Between Dignity and Human Rights

Public pronouncements on human rights by American officials and by nongovernmental rights advocates often include references to dignity. Yet the term does not appear in the fundamental texts that shaped the American commitment to rights—the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the post-Civil War amendments to the United States Constitution. Many of those using the word may not recognize that Europeans (and others, too) who speak of dignity often mean something that does not accord with the central value given to liberty in the traditional American approach to rights. Though liberty and dignity can be complementary values, there are circumstances in which they can come into conflict. Yet references to dignity have become prominent in American discussions of rights, perhaps because the term is used so frequently in other parts of the world. Another factor may be recognition that, in some important areas, commitment to the concept of dignity, as it is understood in Europe, provides greater protection for rights than is available in the United States.