VIEW CONTENTS OF PREVIOUS ISSUES

Toward a Common Language on Human Dignity class="textlight"William P. Cheshire

Speaking from the White House on April 9, President Bush chose these words to frame his statement in support of legislation to ban experiments in human cloning: "As we seek to improve human life, we must always preserve human dignity."

The noble aspiration to preserve human dignity has broad appeal. And yet this language of consensus is also a language of nuanced plurality. For example, what the coalition Do No Harm means by "the essential dignity of every human being," is altogether different from what is implied in the Oregonian political slogan, "death with dignity." The latter places dignity within an extreme interpretation of individual autonomy, while the former imputes dignity to all people, including those too vulnerable to exercise autonomy. Whether to promote death or protect life, both march beneath the banner of dignity, tugging it at times in opposite directions.

Contradictions in usage by no means invalidate all possible interpretations. Nevertheless, some have questioned whether "human dignity," an emotionally-laden phrase used to dignify various political causes, is sufficiently well-defined to serve as a useful term in bioethical discourse. Its colloquial use is often vague. A more rigorous attempt at a precise definition might risk dividing public discourse and dismantling consensus where unity is desirable.

It would hardly befit the dignity of human beings, however, to settle for a consensus that tolerates contradictions when the basis in truth for a deeper, more satisfying consensus lies, for those who will accept it, within reach. Now that society has approached the brink of human cloning, the need for a valid understanding of human dignity is unprecedented. It is also urgent. Biotechnology has already begun to supply the tools capable of altering the basic genetic structure and familial relationships of human beings. If human dignity is to be preserved, we must hold fast also to the language of human dignity.

What is human dignity? Is dignity an arbitrary cultural construction conditioned by the times and pragmatically tied to preferences for this or that agenda? No, dignity touches on something more profound. There really is such a thing as human dignity.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "dignity" as "the quality of being worthy or honourable." Human dignity thus denotes that particular dignity which human beings uniquely possess. It is not that all human actions are morally praiseworthy, but humans are, by their nature, worthy of a special level of respect fundamentally above that of nonhuman animals and beyond that of the most intelligent computers.

At stake in defining human dignity is not the question of when a human being acquires dignity but whether human beings have intrinsic dignity. A frequent mistake is to equate dignity with certain functional capacities such as intelligence, abstract reason, language, creativity, ability to feel pain, empathy, awareness of personal biography over time, health, or beauty. In contrast to abstract dignity these capacities at first glance seem more clear in that they are visible, tangible, and measurable.

Beware of substitutions. If a measurable attribute were to supplant the idea of dignity, which human beings would no longer measure up to the preferred standard? If a quantifiable marker, then which men and women, whose grandparents, whose children, would come up short? Since functional capacities accrue with age and by degrees, many people possess them in slight degree, and others may lose some of them altogether. A concept of human dignity contingent on functional capacities is very attractive to proponents of utilitarian theory because from measurements come direct comparisons. Human life, to be sure, does not belong on the balance scale with property. The utilitarian calculus coldly authorizes violating human dignity in cases where a greater good for the greater number is anticipated. Such thinking eventually calls into question the rights and worth of the most vulnerable members of society. And all of us at one time or another are vulnerable and potentially eligible for exclusion.

Thinking in terms of disposable dignity is very near to imagining disposable people. One feature that constitutes the most tangible limit of dignity is that one rightfully responds in moral outrage whenever that dignity in others is threatened or denied. Sadly, the capacity for moral outrage is also subject to attenuation and distraction. The systematic designation of a class of living human nonpersons of unproven dignity would portend a grave moral crisis.

Cloning, for example, threatens human dignity because it would instrumentalize and commodify human beings, deny them individuality, and treat them as products to be designed and manufactured according to anotherıs specifications. Cloning for purposes of reproduction would confound natural familial relationships and their accompanying moral responsibility. Cloning for purposes of research would require the destruction of nascent human lives grown simply to become the means to others' ends.

Human dignity is at its core an ontological reality irreducible to perceptual esthetic categories. The word "dignity" is thus appropriate to beings who are substances and not mere collections of properties. Dignity bespeaks something inseparable from human nature, something placed there, something shared by all people. One comprehends dignity less through reason and more through intuition, in a way that is comprehensible to human reflection universally. No scientist or physician has ever observed human dignity; it is an inference. Forever escaping the nets of scientific measurement, dignity defies devaluation.

In the same way that human dignity precedes the actualization of important functional capacities, the writer of Hebrews commented, "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible." (Hebrews 11:3, NKJ). For the Christian, the notion of human dignity is rooted in the biblical text which records that men and women are created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26, 9:6). This imago Dei is not attached to any functional characteristics of humans but is simply identified with that which is human. Invisible and indivisible, the special value in human dignity comes through God's own vesting, for he has made human beings especially for fellowship with himself.

God supremely affirmed the dignity of human life by becoming in Jesus Christ a man and dwelling with us (Isaiah 7:14; Luke 1:30-31, 41; John 1:14). Jesus, now resurrected, retains his humanity and calls us to lives in which our human dignity may be perfected in him.

Even though the authority of Holy Scripture is not everywhere welcomed, the phrase "human dignity" coincides with the biblical ideal of worthiness due respect and lays an ethical foundation for treating fellow human beings in a manner pleasing to God. The words "human dignity" also provide a secularly accessible language on which a pluralistic society can find common moral ground. This is not an exclusively Christian ideal. Elaborating on Genesis 1:26, Plaut's Jewish commentary on the Torah explains that humanityıs likeness to the Divine, "stresses the essential holiness and, by implication, the dignity of all men, without any distinctions."

Recognition of intrinsic human dignity extends, furthermore, beyond religious traditions. Cumulative human experience having found dignity to be a valid moral principle, it is also a hallmark of civilization. Article 1 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." Likewise, the principle of individual autonomy preeminent in much bioethical discourse is grounded in the respect for persons that flows out of a robust appreciation of human dignity. Although an explicit definition of human dignity is seldom offered, its significance is assumed in the practical outworkings spelled out in the language of human rights and autonomy. These basic human rights make sense only if moral right and wrong are grounded in transcendent relationships.

The founders of the American government recognized human dignity to be the basis of the rights and liberties due moral, rational beings. For example, the Society of the Cincinnati, a fraternal association founded by the officers of the American Revolution, in 1783 advanced the following "immutable" principle: "An incessant attention to preserve inviolate those exalted rights and liberties of human nature, for which they have fought and bled, and without which the high rank of a rational being is a curse instead of a blessing."

Human dignity deserves a place as part of our common language only as long we appreciate that all people hold this dignity in common. A pluralistic society will inevitably hold this standard in tension with competing ideas about what constitutes human dignity. That is why there is a continuing need for dynamic translation of the biblical principles underlying dignity into the common language. Successful translation also requires that Christians lead lives consistent with those principles.

Language can define human dignity but imperfectly. The most rigorous terminology can acknowledge it but cannot explain its origin. Vocabulary can address it but cannot own it. Words can comment upon it, note its triumphs and failures, and gesturing through metaphor point beyond themselves, but they cannot lay hold of the thing itself which is human dignity. Once all opinions have been voiced and doubt has exhausted its last breath, human dignity remains, authentic yet inexpressible, a wondrous unanalyzable mystery.

A suggested definition of human dignity is as follows: The exalted moral status which every being of human origin uniquely possesses. Human dignity is a given reality, intrinsic to the human substance, and not contingent upon any functional capacities which vary in degree. Evidence of this status may be found in such faculties as abstract reasoning, language, conscience, and free will, which human beings have the capacity to develop and exercise unless limited by disease, coercion, or the will. The possession of human dignity carries certain immutable moral obligations. These include, concerning the treatment of all other human beings, the duty to preserve life, liberty, and the security of persons, and concerning animals and nature, responsibilities of stewardship. A Christian understanding of human dignity will add to this the obligation to worship and magnify the Lord God, whose mercy endures forever.

This article appeared in Volume 18:2 of Ethics & Medicine.