Lecture | Tara White | Dignity Neuroscience: Connected Action

Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture

Universal human rights are defined by international agreements, law, foreign policy, and the concept of inherent human dignity. However, rights defined on this basis can be readily subverted by overt and covert disagreements and can be treated as distant geopolitical events rather than bearing on individuals’ everyday lives. A robust case for universal human rights is urgently needed and must meet several disparate requirements: (a) a framework that resolves tautological definitions reached solely by mutual, revocable agreement; (b) a rationale that transcends differences in beliefs, creed and culture; and (c) a personalization that empowers both individuals and governments to further human rights protections. We propose that human rights in existing agreements comprise five elemental types: (1) agency, autonomy and self-determination; (2) freedom from want; (3) freedom from fear; (4) uniqueness; and (5) unconditionality, including protections for vulnerable populations. We further propose these rights and protections are rooted in fundamental properties of the human brain. We provide a robust, empirical foundation for universal rights based on emerging work in human brain science that we term ‘dignity neuroscience’. Dignity neuroscience provides an empirical foundation to support and foster human dignity, universal rights and their active furtherance by individuals, nations, and international law.