This book explores the interrelation of human dignity, education, and political society, and discusses why liberal education is best suited to dignified personal and political life. It sets out what is perennially important about such an education, tracks its development historically, and presents relevant contemporary issues.

A life of liberty and responsibility does not just happen, but requires a particular kind of education, one that aims at both a growth of the human soul and an enrichment of political society in justice and the common good. This we call a liberal education. Forgetfulness of liberty is also a forgetfulness of the multi-dimensional nature of the human person, and a diminution of political life. Keeping in mind what can be lost when liberal education is lost, this volume makes the case for recovering what is perennially noble and good in the liberal arts, and why the liberal arts always have a role to play in human flourishing. Each of the authors herein focuses on the connection of three primary themes: human dignity, liberal education, and political society. Intentionally rooted in the hub that joins the three themes, each author seeks to unfold the contemporary significance of that hub. As a whole, the volume explores how the three themes are crucial to each other: how they illuminate each other, how they need each other, and how the loss of one jeopardizes the wellbeing of the others. In individual chapters, the authors engage various relevant aspects of liberal education. As a result, the volume is organized into three parts: Liberal Education and a Life Well Lived; Thinkers on Dignity and Education in History; Contemporary Topics in Dignity and Education. As education is increasingly channeled into an ever more narrow focus on technical specialization, and measured against professional success, students themselves face a maelstrom of campus politics and competing political orthodoxies. These are among the issues that tend to militate against the operative liberty of the student to think and to speak as a person. This edited collection is offered as an invitation to think again about the liberal arts in order to recover the meaning of education as the authentic pursuit of the good life or eudemonia.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Origins of Political Order offers a provocative examination of modern identity politics: its origins, its effects, and what it means for domestic and international affairs of state In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote that American institutions were in decay, as the state was progressively captured by powerful interest groups. Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatened to destabilize the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to “the people,” who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole. Demand for recognition of one’s identity is a master concept that unifies much of what is going on in world politics today. The universal recognition on which liberal democracy is based has been increasingly challenged by narrower forms of recognition based on nation, religion, sect, race, ethnicity, or gender, which have resulted in anti-immigrant populism, the upsurge of politicized Islam, the fractious “identity liberalism” of college campuses, and the emergence of white nationalism. Populist nationalism, said to be rooted in economic motivation, actually springs from the demand for recognition and therefore cannot simply be satisfied by economic means. The demand for identity cannot be transcended; we must begin to shape identity in a way that supports rather than undermines democracy. Identity is an urgent and necessary book—a sharp warning that unless we forge a universal understanding of human dignity, we will doom ourselves to continuing conflict.

This special issue investigates the meaning of justice and dignity and how they have changed over time. What do we mean by human dignity? How do we understand and interpret that meaning? How has it evolved?

Human dignity: social movements invoke it, several national constitutions enshrine it, and it features prominently in international human rights documents. But what is it, why is it important, and what is its relationship to human rights and social justice? Pablo Gilabert offers a systematic defense of the view that human dignity is the moral heart of justice. In Human Dignity and Human Rights (OUP 2019), he advanced an account of human dignity for the context of human rights discourse, which covers the most urgent, basic claims of dignity. This book extends the dignitarian approach to more ambitious claims of maximal dignity of the kind encoded in democratic socialist conceptions of social justice. In particular, this book focuses on the just organization of working practices. It recasts in a dignitarian format the critique of capitalist society as involving exploitation, alienation, and domination of workers, and revamps a neglected but inspiring socialist principle. In its dignitarian interpretation, the Abilities/Needs Principle ("From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs!") yields reasonable and feasible requirements on social cooperation so that it solidaristically empowers each human being to lead a flourishing life. While Human Dignity and Human Rights offered the first systematic account of human dignity in human rights discourse, Human Dignity and Social Justice presents the first systematic application of the dignitarian framework to the core ideals of democratic socialism.

Issues of universal human rights are critically important topics in education today. Educators, scholars, and activists urge schools to promote awareness and understanding of human rights in their curricula from the earliest levels. Written by by Betty A. Reardon, one of the foremost scholars on human rights education for the primary and secondary levels, Educating for Human Dignity is designed for both teachers and teacher educators. It is the first resource offering both guidance and support materials for human rights education programs from kindergarten through high school. It opens possibilities for an holistic approach to human rights education that directly confronts the values issues raised by human rights problems in a context of global interrelationships.

A collection of essays, histories, and lessons that attempt to make the American educational system relevant to people's lives.