The Public Dignity Standard was created to offer a clearer way to evaluate public policy: not by asking first whether a policy is liberal or conservative, but by asking what it does to human beings.
It draws from compassion research, moral philosophy, sociology, psychology, human rights, public policy analysis, and democratic theory. Its purpose is not to end disagreement, but to discipline disagreement.
The project is written by Dr. Raymond Barranco, Professor of Sociology at Mississippi State University, whose research and teaching focus on compassion, public policy, democracy, and the ways institutions shape human dignity. He applies the Public Dignity Standard to specific policy questions – poverty, incarceration, immigration, healthcare, housing, and more – in a weekly Substack publication. A full treatment of the framework is forthcoming in Compassionate Social Policy: Using the Golden Rule to Address Social Problems.
The goal is simple: build public arguments that are more humane, more evidence-based, and more honest about the people policy affects.