Human Dignity and Bioethics

484 | Daniel P. Sulmasy, O.F.M.
inflorescent dignity of any human being depends logically on the intrinsic
dignity of human beings. The primary duty is to recognize and
respect that intrinsic dignity. The duty of building up the inflorescent
dignity of human beings is a way of concretizing the fundamental
duty of respect for intrinsic dignity. If one is to show respect for a
dynamic, developing, living natural kind as an intrinsically valuable
thing, then it follows that one ought to show that respect by concrete
actions that help to establish the conditions by which that thing can
flourish as the kind of thing that it is. Thus, one waters a rosemary
bush and assures that it has proper sunlight. One feeds a human
child and teaches him or her to read.
It is the intrinsic value of the human that grounds our moral
duties towards our fellow human beings and gives these duties their
special moral valence. It is a minor indiscretion to go on vacation and
forget to arrange for someone to water one’s rosemary bush. It is an
unspeakably immoral evil to neglect to feed or educate one’s child.
Human beings have a special intrinsic value, and it is this value that
commands that we act towards our fellow human beings in a special
way. The ground of our duties towards our fellow human beings
is not merely that they have interests. Rodents also have interests.
As David Velleman has argued, from an ethical point of view, there
must be something more fundamental to ethics than interests—i.e.,
a reason to respect a fellow human being’s interests in the first place.
The question can be asked, for example, why should I care that this
person has lost a degree of independence that I have the capacity to
restore through the medical arts? Velleman’s answer is that we seek to
protect and promote a fellow human being’s interests because we first
respect the human being whose interests they are. 30 This fundamental
respect is for intrinsic dignity—the “interest-independent” value
of a human being. Without this primary respect, there is no basis for
interpersonal morality.
Consequences of This View for Bioethics
This conception of dignity has important implications for addressing
a variety of issues in bioethics.