Dignity as a quasi-evaluative concept: A response to the naturalistic fallacy by John Finnis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21527/2317-5389.2023.21.12512Keywords:
dignity, normativeness, metaphysicAbstract
The article intend to make a critique the function of the concept of dignity within the theory by John Finnis, rigorously examining its pressupposition and normative limits. It comes to the conclusion that a dignity cannot be called really normative in the theory of the natural law of Finnis, but that, following an approximation of Waldron's terminology, it has an quasi-evaluative function, which consists in being a founding element of the requirements reasonableness and other grounds, limiting the normativity of ethical and legal commands, without being directly normative. For this, the Article’s first part presents two moments of the Finnis’s theory about dignity, the first less metaphysical and the second declaredly dependent on metaphysical assumptions. In the second part, it presents the critical positions of Finnis’s theory, which are relevant to the debate on dignity. Finally, it exposes the central thesis, that dignity is not directly normative, but only quasi-evaluative.
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