How demanding is human dignity? Remarks on Pablo Gilabert’s dignitarian approach to human rights

Abstract

ABSTRACT Pablo Gilabert's book Human Dignity and Human Rights offers a bold and fascinating account of the claim that human rights are grounded in human dignity. I am quite sympathetic to the dignitarian approach articulated in the book and agree with many of its argumentative goals. My critical comments are therefore lodged in the spirit of a family quarrel. I focus on three issues: the relationship between the humanistic and political perspectives on human rights (1), the suitability of the substantive account of human dignity offered in the book to function as the ground of human rights (2) and the plausibility of a sufficientarian interpretation of the aims of human rights practice (3).