Human Dignity, Human Rights, and Responsibility: The New Language of Global Bioethics and Biolaw

1. Introduction

1 Introduction An Overview of the Book in Three Paragraphs This book narrates the story of “human dignity” as a background moral ethos to human rights. It offers a philosophical theory of human dignity and human rights, along with an exploration of what I refer to herein as the strongest moral status—that of beneficiaries of rights. In comparison to numerous publications on these topics, this book is special for combining history with applied ethics, for dealing comprehensively both with human dignity and human rights, and for distinguishing human rights from broader issues of justice, good, and virtue. This first chapter presents the problem and the philosophical definitions and methods used. Because its purpose is orientation and integration with ethical and other academic discourses, it is the only chapter requiring background knowledge in various disciplines. The second chapter is a creative reading of the biblical sources. It presents in a narrative and hermeneutic format the main philosophical arguments which will be explicated in the style of applied ethics in chapters 3 through 7. This personal reading is followed by a historical review of the evolution of the ethos of human dignity in Western culture. Chapter 3 contains a philosophical theory explicating the idea of human dignity as a moral value. Chapter 4 does the same with regard to the conceptual instrument of human rights. In the light of the theories of dignity and rights, chapter 5 presents a theory of moral status and inviolability. Chapter 6 develops the notion of responsibility as the leading attitude or virtue relevant to dignity-related human values that can be neither protected nor promoted by the instrument of rights. The last chapter is a synthetic summary of the main philosophical arguments within the book. 2 Chapter 1 Human Dignity: The Challenges Some words are ubiquitous, important, intuitively grasped by everybody, and yet they lack clear definitions. Love, hope, justice, and friendship are such words. Human dignity belongs to this group as well. Human dignity has also achieved a special status, which calls for urgent and thorough conceptual clarification. During the last hundred years or so, religions, sovereign countries, and international bodies have declared human dignity a fundamental moral and legal value. It is found in the Basic Law of Germany as well as in the constitutional law of other countries, including Israel, Iran, Spain, Italy, China, Cuba, and Brazil. Overall, the term “dignity” appears in the constitutions of 157 countries, which comprise 81 percent of the total number of sovereign states that are members of the United Nations (data collected by Doron Shultziner). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) opens with a statement recognizing “the inherent dignity of all members of the human family.” Since then, the number of documents , declarations, legislations, rulings, and policy papers that are explicitly based on the notion of human dignity has been increasing nationally and internationally. In 1986, the General Assembly of the United Nations set “international standards in the field of human rights,” one of which requires that all human right instruments “derive from the inherent dignity and worth of the human person” (Resolution 120/41). Astonishingly, a growing number of ethicists and bioethicists have labeled human dignity “useless,” “vacuous,” “a conversation stopper,” and wished it be“purged from bioethical discourse.”Bestselling academic anthologies in applied ethics and bioethics do not even contain chapters or discussions of human dignity.1 The Supreme Court of Canada has recently summarized the disappointment at the role of human dignity in constitutional law: “[It] has also proven to be an additional burden on equality claimants, rather than the philosophical enhancement it was intended to be” (R. v. Kapp, SCC 41 (2008), 2 S.C.R. 483, paragraph 22; Fyfe 2007). 1. Recent and cited surveys on the current discourse on human dignity: U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics (2008); Van der Graaf and Van Delden (2009); Andorno (2009); McCrudden (2008); Schmidt (2007); Mahoney (2007, 144– 157); Bagaric and Allen (2006); Häyry (2004); Nordenfelt (2004); Shultziner (2003); Englard (1999–2000); Feldman (1999); Goodin (1981). Introduction 3 These gaps between the prominent role accorded to human dignity in international law, political theory, and lay discourse and its dubious presence in applied ethics, and between the marginal role allotted to dignity in ethical theory and its actual presence (often in disguise) call for attention. Human dignity has fallen from favor especially among liberal and utilitarian thinkers, probably owing to...