On the Basis of Personal Dignity

Abstract

World wars I and II lead to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, promoted by the UN in 1948. From then on most of the new born Constitutions have been claiming dignity immunity for the human being. However, those who penned the declaration made an effort to avoid the theoretical reason such rights are based upon, fearing that theoretical divergences postponed or turned unfeasible such recognition. The fragmentation philosophical anthropology has been living for centuries claims a principle that unifies knowledge around the human being. It is within such context that the universal experience which is human dignity appears to be a unifying principle. Six decades later, we are still lacking a ground and globally acceptable base for human dignity and its fundamental rights, a complex issue that appears to require a new step in the fields of philosophical anthropology and ontology.