Plurality of voices: the guarantee of human dignity

Abstract

The objective of this investigation is to understand which aspects of the human condition are fundamental to ensure dignity to the human being. Such reflections will be theoretically based on the work of contemporary philosopher Hannah Arendt. Initially we discuss human dignity from a negative bias, that is, its absence. Therefore, we present human spontaneity and its annihilation in authoritarian governments, which hinder the existence of spaces of human appearance, that is, spaces authentically public in which action and speech are present. Then, we will analyze the usurpation of human rights of a part of the population expelled from the condition of belonging to a political community. The discussion about authoritarian governments, however, is only meant as an example, without the intent to deepen or rebuild these historically. Thus, from the reflection about the absence of dignity, we will analyze the elements that are peculiar to ensuring the dignity of men and women who make up the human community, namely: singularization, i.e., individuation accomplished by speech in human space of appearance, space in which one favors the plurality of views and action, and friendship cultivated by dialog and guarantor of the quality of what is human.