Dignity and rank for the memory of Gregory Vlastos (1907-1991)

This paper considers the meaning conveyed by the term "dignity" in human rights discourse. It considers various ambiguities associated with the term (e.g. Does it describe the content or the ground of certain rights?) as well as alternative accounts of the kind of meaning that "dignity" has (descriptive or evaluative, technical or ordinary-language). The second part of the paper argues that the distinctive contribution that "dignity" makes to human rights discourse is associated, paradoxically, with the idea of rank: once associated with hierarchical differentiations of rank and status, "dignity" now conveys the idea that all human persons belong to the same rank and that, that rank is a very high one indeed, in many ways as high as what were formerly regarded as ranks of nobility.