Human Dignity and Bioethics

278
Commentary on
Meilaender and Dennett
Peter Augustine Lawler
T
hese comments began as a comparison I gave at the February
2007 meeting of the President’s Council of the essays in the
volume by Gilbert Meilaender and Daniel Dennett. My aim is to
highlight some obvious differences and unexpected similarities between
their two egalitarian views of dignity. I distinguish both of
them from the more complex or ambivalent view of the relationship
between dignity and equality given by Leon Kass, and I comment on
Diana Schaub’s provocative suggestion that Americans should distinguish
clearly between equal rights and unequal dignity. My overall
intention is to call attention to the significance of this volume: In this
technological and biotechnological age we have more reason than
ever to be concerned about human dignity, but we’re stuck with some
pretty basic disagreements over what dignity is.
From one view, Meilaender’s and Dennett’s essays defend two extreme
and incompatible positions. Dennett prides himself on being
a rather extreme or dogmatic atheist. And Meilaender, at least in his
defense of the equal dignity of us all, is a rather extreme theist—that
is, an Augustinian. In both cases we’re reminded that extremism in
defense of dignity is surely no vice, and we can add that both men,
for the most part, lack the self-righteousness that often accompanies