Dignidade: condição humana compartilhada

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the advances and retreats in the historical process of building the idea of human dignity, in order to contribute with the dossier “Science and politics: dialogues on human dignity in pandemic times”. We will use a philosophical approach that starts in the idea of human dignity as one’s value.  Based on the modern jusnaturalism thinking, we will investigate the state of nature of the free and equal individual, pursuing to understand the tension between singularity and individualism that, although is present in the idea of the individual, deepens in the 19th century. Then, we will discuss the relationship with the other (individual and community) in order to show that the annihilation of common attachments tends to drive people to social and political conditions of subordination and oppression. So, the problem that is being investigated is the reestablishment of attachments. Rousseau and Tocqueville find in the empathy towards the suffering of the other the path, opposing to the extinction of the attachments. The respect to human dignity as a shared condition emerges together with solidarity.