SOURCE: Zhang, Qianfan. “The Idea of Human Dignity in Classical Chinese Philosophy: A Reconstruction of Confucianism.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 27, no. 3 (September 2000): 299-330.

In the following essay, Zhang explores the place of rights and duties in the Confucian view of human dignity.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

—Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

About fifty years ago, the United Nations appealed to the “recognition of the inherent dignity and of equal and inalienable rights of all members of human family” as “the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”.¹ With the exception of the 1949 Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany which honored human dignity as its controlling norm,² however, the concept of human dignity did not seem to arouse much...