To use a simple example, it is often argues that corporal punishment violates the rights and human dignity of a child, and therefore should be illegal. Smith [The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse] that there is no secular, scientific basis for the idea of human dignity, or that human beings are valuable and inviolable. Historian Carl L. Becker famously said that, from a strictly scientific viewpoint, human beings must be viewed as "little more than a chance deposit on the surface of the world, carelessly thrown up between two ice ages by the same forces that rust iron and ripen corn." Scientist Stephen Hawking agrees that " the human race is just chemical scum on a moderate size planet" and most recently Harvard psychologist Stephen Pinker wrote an essay entitled "The Stupidity of Dignity". The prominent philosopher John Gray, who teaches at the London School of Economics, writes in his book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and other Animals of the self-deception of those who embrace science and still hold to the tenets of liberal humanism, such as belief in human dignity and rights.
So, concluded Smith, to say that corporal punishment violates a child's dignity and rights seems more objective than to say "I think corporal punishment of children is morally offensive", but the latter statement is a more frank expression of how you reached your conclusion.
Generous Justice, p155-156 (emphasis mine)
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