Az emberi személy és annak méltósága jogfilozófiai perspektívában – különös tekintettel a jogalanyisághoz és az élethez való jog aktuális kérdéseire

Abstract

In this contribution I argue for the human embryo’s right to life and also for its right to be recognised as a person before the law. I seek to show that the concept of ‘legal capacity’, a legacy of classical German Rechtsdogmatik, cannot adequately describe these realities. Therefore it seems essential to start with the philosophical concept of the human person, which allows for a theoretically sound formulation of the fundamental human rights. In this perspective, even infants have the same rights as grown-up persons. Thus, H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr.’s use of the notion of ‘moral person’ seems to be mistaken insofar as he denies the whole personhood of, among others, young children. I emphasize that all human persons have the same inalienable fundamental rights because of their human life, that is by their human dignity. Human beings, and, as we have to declare against Peter Singer, only human beings have human dignity.