Human Dignity

According to Hans Jonas (1903–1993), the modern technological progress endowed humanity with wondrous power, which in the long run risks altering the nature of human action. This is especially true for the realm of collective action, the effects of which evidence an unpredicted issue: the ecological crisis, which is the “critical vulnerability” of nature to technological intervention. This discovery brings to light that the whole biosphere of the planet has been added to that which human beings must be responsible for because of their power over it. There is, however, a further dimension of vulnerability (and responsibility) to be considered, namely the one which characterizes organic life as such. Indeed, the essence of all living organisms–human beings included–is characterized by vulnerability, given their precarious and unstable condition of “needful freedom” towards the environment. Nevertheless, terrestrial life flourished through a multifaceted and unplanned (thus, again, vulnerable) evolution of living forms, ranging from bacteria to human beings – these evidencing a unique degree of freedom, which Jonas refers to as a “metaphysical gap” towards other living beings. The problem is that the present-day technology provides the possibility to manipulate the very essence of life and human nature. Is this process to be accepted and accomplished? And what about the related risks? Indeed, according to Jonas, issues such as genetic manipulation, euthanasia, organ transplantation, assisted reproduction, exploitation of other living beings etc., raise ethical dilemmas which can be addressed thanks to the idea of vulnerability. This notion has, according to Jonas, a metaphysical background, which he describes as follows: in the beginning, the Divine chose to give itself over to the chance, risk and endless variety of becoming. In order that the world (and life, and human freedom) might be, God renounced his own being, divesting himself of his deity. Thanks to this mythical account, the previous levels of vulnerability (concerning nature, life, and human nature) gain further clarification as signs of something sacrosanct.

Asenteet hoivarobotiikkaa kohtaan ovat järjestelmällisen epäileviä: arvellaan, että vanhusta hoitava
robotti korvaa hoitajan ja vie vanhukselta viimeisenkin mahdollisuuden ihmiskontaktiin. Onko epäilyille
perusteita - muuttaako robotiikka mahdollisesti jotain, liittyen vanhusten ihmisarvon mukaiseen
kohteluun ja hoivaan? Onko jokin yksittäinen sovellus epäilyttävä, tai voiko robotiikkateknologia
isompana kokonaisuutena muuttaa hoivan käytäntöjä tai järjestämistä niin, että ihmisarvo olisi jotenkin
uhattuna? Pohdimme tässä artikkelissa, mitä oikeastaan on hoitaminen ”ihmisarvoisella tavalla” ja
millaisia tulevaisuudenuhkia ja mahdollisuuksia hoivarobotiikkaan liittyy.

Attitudes towards robots in elderly care are systematically sceptical: a central worry is that a robot caretaker will rob the elderly of their human contacts. Are such worries justified? Will robotics change something relevant concerning the human dignity of elders? Are some specific robots especially dubious, or can robotics, as a generic technology, change the practices of care so that human dignity would be under threat? In this paper, we ask what human dignity entails in elderly care, and what kinds of threats and possibilities social robotics may bring with it. Earlier studies have approached this question, for example, in light of the capability theories of human life, consistent with human dignity. Our starting point are theories of recognition of persons, which have distinguished three main kinds of needs for recognition: the need for respect as a person, the need to feel esteemed as a contributor to the common good, and the need to be loved.

Liberální demokracie je na počátku 21. stoletá údajně v krizi – politické, hospodářské, krizi důvěry, krizi reprezentace, krizi konstitucionalismu, krizi sebedůvěry. Existuje nějaká cesta ven? Nebo kam to vlastně liberální demokracie míří? Političtí filosofové a filosofky se domnívají, že právě jejich disciplína dokáže nejen formulovat patřičné správné otázky, ale také nabídnout konstruktivní odpovědi – i proto, že období závažných proměn a krizí byla v lidských dějinách vždy doprovázena vrcholnými výkony politického filosofování. Na tomto pozadí autorský tým z Katedry politologie FSS MU v Brně prozkoumává některé nejvýznamnější odborné diskuse, které v soudobé politické filosofii probíhají a které se týkají životaschopnosti liberální demokracie jakožto doposud dominantního modelu vládnutí. Kniha jako celek i jednotlivé kapitoly přitom oslovují jak širší odbornou veřejnost, pro niž může sloužit jako podnět k výzkumným snahám. Neméně významnou skupinu adresátů však tvoří i studenti a studentky politických věd, filosofie a dalších společenskovědních a humanitních oborů, jimž kniha nabízí pokročilý úvod do klíčových problémů současné politické filosofie.

[The book deals with the announced crisis of liberal democracy as perceived from within contemporary political philosophy – a discipline which is often considered by its practitioners to be especially qualified to not only pose the right questions, but also provide constructive answers. Against this background, the authors explore some core scholarly debates which address the viability of liberal democracy as the heretofore dominant model of political rule. By providing an advanced discussion of a number of central concerns of contemporary political philosophy, the book aims to apppeal both to broader scholarly audience and to students of political science, philosophy, and related fields of social sciences and humanities.]

Taking Palestine as the focus of inquiry, and drawing on our experiences as co-directors of Karamah, a judicial education initiative focused on dignity, we reflect on the attributes of colonisation and the possibilities of decolonisation in Palestine through development aid. We conclude that decolonisation is possible even within development aid frameworks. We envision the current colonial condition in Palestine as a multi-faceted, complex and dynamic mesh that tightens and expands its control over the coveted colonial subject but that also contains holes that offer opportunities for resistance or refusal. We turn to Karamah to illustrate how some judges have insisted on a professional identity that merges the concepts of human dignity and self-determination and ultimately rejects the colonial condition inherent in both occupation and development aid. We conclude that in this process of professional identity (re)formation, members of the Palestinian judiciary have helped reveal the demands of decolonisation by demonstrating their commitment to realising human dignity through institutional power, and bringing occupation back into international development discourse.

O presente artigo tem como objetivo abordar a questão referente ao trabalho escravo que se faz presente na conjuntura brasileira atual, mostrando as suas origens, as perpetuações e os casos que foram englobados por essa forma de trabalho distinta à dignidade da pessoa humana, com enfoque ao caso do José Pereira (caso nº 11.289) que tramitou na Comissão interamericana, a fim de retratar a responsabilidade do Estado com os indivíduos sujeitos a essa forma de trabalho, frente às garantias do texto legal. ABSTRACT This article aims to discuss the matter of slave work that is present in Brazilian's current situation, showing its origins, its perpetrations and the cases that are involved with this work form, that denies the dignity of the human being, focusing its studies in the case José Pereira (case number 11.289), which was in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, to analyse the responsibility of the State related to the individuals that were subjected to this kind of work, according to the Brazilian law.