Dignity in some of its modern usages has come to mean the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. In this context, it is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights. The term may also be used to describe personal conduct, as in "behaving with dignity".

Some philosophers distinguish two types of rights, natural rights and legal rights.Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are universal, fundamental and inalienable. Natural law is the law of natural rights. Legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system. The concept of positive law is related to the concept of legal rights.