Natural Good Theories and the Value of Human Dignity

One of the widely recognized facts about human dignity is its vastly divergent applicability—from highly controversial issues in bioethics to broader topics in political philosophy. A group of theories that this article subsumes under the header “natural good theories” appears to be especially fitte...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics
Main Author: Muders, Sebastian (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge Univ. Press 2016
In: Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics
Further subjects:B Martha Nussbaum
B Human Dignity
B special normative relevance of dignity
B paradigmatic cases
B natural good
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Summary:One of the widely recognized facts about human dignity is its vastly divergent applicability—from highly controversial issues in bioethics to broader topics in political philosophy. A group of theories that this article subsumes under the header “natural good theories” appears to be especially fitted for normatively multifaceted notions like dignity. However, the heavy normative weight the concept of dignity has to bear due to the central position it occupies within these theories creates its own difficulties. As is shown in a discussion of Martha Nussbaum’s capability conception of dignity, dignity appears to be unable to mirror the special normative relevance people want to assign to it in cases of great moral misconduct. The article provides a suggestion on how to solve this problem by means of paradigmatic cases that work as material constraints regarding the exact boundaries of dignity violations.
ISSN:1469-2147
Contains:Enthalten in: Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0963180115000547