Human Dignity and Bioethics

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Human Dignity and
Political Entitlements
Martha Nussbaum
H
uman dignity is an idea of central importance today. It plays a
key role in the international human rights movement, and it
figures prominently in many documents that ground political principles
for individual nations. It also plays a role in abstract theories
of justice and human entitlement. I myself have given the idea a key
role in my own political conception of justice, holding that a hallmark
of minimum social justice is the availability, to all citizens, of
ten core “capabilities,” or opportunities to function. All citizens are
entitled to a threshold level of these ten capabilities because, I argue,
all ten are necessary conditions of a life worthy of human dignity. 1
The idea of dignity, however, is not fully clear, and there are quite
a few different conceptions of it, which can make its use to ground a
political conception slippery. For this reason, John Rawls concluded
that, all by itself, it could not play a grounding role: the idea only
acquired determinate content through specific political principles. 2
I believe that Rawls was somewhat too pessimistic, and I also believe
that he himself used the idea in at least some crucial parts of his argument,
insisting that “Each person possesses an inviolability founded
on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.”
3 We should agree with Rawls, however, in judging that the bare
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