Curiosity Café (Revisited): Dignity

*See below for event description. Every four(ish) weeks, we revisit a previous Curiosity Café. In this series, we repeat topics we have previously covered, sometimes with a slight twist, sometimes with the same questions.

We will be hosting our next Revisited Curiosity Café on Monday, September 21st from 6-8:30pm at the Madison Avenue Pub (14 Madison Ave, Toronto, ON M5R 2S1). Come and hang out with us, grab food, and read through our handout from 6-6:30. Our structured discussion will run from 6:30-8:30pm with a 10 minute break in the middle.

Dignity is commonly understood as a kind of moral worth or status shared by all human beings, and the basis for a variety of legal and ethical duties and rights. From prohibitions against torture to the provision of medical assistance in dying, the notion of dignity is frequently cited in discussions of how people should or should not be treated. At the same time, there remains widespread disagreement as to what, exactly, dignity means or entails. In an essay entitled “The Stupidity of Dignity,” Steven Pinker called it “a squishy, subjective notion, hardly up to the heavyweight moral demands assigned to it”; and even those who believe dignity is neither squishy, subjective, nor stupid have advanced very different accounts of what it is.

So what, exactly, is dignity? At our next Curiosity Café, moderated by Reshma Aser and Sophia Whicher, we will engage in a collaborative exploration of dignity and its relevance to ongoing debates in ethics and human rights. Along the way, we will ask ourselves:

• Where does dignity come from? From our rationality? From God? From our social status? From the mere fact of being human? From something else?
• Is dignity unique to human beings, or can it be extended to non-human animals?
• Is the vagueness of dignity a strength, rather than a weakness?
• How does the concept of dignity apply in major areas of legal and ethical concern, such as end-of-life care and meat consumption?

… And many other questions.

We do not know if dignity will turn out to be stupid, but we promise the discussion will make us all a little smarter.

*hey community! Sophia here, Director of Community Programming. We ask that you consider that our ideal recommended amount for a ticket is now $15, and as you choose what to donate within the bounds of your own financial means, we ask that you keep in mind that your donation will go directly towards compensating those involved in making Curiosity Cafés happen so that we can keep doing this for you.

Please note that we also still have 5 free tickets available for our attendees. If paying anything at all is not financially feasible for you, or our ticketing system presents some other barrier for you, please contact our Director of Community Programming at [email protected]. These tickets will be first come, first served, no questions asked! You can expect to hear back from her within 72 hours.

For those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to join us at our Curiosity Cafés and are wondering what they’re all about: every two weeks, we invite members of our community to come out to the Madison Avenue Pub to engage in a collaborative exploration of our chosen topic. Through these events, we aim to build our community of people who like to think deeply about life’s big questions, and provide each other with some philosophical tools to dig deeper into whatever it is we are most curious about.

Some accessibility-related information* about our event and the venue:

• This event involves a verbal discussion, with a handout to guide the discussion
• There will be a large-print version of the handout available
• We ask the staff at the Maddy to turn off the speakers playing music in the room we are in. Unless we end up in their “VIP” room upstairs (very unlikely!), this keeps background noise to a minimum.
• There will be earplugs available to tamper background noise
• There are about five steps up to the entrance of the Madison, and another to get in the door. In order to get upstairs, where we sometimes hold our events, there is another set of stairs that are quite steep. While we hope to be in the downstairs room, we cannot guarantee this until closer to the event date.
• There are two single stall bathrooms located downstairs that we will have access to. The other bathrooms, located on the main and upper floor, are gendered.
• Should you be accompanied by a support person, please contact us in advance so that we can add them to our guest list. Their ticket will be included, for free, as part of your pay-what-you-can ticket.

*We recognize that this list provides a far-from comprehensive picture of accessibility-related concerns you might have. Please feel free to contact our team at [email protected], or the Madison Avenue Pub (416-927-1722) with any other questions or concerns you might have.

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Madison Avenue Pub, 14 Madison Avenue, Toronto, Canada

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