Abstract
Although there are no references to dignity in the founding documents of the United States, assumptions in the Preamble and Declaration of Independence are assumptions that human beings are special forms of life, that is, beings with dignity and rights. To bring the concept of dignity into the twenty-first century, three levels of dignity are described. Each level is a form of biotic dignity. Plastic behavior in overcoming obstacles, a social life involving care for at least some others, and autonomy are the three levels. Human beings possess each of the three levels, forming a kind of enhanced dignity. The abilities necessary for autonomy in the sense of designing one’s life are enumerated, with a focus on bracketing and formation of regards. A biotic community is without a doubt an incredibly rare phenomenon in the cosmos.
Alexander Wilson, writing in American Ornithology early in the 1800s states … that ivory billed woodpeckers “have dignity” as they soar above their homes high up in giant cypress trees. (Cited by Edward O. Wilson, The Future of Life (New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 2002). 104)
Cited by E. O. Wilson
An endless caravan of generations has built of its own bones this bridge into the future, this habitat where the oncoming host may again live and breed and die … His tribe, we now know, stems out of the remote Eocene … He is the symbol of our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of millennia which underlies and conditions the daily affairs of birds and men … a crane marsh holds a paleontological patent of nobility. (Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac With Essays on Conservation from Round River (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966), 102–103)
Aldo Leopold
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Notes
- 1.
Portions of this dignity chapter were taken from Michael H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, cited earlier.
- 2.
Some of these conditions: 1. Atomic elements necessary for chemical replication; 2. A stable, external source of energy; 3. Water; 4. Absence of crushing gravity, lethal radiation or prohibitive cold or heat; a source of energy such as solar, chemical or lightning.
- 3.
This is proto-intentionality, directedness outward. See W. Tecumseh Fitch, “Nano-Intentionality—A Defense of Intrinsic Intentionality,” Biology and Philosophy 23 (2008): 157–177.
- 4.
William James, The Principles of Psychology, Vol. I. (New York: Dover Publications, 1950), 8. This is James’ position on knowledge of other minds as well. See Michael DeArmey, “William James and Other Minds,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, XX (1982): 325–336.
- 5.
The Future of Life, 131.
- 6.
Biotic dignity is in some detail in Chap. 3 of my Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World. Darwin himself held that creatures which are social have a greater survival value as compared to ‘single’ individuals.
- 7.
Joel Feinberg, “Autonomy,” in The Inner Citadel. Essays on Individual Autonomy. John Christman editor (New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989), 27–53.
- 8.
The Principles of Psychology, Volume I, 298–299.
- 9.
Alfred R. Mele, Autonomous Agents. From Self-Control to Autonomy (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
- 10.
William James, The Principles of Psychology 2 vols. (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1890), 1, 459.
James says, “The mind can always intend, and know when it intends, to think of the Same.”
- 11.
G. F. Kroustov, “Formation and Highest Frontier of the Implemental Activity of Anthropoids,” reprinted in Phillip V. Tobias, The Brain in Hominid Evolution (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1971), 123. He says, “the decisive step of using a tool to make a tool was impossible for the ape under these experimental conditions.” The neural basis for the epoche may be inhibition of some neural processes by other neural processes. See Bjorn Albrecht et al, “Response inhibition deficits in externalizing child psychiatric disorders: An ERP-study with the Stop-task,” Behavioral and Brain Functions, 2005, 1: 22. This is an online journal: www.behavioralandbrainfunctions.com. Behavioral inhibition may be separated into three interrelated processes called “inhibition of the initial prepotent response to an event,” “stopping of an ongoing response” and “interference control.”
- 12.
Peter Gảrdenfors cites with approval A. M. Glenberg’s theory of detached representations: “The suppression of information coming in from reality … [is] Probably performed by the frontal lobe of the brain where planning, fantasizing, and executive control functions take place.” We can, Gảrdenfors says, “quarantine” reality. Peter Gảrdenfors, How Homo Became Sapiens. On the Evolution of Thinking (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 2003), quoting A. M. Glenberg, “What Memory Is For,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20 (1997): 1–19. It is probable that there are two selective pressures in hominid evolution that created the ability to bracket. Selective pressure directed hominids not only in the manufacture of tools but also to ‘mind-reading’ among interacting members of a group struggling to cooperate in dividing up tasks. Mark Rowlands notes that this latter also opens the door to deception, for him a characteristic of primates. See his The Philosopher and the Wolf, Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death and Happiness (New York: Pegasus Books), 75ff.
- 13.
Cited in Ralph Barton Perry, The Thought and Character of William James 2 vols. (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1935), 2, 369. Hubert Dreyfus would find favor in James as a proponent of “pluralistic realism.” Dreyfus says, “I want to be a plural realist … There are a lot of different descriptions of reality, and several of them … can get it right.” “Starting Points: An Interview with Hubert Dreyfus,” The Harvard Review of Philosophy, XIII (1), 2005, 146.
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DeArmey, M.H. (2023). The Dignity of Human Beings as Members of the Biotic Community. In: The Constitution of the United States Revised and Updated. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40426-9_16
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