Human Dignity, Right and the Realm of Ends

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Citation: 2008 Acta Juridica 47
• Published date: 15 August 2019
• Date: 15 August 2019
• Pages: 47-65

Human Dignity, Right and the

Realm of Ends*

ALLEN WOOD†

Stanford University

I INTRODUCTION

This is my f‌irst trip to South Africa. In fact, it is my f‌irst time on the

continent of Africa, and even my f‌irst adventure south of the equator. I

am honoured to be in South Africa, because I regard this nation as just

about the only one whose history in the past half century might have the

power to inspire us with hope. My own country, for instance, the United

States, has long thought of itself (and has even been thought of by others)

as a defender of human rights and liberty. But during the past f‌ifty years, it

has become the world’s leading imperialist power. It now engages

without hesitation in brutal wars of aggression. It regards its military

power as exempting it from all international law and even from all

recognised standards of human decency. At home as well as abroad, it is

turning into a sham all the conceptions of human rights, and all the ideals

of democracy and freedom, which it still arrogantly thinks of as its

exclusive property.

In South Africa, by contrast, toward the end of the twentieth century

we saw the replacement of a brutal racist regime by a democratic state

founded on political equality for all citizens. Perhaps even more

inspiring, we saw this change happen peacefully, without the black versus

white civil war many in my country believed would inevitably

accompany any change to black majority rule in South Africa. The

leaders of the movement to end apartheid struggled all their lives for this

victory and their triumph was all the more complete because theirs was

not a spirit of rancour or vengeance, but one of justice, mercy, truth and

reconciliation. South Africa still faces an uncertain future and many

problems, some inherited from the economic inequalities present during

the apartheid period, others due to the threat of corruption that seems to

characterise politicians at all times and places. But it is a great honour for

me to be invited to participate, even if only tangentially and for a few

days, in the great things that have been accomplished by South Africa in

the last f‌ifteen years.

* Edited version of a keynote address delivered at the Law, Dignity and Transformative

Constitutionalism Conference, University of Cape Town, 26 and 27 July 2007.

† Professor, Department of Philosophy,Stanford University.

47

2008 Acta Juridica 47

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II THE MEANING OF ‘HUMAN DIGNITY’

If there is a basic ethical value that lies behind modern culture in the

Enlightenment tradition, then I think that idea is human dignity – the

fundamental worth of human beings, and of every individual human

being. This idea lies at the foundation of the South African Constitution,

section 10 of which provides that ‘[e]veryone has inherent dignity and

the right to have their dignity respected and protected’.

1

Below I will try

to explain the way this value is understood within Kantian ethics, which I

regard as the fullest philosophical articulation of it.

When it is spoken of today, there is a temptation to regard talk about

‘human dignity’ as pompous, platitudinous and empty. One way to see

beyond this temptation is to understand how human dignity was

originally a radical idea, even a subversive idea – which, in my opinion, it

still is. In its origins, ‘human dignity’ is an oxymoronic expression,

bordering on self-contradiction, that poses a radical challenge to all

existing social orders – not only in the early modern period but today as

well. The term ‘dignity’ itself means simply ‘worthiness’or ‘excellence’.

It is any quality of a person entitling them to be regarded, respected and

honoured by others. Originally ‘dignity’ signif‌ied some high off‌ice,

usually an off‌ice of state, carrying with it certain extraordinary privileges

and prerogatives. This older use of ‘dignity’ is also found in the South

African Constitution. Section 165(4) speaks of protecting the ‘dignity’ of

the courts, as well as their impartiality and independence.

2

In early

modern Europe, different ‘dignities’ marked off different levels of

aristocrat from each other, and dignity separated all aristocrats from the

plain and ordinary people who lacked dignity altogether. The claim that

humanity has dignity is therefore the paradoxical, almost nonsensical

assertion that the highest possible social status belongs to each and every

human being simply in virtue of his or her humanity. To speak of ‘human

dignity’ amounts to an impudent declaration that the supreme rank or

quality of honour that any human being could claim is simply their

humanity itself. It is a direct def‌iance of the entire value system

underlying traditional aristocratic society, and indeed of any conception

of human life that gives some human beings a status superior to that of

others in any respect whatever. Since no social order that has ever existed

has been able to do without some forms of social superiority or

inferiority, the concept of human dignity remains a radical concept, one

that challenges fundamentally our conceptions of ourselves and our

society, whoever and wherever we may be.

1

Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, s 10.

2

Constitution, s 165(4): ‘Organs of state, through legislative and other measures, must

assist and protect the courts to ensure the independence, impartiality, dignity,accessibility and

effectiveness of the courts.’

48 DIGNITY,FREEDOM AND THE POST-APARTHEID LEGAL ORDER

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