Dignity, sacredness and justice Global perspectives

In our plural world, human dignity is often seen as a yardstick for glo balethics, and prominent scholars like John Rawls have framed theirunderstanding of justice in a concept of human dignity. Secular liberalism hasinsisted that dignity is to be conceived of as a purely secular concept.Theological voices have pointed to religious roots and/or dimensions ofmodern notions of dignity. The term sacred appears to occupy a space inbetween, since notions of the sacred have proven to continue to resonate evenin those spheres of culture that can rightly be described as secularised. Thepaper will argue that the concept of sacred can build bridges between secularand religious conceptions of the ultimate foundation of ethics

Keywords:

human dignity , global ethics , sacredness , justice