One way of life

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A way of living - On the diversity of human dignity is a philosophical essay by the Swiss philosopher Peter Bieri published by Carl Hanser Verlag in 2013 , in which he redefines the concept of dignity in ethical and ontological terms. In this work Bieri develops the thesis that human dignity does not have to be understood as a metaphysical property of the human being, as before, primarily through theological influences, which determines his specific way of being, but rather as a certain way of life.

For him, this postulate arises from the irritation that people feel towards the idea that one must understand dignity as a right "that is inherent in every human being, that he carries within himself and that cannot be taken away from him, no matter what what terrible things one can do to him ", which at the same time contradicts the elementary human experience of the loss of dignity that accompanies sociological phenomena such as humiliation, playful self-respect or destroyed intimacy.

The essay was awarded the Tractatus Prize in 2014.

The three dimensions of dignity as a way of life

Bieri distinguishes between three dimensions in his concept of dignity. First of all (1.) "the way I am treated by other people". Then (2.) the question of how an individual treats the fellow men with whom he lives and what attitude he has towards them. And finally (3.) the way a subject relates to himself.

A key question is assigned to each of these three dimensions, in which the uncertainty is formulated as to which criteria in relation to the relationship between the subject and object of degradation determine the possibility of preservation and the certainty that human dignity will be destroyed.

The question about the relationship between subject and object, which focuses on the object (first dimension), is: "What can you take away from someone if you want to destroy their dignity?" The question that concentrates on the subject in this relationship (second dimension) is: "Which patterns of doing and experiencing with respect to others lead to the experience that I preserve my dignity, and with which doing and experiencing I gamble it away ? " The question about the relationship of the subject to himself (the dissociation of the subject in the third dimension) is: "What way of seeing, evaluating and treating myself gives me the experience of dignity?"

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Peter Bieri: A way of life - About the diversity of human dignity , Hanser 2013
  2. ↑ Justification on the homepage of the Tractatus price

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