Review: European Sources of Human Dignity: A Commented Anthology Mette Lebech. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2019. pp. 345. On the Problem of Human Dignity: A Hermeneutical and Phenomenological Investigation Mette Lebech.

Authors

Robert McNamara, Franciscan University of SteubenvilleFollow

Abstract

A coordinating feature of much contemporary discourse—philosophical and theological, social and cultural, political and legal—is the idea of human dignity. The sense of its necessity as an idea grounding and organizing thought, feeling, and action about the human being is shared across different and often otherwise contrary worldviews. But to what does the expression “human dignity” refer? What is human dignity? And why is it important? Anyone who has looked at the problem with anything more than a cursory glance knows that these are not easy questions, and Mette Lebech sets herself the task of attaining an answer in two complementary volumes, through a hermeneutical and phenomenological investigation in On the Problem of Human Dignity, coupled with a later published commented anthology of key texts of the Western tradition in European Sources of Human Dignity. The significance of the investigation together with anthology of sources lies in the fact that, according to Lebech, “the affirmation of human dignity occupies so central a place in human experience that its denial would render the latter unrecognizable” (Lebech, 2009: 20).

Recommended Citation

McNamara, Robert (2023) "Review: European Sources of Human Dignity: A Commented Anthology Mette Lebech. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2019. pp. 345. On the Problem of Human Dignity: A Hermeneutical and Phenomenological Investigation Mette Lebech.," International Dialogue: Vol. 13, Article 4.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32873/uno.dc.ID.12.1.1203
Available at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/id-journal/vol13/iss1/4