The Dewey Lecture: Three Concepts of Human Dignity

The 2015 Dewey Lecture, delivered in November by Moshe Halbertal, the Gruss Professor of Law at New York University and Professor of Philosophy at Hebrew University, stirred thoughtful discussion among Law School scholars about the concept of human dignity. Halbertal, who was introduced by Martha C. Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Professor of Law and Ethics, explored the value of human dignity by discussing distinct ways in which it is violated.

“Since the integration of the concept of human dignity into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, human dignity has become a major concept in legal constitutional thought,” Halbertal said. “There are very interesting questions: Is human dignity the source of all rights, the way it is in the German constitution? … Does it designate a domain that is actually outside the particular realm of all human rights? Does it designate a particular right unto itself? There is quite complex discussion in the literature about the particular legal use of human dignity.”

You can watch video of the full lecture and the Q&A discussion that followed.