Human dignity is making a comeback. The essay focuses on the story that this
comeback of human dignity presupposes and recasts. In that story, the “human
family” is portrayed in terms of aristocratic dignitas. The
consequences are twofold: (1) human dignity is co-implicated with the
de-animalization of the human being; (2) once de-animalization is introduced,
the story of human dignity cultivates an aristocratic sense of elevation of the
human over other species, or what I will call “species aristocratism.” The fact
that a new kind of aristocratism based on species emerges from the story of
human dignity should concern us, I suggest, because it not only confronts us
with unintended consequences of relying on human dignity as the foundation of
human rights but also invites us to rethink our contemporary egalitarian,
democratic ethos, understood as aristocracy for all.
