# Contested concept: Human Dignity

_**What you are reading**: one contested-concept page in Deliberus's deliberation graph. Deliberus maps human reasoning — including claims that are contested, mistaken, or extreme — so that disagreement can be examined precisely. A claim's presence here is not an endorsement: the graph records that someone argued it, how it connects to other reasoning, and how far scrutiny has gotten. The metadata on this page describes the state of that scrutiny, not the truth of the claim._

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- **Contestedness**: criterion
- **Diagnosis**: This masks a disagreement between two views of human dignity: one as the right to be treated as a responsible agent (retributive autonomy) vs. one as a right to be free from state-sanctioned killing (inherent right to life/bodily integrity).
- **Canonical**: `/concept/Human Dignity` (data: `/concept/Human Dignity.json`)

## Senses in use
- **Dignity as agency: respect for the criminal's humanity by treating them as a responsible, rational actor who is accountable for their choices.** — used in 2 claim(s)
- **Dignity as inviolability: the inherent value of human life that is violated by state execution, regardless of the individual's criminal actions.** — used in 1 claim(s)

## Claims using this term
- [Philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and G.F.W. Hegel argued that when execution is a deserved punishment, it affirms the convicted individua…](/claim/claim_05b195fafbeb.md) _(sense: Dignity as agency: respect for the criminal's humanity by treating them as a responsible, rational actor who is accountable for their choices.)_
- [For individuals who believe that capital punishment is inherently unjust even when applied correctly to the guilty, the possibility of misc…](/claim/claim_3fa4e01f601d.md) _(sense: Dignity as inviolability: the inherent value of human life that is violated by state execution, regardless of the individual's criminal actions.)_
- [Life imprisonment may violate human dignity more than the death penalty, because it keeps an individual alive while depriving them of all a…](/claim/claim_7aae6ad9c692.md) _(sense: Dignity as agency: respect for the criminal's humanity by treating them as a responsible, rational actor who is accountable for their choices.)_