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Human Dignity and Political Criticism

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Can philosophical reevaluations of human dignity offer meaningful insights into contemporary political and social struggles? In “Human Dignity and Political Criticism,” Colin Bird challenges traditional views on dignity, advocating instead that it emerges relationally through acts of respect, which could reshape our understanding of societal norms and values.

Image courtesy of interviewee. November 14, 2024

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This video discusses a revisionist understanding of human dignity, arguing that it is a relational concept rather than an inherent possession. The speaker critiques traditional views, which suggest that dignity is something individuals possess inherently, pointing out that this perspective often fails to address social injustices, such as those faced by marginalized groups, including African Americans. The speaker highlights the importance of respect and attention from others as central to the realization of dignity.

The discussion references the Black Lives Matter movement as an insightful embodiment of the idea that human lives should matter for their own sake and not merely as resources for other projects. This video critiques Clarence Thomas's traditional conception of dignity in the context of slavery, arguing that dignity is compromised by injustices like enslavement, which diminishes the recognition and respect individuals deserve.

The speaker proposes the idea of "attentional deficits" to diagnose situations where groups lack the ability to command respect and meet their legitimate needs. They acknowledge that current discussions around human rights often rely on outdated conceptions of dignity and emphasize the need for a more nuanced understanding that recognizes the systemic failures in how societies value lives.

This video also critiques the emphasis placed on state dignity over individual human dignity, particularly in international affairs, suggesting that this often leads to the devaluation of lives caught in political struggles. Ultimately, the speaker argues for a shift in focus from institutional and state considerations to the human experiences and lives affected, advocating for an approach centered on the value of individual lives rather than abstract concepts like state dignity.

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By reading.

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Um, human dignity is not something that is located,

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in the person.

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Rather, it's, a relational state of affairs

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as you point out, that results when others attention

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or respect is properly oriented towards others.

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Uh, so the focus here,

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and the way in which I'm changing,

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modifying the traditional view is less on, dignity

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as a kind of possession, something

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that individuals have inherently

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and perhaps also inva, and much more.

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Uh, the focus is much more on the, uptake,

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that lives receive in the respectful

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or disrespectful reactions of significant others.

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That's the central thought.

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I think that the Black Lives Matter movement is

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using this metaphor

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of mattering in an extremely perceptive

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and perspicuous, way.

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I think it's common currency, among everyone

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who uses the language of human dignity, that,

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it's some sort of metaphor for a very fundamental

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and I think, attractive idea.

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The idea that human lives should matter,

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for their own sakes, should be valued,

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for their own sakes.

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Human lives are not just resources, for other projects

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with which they can't identify.

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Uh, lives should not be sacrificed,

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to the needs of some impersonal abstraction

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or to institutions that are largely indifferent,

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to the legitimate needs

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and interests of, groups in, society

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with regard to the situation of, say,

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the African American population in the United States.

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Although, of course, it's not only, black members

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of the population in the United States who suffer this,

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nor is it only racial groups who suffer this kind of thing.

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The focus is on what one might want to call.

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What, what want to say.

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The fo the focus is on diagnosing,

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attentional deficits,

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although here I'm not using it in the medical sense, right?

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Situations in which individuals

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or groups of people systematically lack the power

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to command due respect to their legitimate needs.

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And respect, as you know, for me, is just a disposition

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to attend to others for their own sakes, being willing

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to forfeit something that matters to them, the respecter,

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so that others should matter as they should.

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And institutions, cultures, ways of life,

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they inevitably, systematically organize attention

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in certain ways.

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And for me, something like the phenomenon of structural,

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racism to the extent

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of the Black Lives Matter movement is drawing our

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attention to it.

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What they're drawing attention to is precisely a deficit

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of that sort.

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I would think that that can then stand as an archetype

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that could be, exported

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to many other cases in which groups

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or even perhaps scattered individuals

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who find themselves in a similar predicament could be said

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to be suffering a certain kind of indignity.

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I strongly reject possessive, conceptions of dignity.

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These are the traditional ones,

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the theistic conceptions of dignity.

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We are born in the image of God. There's some divine spark.

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We possess it. This gives us a certain kind of standing,

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a standing to demand certain kinds of attention,

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recognition and respect and so forth.

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Um, and that view is very often combined with the idea

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that this inherent possession is unchanging

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and invulnerable.

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And I, would, in response to your question,

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the problem with that is that you wind up

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with a position in which it's unclear that the concept

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of human dignity is actually doing any helpful work in

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diagnosing what is wrong with certain kinds

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of abusive social relations.

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Uh, in the famous Obergefell case, the Supreme Court

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of the United States a few years ago, famously,

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famously legalized, same sex marriage.

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It did so against the objections of Clarence Thomas, who,

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in his opinion, makes a number

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of remarks about human dignity.

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And he uses the traditional conception of human dignity.

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And among the things he says is, well,

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slavery did not take the dignity of the slaves away

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because the slaves had it all along.

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It was their inherent, possession.

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Now, you can certainly talk that way,

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but the problem with talking that way

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is then it becomes really unclear, in

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what sense human dignity is really on the line, in

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what sense it's at stake.

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If you can be enslaved,

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but you still have your dignity intact, how can

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that motivate a powerful objection to,

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slave relationships?

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Uh, to me, it's much more natural to say that it's precisely

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because slavery diminishes human dignity,

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takes dignity away from slaves,

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or denies them a share in human dignity.

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It's precisely those things

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that make slavery such an abomination.

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And so, you know, my case for a, a, a revisionist conception

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of human dignity tries to use that intuition.

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And, and an advantage of it, I would say, is

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that it then helps us to understand

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how human dignity is actually at stake,

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as opposed to being something that's just

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Presumed all along this business about dignity being

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something that you possess that can be located,

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with you and

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or that dignity is something that might be subject to change

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or is, in variant, right?

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Um, so,

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on some traditional understandings, for example,

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dignity is understood, as I've already suggested, as a kind

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of status that you just possess.

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Um, and I slightly, caricature this in the book as

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passport dignity, right?

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And the idea is, well, I have a certain standing.

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I have a, I'm a documented bearer of human dignity

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because I have this, documented status

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as a human being with dignity.

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I'm in a position now to command, to require

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that you treat me, in certain kinds of ways.

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Um, unfortunately,

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that often comes too late in the game, right?

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Because if we're just talking about the bare moral authority

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to demand certain forms of treatment,

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that doesn't give people any concrete power to prevent

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perpetrators from doing the things that are prohibited.

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Now, it may give you something after the fact.

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If you're still alive, it may give you the opportunity

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to sue, gain compensation, receive some kind

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of redress, for what has been, done to you.

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Um, but I think we want, an account of human dignity

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that catches the problem earlier.

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Um, and that's why I like to,

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or at least I think an advantage of my account, is that it,

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it's attuned to the way in which people do

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or don't have the power to get people to command, to,

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to, give them the attention that they are due.

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And in at least some cases, one might hope

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that one could diagnose some of these problems in advance

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and take steps to try to, eliminate them,

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or at least modify them.

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When you adopt my approach, you have to have,

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some method of reaching some degree of agreement

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and consensus about what form these attentional deficits,

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these institutional failures to attend.

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Look like you need some kind of metric

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by which you determine which of these,

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attentional deficits are more serious and grave

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and urgent, and so forth.

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And yes, I do think that that makes things,

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a little messier.

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Um, and, in the book,

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I gesture towards some ways in which one might start

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to think about doing that.

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But the book is very much the beginning

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of a research program rather than the final word.

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And I'm working on this in current,

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in current, research.

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So, watch this space.

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But, but I, but I, but,

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but the, the,

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the main advantage is at least we're thinking about

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the right sorts of things.

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And I see no reason to suppose

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that these are not in principle measurable,

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or that we couldn't reach some sort of, agreement

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or consensus, in at least a range of cases.

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The problem with the more traditional account is

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that it doesn't, it, it preempt that whole discussion

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as the Clarence Thomas Obergefell thing tends.

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I mean, we, so, we know that the dignity,

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that the slaves had this dignity all along.

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Um, so in what sense does it help us to diagnose

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what was good or bad about the situation?

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It just deflect attention away onto other kinds of,

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onto other kinds of issues.

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In a way, it's a, a, a way of bracketing all

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of the interesting, admittedly complicated work that needs

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to be done to try to look at

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how institutions organize attention, such that groups do

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or don't enjoy the power to matter.

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I blow hot and cold about human rights.

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I'm not a, I don't talk about, human rights in the book,

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very much at all.

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Uh, and of course, a lot of,

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existing human rights discourse is based on the traditional

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conceptions of dignity that I'm trying

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to push back, against.

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And, and so, I think that has,

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that has some significant, limitations.

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Um, for me, the more important issue,

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if you are kind of going to take my approach

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and apply it to, the space occupied by human rights,

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discourse today, would be to focus on the issue

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of how the supposed dignity of the state

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has come in international affairs in a variety of ways

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to dominate what I would call human dignity, right?

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So if you think of the situation in Gaza, today,

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what I would be inclined to say is you find,

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groups of human beings here whose lives are

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uncontroversially being devalued.

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They do systematically lack the power

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to command the attention of the institutions

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that dominate their lives, so that

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that attention is oriented towards their legitimate needs.

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I mean, that, I mean, after

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all, they're being bombed to pieces.

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They're being just, all traces

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of a livelihood are being,

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exploded, around them.

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Why is that happening?

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Well, it's complicated historical story, of course,

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but one part of the story is

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that the Palestinian people have found themselves

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between a rock and a hard place.

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They've found themselves caught up in a struggle

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over national honor.

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Um, and,

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because, in the contemporary world of states,

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we still continue to accord, I think, excessive dignity

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to the state and not enough dignity to the human lives

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who may find themselves

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Entrapped by the struggles of states for power and glory

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and, self-interest

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and national security and all the rest of it.

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Um, that's where I would want to put the emphasis.

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Now, whether that requires, a strong commitment

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00:12:09.545 --> 00:12:13.285
to human rights, I'm agnostic, on that question,

240
00:12:13.665 --> 00:12:17.125
but I'm of course, happy to take the idiom

241
00:12:17.125 --> 00:12:20.325
of human dignity as being, with which the human rights,

242
00:12:20.505 --> 00:12:24.645
discourse has always appropriated for itself.

243
00:12:25.025 --> 00:12:27.805
I'm happy to, take that too.

244
00:12:28.005 --> 00:12:29.165
I think that is the important thing,

245
00:12:29.165 --> 00:12:31.045
but it's lives that matter, not states,

246
00:12:31.425 --> 00:12:32.765
but not necessarily rights.

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