Human Dignity and Bioethics

92 | Robert P. Kraynak
philosopher Kant was also more thoughtful when he argued that human
dignity could be sustained only by the dualism of nature and
freedom.
Perhaps, then, Dennett really is Santa Claus, because he gives us
free gifts like the goodness of life, the dignity of human beings, and
democratic human rights without any logical or theoretical support
for them, and indeed with a materialist doctrine that subverts them
at every point. Perhaps Dennett’s materialist humanism is even a residue
of Christian humanism with its emphasis on the special status of
human beings as rational creatures in the cosmos (a trenchant point
made by John Gray in his review of Dennett’s book on free will).*
In Dennett’s essay for this volume we can detect signs of uncertainty
about whether his earlier position can be sustained. The title,
“How to Protect Human Dignity from Science,” acknowledges that
there is a real problem here—a potential conflict between modern
science and technology, on the one hand, and the grounds for defending
human dignity, on the other. He realizes that the underlying
assumption of human dignity is the special moral status of man in
the universe and that this status was upheld traditionally by the doctrine
of the human soul. Dennett even admits that science cannot
easily provide an alternative grounding for human dignity and that
biotechnology might lead to treating humans as commodities for sale
and as objects for manipulation and destruction. Dennett is also uncharacteristically
silent about Darwinian materialism, even though
his main point is that the doctrine of the human soul is discredited
in the 21st century and that natural science will have to produce a
substitute that will be more “workable” in defending human dignity:
“We can have dignity and science too,” he says nervously.
Dennett’s argument is strange because it often sounds like a plea
for a new kind of mythology for human dignity. He talks about the
“belief environment” surrounding cherished moral ideas, such as the
sacredness of life and the dignity of persons, and he praises the value of
“belief in belief”—of upholding the necessary assumptions of moral
* John Gray, “Review of Freedom Evolves by Daniel C. Dennett,” The Independent,
Feb. 8, 2003: “The ringing tone of Dennett’s declaration of human uniqueness
provokes a certain suspicion regarding the scientific character of his argument.
After all, the notion that humans are free in a way other animals are not does not
come from science. Its origins are in religion—above all, in Christianity.”