Catholic Church: Inherent Human Dignity Analysis

Both the United States Declaration of Independence and the Russian Declaration of Rights and Dignity exhibit a need from the people of their respective countries, but also want for their governments to work for the people they govern. They call the higher rulers and provide specific rights that the people should have and should not be infringed on. These documents are a plea for rights that are basic for all humans.

The principle of human dignity based on catholic social teaching is that every human being is the live image of a god himself (Australian Catholic Social Justice Council, 2016). therefore, every individual in our society is worth of respect as a member of the

The dignity of

individual worth and of the worthiness of their cause. the person who posesses true dignity will also respect the

(1) Respect for persons: “Treating persons as autonomous agents and protecting those with diminished autonomy”. (Individuals with lessen autonomy are entitled to protection).

To begin, the Dignity of the Human Person emphasizes people over things, being over having. It promotes the respect for human life, and ensures that individuals

Plus, we can’t value human beings in an appropriate way is because people are worth being treated with dignity and respect, instead of being treated as commodities (Sandel, 2012, 9).

I believe that as a Catholic society we have lost the focus of the way we will be judged and so consumed in our own view of the way god looks upon us. This shows in the way that we treat other people in our society and how we should treat others equally and bring people of all circumstances together. This is a difficult task to try to embrace as a community but I do believe that it is possible to make an attempt to see that all of God’s children have an equal opportunity to reach

Though we are to take the “Creation Story” with a grain of salt and interpret it with a deeper meaning in mind, there is a lot Christianity teaches regarding mankind. Appearance, dominance, rationality, an ability to relate, and a destined freewill are all qualities humanity comprises because of “imago dei”, or our creation in God’s likeness. From the beginning formation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 1 and 2 to the way humans relate to one another in the writings of Las Casas and Truth, these core characteristics of humanity are shown and defined.

What is human dignity? We often ask ourselves this question as we grow up, experience things, and know what is in the world. As we ask this question other questions arise as such, is it earned, invented, or intrinsic? I believe it depends on the situation, but the following stories bring up each of these questions and deliver different ways of delivering the ideas of human dignity being earned, invented, or intrinsic. The Village Blacksmith, The Crowd of Wild Olive, Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglas all bring up these points and others as well as how different life situations relate to human dignity.

“Dignity is a state of physical, emotional and spiritual comfort, with each individual valued for his or her uniqueness and his or her individuality celebrated. Dignity is promoted when individuals are enabled to do the best within their capabilities, exercise control, make choices and feel involved in the decision-making that underpins their care.”

Finally, to understand the human dignity as a whole multidimensionality of human dignity will be considered and examined by studying each perspective separately to figure out that by supporting single perspective which aspects of human dignity (1A, 1B, 2A, 2B) are being threatened? Further, human life is multidimensional and very complex. Although every individual knows the facts but their relationship, needs, transcendence and inabilities force

The idea that dignity is an essential aspect of human life is true because without dignity people often cannot find a reason to continue living. In the text Hillenbrand says, “Though the captives’ resistance was dangerous, through such acts, dignity was preserved, and through dignity, life itself” (Hillenbrand 212). Many men died in POW camps simply because their dignity was stripped away from them and they felt worthless. Once they lost their sense of self worth it was harder, mentally and physically, for them to cling to the idea of being free again, allowing them to slip farther away from life and closer to death. It is in situations like these where one finds that dignity is almost as valuable to survival as basic human necessities.

The idea of human dignity has been remarked and articulated in a number of the jurisprudence works of the mid-twentieth American legal philosopher, Lon L. Fuller. The Morality of Law, for instance, provides a valuable snapshot of Fuller’s preliminary sense of what his idea on human dignity might entail. In the core of his argument of legal morality, Fuller proposes that any neglect of eight principles of legality, which constitutes the internal morality of law, is not just only render the rational ground to obey the law and destroy the trusteeship between lawgiver and subject, but it further condemns and humiliates the dignity of person or human being as a free and responsible agent, self-determining center of action, and that they possess inherent dignity. In other important text, Fuller explicitly announces that the value of human dignity, over other extra-legal values, that must embodied within the structure of legal order. After he offers a long discussion of human capacity of action and communication under the forms of order, he writes: “ there is, therefore, in an ordered system of law, formulated and administered conscientiously, a certain built-in respect for human dignity, and I think it is reasonable to suppose that this respect will tend to carry over into the substantive ends of law.” Thirdly, in his draft essay Means and Ends, which can be considered both as an introductory of Fuller’s eunmoics theory of social order and Fuller’s reflection on the

In the beginning of the Bible in the Book of Genesis, it is revealed to use in 1:26-27 that God has created man in his image. The text verbatim states “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” From this distinct text we can clearly conclude that when ad created man and woman, they were destined to be in God’s image and carry his image throughout his creation. Today we can see that many of us do not live in God’s image due to society becoming more secularized as it progresses through the years, however as Christians we can verse this by living in God’s image in our chosen vocations, churches, and even in the