The focus of this study is dignity in low status service work. Using labels such as bad jobs, McJobs and dirty work, these jobs have been described as low-skilled, low-paid, monotonous and physically demanding with lack of voice and no job security. Research on dignity at work is especially relevant in a time when different ambitions for more dignified work, initiated by political parties as well as unions, tend to be forgotten or down-prioritized. This study investigates what conditions are preventing dignity among low status service workers and how they create and maintain dignity for themselves. What briefly has been found is that dignity can be prevented by unreasonable demands, constant control, exposed work and mismanagement. Moreover, customerprerogative can prevent dignity when employees are being mistreated by disrespectful customers. Dignity is also hindered by frightening customers, especially in the case of sexual harassment, threats and violence. In this study theories about working conditions and professional status are brought together to explain experiences of dignity at work. Service workers do not only have managers to deal with, but also customers whose treatment is reflected by the status of the service occupation. Besides, working conditions and professional status are two mechanisms acting together when it comes to experiences of dignity at work and may thus result in double tensions in daily work.   Acts for dignity, meaning different ways in which the service workers create and maintain dignity for themselves, are reactions to the obstacles to dignity at work. Three different categories of acts for dignity can be found. The identity-bolstering acts help the workers maintain their professional identity or self-image when it is threatened by different obstacles to dignity. The justifying acts mean that the workers legitimize different obstacles to dignity. Finally, the compensating acts help the workers to even out different obstacles to dignity. / I denna studie fokuseras värdighet i serviceyrken längst ner i statushierarkin. De anställda behöver här hantera påfrestande arbetsförhållanden och brist på inflytande, men också servicemöten där kunders bemötande bottnar i samhällets nedvärderande syn på lågstatusyrken. Servicearbetarnas upplevelser av värdighet sker i interaktion med såväl chef som kund och i studien sammanförs teorier om både arbetsvillkor och yrkesstatus för att förklara hur värdighet hindras i servicearbete. Trots olika hinder är servicearbetarnas strävan efter värdighet central och genom denna skapar och upprätthåller de värdighet i mötet med chef och kund. I studien presenteras tre kategorier av värdighetshandlingar. Identitetsfrämjande värdighetshandlingar hjälper den anställda att bevara sin bild av sig själv i arbetet när den hotas av olika värdighetshinder. Rättfärdigande värdighetshandlingar innebär istället att den anställda legitimerar eller förnekar olika värdighetshinder medan kompenserande värdighetshandlingar avser att väga upp för värdighetshinder. Annorlunda uttryckt kan värdighetshandlingarna beskrivas genom att de anställda skyddar sig från, omdefinierar respektive strider mot olika hinder för värdighet.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2003. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: While most people acknowledge the dignity of fellow humans, atrocities that deny the dignity of people are rampant in our world. The ongoing ignorance and aberrations of the dignity of human beings in the world might mean that there is still not clarity on what respect for the dignity of others really mean, how it should be practiced and whether human dignity is an entitlement or a responsibility. Human dignity was not always bestowed to every individual. In ancient times dignity was reserved for the strongest individual in and later was extended to certain classes, groups and nations like the monarchy and clergy, the Egyptians and Romans. The Renaissance brought a new consciousness of the worth of man. But despite this awareness, and the advent of a human rights culture as is found in the writings of modem philosophers like John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant, who all support the notion of human dignity, liberty and human rights, gross human rights violations still took place during the twentieth century. Stalin used the Russian people to create a successful socialistic state; Hitler exterminated all those who obstructed his ideal of creating a pure Aryan race, while Verwoerd legalized racial discrimination in South Africa and Namibia. As a result of the atrocities in Europe, especially during World War II, The United Nations was established with the aim to oversee and address human rights violations in the world. Human rights and respect for human dignity are included in the Bill of rights of the Constitutions of America, South Africa and Namibia. Health care providers acknowledge the rights of patients by respect for the autonomy of patients. Patients are autonomous persons and health care providers enable patients to take autonomous action. Autonomous action means that a patient will act with understanding, intention and without coercion. Paternalism is only justified when it serves to protect the patient or protect the rights of others. Health care providers practice autonomy by facilitating informed consent, by providing truthful information, by upholding confidentiality, to protect privacy of patients and to treat patients with respect. There is little uncertainty that people can claim the right to human dignity because persons have intrinsic worth as unique beings that are irreplaceable and exist as an end in themselves. Holy Scripture confirms that humans are created in the image of God. International human rights instruments and national constitutions provide people with the statutory right to human dignity and enable people to legally claim this right. But human dignity is also a responsibility because claiming a right has a reciprocal obligation on others not to violate the claimed right, but also requires from persons to value their own lives. Over reliance on science and rational thinking may negate human dignity because scientists do not always consider the needs of persons. The examples of world leaders like Gandhi, King and Mandela have also shown that one can earn human dignity through respectful conduct towards others. Protagoras of Abdera was aware of human worthiness as right and responsibility as long back as the fifth century Be, and this awareness still exists today. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Ten spyte daarvan dat meeste mense die menswaardigheid van ander erken, misken gruweldade in die wereld steeds die waardigheid van baie mense. Die miskenning van menswaardigheid mag beteken dat daar steeds onduidelikheid is oor wat respek vir die menswaardigheid van ander werklik beteken, hoe dit gepraktiseer moet word en of menswaardigheid 'n reg of 'n verantwoordelikheid is. Menswaardigheid was nie altyd aan alle persone verleen nie. In die antieke beskawing was menswaardigheid grootliks gereserveer vir die sterker persone, en later vir sekere klasse, groepe en nasies, soos die monargie en geestelikes, die Egiptenare en Romeine. Die Renaissance het 'n nuwe bewuswording van menswaardigheid gebring. Maar ten spyte van hierdie bewuswording en die koms van die menseregtekultuur is die werk van moderne filosowe soos John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau en Immanuel Kant, wat almal die gedagte van menswaardigheid, vryheid en menseragte ondersteun, het gruwellike menseregte skendings steeds plaasgevind gedurende die twintigste eeu. Stalin het die Russiese volk gebruik om 'n suksesvolle sosialistiese staat te skep, Hitler het probeer om almal wat sy ideaal bedreig het om 'n egte nie-Joodse Kaukasiese nasie te skep, te vermoor, terwyl Verwoerd rassediskriminasie gewettig het in Suid-Afrika en Namibië. As gevolg van die gruweldade in Europa, veral gedurende die Tweede Wereldoorlog, het die Verenigde Nasies tot stand gekom om die menseregteskendings in die wereld te monitor en aan te spreek. Die Konstitusies van Amerika, Suid-Afrika en Namibië, erken menseregte en die respek vir menswaardigheid. Ook in gesondheidsorg word die regte van die pasiënt beskerm deur die beginsel van respek vir die outonomie van pasiënte. Pasiënte is outonome persone en gesondheidsorg werkers maak dit moontlik vir pasiënte om outonome handelinge uit te voer. Outonome handelinge beteken dat die pasiënt sal handel met intensie en sonder dwang en dat die handeling ten volle verstaan word. Paternalisme is alleen geregverdig wanneer dit die regte van die pasiënt of ander persone beskerm. Gesondheidsorg werkers fasiliteer outonomie van pasiënte deur ingeligte toestemming te verkry, pasiënte nie te mislei nie, vertroulikheid te handhaaf, privaatheid van die pasiënt te verseker en deur pasiënte te respekteer. Daar is min onsekerheid dat persone op die reg tot menswaardigheid kan aanspraak maak want mense het inherente waarde as mense wat nie vervang kan word nie en wat in hulself 'n bestaansdoel het. Die Skrif bevestig dat die mens na die beeld van God geskape is. Internasionale menseregte instrumente en nasionale konstitusies maak voorsiening vir die wettige reg tot menswaardigheid en maak dit vir mense moontlik om wettiglik op hierdie reg aanspraak te maak. Mense het egter nie net 'n reg tot menswaardigheid nie maar ook 'n verantwoordelikheid. Aanspraak op 'n reg tot menswaardigheid impliseer 'n wedersydse verantwoordelikheid dat ander die reg nie mag skend nie, maar vereis ook die verantwoordelikheid dat persone waarde aan hul eie lewens sal heg. Oorwaardering van die wetenskap en rasionaliteit mag ook menswaardigheid ontken, omdat menslike behoeftes nie altyd in ag geneem word deur wetenskaplikes nie. Voorbeelde van wêreldleiers soos Gandhi, King en Mandela bewys dat menswaardigheid ook verwerf kan word deur ander respekvol te behandel. Protagoras of Abdera was reeds in die vyfde eeu voor Christus bewus van menswaardigheid as reg en verantwoordelikheid, en hierdie bewussyn is steeds geldig vandag.

published_or_final_version / Law / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Värdighet är en viktig del i omvårdnaden som ofta negligeras. Värdigheten hotas i ögonblicket då patienten inkommer till vårdavdelningen. Trots ett behov finns det inga klara riktlinjer för hur sjuksköterskan ska handla i bevarandet av patienters värdighet. En litteraturstudie som utgår från humanvetenskapen genomfördes för att få djupare kunskap och förståelse om bevarande av värdighet hos patienter. Syftet var att beskriva hur patienters värdighet bevaras inom omvårdnad. Databearbetningen genomfördes som en innehållsanalys med stöd av fyra betjänter. Studiens resultat grundar sig på tio vetenskapliga artiklar, där ett övergripande tema framkom som var existentiell längtan. Ur resultatet framkom det att sjuksköterskans bemötande är en viktig aspekt i bevarandet av patienters värdighet. Även att se patienter ur ett holistiskt synsätt, värna om patienters autonomi och persona, visa respekt och stötta patienter i sin försoningsprocess är att vårda för att bevara värdigheten. Det är av betydelse att sjuksköterskan tänker på patientens värdighet i omvårdnadens alla moment. Evidensbaserad forskning om hur värdighet bevaras är knapphändig. Vidare forskning krävs för att utveckla och integrera kunskap i utbildning och i det professionella vårdandet. / Dignity is an essential part of caring which often is neglected. The dignity is threatened the moment the patient arrives at the ward. Altough there is an existing need, there are no clear guidelines for the nurse to know how to preserve their patients’ dignity. A literature study with human science as a base was conducted to gain deeper knowledge and understanding about the preservation of dignity. The aim was to identify how patients’ dignity is preserved in nursing. The data was analysed through a content analysis with support of four butlers and the result of the study is based on ten scientific papers. A theme was illuminated which was existential longing. Through the result it was clear that the nurses’ apperance is a great aspect in preservation of patients’ dignity. To see patients from an holistic view, nurture their autonomy and persona, show respect and support reconciliation is a way of nursing to preserve dignity. It is of importance that the nurse considers the patients’ dignity through all the moments of nursing. Science based on evidence on how to preserve dignity is scarce. Therefore, more research is required to develop and integrate knowledge in academic education and clinical practice.

Kant famously claims that autonomy is the ground of dignity. If he is correct about the grounding relationship, then doubts about our autonomy entail doubts about our dignity. Here, I attempt to show that Kant is sensitive to this problem, and invokes the ‘fact of reason’ (Faktum der Vernunft) as the key piece of evidence for our autonomy, and therefore our dignity. But as is well known, Kant’s appeal to the Faktum is controversial. After presenting an exegetical case for the connection between dignity and the fact of reason, I respond to two prominent criticisms of Kant’s strategy in the Critique of Practical Reason in attempt to defend Kant’s use of the Faktum, and hence to preserve his conception of the dignity of humanity.

[pt] O Brasil possui uma vasta legislação que trata de direitos fundamentais, principalmente a partir da promulgação da Constituição Federal, em outubro de 1988. A Lei Maior, depois de um longo período de exceção, garantiu uma gama enorme de direitos individuais e coletivos, e isto foi da mais valiosa importância, pois possibilitou direitos e não favores. Mas esta normatização não alcança a efetividade que se espera de uma legislação. Existe um vazio, um profundo abismo entre esta normatização, fruto das lutas históricas e constantes da sociedade civil organizada e a sua efetividade. Tento pensar e apontar caminhos que podem ser as causas deste distanciamento, deste vazio que existe entre normatização e efetivação. Da mesma forma que Direitos Humanos são uma construção humana, assim esta conquista de sua efetivação também vai ser fruto de uma construção, forjada nas lutas do povo organizado e sedento de garantia de seus direitos. / [en] Brazil has a vast legislation that treats fundamental rights, principally from the promulgation of the Federal Constitution, in October 1988. After a long period of exception, the Constitution guaranteed a large number of individual and collective rights, and this fact was of great importance, because it allowed of rights and not favors. But these rules do not reach the effectiveness expected of a law. There is a vacuum, a deep abyss between these rules, the result of historical and constant struggles of the organized civil society, and their effectiveness. I try to think about and to point to the possible causes of this distance, of this emptiness that exists between the rules and their effectiveness. In the same way that human rights are a human construction, the achievement of their effectiveness will also be the result of a construction, forged in the struggles of the organized people in search of the guarantee of their rights.

Thesis advisor: David M. Rasmussen / In this dissertation I argue for an approach that conceives human rights as both moral and legal rights. The merit of such an approach is its capacity to understand human rights more in terms of the kind of world free and reasonable beings would like to live in rather than simply in terms of what each individual is legally entitled to. While I acknowledge that every human being has the moral entitlement to be granted living conditions that are conducive to a dignified life, I maintain, at the same time, that the moral and legal aspects of human rights are complementary and should be given equal weight. The legal aspect compensates for the limitations of moral human rights the observance of which depends on the conscience of the individual, and the moral aspect tempers the mechanical and inhumane application of the law. Unlike the traditional or orthodox approach, which conceives human rights as rights that individuals have by virtue of their humanity, and the political or practical approach, which understands human rights as legal rights that are meant to limit the sovereignty of the state, the moral-legal approach reconciles law and morality in human rights discourse and underlines the importance of a legal framework that compensates for the deficiencies in the implementation of moral human rights. It not only challenges the exclusively negative approach to fundamental liberties but also emphasizes the necessity of an enforcement mechanism that helps those who are not morally motivated to refrain from violating the rights of others. Without the legal mechanism of enforcement, the understanding of human rights would be reduced to simply framing moral claims against injustices. Many traditional human rights theorists failed to reconcile the moral and legal aspects of human rights. That is why Jürgen Habermas, whose approach to human rights provides the guiding intuition of this dissertation, has been criticized for approaching human rights from a legal point of view, especially in Between Facts and Norms. Most of Habermas’s critics overlooked his goal in the project of reconstructing law. Habermas addresses the question of the legitimacy of modern law by finding good arguments for a law to be recognized as right and just. For him, modern law has two sources of legitimacy: human rights and popular sovereignty. He affirms their mutual presupposition in a system of rights within a constitutional democracy. In order to grasp Habermas’s moral considerations in his account of human rights, one has to go beyond Between Facts and Norms. That is why the relationship Habermas establishes between law and morality should constitute the starting point in understanding the moral dimension of human rights in his account of human rights. That relationship is clarified in the discussion on the interdependence between human rights and human dignity. Human dignity provides the ground from which human rights are interpreted and justified. Human dignity is the standpoint from which individuals can claim rights from one another on the basis of mutual respect. Because of human dignity, members of a political community can live as free and equal citizens. In order to achieve such a goal, there must be structures that facilitate social integration. Thus, the existence of a strong civil society that can stimulate discussion in the public sphere and promote a vigilant citizenry and respect for human rights becomes very important. The protection of human rights becomes a common and shared responsibility. Such a responsibility goes beyond the boundaries of nation-states and requires the establishment of a cosmopolitan human rights regime based on the conviction that all human beings are members of a community of fate and that they share common values which transcend the limits of their individual states. In a cosmopolitan human rights regime, people are protected as persons and not as citizens of a particular state. The realization of such a regime requires solidarity and the politics of compassion. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Thesis (M.A.) --University of Limpopo, 2012 / The study deals with ubuntu as reflected in the selected novels of Magau, A.W and Maumela, E.T. Qualitative research method was employed. The study has discovered that ubuntu appears in many forms in Tshivenḓa such as respect for the dignity and worth of human beings, honesty, compassion, solidarity, generosity and forgiveness and reconciliation. The findings also reveal that Tshivenḓa puts more emphasis on activities which signify ubuntu than material wealth. The study also found that there are activities that are emical to ubuntu such as disrespect, dishonesty, cruelty, selfishness and greed and lack of forgiveness and reconciliation. Ubuntu occupies a central position amongst the Vhavenḓa and anyone who negates what ubuntu promotes and upholds has been regarded as non-human.

The spiritual care provided by nurses is not obvious. The literature on spiritual care within the context of palliative care nursing is sparse and contradictory. None of the research is from the Canadian perspective. Thus, this project examined the meanings made by palliative care nurses as they provided spiritual care to people who were dying at home. This qualitative study utilized the methodology of the naturalistic inquiry. From a population of 47 Canadian palliative care nurses who provided home nursing in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, six nurses participated in semi-structured conversations about their experience of providing spiritual care within the context of palliative care. Three major themes emerged : the nurses' focus of spiritual care on the time surrounding the dying and the death; the nurses' beliefs about spirituality, religion, and their own work; and the nurses' evaluation of their caregiving as evidenced by the 'Good Death'. The nature of the nurses' spiritual care was of guiding, doing the unusual, relating to distress as well as relating to the one cared-for with love and friendship. The nature of the spiritual care is discussed from the perspective of caring as moral grounding and cultural imperative. Consideration is given to empowering nurses through liberating the ethic of care. What the nurses know about spiritual caregiving is looked at through the framework of the art of nursing, the nurses' beliefs about spirituality, and the hidden work of nursing. As well, the nurses' evaluation of their spiritual caregiving resulting in 'good death' and 'death with dignity' is explored. Noting incongruence between the nurses' personal beliefs and religiosity and what they want for their patients, the author offers the possibility that caregiving itself has become the religious expression of the nurses. Implications for nursing encompass the education of nurses, the practice of nursing, as well as the inclusion of nursing knowledge at the policy and budgetary levels. Nursing education must change, from talking about wholistic care, to teaching how to care for the whole person by including care of the spirit in the curriculum. Nurses who have knowledge and experience in caring for spiritual distress need to share their knowledge and start the process of mentoring other nurses into the practice of truly wholistic care. As well, nurses must become advocates and educators at the institutional and governing levels in order that human needs, including spiritual needs, are included in the decision making about health care policy and budgets / Master of Nursing (Hons)

<p>The aim of this work is to present and examine the ruling on which the Colombian Constitutional Court declared the blanket criminalization of induced abortion to be unconstitutional: ruling C-355/061; all of this based in the understanding I have achieved of the Courts’ reasoning.</p><p>In the first section I will present the norms that constituted the blanket prohibition of abortion, as well as the likely situation of its practice, both by the time the Constitutional Court took up the analysis of the former. This will provide a good understanding of the importance of the ruling and its starting point. In the second section I will put forth the general nature of the Court and its rulings, inscribed in the Colombian social, political and legal transformation brought by the 1991 constitutional change. I will also bring in the specific decisions the Court made regarding the conditioned constitutionality of induced abortion and the unconstitutionality of the legal expression that equated an abortion performed on a woman less than fourteen years of age to an abortion without consent, thus punishing it harder than a consented one. Such verdict is the starting point of an effort to trace, present and examine the ethical arguments the Court has woven to reach it, all of which will be undertaken in the third section.</p><p>In the fourth section I shall elaborate on two of the common ethical elements that work as corner stones for the Court’s arguments: human dignity and the belief that fundamental rights and constitutional protected goods are not absolute; I will particularly point out how they play a role in the Court’s argumentation. As a conclusion I will offer a final general appraisal of the Court’s work.</p>