Human Dignity: Between the Existentialist and the Essentialist Approaches

INTRODUCTION

Human dignity seems to constitute the cornerstone of the Western civilisation, which animates many issues of the contemporary world. That is why respective discussions are long-standing and complex. We can notice tendencies looking for sources of this category as well as positions offering various explanations. Usually, arguments proposed here have historical, religious and philosophical characters (Barilan 2012: 23–92; Rosen 2012). As to the latter, they were basically formulated in the modern and the contemporary philosophy; although some premises of dignity can be also found in the ancient and medieval philosophy. Furthermore, we encounter staunch defenders of human dignity (e.g. Kass 2002; Fukuyama 2003: 149–177) and its decisive critics (e.g. Singer 1993: 88–89; Birnbacher 2005: 50–55). They interact with each other in various spheres of human activities, including socio-political and legal debates as well as ethical and bioethical ones. It seems that the notion of dignity still keeps its prominent position and, moreover, remains intriguing (see, e.g. Düwell, Braavig, Brownsword, Mieth 2014). At any rate, it is open for further elaboration and modification. Preliminarily, human dignity and its consequences will be understood in the following way: ‘Human dignity is a moral property innate to all humans. Because all humans are equally human, there is no single person whose dignity is superior or inferior to any other. Because humans never metamorphose to something else, there humanness is permanent. Because human dignity is derived only from this humanness, human dignity is irrevocable. All humans are equally expected to respect the human dignity of each other; all people should be treated equally in matters of human dignity.’ (Barilan 2012: 93)

In this paper, we are going to concentrate on a specific aspect of human dignity, which is present in the philosophy of the human person advanced by personalists.¹ The latter consider it as an essential notion and put it in the centre of their attention. However, it is hard to find a good explanation of it in their works. It seems that they assume that the grasping of dignity is obvious and, associated with it, moral imperatives are generated in a straightforward manner. This is far from certain and if dignity is to be considered a viable category, better epistemological explanations are necessary. Of course, the paper does not aspire to solve all these problems but tends to sketch a new approach in dealing with them. Thus, we are going to outline some of the main theses on dignity present in the personalist philosophy and undertake a new way of advancing them, drawing upon resources borrowed from thinkers who talk about dignity but do not directly subscribe to this philosophical current. To be more precise, we want to formulate and juxtapose two versions of human dignity: existentialist stance versus essentialist stance.² By the end of the paper, we will try to elaborate on their relationship and show how their balanced association can help in a better understanding of the phenomenon of human dignity itself.

The method applied in the paper involves analysing ideas of various adherents of the human dignity and their assessment. It also tends to show a new area of investigation of dignity, which joins various approaches to it. The whole of the following investigation can be considered as belonging to philosophical anthropology and axiology.

DIGNITY – THE EXISTENTIALIST APPROACH

The existentialist approach concentrates on the existence of human dignity as a special phenomenon. It usually does not offer an extensive explanation of it, but conveys some basic information concerning dignity. The latter is understood as a fundamental attribute and quality of the human being, which is given but must also be discovered (Wojtyla 2002: 112). Thus, a human being endowed with dignity possesses a special axiological status, a special value and hence cannot be treated as a mere means to something else. What is important here is to point out that only human beings are considered as possessing such a special position in the world. In the personalist philosophy, this position is associated, in the first place, with the kind of entity the human being is.³

‘Josef Seifert claims that value called “dignity” is an ultimate and irreducible phenomenon which cannot be defined properly speaking but can only be unfolded and brought to evidence’ (Seifert 1997: 98). This philosopher, associated with a classical phenomenology, provides some explanation of this important category. He claims that it amounts to an objective and intrinsic value, that is, it is not someone’s subjective projection but has an in-dwelling positive importance (Seifert 1997: 96–97). As any other value, human dignity has a strong impact on human individuals. Seifert maintains that it does not leave us in our arbitrariness but imposes a call to respect it, to respond to it, to show interest in it (Seifert 1997: 96). Thus, we have some description of value and dignity in particular; it signals its character and reference. But still, we lack its better characterization.

Similar claims concerning dignity can be found in other personalists’ arguments. For instance, the Polish philosopher Andrzej Szostek maintained that dignity is given in a fundamental cognition and this amounts to a kind of experience too. This cognition-experience is given amid cognition of other features typical of human life and it presupposes – as Szostek puts it – a certain degree of maturity of the subject. In other words, human dignity is a part of our everyday life, especially when we meet human persons, and requires a fair amount of psychological equilibrium, including our ability to experience and recognize values in their hierarchy. Also, human dignity bears moral imperatives on the side of those who experience it and, at the same time, brings with it a justification of these imperatives (Szostek 1998: 49).

Looking for the philosophical roots of such propositions concerning human dignity, we can point to classical phenomenology. Although personalism cannot be wholly identified with any particular offspring of phenomenology, some of its versions draw to some extent on phenomenological procedures and conclusions. For example, Dietrich von Hildebrand singled out an ontological value, which determines the preciousness of the human person and is realized in the human life. It is not possible for a given person to lose such a value. In other words, it is strictly associated with the ontological structure of his being (von Hildebrand 1952: 137). As to a mode of how such a value is given epistemologically, phenomenological insight and intuition must be given privileged roles. Using the same methods, Max Scheler speaks about ‘the persons’s value-essence’ (Scheler 1973: 487–489), which can reflect his special axiological position. The German philosopher is convinced that this essence goes beyond what we know about the person in the light of empirical, historical and psychological investigations. Moreover, it is the basis of all other understandings of the person. Therefore no inductive procedure can reach this value-essence. As Scheler maintains, it is given as if from ‘on high’ meaning by that ‘the light streaming from the intuition of the person’s essence onto all of his empirical experiences that raises the cognition of him <...>’ (Scheler 1973: 488). Putting aside differences between the mentioned phenomenologists, we can conclude that human dignity is given directly and intuitively via an act of phenomenological insight. It is at the basis of any other significance and value ascribed to a human person.

However, this existential and experiential character of human dignity still demands further explanation. We need to shed some more light on it especially when we are about to apply it to particular cases or determine in detail what it means to infringe on or respect human dignity. In this regard, let us point to a telling example provided by the Polish personalist philosopher Tadeusz Styczen. Two people A and B are to visit their friend C in a hospital. The latter is seriously ill and unaware of it, hence A and B wonder what they should do in the situation. A claims that the whole truth about C’s health should be revealed in front of him, whereas B holds the opposite opinion, namely, that this truth should not be revealed at all. Both friends want to act for the good of their common friend but they differ as to what to do in practice (Styczen 2012: 328–330). This divergence does not concern the applicative level, as it may seem prima facie, but it takes its root from differing understandings of the good of the patient himself. Within our analysis, it means that human dignity can be given in the axiological experience, and acknowledged as such, but when it comes to how to respect it, various, even opposing ideas can be proposed. Correspondingly, here there is not a problem with application but with the understanding of human dignity itself, and hence we need to know more about it.

There are some personalists who open up a way to further clarification of this important phenomenon. For instance, Karol Wojtyla claims that there is no pure act of experience. Whenever the latter is given, it is always associated with a kind of cognition; as he puts it, ‘any experience is at the same time a kind of understanding’ (Wojtyla 1994: 52). This thesis can have its reference to human dignity and its two interpretations can be advanced. Firstly, a narrow interpretation, according to which only our experience of the essence-value of human being is given as a reality to be further explored cognitively in a phenomenological insight. Secondly, a broader interpretation that the essence-value with its ways of manifestation and supporting reasons are objects of the experience as well as cognition. In this latter approach, we are to investigate human dignity in a broader context, including empirical factors, which Scheler considers secondary. Employing such an approach can direct our attention to an essentialist position on human dignity.

DIGNITY – THE ESSENTIALIST STANCE

This approach to human dignity is focused on features, which manifest the phenomenon as well as reasons supporting its existence. In this position we are not so much concerned with the way of how dignity exists and what kind of existence it is. Thus, we are not dealing with the intuition of dignity and its intuitive obviousness. Of course, we assume that it is an existing and real phenomenon that has a strong impact on our decisions and undertakings. Moreover, our interest is not limited to essential features of dignity, which are usually subjects of phenomenological investigations. We take into account many other dependencies and traits, which can be considered accidental and non-essential by phenomenologists. Thus, the essentialist position understands human dignity in broader terms.

The essentialist approach is employed every time we try to describe elements revealing human dignity and to point to reasons backing its existence. At times, the former is interchangeable with the latter. However, this approach can bring with it some uncertainties and ambiguities and thus can equally be helpful and distracting in our investigations. As to the latter, we can give one example. For Immanuel Kant entertaining dignity means possessing a positive feature, namely, autonomy. Human beings are creatures who possess a capacity for respecting the moral law of which they themselves are the authors. This capacity is strictly associated with the possession of reason and is even a manifestation of their rational nature. Thus – as one of Kant’s commentators claims – ‘the fundamentally valuable thing in the universe is a rational being, a person – or, more precisely, rational nature in a person’ (Wood 2008: 94). Consequently, human beings cannot be treated only as means but always as ends in themselves (Kant 2011: 38). In this position, it is easy to identify dignity with autonomy to such an extent that only the latter does matter. Then, we can consider dignity as a ‘useless concept’ which is reducible to respect for autonomy, as Ruth Macklin maintains.⁴

An interesting account of human dignity is advanced by the American scholar George Kateb. He stresses the dignity of the human species as well as the dignity of the human individual. A main characteristic, which plays its decisive role here, is uniqueness. Thus, the human species is unique among other species which inhabit the earth. Kateb puts it this way, ‘all other species are more alike than humanity is like any of them; chimpanzee is more like an earthworm than a human being, despite the close biological relation of chimpanzees to human beings. The small genetic difference between humanity and its closest relatives is actually a difference in capacity and potentiality that is indefinitely large, which actually means that it can never by fully measured. Only the human species is, in the most important existential respects, a break with nature and significantly not natural’ (Kateb 2011: 17). Correspondingly, we can claim that any particular human being possesses dignity because he is unique among not only other non-human creatures but also among human individuals as well. People differ among themselves as to their identity and this is caused by their basic dispositions. Kateb maintains that ‘human identity rests on unique traits and attributes, which make human beings capable of commendable works and ways of being, but also of wrongdoing of every kind and in every degree’ (Kateb 2011: 18).

Our specifically human characteristics that make us unique consist in mental and volitional faculties. They give us a qualitatively different insight into an existing world and into ourselves. We can gain an extensive knowledge about reality and also form a unique, personal approach to that reality, say, aesthetic and spiritual. Basically there is no other creature that can inherit this strictly human legacy on the moment of our departure from this world. As Kateb puts it, ‘before humanity perish we could not pass on to any other species, not even our closest relatives, our knowledge and appreciation of nature’ (Kateb 2011: 24).

In fact, the special position of the human being in this world stemming from his unique traits is well manifest when we compare him to other non-human creatures, especially to animals. Kateb points out that only humans exist to themselves and are self-conscious. Animals exist but are not conscious of that fact. Also language plays here an essential role. ‘Language – as Kateb maintains – is what nature lacks and what humanity has; where language is lacking, a thing or creature cannot exist to itself. Only a mind can say, I exist, can describe itself, try to understand itself, <...> and try to understand and appreciate what exists around. Only humanity can speak about the rest of nature and for it’ (Kateb 2011: 117).

Thus, human beings possess an outstanding value, i. e. dignity, because of special endowments. They have non-natural or extra-natural characters, and as a result a human being can employ a set of unique attitudes toward the world. He also proves, in many ways, that he does not wholly belong to this world. For instance, despite his embodied condition, he can live in the world of abstract ideas and projects (e.g. mathematics and philosophy).⁵ Kateb offers an interesting observation concerning those non-natural characteristics; it goes in the following way, ‘the irony is that only by non-natural traits and attributes, which are uniquely human, is the human race able to serve nature: to record its history, to know it, and to appreciate and admire it. But also by these same traits and attributes, the human species has given repeated praiseworthy demonstration of its non-natural stature apart from its service to nature’ (Kateb 2011: 115).

BETWEEN THE EXISTENTIALIST AND THE ESSENTIALIST POSITIONS

The first proof that human dignity exists is that a human being recognizes it as such and formulates respective narratives concerning it, namely, concepts of it.⁶ Because they are several, we can approach human dignity in various ways, as the above analyses indicate. The existential stance tries to explore this phenomenon at its very source stressing the experiential character of it. As can be seen, this is the important manner of exploring dignity as an extra-empirical and axiological reality. If we treat dignity as the value, which sheds some light on further aspects of human life, we can always claim that it transcends those facets and does not exhaust itself in them. Some personalists, especially those metaphysically-oriented (but also employing a phenomenological method), will consider human dignity as an ontological value, that is, the value associated with the kind of being the human person is. This we can call the dignity of personhood.⁷ However, the discovery of this version of dignity does not provide us with a good rationale; as mentioned above, we still lack epistemological resources to describe it in an adequate way. At any rate, the existentialist stance must be complemented.

The essentialist concept of dignity offers a more specific understanding of this category. It stresses various contents of the phenomenon, which can also deliver some answers on its rationale.⁸ However, this stance describes human dignity on the level of specific human features and functions. It informs us of the preciousness of humanity when human personality, interpersonal and other relationships are taken into account. Here, the thesis about dignity seems to stand not at the beginning (as it is the case in phenomenological approach) but at the end of the investigative process. In the typology developed by the Polish personalist Adam Rodzinski, the essentialist stance concerns the so-called dignity of personality (Rodzinski 1968: 43–49).⁹ It reveals itself on the level of personal features, which are changeable, prone to modifications stimulated by the outer environment or by a given subject; which can be improved or worsened.¹⁰ Compared with the dignity of personhood, the dignity of personality can be easily known and described. Nevertheless, we cannot limit our claims on dignity to the latter concept.¹¹ The reason for this is that it does not concern all stages of human life. For instance, a human embryo does not possess a personality understood as a set of acquired psychological features and hence we have no premises to talk about his dignity of personality. Similar examples can be delivered by extreme states connected with the end of human life like deep dementia or advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Thus, identifying dignity of personality with dignity as such, we run the risk of excluding from its domain vital stages of human existence.

In fact, we need these two approaches to human dignity. They are not opposed to each other but rather complementary. There are some reasons supporting this thesis. Firstly, the dignity of personhood is not only available within the phenomenological insight but tends to shed its light on and encompass all spheres of personal existence. Thus, this fundamental dignity finds its revelation in personal characteristics, even if it is always partial and incomplete. Hence, secondly, the dignity of personality participates in the dignity of personhood; in a sense, it is its prolongation. All in all, they are interrelated and complementary.¹² When we lack signs of dignity of personality, we can base our respective discourse on the concept of dignity of personhood. When we need to apply the notion of dignity to particular cases, basically we will draw on dignity of personality.

In the epistemological order, there is a twofold dependency concerning human dignity. For philosophers who basically adhere to the phenomenological method, dignity of personhood is given immediately and brings with it a high level of certainty; we can call this a ‘from on high way’. However, for philosophers who do not subscribe to the phenomenological method in a strict sense (but nevertheless can be considered phenomenologists in a broader sense), dignity is mainly given via personal characteristics, as if ‘from below’. Thus, through their unfolding and interaction with others we acquire admiration and respect for their author.¹³ Both of these epistemological ways can be useful in a course of thorough penetration of this important phenomenon. We can treat them as tools enabling us to explore the integral picture of human dignity, namely, its ‘background’ and ‘foreground’.

CONCLUSIONS

Human dignity is an extremely important issue in many anthropological, ethical, bioethical, and other debates. At the same time, it is a phenomenon which is complex and difficult to explore. To understand dignity better, we need to conduct a multidimensional investigation on it, and this amounts to a more advanced inquiry into the reality of the human person himself. Respective investigations have oscillated between intuitive and axiological datum, and psychological (personality-related) and ontological factors. Hence, two possible extremes should be avoided, namely, identification of dignity with a purely subjective experience and feeling, which is hard to prove and communicate inter-subjectively, on the one hand; and on the other hand, limiting dignity to a derivative of a set of psychological and other empirical qualities, which can lead us to the relativization of the axiological specificity of the human being and even its complete loss. Further analyses and explorations should not be conducted one-sidedly but should take place within the compass of both the existentialist and essentialist approaches to this vital matter.¹⁴

Žmogaus orumas: tarp egzistencialistinio ir esencialistinio požiūrių