education Staff Improvement Coordination (CAPES). This study is part of the project ‘Human Dignity without Metaphysics’, supported by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and by the Federal University of Pará.

I would like to warmly thank Antonio Pele and Stephen Riley for comments and all efforts in organising the special workshop. Thanks as well to Lorena Bulhões Costa, Bruno Weyne, and Heitor Guimarães for some important discussions on Kant’s moral philosophy.

Citation

de Matos, S.M.M. (2022), "Human Dignity after Auschwitz: Some Animating Ideas", Sarat, A., Pele, A. and Riley, S. (Ed.) Human Dignity (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 88), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 83-97. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720220000088005

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022 Saulo Monteiro Martinho de Matos