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The Jurisprudence Of Dignity, Leslie Meltzer Henry
The Jurisprudence Of Dignity, Leslie Meltzer Henry
Faculty Scholarship
Few words play a more central role in modern constitutional law without appearing in the Constitution than dignity. The term appears in nearly one thousand Supreme Court opinions, but despite its popularity, dignity is a concept in disarray. Its meaning and functions are commonly presupposed, but rarely articulated. The result is a cacophony of uses so confusing that some critics argue that word ought to be abandoned altogether.
This Article fills a void in the literature by offering the first empirical study of Supreme Court opinions that invoke dignity, and then proposing a typology of dignity based on a Wittgensteinian …