Dignity and vulnerability

George Harris takes issue with the long-standing idea that persons possess dignity and worth, a idea he traces from the Stoics through Christian thought to Kant and his followers. Examining what people in fact prize in themselves and in one another, he contends that our outlook is closer to the Greeks than to the Christian tradition.

Harris maintains that our most basic values come from our nature as living creatures and animals, not from a picture of beings who rise above the natural world like gods. Central to his project is grounding belief in human dignity in what we can truly learn about ourselves, rather than in metaphysical or theological speculation.

Once that self-knowledge is established, Harris suggests, we are better placed to see where genuine strength comes from.