Human Dignity: Contemporary Pattern and Traditional Patterns (Revista Brasileira de Direito; vol. 11, no. 2)

The concept of human dignity refers to the intrinsic and absolute value of human beings and repre- sents the grounding human rights. Those features are usually studied as if they were the results, in the history of Western thought, of the progressive recognition of the human moral value. Our work aims to show precisely the contrary, showing some clear differencies between the current paradigm of human dignity and the previous and traditional patterns of dignity. Thus, the basic features of each (current and previous) pattern are analyzed in order to show that the contemporary paradigm of human dignity as little in common with the previous paradigms of dignity.