Human Dignity and the Law: A Personalist Theory

This book reassesses the relationship between human dignity, law, and specifically the ’personalist’ school of agency.

The work argues that a specific way of appreciating dignity is contained in how law understands the person, and so can be used to improve upon how we explain and interpret the law. Despite considerable differences between jurisdictions as regards human dignity in application, it is argued that the particular weight of human persons is the widely shared focal point. The central claim, therefore, is that the law recognises, and tries to foster, the status of personhood, and, drawing on the work of Karol Wojtyla, the author develops a ’Status of Personhood Theory’.

The book will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of Legal Philosophy, Jurisprudence, Philosophy, Ethics and Political Theory.

Michal Rupniewski is Assistant Professor (adiunkt) at the University of Lodz, Faculty of Law and Administration, Department of Political and Legal Doctrines, Poland. He is Associate at the Alexis de Tocqueville Centre for Political and Legal Thought, Poland. Professor Rupniewski has participated in courses and stipends at the universities of Bonn, Strasbourg, and Fordham. He served as guest lecturer at the Universidad Panamericana in Mexico City. His chief scholarly interest is political philosophy’s influence on legal interpretation and legislation. In particular, he specialises in political liberalism, personalism, human dignity and law, as well as in theory of legal change.