Dignity as an ethical principle of humanism

Abstract

We believe that humanism is built on the universal recognition of the human being as a person and such recognition would not be possible without the assumption of the principle of human dignity. Dignity would be a deontological principle of humanism insofar as there are no exogenous reasons that explain the self-referential value of the human being yet it must be presupposed as a non-exclusive foundation of human rights. Now, this sense of dignity would have two main focuses: one ontological, postulating the universal recognition of the human being as a person and another ethical level, which would correspond to the moral requirement to respect the moral autonomy of oneself and others.