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Inherent Human Dignity explores the philosophical and existential foundations of what it means to be human.
Inherent Human Dignity is a philosophical meditation and defense of the value of being human. Glenn Hughes explores the existential foundations of these concepts in this structured and accessible study about the experience of being human.
Hughes locates human dignity within the philosophical, political, and historical horizons of human culture. Guided by Eric Voegelin and Bernard Lonergan, literary and artistic examples, key moments of our modern era, and his own scholarship on the religions of the world, Hughes unfolds and accounts for human dignity’s place in our world. He additionally utilizes key moments of our modern era to frame our understanding of human dignity, paying close attention to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was created by the United Nations following World War II. Ultimately, Hughes’s meditation is concerned both with exploring the maximally differentiated set of insights into the meaning of being human and with articulating why the discovery of the inherent equal dignity of every person—without exception—is a profound and unique achievement.
"Eschewing academic jargon, neologisms and other expedient social/political forms of acadamese, Hughes has written an intelligent book that presents the inherent and essentialist superstructure of human existence to a general audience of reflective readers." —VoegelinView
“Hughes shows us the way to reclaim our inherent dignity within a world of meaning. This book promises to be the go-to volume that concisely explains not just that we should affirm inherent dignity for all human beings, but how and why we must.” —John von Heyking, author of Comprehensive Judgement and Absolute Selflessness
“Inherent Human Dignity fills a need for a thoroughgoing philosophical defense of the notion of inherent human value and dignity.” —David Baggett, co-author of The Moral Argument
"IHD is an ambitious contribution to dignity studies, thwarting contemporary moral theorists and bioethicists convinced that dignity-talk is at best unhelpful and at worst conceptually amorphous, as well as those employing 'dignity' without taking seriously its robust metaphysical, and theological, character." —The Review of Metaphysics
"Hughes is making a historical claim: that equal inherent dignity was originally a fruit of Jewish and, above all, Christian civilization, and not others. Because nowhere else was there the notion of the full and non-competitive union of divinity and humanity, of universal and particular, that took place in the person of Jesus Christ, nowhere else did the individual person emerge as the inexhaustible center of value, each human being of infinite and irreplaceable worth." —Law & Liberty
Glenn Hughes (1951–2024) was professor emeritus at St. Mary’s University. He was the inaugural holder of the St. Mary’s Chair in Catholic Philosophy. He was the author of several books including From Dickinson to Dylan: Visions of Transcendence in Modernist Literature and Transcendence and History: The Search for Ultimacy from Ancient Societies to Postmodernity.
James Greenaway is the San José-Lonergan Chair in Catholic Philosophy at St. Mary’s University. He is the author of A Philosophy of Belonging: Persons, Politics, Cosmos.
Foreword
Preface
Part 1. Preliminaries
1. Honesty
2. Meaning & Value
3. The Cosmos
4. Belonging
5. The Desire to Know
6. Myth
7. The World of Space and Time
8. Science
9. Misunderstanding Human Nature
10. Constants of Human Nature
Part 2. The Idea of Inherent Human Dignity
11. Inherent Human Dignity
12. Inherent Dignity in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (I)
13. Inherent Dignity in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (II)
14. Persons, Rights, and Dignified Living
15. Digression: The Universal Search for Dignified Living
16. The Challenge of Respecting Inherent Dignity
17. Transcendent Mystery and Shakenness
18. Eclipsing Transcendent Mystery
19. Inherent Dignity as Both Concept and Mythic Symbol
20. The Refusal to Understand Inherent Dignity
21. Inherent Dignity and Ideaology
Epilogue: Love and Inherent Dignity
Bibliography