Human Dignity and Bioethics

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Defending Human Dignity
Leon R. Kass
It is difficult to define what human dignity is. It is not an organ
to be discovered in our body, it is not an empirical notion, but
without it we would be unable to answer the simple question:
what is wrong with slavery?—Leszek Kolakowski 1
In American discussions of bioethical matters, human dignity, where
it is not neglected altogether, is a problematic notion. There are
disagreements about its importance relative to other human goods,
such as freedom or justice. There are differences of opinion about
exactly what it means and what it rests on, a difficulty painfully evident
when appeals to “human dignity” are invoked on opposite sides
of an ethical debate, for example, about whether permitting assisted
suicide for patients suffering from degrading illnesses would serve or
violate their human dignity. There are also disagreements about the
extent to which considerations of human dignity should count in
determining public policy.
We friends of human dignity must acknowledge these difficulties,
both for practice and for thought. In contrast to continental
Europe and even Canada, human dignity has not been a powerful
idea in American public discourse, devoted as we are instead to the
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