Reva Siegel and the Role of Religion in Constructing the Meaning of 'Human Dignity'

The Role of Religion in Human Rights Discourse, Hanoch Dagan, ed., Forthcoming

U of Michigan Public Law Research Paper No. 320

Queen's University Belfast Law Research Paper No. 2013-03

19 Pages Posted: 10 Mar 2013 Last revised: 1 May 2013

See all articles by Christopher McCrudden

Christopher McCrudden

Queen's University Belfast - School of Law; University of Michigan Law School; University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law

Date Written: March 1, 2013

Abstract

There is a well-recognized role that organized religions played in the post-Second World War development of international and transnational human rights protections. One of the problematic aspects of this protection is the extent to which there appears to be a disagreement over the basic question of what underpins these human rights. Increasingly, “human dignity” has been drawn on to fulfill this role. “Human dignity” is a concept with strong resonances in political, philosophical, legal, and theological understandings of human rights. But what, if any, is the religious understanding of “human dignity” and what role, if any, does it play in the development of legal interpretation of human rights? As importantly, what role should it play? The “religious understanding” of dignity is, of course, a topic of considerable complexity and is the subject of extensive scholarship. In this paper, I consider one relatively neglected issue that this legal scholarship raises: how should scholars go about the task of identifying what a particular religion’s understanding of human dignity involves? I discuss a recent article by Reva Siegel in the International Journal of Constitutional Law to illustrate the methodological issues that arise when legal scholars engage with other complex normative systems.

Keywords: religion, human rights scholarship, human dignity, Roman Catholic, Reva Siegel

JEL Classification: K10, K40

Suggested Citation

McCrudden, Christopher, Reva Siegel and the Role of Religion in Constructing the Meaning of 'Human Dignity' (March 1, 2013). The Role of Religion in Human Rights Discourse, Hanoch Dagan, ed., Forthcoming, U of Michigan Public Law Research Paper No. 320, Queen's University Belfast Law Research Paper No. 2013-03, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2229832

Christopher McCrudden (Contact Author)

Queen's University Belfast - School of Law ( email )

School of Law
Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland BT7 1NN
United Kingdom

University of Michigan Law School ( email )

625 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1215
United States

University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law

Boalt Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-7200
United States

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