Human Dignity and Bioethics

498 | Daniel P. Sulmasy, O.F.M.
and economic resources in his or her particular circumstances as well
as the availability of a given society’s resources. The diagnosis of PCU
itself, however, must never be the basis for unilaterally withholding
or withdrawing care that would be rendered to others.
It is undeniably true that such individuals are extremely restricted
in their ability to flourish as the kinds of things that they are. They
are incapable of expressing courage, or honor, or even understanding
their predicaments. Thus, their capacities for inflorescent dignity are
profoundly restricted. No one wishes to be in such a state. Therefore,
respect for equal intrinsic dignity also ought to assure such persons
the same rights as others to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining
treatments that are futile, or more burdensome than beneficial.
The conception of dignity presented in this essay thus also has
concrete implications for understanding how to care for individuals
suffering from post-coma unresponsiveness. This gives further evidence
of the critical importance of a serious consideration of dignity
in debates about pressing issues in bioethics.
Conclusion
In this essay, I outlined three ways the word “dignity” has been understood
in the history of Western thought and explained how these
three senses of dignity—the attributed, the intrinsic, and the inflorescent—are
still at play in contemporary bioethical debates. I offered
two arguments about why the intrinsic sense of dignity is the most
foundational—the Axiological Argument and the Argument from
Consistency. In so doing, I stressed the importance of the conception
of natural kinds to all three senses of dignity. I then outlined several
general moral norms that specify what it means to respect dignity. Finally,
I applied this theory of dignity and its associated moral norms
to a variety of pressing ethical questions in contemporary bioethics,
showing how this conception of dignity is extraordinarily powerful
in helping us to understand how we ought to proceed in answering
these questions. Space has precluded a fuller explication of this theory
or a full consideration of counter-arguments. However, it seems
clear that if this is what dignity means, then dignity is anything but
a useless concept.