The Action ‘Making Humans: Human Dignity in 19th century France’ (HuDig19), explores how human dignity was used in nineteenth-century France. While today this notion is used to justify the equality of all human beings, and is defined as the cornerstone the rule of law, in nineteenth-century France, the opposite was taking place. Indeed, human dignity was used to conceal injustices and to justify inequalities. The reason why human dignity had such a different meaning comes from the fact that it was not understood as a moral principle or a legal value, as it is commonly understood in our current political systems. Human dignity was first and foremost conceived as an inner feeling, namely, the actual awareness of how a human being should behave in society. Human dignity was therefore tied to a specific "emotional regime", where emotions and behaviour suchs as self-mastery, empathy, work ethics and civility were praised. Consequently, only those who had such awareness where fully "humans".
Nowadays, human dignity refers to the absolute and equal worthiness of all human beings. It is the cornerstone of the international human rights regime and a basic principle of E.U nations. It is also a fundamental criterion in privacy law, bioethics and AI regulation. This sharp contrast with its previous use in nineteenth-century France is critical for our current democratic societies since it reveals two fundamental aspects. On the one hand, the intuition according to which human beings should be equally respected is much more recent (and fragile) as one would imagine. Second, the category of the "human" is not per se progressive and equalitarian. It depends on other social and cultural elements that will provide its political orientation.
The Objectives of the Action have been to (a) show how, in the 19th century, human dignity was relevant in the making of people's moral character, the latter being understood as a key element for the progress of a nation; (b) to demonstrate how human dignity relied on a twofold process: some (e.g bourgeoisie) were humanity, while others (e.g colonized nations, women, working class) had an incomplete humanity; and (c) to conceive our currrent and future struggles for equality and justice, as new forms of "politics of dignity". Taking into account the rapid changes regarding climate change and new technologies in our post-pandemic times, these objectives (c), have gained a greater relevance during the Action.
