Philosophical evolutions of the concept od human dignity

Abstract

This research deals with the theme today called human dignity, but which will sometimes be treated only as human dignity or dignity. This variation is due to the periods and authors covered. Hence the general objective: to analyze the historical-philosophical evolution of the concept of human dignity. Thus, the following problem arises to be elucidated: how did the historical and philosophical evolution of the idea of ​​human dignity take place, in the authors chosen as maximum representatives of their time? And, in the face of such a problem, the evolution of the concept of human dignity in the West will be investigated, starting from antiquity to contemporary times, seeking to work with the most relevant authors and works that contributed to the construction of the theme concept of this research. In addition, it is intended to investigate the importance of human dignity today, at the international level. The choice of such a theme is justified by the fact that the concept of “human dignity” has become the “principle of principles” of many modern legal systems. To carry out the research, Bibliographic Research was used. From this article, it is possible to understand each historical and philosophical step that contributed to the formation of the concept of human dignity, which today has a universal character and embraces everyone in the human family. That is, it is clear, through this research, that the concept widely used in the legal world as a supra-principle, did not appear in the post-World War II era, it was only there that it definitively migrated to the legal world, but that the concept arose and has been debated for more than two millennia. In this sense, it is also noted that the dignity of the human person was not always attributed to all specimens of the human race, and that for most of the time of its construction, the dignity belonged to specific groups of societies, now linked to honor , now linked to titles of nobility, now to the person whose life was led according to divine teachings. Only in Kant was the dignity of the human person consecrated as an inherent attribute of every rational being, and even later, with the constitutionalist movement of the second half of the twentieth century, that this concept migrates to Law and starts to protect man not only with its moral content, but also with its normative content.