A comprehensive analysis of the uses of ‘human dignity’ in American law would be an extraordinary undertaking. To do so responsibly would require a systematic discussion of a massive array of sources of law. It would also require exploration of a diverse expanse of legal disciplines.

The aspiration of the present chapter is more modest. It aims to offer a brief survey of how ‘human dignity’ has (and has not) gained purchase in the American legal landscape. To that end, first, the chapter will offer a necessarily cursory reflection on the contested definition of ‘human dignity.’ Next it will follow a discussion of how human dignity has made its way into American law. This discussion will examine those subject-matter areas that feature human dignity as a legal concept, and will identify possible legal conceptual analogues in the American system (for example, liberty and equality).

Which sense of ‘dignity’?

It is necessary briefly to identify two of the principal competing definitions of ‘human dignity’ in order to better understand its usage in American law. A useful way to divide the manifold approaches to human dignity is to distinguish those conceptions that treat dignity as a contingent human quality from those that regard it as an intrinsic attribute of human beings.