Philosophical Writing on the Centrality of Work (or Meaningful Work) to "Human Dignity" or Cognate Concepts

A colleague asked about this, and I drew a blank, apart from Karl Marx, who, of course, doesn't use the concept of human dignity.   Any recommendations of philosophical work on this topic in the past 50 years or so?  Thanks.

Comments

[Adam Limehouse]

The Brazilian philosopher of education, Paulo Freire, did. Definitely in the cognate concept category though. Book end works: the Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) and the posthumously published Pedagogy of Freedom (1998). I think that his use of the idea of 'praxis' definitely counts.

[Paul Kelleher]

Perhaps not directly on target, but related: Journal of Applied Philosophy 21(3) (2004) was a special volume on "Philosophical Justifications of Workfare." Lots of great essays by lots of great people.

[Enzyme]

I've got a feeling that Arendt says something that might be relevant in "The Human Condition" - but it's a long time since I read it, and I don't have my copy to hand, so I may have misremembered.

[Thomas]

This might be one of those cases where theory needs to follow praxis.

Grace Lee Boggs has been talking a lot about the need for labor to rethink work and not just care about the creation of jobs of any kind but of creating truly meaningful work. Boggs was trained as a philosopher, but has sort of renounced her PhD as she's committed her long life to activism. You won't find her thoughts on the matter in philosophy journals but maybe on her website, speeches, editorials or pamphlets.

[s. wallerstein]

I'm not sure that Arendt links work and human dignity.

She divides what we do in three: work, making and action.

Work for Arendt means what we do to put food on our table and a roof over our heads.

She follows Aristotle in priorizing action (praxis), as more worthy, although I'm not sure that she does that explicitly. However, her option for action over work is clear, if not explicit.

There may be some Thomists who link work and human dignity.

[David Bzdak]

Matthew Crawford's recent book Shop Class as Soulcraft is subtitled An Inquiry into the Value of Work. It's written more for a popular audience, but it's not a bad place to start.

[Sabine Tsuruda]

Some works I found helpful on (meaningful) work and dignity (and relatedly, self-respect) include: Vicki Schultz, "Life's Work"; Adina Schwartz, "Meaningful Work"; Andrew Sayer, "Contributive Justice and Meaningful Work"; and Seana Shiffrin, "Race, Labor, and the Fair Equality of Opportunity Principle". These papers also include helpful references to other papers on meaningful work and related issues. Rawls also discusses meaningful work briefly in TJ (first edition) at, for instance, 84, 425-6, and 529.

[Nick Z]

Although its principal focus is the dignity of the mercantile (working-)class, Deidre McCloskey's book The Bourgeois Virtues may contain some useful perspectives.

[Matt Brown]

There is an article-length version of Crawford's book in the New Atlantis.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-soulcraft

(A search tells me that dignity is not in the article anywhere, though.)

[David Morrow]

Nussbaum's version of the Capability Approach emphasizes human dignity, and she connects various "central capabilities" to (meaningful) work. For instance, in her recent introduction to the approach, Creating Capabilities, she includes the following as part of the central capability to control one's environment: "[H]aving the right to seek employment on an equal basis with others.... In work, being able to work as a human being, exercising practical reason and entering into meaningful relationships of mutual recognition with other workers" (34). She could probably point you to other related work.

[Jeff Moriarty]

I would recommend two articles by Richard Arneson: "Meaningful Work and Market Socialism," in Ethics (1987) and "Is Work Special? Justice and the Distribution of Employment," in American Political Science Review (1990). I would also recommend Gerald Doppelt's article "Rawls' System of Justice: A Critique from the Left," in Nous (1981). Jon Elster may address some related themes in his "Is There (or Should There Be) A Right to Work?" in the book *Democracy and the Welfare State* (1988). Finally, there is a chapter in Norman Bowie's *Business Ethics: A Kantian Perspective* (1999) that considers what Kant might say about the nature of work. In these works the focus tend to be on the connection between work and self-respect (and sometimes self-esteem.)

[Michael LeBuffe]

I enjoy, on something close to this topic, "Why Surfers Should Be Fed: The Liberal Case for an Unconditional Basic Income." Philosophy and Public Affairs 20 (2):101-131. Phillipe Van Parijs.

[Matt]

I haven't read it so can't say if it's any good, but Russell Muirhead's book _Just Work_ (Harvard Univ. Press 2004) seems to address the issue, at least to some degree.

[Mark Lance]

There is a good bit on this scattered throughout the anarchist tradition, some currents of which are not surprisingly close to Marx on this issue. Bookchin has some interesting discussions about the value of collective free labor and the debilitating effects of commodified labor that depart from Marx's assumption that the proletariat will be in the best position to recognize the evils of capitalism. On the contrary, Bookchin argues that working within a highly regimented environment - whether the factory or the corporate office - tends to drill out of us the ability for creative and self-directed thought and action. But there's lots more. If anyone is interested I can figure out specific citations.

From a rather different direction, Alex Pruss pointed me a couple years ago to John Paul II's first encyclical, Laborem Exercens, which has an interesting discussion that is in many ways very similar to Marx.

[Stefan Sciaraffa]

Carol Gould says a bit about this in Rethinking Democracy:Freedom and Social Co-operation in Politics, Economy, and Society. Though it is more about the importance of workplace democratization for the full flowering of person's development as agents.

[Steven Miller]

A little bit older than your request (but then Marx is too): John Dewey argues for the necessity of "fulfilling work" for both hope and meaningful lives in _Democracy and Education_ (Middle Works 9), among other places.

[Michael Kremer]

I was going to mention Laborem Exercens, but my friend Mark Lance beat me to it. I wasn't sure if it would count as philosophy (though its author did hold a doctorate in philosophy). I'll just mention that the English translation is here:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091981_laborem-exercens_en.html

[D. Matheson]

Moritz Schlick's "On the Meaning of Life" (_Philosophical Papers, Vol. II_) seems relevant, though he's there arguing *against* the centrality of work (as contrasted with "play" in its creative forms) for human life-meaningfulness.

[JA]

My Job My Self by Al Gini is a very readable and interesting treatment of the relationship of work to the concept of self. Studs Terkel also wrote a book, Working, involving interviews with different people in different occupations that is also quite interesting. One might also look into the works of Anarchist writers like Kropotkin, Bakunin, Godwin, Emma Goldman, Lysander Spooner (for a libertarian perspective, and Murray Bookchin. George Woodcock's Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements is a good introduction.

[George Stamets]

I'm comfortable describing a significant part of what Chomsky does as philosophy, so:

I think one could get quite a bit from his ideas about the centrality of creativity (and the need for expression thereof) to human nature and by extension to human well-being and dignity. In fact it seems clear this is one area where his work in (psycho-)linguistics serves to inform or reinforce his anarchist political views.

I'd start with his debate with Foucault: http://www.chomsky.info/debates/1971xxxx.htm

[Anonymous Grad Student in Political Theory]

@ s. Wallerstein

Erm, I'm not particularly well-versed on Arendt, but we should at least get her categories right (though the distinctions between these categories is anything but clear and rigid...)

Arendt's distinction isn't exactly as you lay it out: the division is labor, work, and action. And all of them are activities which could potentially fall under a broader category of work as something like an activity for which one receives a wage. The relevant category in Arendt would seem to be the Vita Activa, with which she both begins and concludes her book, and which involves all three previously mentioned activities - labor, work, and action. The vita activa is contrasted with the vita contemplativa. In the final chapter she develops the term 'world alienation' as a development on the individual alienation of alienated labor in Marx (Human Condition was written, after all, out of her 1956 Walgreen Lectures on Marx at Chicago). Finally, it's not quite right to say that action (and thus politics) has a definitively privileged place within the Vita Activa, not that that stops many from saying it does.

I'd gather Arendt would be applicable to the question, but it would take a bit of thought to sort through her rather slippery categories to iron out precisely how so. The Human Condition is certainly concerned with something like Human Dignity, or what it means to live a worthwhile life, as well as the categories of work and labor, which take on their own idiosyncrasies through her development of them. Against those who would simply pigeon hole Arendt in to some sort of Action over Thought over Work over Labor hierarchy, all seem rather necessary and important for the 'vita activa' in general, which could be something like a dignified human life.

It wouldn't do to take Arendt's category or work as a stand in for 'work' as the author of the inquiry probably intends it. Work as the sort of thing most people do from 9-5, if not longer, five, if not more, days of the week could involve labor, work, action, and contemplation. (In fact, the paradigmatic examples of action in the modern age, for Arendt, are scientific discoveries - the results of much good hard work - not political events - action being rooted in natality and all that for Arendt, and the splitting of the atom and the moon landing being actions which birth the world anew in the minds of men or some other such poeticism).

[C Schmidt-Petri]

Some of the papers mentioned above and many more are collected in Kory Schaff: Philosophy and the Problems of Work, Rowman and Littlefield 2001.

[tobeyola]

Going back more than 50 years (and before Marx as well) one of the most compelling accounts of the centrality of work to human dignity can be found in J.G. Fichte's Foundations of Natural Right (tr. Neuhouser CUP 2000), especially section 18 (pp. 183-87). Fichte offers an ingenious derivation of the "right to live from one's work" based in the idea that practical agents (who have the power to determine their own activities) should be able to use their activities to secure what they need in order to live.

Fichte elaborates his account in the Closed Commercial State (1800) but this work has, alas, not yet been translated into English.

[Joshua A. Miller]

It's a bit older than 50 years, but Bertrand Russell's "In Praise of Idleness" takes up this theme. I suspect most philosophers find the basic income grant tempting, and so will find themselves sympathetic to Russell. However, the poet Wendell Berry often writes in praise of work in a way that has been echoed by environmental ethicists. I think Andrew Light has some essays like this, on community gardening.

Regarding Hannah Arendt, I think S. Wallerstein is reading a weak translation. Arendt distinguishes repetitive "labor" that supplies necessities from "work" which produces durable and meaningful goods. (Indeed, she believes this distinction exists in every Indo-European language, but this is often contested by Marxians seeking to unify all forms of labor. See Richard Sennett's recent book _The Craftsman_ or older essays from Richard Bernstein. )

For Arendt, these durable products of work include buildings, clothing, and furniture, but also statues, novels, and poems: all the things that give our lives meaning. Since we depend on work as the source of meaning (even the source of the meaning of political actions) it is essential to human dignity. (That said, Arendt saw little dignity in tiring, repetitive and basically meaningless *labor* which she hoped would soon be replaced by machines.)

[dmf]

not sure if your colleague is just interested in work by people employed in philosophy depts but:
http://www.richardsennett.com/site/SENN/Templates/Home.aspx?pageid=1

[Michael Rosen]

*All Labor Has Dignity: Martin Luther King's Speeches on Labor*

http://www.amazon.com/All-Labor-Dignity-King-Legacy/dp/0807086002

[Chris Zurn]

Axel Honneth has written a fair bit about this in the last few years:
(1998), 'Democracy as Reflexive Cooperation: John Dewey and the Theory of Democracy Today', Political Theory, 26 (6), 763-83.

Also his two sections of the book co-authored with Nancy Fraser: (2003), Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange (New York: Verso).

And finally (2010), 'Work and Recognition: A Redefinition', in Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch and Christopher F. Zurn (eds.), The Philosophy of Recognition: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books), 223-39.

[Cora Diamond]

There is a relevant essay on the thinking about work, of Simone Weil and Agnes Heller, by Clare Fischer, called 'Simone Weil and the Civilisation of Work', in the collection edited by Richard Bell, 'Simone Weil's Philosophy of Culture'. The dignity of work is important for Weil's understanding of the purposes of education, as comes out in 'The Need for Roots'.

[Dhananjay Jagannathan]

Political theorist Keith Breen has an interesting-looking piece (link below) that draws on Habermas and MacIntyre called "Work and Emancipatory Practice: Towards a Recovery of Human Beings' Productive Capacities" in Res Publica, Volume 13, Number 4, 381-414.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/l51x8220u1w432r4/?p=f50a5c2ba7e74330a8574d6bf059fc6e&pi=1

http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofPoliticsInternationalStudiesandPhilosophy/Staff/Breen/

[Dave Hilditch, Ph.D.]

I second the comment about the relevance of Richard Sennett, who does sociology of work, Even if not philosophy, his *Respect in a world of inequality* and *The Craftsman* are must-reads for their descriptive attention to thick, socially-embedded experiences and practices deeply relevant to work, dignity and respect. I'd also recommend Studs Terkel *Working* for its colorful descriptive content. (There's a beautiful graphic edition of the latter by Harvey Pekar.)

[Yuval Eylon]

The thought of Zionist thinker Aaron David Gordon probably provides an exterme example, and has been labeled "the religion of work"

[Bennett Gilbert]

Simone Weil chose to work for a year (1934-1935) on the mechanized production line of an electric parts factory and kept a daily diary not the detailed not only the circumstances but her analysis of work. These reflections became part of her critique of Marxism that she developed and part of her powerful critique of capitalism. Ultimately they fed her metaphysics and her theology. There is no other philosophical work I know of the gives one such a strong sense of the oppressiveness of drudge labor, but at every stroke she connects it to the highest order concepts that were her concern. The journal was published as La condition ouvriere, and parts of it are in several English-language anthologies. But be warned: it is not happy reading!

[Kathryn Norlock]

Many selections from Eva Feder Kittay and Ellen Feder's anthology, _The Subject of Care_ (R&L 2003), concern meaningful work, especially the late Iris Marion Young's aptly titled essay, "Autonomy, Welfare Reform and Meaningful Work." Simone de Beauvoir's observations on transcendence and immanence are distilled nicely by Andrea Veltman's contemporary work, so see also Veltman on Beauvoir, especially "The Sisyphean Torture of Housework," which appeared in Hypatia about six years ago, and Veltman's contribution to Peg Simon's _Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir_ anthology.

[Jacco Bomhoff]

Primo Levi's writings might be of interest (though I think he discusses the value of work in terms of freedom rather than dignity). See for an introduction the wonderful essay on Levi by Tony Judt in 'Reappraisals'.

[s. wallerstein]

I think that I got Arendt's categories right, although I did not remember the words that she used for them.

I used "work", "making" and "action", while as is pointed out above, the correct terms are "labor", "work" and "action".

"Labor" corresponds to what most people do to earn a living in capitalist society, that is, sell their labor power in exchange for money to maintain life. Most of us would call that "work" today, although, as people indicate above, Arendt does not.

I still believe that Arendt follows Arisotle in opting for
activity (praxis) as somehow superior to labor, since she sees political activity (praxis) as free, unlike labor which is under the constraint of necessity.

[CJT]

The Acting Person, Karol Wojtyla.

[Ben Sarbey]

Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century by Jonathan Glover is an excellent book about the atrocities of this past century that could have been avoided with the aid of what he calls 'the moral resources.' Glover says that one of these resources is respect for humanity/respect for human dignity. I would look especially at part one.

[Matt Shockey]

Matthew Crawford's book noted earlier is worth reading, even if it is a little macho in outlook (he's a UChicago Comm. on Social Thought PhD, fwiw).

Agrarian writer Wendell Berry deals extensively with the topic of work and the ways in which modern industrial economies fail to provide meaningful and dignified forms of work. Some interesting overlap with Marxist thought about work, but situated in a tradition that goes back to Jefferson. He has loads of essays, but his book from the 70s, The Unsettling of America, remains a very sharp piece of cultural criticism.

There is also quite a lot of interesting writing on reproductive (as opposed to productive) forms of labor by feminist philosophers that my colleague Louise Collins pointed out to me, e.g., Amy Mullin's "Reconceiving Pregnancy and Childcare: Ethics, Experience, and Reproductive Labor" (CUP 2005).

[Lisa Herzog]

A historical note: much of what has been cited above goes back to Hegel and the concept of "Bildung" in German idealism: through work, man "bildet" him/herself, overcomes his/her natural being and thus turns him/herself into a human being in the true sense (e.g. Philosophy of Right §196f., or the master-slave-dialectic in the Phenomenology). This strand of thought goes back to the Lutheran tradition of work being a service to God, no matter whether one is a priest or a lay person...