It’s something to travel to Birmingham on a very hot Sunday, when I could have been sitting comfortably in the garden or - more likely - in the shade relaxing. So it had to be good. And it was.

In fact ten of us met up in the Shakespeare Memorial Library in Birmingham’s Central Library to have a conversation about human dignity. Human dignity is foundational to human rights. The opening sentence of the Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins:

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world…

The National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the UK had called this conversation group together to begin to map out the territory of the multi-dimensional concept of human dignity with a particular focus on the spiritual dimension. The aim was to begin to develop a discourse on human dignity and human rights from a Baha’i perspective that can be used in different settings.

The conversation was long and very rich, with varied perspectives from a clinical psychologist, a psychotherapist, an assisted fertility consultant, someone involved in a Baha’i-inspired and run youth empowerment project, a media person with many years of experience, someone who runs a project for asylum seekers in the East Midlands, a diversity trainer for the police, the development officer for a national interfaith organization, and someone who has great experience bringing up children. Of these, four were members of our National Spiritual Assembly. The conversation was deeply informed by the Baha’i Writings, by these various perspectives, and by quotations from human rights texts and the experience of one member of the group whose work focuses a great deal on human rights.

I was particularly touched by a quote from one human rights text:

The key point has been to recognize what at its core our subject is about, what the essence is from which all else flows. We have seen that at its heart, the idea of human rights is two-dimensional. There is the absolute side ? the moral wrongness of cruelty and humiliation, and there is also the ? perhaps less but nevertheless essential ? dedication to human flourishing. The two are linked in that each flows from a commitment to human dignity, which is in turn manifested in acts of compassion towards the other. In its prohibitory form, this demands that we do not degrade our fellow humans by depersonalising them. The positive side, stressing growth and personal success, sees human rights as radically pluralist in the hospitality towards others ? rather than mere tolerance of them ? that its underlying ethic demands. Viewed as a whole, therefore, human rights is an idea that both protects us as persons and enables us to grow at the same time.? [Conor Gearty, Can Human Rights Survive? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 140?1.]

I think we were all touched by the understanding that a vital aspect of human rights is a commitment to human flourishing. As Baha’is, we all felt ourselves committed to human flourishing and growth, since that is precisely what Baha’u'llah’s healing message brings about.

A number of questions were posed to the group. Some were addressed, some not. But that didn’t matter. The conversation was a rich one - and I may return to it in the next day or two.

1. What do we mean by ?human dignity??
2. What do the Bah??? Writings say that has a bearing on human dignity?
3. What are human rights for? What or whom do they protect? And from what?
4. Do we need human rights at all? Would a utilitarian devotion to the greatest happiness of the greatest number do the trick?
5. How, if at all, is human dignity foundational for human rights?
6. Do human rights need a philosophical or metaphysical foundation?
7. What work does the language of ?human dignity? do?
8. Would talk of ?hospitality? and/or ?compassion? do the same work? Or better?
9. What examples can we give of situations in which human dignity is denied?
10. Are these also situations in which human rights are denied?
11. Do we need a theory of human nature to ground human rights? Or will any given theory of human nature exclude from the human rights field those who do not share the theory? (The same question could be asked about metaphysics.)
12. What is the Bah??? theory of human nature?
13. How do human nature and human dignity relate to each other?
14. How do we give a voice to the oppressed?
15. Will we need a theory of human rights and human rights law and jurisprudence in a Bah???-run society?

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