On Human Dignity
Robert Spaemann: Über den Begriff der Menschenwürde (1987) (“On the Concept of Human Dignity”), in: Das Natürliche und das Vernünftige. Essays zur Anthropologie (Piper).
In this essay Spaemann shows that human dignity is neither an empty concept nor a mere convention, but is grounded in the reality of the person. Anyone who wants to know why the dignity of the human being is inviolable — not merely as a legal norm, but as a fact — will find the philosophical justification here.
Robert Spaemann: Grenzen. Zur ethischen Dimension des Handelns (Klett-Cotta, 2001) (Limits: On the Ethical Dimension of Action).
A collection of essays showing that there are limits in human action that must not be crossed. Especially illuminating is the essay “Are All Human Beings Persons?” (“Sind alle Menschen Personen?”), in which Spaemann defends the position that every human being — without exception — is a person, and that claiming otherwise leads inescapably to inhumanity.
Immanuel Kant: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (1785). English edition: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.
Kant’s Groundwork contains the famous formulation: “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of every other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.” (German original: „Handle so, daß du die Menschheit, sowohl in deiner Person als in der Person eines jeden andern, jederzeit zugleich als Zweck, niemals bloß als Mittel brauchest.“) Here we find one of the clearest formulations of the thought that the human being may never be a mere means. The present book, however — unlike Kant — sees the ground of this dignity not in reason alone, but in the being of the person itself. Kant’s Groundwork nonetheless remains one of the most important works of moral philosophy.
Tadeusz Styczen: Der Person gebührt Liebe (1998) (“To the Person, Love Is Due”), in: Menschenwürde — Metaphysik und Ethik. Jubiläumsband.
Styczen, a student of Wojtyła deeply versed in the personalist tradition, captures the core of the matter in a single sentence: to the person, love is due. That is not a sentimental assertion but a philosophical insight: the only adequate response to the reality of a person is love — not as a feeling, but as the affirmation of her being.
Full bibliographic details in the Bibliography.
Further reading: On the History of the Concept of Person →