Human Dignity and the Minimum Existence Level: Philosophical Concepts of Decent Existence and their Implications for Law and Policy of the Welfare State

该研究项目旨在卓有成效地利用和比较关于人的尊严的不同哲学概念及其对解释基本权利框架和设计社会政策的规范性影响。这是为了有助于在(基本)法律和社会政策之间的紧张关系领域中理解人的尊严的概念。调查以当前的两个社会发展为起点，这两个发展对人的尊严哲学，特别是对人道的最低生活标准的概念具有重要意义。首先是所有西方国家的社会政治倾向，这种趋势已经盛行了二三十多年，从传统的福利国家的原则转向所谓的“赋能”和“工作福利国家”，这是一种我们也称为“激活福利国家”的福利国家形式。在这一发展的背后，隐藏着安东尼·吉登斯对福利国家政治和法律的纲领性假设：“没有责任就没有权利”。在德国联邦宪法法院关于体面最低生活水平的基本权利和社会保障法典中的制裁的判例法中，一种最初被认为与这一假设相反的趋势正在出现，但最近变得更加温和。根据这一管辖权，在人的尊严需要的情况下，有一项主观上可强制执行的基本社会福利权利，但另一方面，在某些情况下，这些福利仍可能被大规模减少，甚至完全暂停。该项目的核心是首先分析在这一法律框架内运作的社会和劳动力市场政策的基本特征，然后根据各种类型的人的尊严理论--地位理论、羞辱理论、能力理论和自我义务理论--对其进行评估。第三，这两个步骤的结果将面临两种替代模式：“无条件基本收入”模式(Van Parijs)和“财产拥有民主”模式(John Rawls)。

The research project aims to make fruitful use of and compare different philosophical concepts of human dignity and their normative implications for the interpretation of the fundamental rights framework and the design of social policies. This is intended to contribute to an understanding of the idea of human dignity in the field of tension between (basic) law and social policy.The inquiry takes as its starting point two current social developments which are of great significance for a philosophy of human dignity in general and for the conception of a humane minimum standard of living in particular. The first is the socio-political tendency of all Western states, which has been prevalent for more than two or three decades, away from the principles of the 'traditional' welfare state and towards the so-called 'enabling' and 'workfare state', a form of welfare state which we also call the 'activating welfare state'. Behind this development lies Antony Giddens' programmatic postulate for politics and law of the welfare state: "no rights without reponsibilities". A tendency that was initially perceived as contrary to this postulate, but has recently become more moderate, is emerging in the case law of the German Federal Constitutional Court on the basic right to a decent minimum subsistence level and on sanctions in the social security code. According to this jurisdiction, there is a subjectively enforceable basic right to social benefits in case of need on the basis of human dignity, but on the other hand these benefits may still be massively reduced or even temporarily suspended completely under certain circumstances. The core concerns of the project are firstly to analyze the basic features of social and labor market policies operating within this legal framework and secondly to evaluate them on the basis of various types of theory of human dignity - theories of status, humiliation, ability and self-obligation. Thirdly, the results of these two steps will be confronted with two alternative models: that of the "unconditional basic income" (Van Parijs) and that of "property owning democracy" (John Rawls).