Reframing Human Dignity

• Pages: 35-48
• Date: 18 November 2019
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78973-821-620191004
• Published date: 18 November 2019
• Author: Michael Karlberg

Chapter 3

Reframing Human Dignity

Michael Karlberg

Introduction

The concept of human dignity is invoked within many signicant public discourses

today, ranging from discourses on human rights to discourses on conict resolu-

tion to discourses on bioethics. Yet little agreement exists regarding the meaning

or practical implications of the concept. One of the reasons for this is that the

concept of dignity – like all concepts – takes on different meanings within dif-

ferent interpretive frames. This chapter examines three contrasting interpretive

frames within which the concept of human dignity can be understood. After out-

lining each of these frames and exploring what meanings the concept of human

dignity takes on within each of them, the chapter argues that the social body

frame offers the most mature and fruitful understanding of the concept. The

chapter concludes by exploring some of the practical implications of this insight,

including the need to reframe signicant discourses according to the logic of the

social body frame.

Meaning and Discourse

To discuss the meaning of a phrase like “human dignity,” it is helpful to consider,

at the outset, the nature of meaning itself. The eld of semiotics examines the

relationship between meanings and signiers. One of the most basic insights of

semiotics is that meanings do not reside in words. Rather, words are associated

with meanings largely through cultural codes – or socially constructed rules of

correspondence between signiers and meanings. Culturally encoded meanings

can be widely shared or widely contested among diverse people and they can be

relatively xed or relatively uid across time.

These culturally coded relationships are an essential substrate of social exist-

ence. They shape human perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors, and they inform

social norms, institutions, and practices, in profound ways. Indeed, it can be

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Dignity and Human Rights, 35–48

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doi:10.1108/978-1-78973-821-620191004