Human Dignity

Authors

Jeremy Waldron, New York University School of LawFollow

Files

Description

My task is to consider the role of human dignity in constitutional law. Here is a suggestion I would like to offer about the work that it does. Human dignity serves not only as the content of certain rights or as a ground or foundation for human rights in general, but also as a basis on which fundamental rights are interpreted and applied. Indeed, not only that: I think human dignity works as an integrating idea across the whole range of constitutional considerations – structural as well as rights-based, empowering as well as constraining. The idea of human dignity is indispensable not only to our sense of the constitutional protections that we need, but also to our whole sense of the underlying status and authority of the ordinary human persons for whose sake constitutions are framed and their provisions upheld.

First Page

23

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108868143.004

Source Publication

The Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory

Source Editors/Authors

Richard Bellamy, Jeff King

Publication Date

3-27-2025

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Recommended Citation

Jeremy Waldron, Human Dignity, The Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory 23 (2025).
Available at: https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/2122