Overview
The objective of Group B03, “Capability Damage and Human Dignity: Ethics and Philosophy in Welfare and Economic Policies”, is to propose a more comprehensive welfare and economic policy from the perspectives of damage to “dignity” and research on the people concerned, by investigating and analyzing the actual conditions of care and poverty policies for people with disabilities or dementia. Specifically, in the field of social welfare such as long-term care policy, disability policy, and poverty policy, our first objective is to theoretically and empirically clarify how to measure and evaluate the “capability for dignity” of people with vulnerability, with the concept of “ethical group” (equal concern and equal respect for each other’s circumstances). As our second objective, we will theoretically and empirically develop methods to measure and evaluate “reciprocal capability” based on the relationship between those who care and those who are cared for.
Research Background
Liberalism has thus far carefully avoided the use of the dignity concept. Such a concept was cautioned as it might invite “Hot Reasoning” （Hervert Alexander Simon） that accompanies cessation of thought and leaps of logic, or that it might drive people toward perfectionism and excellence.
In reality, however, there are scream-like voices of those whose dignity is under threat, both past and present, in wartime and even in peacetime. Also, there are quiet gazes that seek the restoration of dignity even when succumbing to the feelings of “humiliation”. Feelings of “humiliation” arise not only from experiences of suffering such as violence, abuse and neglect, but also from the experience of receiving extensive care, such as nursing and caregiving. The concept of dignity seems to pose something that cannot be captured by the fair distribution of “basic social goods” (Rawls, 1971), which has been the motto of liberalism, such as rights and opportunities, income and wealth, and a social base of self-respect.
For example, Ronald Dworkin, who regarded rights as a “trump” that an individual can exercise defined the “right to dignity” in front of prisoners and dementia patients as follows:
“Dignity” means that one’s personal hygiene is maintained even when it is difficult for one to do so, that one is not forced to live in a crowd that prevents one from enjoying genuine privacy, that one is given a reasonable amount of individual attention and concern, and that one’s words and actions are not ignored by others or sedated into submission. The right to dignity is a fundamental and urgent right that is not dependent on available resources, as is the right to beneficence (Dworkin,1993, 233).
His discussion of dignity seemed to take a step beyond his own position as a defender of liberalism. While respecting the individual as the subject of decision-making, he also actively accepts external intervention to compensate for the individual’s inability and to expand what he/she can do.
But Dworkin’s subsequent discussion of “living will” brings him back to a strict individualistic liberalism. The actual exercise of the right to dignity as the “trump” is left solely to the autonomous decision of the individual. The only thing worse than losing one’s dignity, he says, is not realizing that one has lost it. In his argument, as long as the individual is unaware, it becomes logically impossible for the third party to protect his/her interest when the act of damaging his/her dignity takes place.
Michael Rosen dismisses Dworkin’s argument by linking the realization of the right to dignity to the relationship between the parties concerned. He calls it the right to have one’s dignity respected and explains that we must not be treated with a lack of respect by being humiliated or degraded. He then argues that “we have a basic duty to respect the dignity of humanity,” that “(i)n failing to respect the humanity of others we actually undermine humanity in ourselves” (Rosen, 2012, 157),” and that “(s)uch denials of dignity may clear the psychological pathway to evil” (ibid. 158)”
According to him, the whole point of a demeaning treatment is the attempt to drag the individual down not only from the social position to which he or she belongs, but also from his or her position as a human being, by intervening in seemingly trivial matters, such as “upright gait, wearing of clothes, eating subject to a code of table manners, and defecating and copulating in private” (Rosen, 2012, 160) The ultimate goal is to undermine the victim’s “capacity for dignity”(ibid. 159).
Martha Nussbaum, an advocate of the capability approach, focuses on capability for dignity. Nussbaum says:
The reason why these capabilities [regarding equal voting rights, equal religious liberty, equal access to education, etc.] are intrinsically connected to equal dignity pertains to ideas of non-humiliation and reciprocity that seem peculiarly human (Nussbaum, 2006, 382)
The reason she refers to the notion of “reciprocity” is because the feasibility of equal (human) dignity, such as “not being humiliated,” depends heavily on relationships with others.
Research Question
The academic uniqueness of this study lies in the following points: the distinctive feature of the capability concept is that it captures the objective opportunity set of an individual (subject) while respecting the individual’s freedom of choice. Even if the individual’s achievement point is high, should he/she have had only a narrow range of choice in life, he/she cannot be said to be enjoying abundant freedom.
However, here lies a methodological conundrum that natural, humanistic, and social sciences alike cannot avoid. Is it really possible to estimate an unobservable opportunity set based on an actually observed achievement point (a multidimensional vector)? If we choose a point other than the achievement point, is there any risk that the opportunity set itself will change (what physics calls the “observation problem”)?
Our study addresses this conundrum with the concept of the “ethical group”. The term “ethical group” refers to the maximum unit obtained by accumulating the achievement points of individual members, including oneself, as the “capability of the representative individual of the group”. Operationally, it means that it is at least partially comparable among individuals, e.g., it could demand policies that ensure “basic capability” by focusing on the circumstances of the most disadvantaged person in the group. This idea has high academic originality in that it provides a certain answer to the aforementioned methodological conundrums by rethinking inter-individual comparability not as a factual but as a normative concept.
The creativity of our study lies in the following two points. First, using the concept of dignity as a light source, to illuminate difficult questions that liberalism has postponed in the field of social welfare, such as long-term care policy, disability policy, and poverty policy. To what extent can we leave it to individual autonomy and independence, equality of opportunity and free competitive markets, individual equity and private contractualism? From where should publicness be invoked to achieve unconditional protection, equal consideration and equal respect and consequent equality for all people?
Second, by introducing the concept of dignity, it enables policy proposals that are completely different from conventional ideas in such areas as long-term care policy, disability policy, and poverty policy. For example, if an individual is observed to have a severe loss of self-respect, even though they are deemed physically capable of working, their “capacity for dignity” may not be sufficient, and participation in the labor market may be difficult. This would be a sufficient reason to receive public assistance, such as welfare or employment support, while awaiting recovery.