Metaphilosophy 41 (4):464-480 (2010) |Abstract||Abstract: Human
rights developed in response to specific violations of human
dignity, and can therefore be conceived as specifications of
human dignity, their moral source. This internal relationship
explains the moral content and moreover the distinguishing
feature of human rights: they are designed for an effective
implementation of the core moral values of an egalitarian
universalism in terms of coercive law. This essay is an attempt
to explain this moral-legal Janus face of human rights through
the mediating role of the concept of human dignity. This concept
is due to a remarkable generalization of the particularistic
meanings of those "dignities" that once were attached to
specific honorific functions and memberships. In spite of its
abstract meaning, "human dignity" still retains from its
particularistic precursor concepts the connotation of depending
on the social recognition of a status—in this case, the status
of democratic citizenship. Only membership