Abstract
The paper deals with the question of whether poverty as such violates the dignity of persons. It is argued that it does. This is, it is argued, not due to a lack of basic goods, nor to the fact that poverty prevents persons from enjoying the rights they have, particularly the right to bodily integrity. Poverty does violate dignity, so it is argued, insofar as poor people are dependent on others in a degrading way.
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Notes
- 1.
See also Margalit (1996: 44): “[S]elf-respect and self-esteem […] can and should be distinguished […].”; and Margalit (1996: 24): “Self-respect, in contrast to self-esteem, is the honour a person grants herself solely on the basis of the awareness that she is a human.” However, it is not clear whether Margalit is really able to distinguish between self-respect and self-esteem. His paradox of humiliation consists in the fact that we have no reason to feel humiliated when being treated in a humiliating way. What is affected is self-esteem. Humiliation gives us a reason to esteem ourselves less. Either way, it is a violation of rights.
- 2.
This is a phenomenon that we can also find in the context of torture. The victim is at the mercy of the torturer, evident in Jean Améry’s descriptions of his experiences (Améry 1977: 55).
- 3.
As Henry Shue has in mind when he writes: “By minimal economic security, or subsistence, I mean unpolluted water, adequate food, adequate clothing, adequate shelter, and minimal preventive health care” (Shue 1996: 23).
- 4.
See Nickel (2007: 141): “The right to basic education focuses on literacy, numeracy, and preparation for social participation, citizenship, and economic activity. It helps orient social rights towards action, choice, self-help, mutual aid.”
- 5.
See Scanlon (1998: 185): “Infants and young children are not separate kinds of creatures. Rather, infancy and childhood are, in normal cases, stages in the life of a being who will have the capacity for judgement-sensitive attitudes.”
- 6.
If one has contributed to the poverty of others, it is, of course, one’s duty to fight this poverty as well, and in this case it is a duty of compensation.
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Schaber, P. (2011). Absolute Poverty. In: Kaufmann, P., Kuch, H., Neuhaeuser, C., Webster, E. (eds) Humiliation, Degradation, Dehumanization. Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy, vol 24. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9661-6_11
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