The concepts of “dignity” and “person.” Their moral and legal usage. The philosophical outlook

Abstract

This paper attempts to show that some legal and moral concepts, such as “dignity” and “person”, are usually diffuse, ambiguous and vague, not only in their everyday use, but also in their specialized usage in the fields of ethics and law. Following a linguistic analysis –applying the English born philosophy of language– the author examine and specify the moral meaning of these concepts and, from this point, determine the semantic importance that these terms acquire in the legal linguistic usage and in contemporary moral theory.