Understanding Human Dignity

David Turner, QC, Ecclesiastical Law Journal The genesis of this truly remarkable collection of essays and papers ... [draws] together a stellar, multidisciplinary group including historians, legal academics, judges, political scientists, theologians and philosophers, to discuss the concept of human dignity from their various disciplinary perspectives ... It is that interdisciplinary flavour which gives the book its greatest strength

Iben Damgaard, Theologische Literaturzeitung Understanding Human Dignity is a highly recommendable transdisciplinary book, which provides both a good overview and in depth analysis of contemporary debates about dignity. What makes it particularly valuable and enriching is the constant dialogue between theory and practice in mutually illuminating ways, where conceptual analyses of various ways of grounding and approaching dignity interact with analyses of a rich variety of concrete material from law cases or historical cases.

Christopher McCrudden, FBA, is Professor of Human Rights and Equality Law at Queen's University, Belfast; Leverhulme Major Research Fellow (2011-14), and William W Cook Global Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. A Fellow of the British Academy, he is the author of numerous titles, including Buying Social Justice (OUP, 2007).

1. In Pursuit of Human Dignity: an introduction to current debates ; PART I: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ; 2. Dignite/ Dignidade: Organizing Against Threats to Dignity in Societies After Slavery ; 3. Wurde des Menschen: Restoring Human Dignity in Post-Nazi Germany ; 4. The Secret History of Constitutional Dignity ; 5. Constructing the Meaning of Human Dignity: Four Questions ; 6. Human Dignity: Experience and History, Practical Reason and Faith ; PART II: DIGNITY CRITIQUES ; 7. Dignity: the Case Against ; 8. Socio-economic rights, basic needs and human dignity: A perspective from law's front line ; 9. The Triple Dilemma of Human Dignity: a case study ; 10. The Concept of Human Dignity: Current usages, future discourses ; 11. Dignity Rather Than Rights ; PART III: THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ; 12. Dignity, Person and Imago Trinitatis ; 13. Human Dignity and the Image of God ; 14. Dignity as an Eschatological Concept ; 15. The Vanishing Absolute and the Deconsecrated God: a theological reflection on revelation, law and human dignity ; 16. A Christian Theological Account of Human Worth ; PART IV: PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES ; 17. Human Dignity as a Foundation for Human Rights ; 18. In Defence of Human Dignity: Comments on Rosen and Kant ; 19. Citizenship and Dignity ; 20. Human Dignity, Human Rights, and Simply Trying to do the Right Thing ; PART V: JUDICIAL PERSPECTIVES ; 21. Human Dignity: The constitutional value and the constitutional right ; 22. Dignity in a Legal Context: Dignity as absolute right ; 23. Human dignity in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights ; PART VI: APPLICATIONS ; 24. Justifying Freedom of Religion: does dignity help? ; 25. Which Dignity? Which Religious Freedom? ; 26. From Imago Dei to Mutual Recognition: the Evolution of the Concept of Human Dignity in the Light of the Defence of Religious Freedom ; 27. A Communion in Good Living': Human Dignity and Religious Liberty beyond the Overlapping Consensus ; 28. Dignity and Disgrace: Moral Citizenship and Constitutional Protection ; 29. The Dignity of Marriage ; 30. Response to Tollefsen and Cameron ; 31. Dignity and the Duty to Protect Unborn Life ; 32. Is dignity language useful in bioethical discussion of assisted suicide and abortion? ; 33. Dignity, Choice, and Circumstances ; 34. Human dignity, interiority, and poverty ; 35. Dignity as Perception: Recognition of the Human Individual and the Individual Animal in Legal Thought ; PART VII: WAYS FORWARD? ; 36. The good sense of dignity - six antidotes to dignity fatigue in ethics and law ; 37. Human Rights, Human Dignity, and Human Experience ; 38. Discourses of Dignity ; 39. Dignified Disciplinarity: Towards a Transdisciplinary Understanding of Human Dignity