The Idea of Dignity in Contemporary Scientific Discourse

Abstract

The article presents the philosophical analysis of the basic aspects and specificity of conceptualization of the idea of dignity in the contemporary intellectual discourse. The discussion of the issue of dignity is topical due to the urgent need to develop new strategies of social interaction which would correspond to the new sociocultural and civilizational conditions and would take into consideration the specificity of human life and at the same time would establish basic moral intentions of human behavior and identity. In the process of investigation the following methods were applied: dialectical, hermeneutical, phenomenological, and comparative. The analysis has proved that the contemporary intellectual discourse represents dignity as the multifaceted phenomenon that has distinctive ethical, psychological, economic, legal aspects and still preserves its conceptual ambiguity. The idea of dignity proves to be significant not only in the moral, spiritual sphere, but is equally vital in social-political, economic spheres of social life as well as in the everyday human interaction and communication. Dignity is regarded as the value concept, the characteristic feature of a person determined by various and often opposite behavioral imperatives in different sociocultural environments. The idea of dignity inevitably depends on the set of socially meaningful norms and principles that provide the recognition of the self-value of an individual and determine his/her social worth. The research has proved that the unified conceptual definition of dignity in the contemporary reality may become possible only providing the distinct understanding of the sociocultural and worldview grounds for the whole range of dignity connotations. The review of the contemporary theoretical discourse on the issue of human dignity has proved that the concept of dignity is far from being clearly defined; therefore, its clarifying still remains as the significant challenge to the contemporary philosophy.

Epistemological Premises for the Concept of Dignity in John Locke’s Philosophical Discourse

“…The range of researchers (Gela Bandzeladze [Bandzeladze 1979], Maksym Doichyk, Ihor Goyan [Doichyk 2008;Doichyk 2018;Doichyk & Goyan 2018;Doichyk & Doichyk 2019], Yurgen Habermas [Habermas 2012], Maryna Savelyeva [Savelyeva 2018], Daniel Sulmasy [Sulmasy 2012]) believe that dignity should be regarded as the initial transhistorical concept that functions similarly to such fundamental categories as good, justice, goodness, beauty, that don't need to be defined.…”