Human Rights and Dignity

Can the Durkheimian concept of moral individualism (or the ‘cult of the individual’) help to clarify the practical scope and significance of ideas of human rights and dignity? Can it be a basis for explaining sociologically the place these ideas occupy (and, perhaps, should occupy) in contemporary societies? Can the sociology of individualism, as Durkheim thought, provide normative, juristically relevant guidance for the societies to which it is intended to apply? On the one hand, it explains historically some sources of a humanistic idealism which may be impossible to reflect in law in contemporary advanced Western societies. On the other hand, it shows sociologically in what ways this idealism can be scaled down to juristically manageable proportions and how it must be legally focused. This chapter considers Durkheim’s ideas about moral individualism in order to show their potential, as well as their limitations, as a framework for critical assessment of contemporary ideas of human rights and human dignity.