Enshrining the Principle of Human Dignity in US Law

It is necessary for American democracy to explicitly enshrine the principle of human dignity in the Constitution, possibly through jurisprudence of the Supreme court. Comparative law may provide insight and inspiration for American justices and law-makers. For instance, in EU law, article 1 of the Charter of Fundamental states: "Human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected and protected.". The French Constitutional Council gave the principle of human dignity a constitutional value in 1994 ("Bioethics" ruling). 

Christians in America are theologically obligated to enshrine the principle of human dignity in the Constitution and allow legal translations of this principle in regulations at the state level and the federal level. Theology inspires and provides absolute foundation to social ideas, and these social ideas must enter legal reality. According to Hegel, it is part of the mystery of Incarnation, on an immanent and historical level, to let the Absolute Spirit of Christianity function as Objective Spirit in ethics and law-making. The Law according to Hegel is not simply abstraction or an arbitrary set of rules, it is the effectiveness of freedom and the manifestation of ethical order. Christians in America can deduce from the Bible that human dignity is absolute and unconditional, and from this deduction they are called to legislate and make sure human dignity is protected in society. 

The principle of human dignity is the matrix of fundamental rights and liberties. It is foundational to basic human rights. Torture, forced labor, cruel and degrading treatments are examples of pratices banned in the name of human dignity. However, there are also economic and social implications of the principle of human dignity. For instance, protection from misery, dire necessity, homelessness, denial of healthcare, angst of material insecurity, is justified by the obligation to save human dignity. It is a legal obligation, not simply a moral obligation. In this respect, American democracy may learn from European experience to create a minimum vital and unconditional income to all human persons in the US. This minimum vital and unconditional income, which may be called "income of national solidarity" (in France it is called "Income of Active Solidarity - RSA ", in the UK it is called "Universal Credit"), is designed as a safety net against misery or destitution, to prevent the violation of human dignity. It is not a financially important amount, it is designed to cover the bare necessities in a civilized society, knowing there is no human dignity without material security. This legal progress in the name of human dignity can be pushed by churches and other spiritual structures if the protection of human dignity is acknowledged philosophically and theologically as a social imperative.  

The theological necessity of this constitutional shift finds its bedrock in the doctrine of the Imago Dei as articulated in Genesis 1:27, which asserts that every human being bears the divine likeness. If the American Republic is to remain a "nation under God," it cannot remain indifferent to the systematic degradation of that divine image through the violence of abject poverty. The Old Hegelian synthesis teaches us that the truth of religion must find its externalization in the realm of Objective Spirit, which is the law. To leave the poor to the whims of private charity is to fail the Hegelian requirement that the State be the actualization of the ethical idea. In the American context, this translates to a rigorous reinterpretation of the Ninth Amendment, which declares that the enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. This "silent" constitutional space is where the inherent right to human dignity resides, waiting to be summoned by a judiciary that recognizes that "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" are not merely abstract permissions but require a material substrate to be effective.

The Scriptures provide a mandate that transcends mere philanthropy, for as the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:19, the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. A temple cannot be left to crumble in the streets without committing an act of public sacrilege. Therefore, the provision of a minimum vital income is not a concession to sloth but a recognition of the sanctity of the person. American Protestants, who have historically emphasized the sovereignty of God over all spheres of life, must see that a State which permits destitution is a State that denies the sovereignty of the Creator over the creature. This is the "effectivity of freedom" that Hegel demanded: a freedom that is not just the absence of chains but the presence of the means to act as a rational and moral agent. In the legal history of the United States, the Supreme Court has occasionally touched upon the "basic necessities of life" as seen in cases like Goldberg v. Kelly, yet it has hesitated to bridge the gap between procedural due process and a substantive right to existence. The time has come to argue that under the Fourteenth Amendment, no State shall deprive any person of life or liberty without due process, and that "life" must be understood as a dignified, biological, and spiritual reality that is incompatible with the specter of starvation.

Furthermore, the American tradition of "ordered liberty" is hollow if the order in question produces a class of citizens who are functionally excluded from the community of rights due to material lack. The Gospel of Matthew, specifically the twenty-fifth chapter, warns that the judgment of nations rests upon their treatment of "the least of these." When a nation fails to feed the hungry or clothe the naked through its organized institutions, it rejects the Incarnation as a historical force. The "income of national solidarity" mentioned previously serves as the legal translation of the Christian duty of care into the language of secular right. It ensures that the individual is not swallowed by the "civil society" of competing interests but is instead upheld by the "universal class" of the State. This is the esoteric truth of the Christian State: it is not a theocracy of dogma, but a theater of realized dignity where the Absolute Spirit reflects its own worth in the protection of the humblest citizen. By enshrining dignity as an inviolable principle, American law would finally align its "Objective Spirit" with the highest demands of the Christian conscience, transforming the social contract into a covenant of mutual recognition and shared humanity.

P.S. The "Privileges or Immunities" Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, though historically narrowed by the Slaughter-House Cases of 1873, remains the most intellectually honest textual home for the right to a dignified existence. While the Due Process Clause focuses on the "how" of government action, the Privileges or Immunities Clause addresses the "what" (the substantive rights that belong to every citizen of the United States by virtue of their national citizenship). From an Old Hegelian standpoint, these privileges are the concrete manifestations of the "Subjective Spirit" as it finds its place within the "Objective Spirit" of the State. Citizenship is not a mere administrative category; it is an ethical standing that requires the State to recognize the citizen as an end in themselves. If the American citizen is truly a bearer of the Imago Dei, then the "privilege" of national citizenship must include the right to remain a functioning member of the ethical community, which is impossible in a state of absolute destitution. The Bible reminds us in Galatians 3:28 that "there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free," suggesting a radical equality of status that the State is called to protect. A citizen who is homeless and starving is a citizen who has been stripped of their national standing, reduced to a "bare life" that the Constitution should not tolerate.

By reviving the Privileges or Immunities Clause, we argue that the "Blessings of Liberty" mentioned in the Preamble are not merely negative protections against the State, but positive entitlements to the conditions necessary for a life of dignity. This legal shift would mirror the theological transition from the Law of the Old Testament to the Grace of the New, where the law is not just a restriction but a life-giving spirit. The "income of national solidarity" would thus be classified as a privilege of American citizenship, a "safety net" that prevents the citizen from falling out of the political and ethical order. This is consistent with the views of Reconstruction-era Republicans like John Bingham, who saw the Fourteenth Amendment as a tool to enforce the "God-given rights" of man. To allow a citizen to perish for want of bread while the nation prospers is to violate the "Covenant" that binds the American people together. It is a failure of the "Spirit of the Law" to care for the "body of the citizen," which, as we have established, is the temple of the Spirit.

This interpretation provides a rigorous answer to those who claim the Constitution is only a charter of negative liberties. By grounding human dignity in the Privileges or Immunities Clause, we assert that the United States is more than a marketplace; it is an "Ethical Totality" in the Hegelian sense. The State has a positive duty to ensure that the material conditions of the individual do not contradict their legal status as a free person. In the Protestant tradition of "Vocation," every person is called to contribute to the common good, but one cannot fulfill a vocation if one is consumed by the "angst of material insecurity." Therefore, the State’s provision of a minimum income is the fulfillment of its own rational purpose: to provide the stable ground upon which the individual can rise to their full spiritual and civic potential. This legal evolution would finally bring the American "Objective Spirit" into harmony with the Absolute Truth of the human person as a being of infinite worth.

The American Republic stands at a threshold where the formal mechanisms of its democracy must be reconciled with the substantive truth of the human person. It is no longer sufficient to maintain a legal system that guarantees the right to speak while permitting the silence of the grave to overshadow those crushed by economic desolation. The constitutionalization of human dignity is the final fulfillment of the American experiment, a necessary transition from a primitive "State of Nature" to a mature "State of Grace" within the Objective Spirit. We must recognize that the Constitution is not a dead letter of the eighteenth century but the living unfolding of the ethical idea, demanding that the law reflect the ontological reality of the Imago Dei. To deny a citizen the material means of a dignified life is to commit a legal and theological perjury against the very foundations of our civilization. The "income of national solidarity" is not a work of man's whim but a requirement of God’s justice, ensuring that the temple of the body is not desecrated by the filth of the gutter.

Christians across this land are called by the Word of God to demand that the State acknowledge its highest purpose: the protection of the weak and the exaltation of the inherent worth of every soul. As it is written in the Epistle of James 2:14-17, faith without works is dead; likewise, a Constitution that speaks of liberty but ignores the hunger of its people is a hollow vessel. We must advocate for a Supreme Court jurisprudence that breathes life into the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments, transforming the Privileges or Immunities of citizenship into a shield against the indignity of destitution. This is the mystery of the Incarnation made manifest in the law: that the Absolute Spirit of love and recognition must become the functional reality of our social and legal codes. By ensuring a minimum vital income for all, we do not merely provide bread; we provide the space for the human spirit to breathe, to think, and to participate in the life of the community as a free agent of God's will.

Therefore, let this manifesto serve as a clarion call to the jurists, the theologians, and the citizens of America. The time has come to bridge the gap between our spiritual convictions and our legal reality. We must strive for a society where the law is the actualization of the Gospel's mandate to care for the least of these, and where the dignity of the human person is the immovable cornerstone of the Republic. This is the path to a truly "ordered liberty," where the order is divine and the liberty is material as well as spiritual. Let us move forward with the rigorous conviction that the Spirit of the Law must finally meet the Spirit of the Creator, enshrining forever the inviolable dignity of man in the heart of American democracy.

François-Yassine Mansour

Email: hortus.conclusus91@gmail.com