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Dignity at the limit: Jean-Luc Nancy on the possibility of incommensurable worth

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Abstract

Dignity, according to some recent arguments, is a useless concept, giving vague expression to moral intuitions that are better captured by other, better defined concepts. In this paper, I defend the concept of dignity against such skeptical arguments. I begin with a description of the defining features of the Kantian conception of dignity. I then examine one of the strongest arguments against that conception, advanced by Arthur Schopenhauer in On the Basis of Morality. After considering some standard accounts of dignity, showing how they fail adequately to address Schopenhauer’s concern, I propose and defend a new account of dignity, drawing on the ontology of Jean-Luc Nancy.

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Notes

  1. Schopenhauer (1965, p. 100).

  2. Macklin (2003, p. 1419).

  3. Pinker (2008).

  4. McCrudden (2008, pp. 667–671).

  5. We must be careful to distinguish the Kantian conception of dignity from the explicitly social and political conception of dignitas that dates from the time of the Roman Republic. Traces of the latter no doubt persist in Kant’s conception, but nonetheless the two are importantly different. Briefly, dignitas referred to social rank, often as manifested in the holding of political office. Those who had dignitas in this sense were entitled to certain forms of respect, which were codified in the law. They were also expected to comport themselves in a manner that would render them worthy of the respect they were owed. This gives rise to an extended sense of dignity as connoting a noble, upright bearing. The social and political conception of dignitas is different from the Kantian conception in two very important ways. First, it is an explicitly hierarchical conception; it does not ground a duty of respect for persons as such. And second, a person can forfeit his or her dignitas by behaving in ways that fail to live up to the standard that it imposes on its possessors. Thus, if we do not take care to distinguish these two conceptions, we will be unable to avoid the conclusion that dignity really is a confused concept.

  6. Kant (1996a, p. 84 [4:434]).

  7. Kant (1996a, p. 84 [4:434]).

  8. Kant (1996c, p. 557 [6:435]).

  9. Kant (1996a, p. 80 [4: 429]). Italics omitted.

  10. Kant (1996c, p. 569 [6: 449]).

  11. Kant (1996c, pp. 545; 558 [6:420; 6:436]).

  12. Kant (1996c, p. 580 [6:463]).

  13. Kant (1996c, p. 580 [6:463]).

  14. Kant (1996c, pp. 579–580 [6:463]). Italics omitted.

  15. Rawls (1980, p. 543).

  16. Kant (1996c, pp. 552–553 [6:429]).

  17. Kant (1996c, p. 558 [6:436]).

  18. Kant (1996c, p. 559 [6:437]).

  19. Pinker (2008). I believe Pinker is responding here to a real confusion in the bioethics literature, where Kantian conceptions of dignity can often be found mixed together with the ancient Roman conception. The latter, with its emphasis on noble bearing, is especially evident in the work of Leon R. Kass, who served as chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics, and who famously decried the indignity of licking ice cream cones, which he characterized as a “catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know why eating in public is offensive.” Kass (1999, p. 148), quoted in Pinker (2008).

  20. Schopenhauer (1965, p. 95).

  21. Schopenhauer (1965, p. 95).

  22. Schopenhauer (1965, p. 100).

  23. Kant (1996a, pp. 57; 93 [4:402; 4:445]).

  24. Kant (1996b, p. 178 [5:47]).

  25. Kant (1996b, p. 165 [5:31]).

  26. Kant (1996b, p. 164 [5:31]).

  27. Iglesias (2001, pp. 114–116).

  28. Iglesias (2001, pp. 131–132).

  29. Rosen (2012, p. 9).

  30. Saint Leo the Great (1996, p. 114). Leo’s reference here is to Genesis 1:26: “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.’”

  31. Bultot (1961, p. 450).

  32. 1 John 2:16.

  33. Nancy (2002, p. 52).

  34. Hegel (1969, p. 81).

  35. Lévi-Strauss (1987, p. 61).

  36. Nancy (1997, p. 18).

  37. Nancy (1997, p. 5).

  38. Nancy (1997, p. 2).

  39. Hegel (1975, pp. 128–129).

  40. Nancy (2002, p. 49).

  41. Nancy (2002, p. 30).

  42. Nancy (2003a, p. 9).

  43. Nancy (1997, p. 12).

  44. Nancy (2003b, pp. 103, 104).

  45. Nancy (2003a, p. 27).

  46. Nancy (2003b, p.104), Nancy (2002, p. 104).

  47. Nancy (2000, pp. 74–75).

  48. Nancy (2000, p. 6).

  49. Lyotard (1993, p. 41).

  50. Kant (1996c, p. 579 [6:463]).

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    Bryan Lueck

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Lueck, B. Dignity at the limit: Jean-Luc Nancy on the possibility of incommensurable worth. Cont Philos Rev 49, 309–323 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-015-9343-3

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