Editing Dignity (section)

===Mortimer Adler and Alan Gewirth===
Philosophers of the late 20th century who have written significant works on the subject of dignity include [[Mortimer Adler]] and [[Alan Gewirth]].<ref name="O'Hara1999"/> Gewirth's views on human dignity are typically compared and contrasted with Kant's, for like Kant he theorizes that human dignity arises from agency.<ref name="Peil2009">{{cite book|last=White|first=Mark D.|chapter=Dignity|editor=Jan Peil|title=Handbook of Economics and Ethics|date=2009|publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing|isbn=978-1845429362|page=85}}</ref><ref name="BeyleveldBrownsword2001">{{cite book|last1=Beyleveld|first1=Deryck|author2=Roger Brownsword|title=Human dignity in bioethics and biolaw|year=2001|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0198268260|page=87}}</ref> But while sharing Kant's view that rights arise from dignity, Gewirth focused far more than Kant on the positive obligations that dignity imposed on humans, the moral requirement not only to avoid harming but to actively assist one another in achieving and maintaining a state of "well-being".<ref name="Peil2009"/>

Among other topics, including the dignity of labor,<ref name="AdlerWeismann2000">{{cite book|last1=Adler|first1=Mortimer Jerome|author2=Max Weismann|title=How to think about the great ideas: from the great books of western civilization|date=2000|publisher=Open Court Publishing|isbn=978-0812694123|page=1}}</ref> Adler extensively explored the question of human equality and equal right to dignity.<ref>See {{cite web|last=Adler |first=Mortimer |url=http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/adler-mortimer_dignity-of-man.html |title=The Dignity of Man and the 21st century |date=1952-10-10 |access-date=2010-06-13 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100620172623/http://cooperativeindividualism.org/adler-mortimer_dignity-of-man.html |archive-date=2010-06-20 }}; {{cite book|author=Mortimer Jerome Adler|title=The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes|year=1993|publisher=Fordham Univ Press|isbn=978-0823215355}}, {{cite book|author=Mortimer Jerome Adler|title=Six Great Ideas|date=1 December 1997|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-0684826813}}<!--|access-date=13 June 2010--></ref> According to Adler, the question of whether humans have equal right to dignity is intrinsically bound in the question of whether human beings are truly equal, which itself is bound in the question of whether human beings are a distinct class from all things, including animals, or vary from other things only by degree. Adler wrote that the only sense in which it is true that all human beings are equal is that they are equally distinct from animals.<ref>Mortimer (1997), 165–166.</ref> "The dignity of man," he said, "is the dignity of the human being as a person—a dignity that is not possessed by things."<ref>Mortimer (1993), 17.</ref> To Adler, failure to recognize the distinction challenged the right of humans to equal dignity and equal treatment.<ref>Mortimer (1993), 271.</ref><ref>Mortimer (1997), 165.</ref>