The document discusses the concept of dignity, which distinguishes humans from animals and emphasizes the importance of treating all individuals with respect. It outlines the legal, ethical, and philosophical frameworks surrounding dignity, including references to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Additionally, it explores the complexities of dignity in various contexts, particularly in health and social care, and highlights the necessity of recognizing both individual and collective dignity.

1. RESPECT ENHANCES
HUMAN DIGNITY
MADE BY:
SIDDHARTH RATHORE
(A1004815099)
NITIN SHARMA
(A1004815084)
AJAY KUMAR
(A1004815088)

2. What is Dignity?

3. “a way of appearing or behaving that suggests seriousness and self-control”
● “the quality of being worthy of honor or respect”
● “the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed”
● Dignity is what separates human beings from animals
● “We must treat the dying (and the dead) with dignity” → with respect and realization that they
are like us.
● Since humans have dignity, they must be treated equally and each of them has to be accorded

4. Why is it Important?
1. Law: Everyone is entitled to equal legal protection
2. Ethics: Each person is to never to be treated as mean, but as an end.
3. Related concepts - dignity, autonomy, respect, rationality in thought and
action

5. Aristotle
Man is “rational animal.”
Rationality as defining characteristic, and is a source of dignity.
What is important is that for Aristotle it is the polis (city-state) that is necessary
for a complete human being - thus for Aristotle cosmopolitanism, the idea that
human beings can flourish across different city-states, is unfounded.

6. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Preamble
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of
all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the
world.
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter
reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the
human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to

7. Article 1 :
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are
endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in
a spirit of brotherhood.

8. Article 22 :
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is
entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation
and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the
economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the
free development of his personality.

9. Article 3:
Human dignity and human rights
1. Human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms are to be fully
respected.
2. The interests and welfare of the individual should have priority over the sole
interest of science or society.

10. Article 10 -- Equality, Justice and Equity:
The fundamental equality of all human beings in dignity and rights is to be
respected so that they are treated justly and equitably.

11. Article 11 -- Non-discrimination and non-stigmatization :
No individual or group should be discriminated against or stigmatized on any
grounds, in violation of human dignity, human rights and fundamental
freedoms.

12. Article 12 -- Respect for Cultural Diversity and Pluralism:
The importance of cultural diversity and pluralism should be given due regard.
However, such considerations are not to be invoked to infringe upon human
dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms, nor upon the principles set
out in this Declaration, nor to limit their scope.

13. Article 28:
Denial of acts contrary to human rights, fundamental freedoms
and human dignity
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State,
group or person any claim to engage in any activity or to perform any act
contrary to human rights, fundamental freedoms and human dignity.

14. Cynicism and Stoicism:
Diogenes the Cynic: “I am a citizen of the world.” (when asked where he came
from).
“The much admired Republic of Zeno is aimed at this one main point, that we
should not organize our daily lives around the city or the deme, divided from one
another by local schemes of justice, but we should regard all human beings as our
fellow men and fellow citizens, and there should be one way of life and one order,
just as a herd that feeds together shares a common nurturance and a common law.
Zeno wrote this as a dream or image of a well ordered and philosophical

15. Defining dignity
•dignity itself has proved very difficult to define. For more than a
decade, researchers have struggled to pin down what is in essence
an ethical concept that varies according to the cultural, historical
and philosophical contexts in which it is discussed…some …have
taken the view that difficulties of definition made an emphasis on
dignity in care, at best, of limited use in practice

16. AIM
•To set out some ideas about how the concept can be understood -
particularly through how it is used
•To consider its strengths and limitations in thinking about how failures
and abuses in practice can be addressed

17. Three views of dignity
•Of all - as something shared equally by human beings as such
•Of each - as something associated with a particular status or rank
•Of a community - as something which marks out how we think of ourselves
collectively

18. The dignity of all
•In the West we are much more likely to acknowledge concern with the
dignity of all, than the dignity of each
•Written into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the basis for
asserting them, but is unexplored:
‘All human beings are born free, equal in dignity and human rights. They
are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one
another in a spirit of brotherhood’

19. The dignity of each
•Dignity of each entails hierarchy and differential status – the assertion of
inequality rather than equality
•If we are prepared to acknowledge a sense of our own status, rank and
honour we will usually accept that not everyone will see it in the same way
(Eg position in a professional hierarchy)
•Too public assertions of status and rank provoke at best mixed reactions
(eg academic dress)

20. The dignity of a community
Examples
•Ranking between professions
•Dress indicative of religious community
•Dignity of an office rather than a person

21. Dignity in health and social care
•Likely to emerge as an issue when someone, for whatever reason, has
reduced capacity to insist on respect for their dignity, or sense of personal
worth
•Appeals to dignity are appeals to others to treat that person as they (the
person themselves not the others) might expect to be treated

22. Dignity in health and social care
•But since a person’s estimation of what their dignity requires is no longer so
publicly readable, how are we to know how to act?
•And in any case, how comfortable is it for someone working in the public
service to treat people differentially?

23. The dignity of each and of all
The first is interesting because it shows that the person for whose dignity
respect can be demanded is in some degree independent of there being a
living body to link it to. While the body in question no longer has purposes of
its own, we who remain have purposes for it either as
–the physical site of the social person that we are intimately connected with
or have feelings for
–or as representative of how any body (living or otherwise) can be treated

24. The dignity of each and of all
•Since the person is intimately connected to the body, if a body is treated as
no more than a collection of biological matter (cf Alder Hey) then our sense
of what makes us persons is exposed as extraordinarily fragile
•Without confidence in how others will treat us physically, our faith in how
other will treat us socially – in what value and personhood they are prepared
to accord to us – is reduced almost to nothing

25. The dignity of each and of all
•We all then become ashamed in the demonstration of the worthlessness
of our bare physical being, and need reassurance that the dignity and
worth we assert as living social persons will be respected.
•So while dignity might point to social differentiation we are all interested
in participating in that system of social differentiation (and so of
connectedness) and in having it sustained

26. The dignity of each
•Note again how dignity (and indignity) are powerfully linked to clothing. The
naked body is the human person stripped of all pretention.
•Only in the most intimate relationships can that lack of pretension become
something – a source of personal affirmation.

27. The dignity of all
• The deportee in the extermination camp is the type case of the failure of a
claim that there are such things as human rights (or more particularly that
those rights were inalienable)

28. The dignity of all
• Humans were herded into cattle trucks, stripped of all marks of personhood
and physical identity – including hair, teeth and glasses – treated as
absolutely the bare human, and killed in their millions.
• Reduced to their bare humanity there was nothing left to protect them.

29. The dignity of all
• On the other hand the extermination camps have been pointed to as
showing the absolute necessity of establishing the existence of a dignity
and a claim to respect which depends only on being human, and is
independent of social status.
• The urgency of such a claim is evident, but the question remains – what
grounds are there to accept it?

30. Dignity and respect for people
This does not provide strong grounds for treating people equally but does
require that we should
• try to see the world from the other’s point of view (independently of their
particular roles and abilities)
• give relevant reasons for how we treat them in regard to these (ie not just
arbitrarily) and
• not collude in crushing people’s capacity to develop needs, wants or
purposes of their own

31. Developing dignity
• In so far as an equality of human dignity is asserted, and human rights
legislation does, this contradication may not be resolvable.
• If it is, one way to do so may be to place less emphasis on a dignity which
presents the person as a fixed and immutable object of respect – and more
on dignity as formed in relationship.