Switch to: References

Citations of:

The nature and basis of human dignity

In Adam Schulman (ed.), Human dignity and bioethics: essays commissioned by the President's Council on Bioethics. Washington, D.C.: [President's Council on Bioethics. pp. 173-193 (2008)

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. The Substance View: A Critique.Rob Lovering - 2012 - Bioethics 27 (5):263-70.
    According to the theory of intrinsic value and moral standing called the ‘substance view,’ what makes it prima facie seriously wrong to kill adult human beings, human infants, and even human fetuses is the possession of the essential property of the basic capacity for rational moral agency – a capacity for rational moral agency in root form and thereby not remotely exercisable. In this critique, I cover three distinct reductio charges directed at the substance view's conclusion that human fetuses have (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   23 citations  
  • Ectopic Pregnancy as Previable Delivery.Cara Buskmiller - 2024 - Christian Bioethics 30 (2):120-133.
    Inside and outside of a Christian worldview, bioethicists have discussed ectopic pregnancy at some length as a maternal-fetal vital conflict. Most bioethicists agree that methotrexate and salpingostomy are low-risk, successful interventions for this life-threatening pathology, and are thus beneficent, just, and wholly acceptable. A small cohort of Christian, largely Catholic, bioethicists have reservations about methotrexate and salpingostomy, but cannot resolve their internal disputes about these because of flawed casuistry. This paper aims to settle the issue about whether methotrexate and salpingostomy (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Mary Anne Warren and the Boundaries of the Moral Community.Timothy Furlan - 2022 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 31 (2):230-246.
    In her important and well-known discussion “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” Mary Anne Warren regrets that “it is not possible to produce a satisfactory defense of a woman’s right to obtain an abortion without showing that the fetus is not a human being, in the morally relevant sense.” Unlike some more cautious philosophers, Warren thinks that we can definitively demonstrate that the fetus is not a person. In this paper, Warren’s argument is critically examined with a focus (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The inviolateness of life and equal protection: a defense of the dead-donor rule.Adam Omelianchuk - 2022 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 43 (1):1-27.
    There are increasing calls for rejecting the ‘dead donor’ rule and permitting ‘organ donation euthanasia’ in organ transplantation. I argue that the fundamental problem with this proposal is that it would bestow more worth on the organs than the donor who has them. What is at stake is the basis of human equality, which, I argue, should be based on an ineliminable dignity that each of us has in virtue of having a rational nature. To allow mortal harvesting would be (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Ethics after Darwin: Completing the Revolution.Rainer Ebert - 2020 - Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 11 (3):43-48.
    This is a big-picture discussion of an important implication of Darwinism for ethics. I argue that there is a misfit between our scientific view of the natural world and the view, still dominant in academic philosophy and wider society alike, that there is a discrete hierarchy of moral status among conscious beings. I will suggest that the clear line of traditional morality – between human beings and other animals – is a remnant of an obsolete moral outlook, not least because (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Speciesism, Arbitrariness and Moral Illusions.Stijn Bruers - 2020 - Philosophia 49 (3):957-975.
    Just as one line appears to be longer than another in an optical illusion, we can have a spontaneous moral judgment that one individual is more important than another. Sometimes such judgments can lead to moral illusions like speciesism and other kinds of discrimination. Moral illusions are persistent spontaneous judgments that violate our deepest moral values and distract us away from a rational, authentic ethic. They generate pseudo-ethics, similar to pseudoscience. The antidote against moral illusions is the ethical principle to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Are Humans More Equal Than Other Animals? An Evolutionary Argument Against Exclusively Human Dignity.Rainer Ebert - 2020 - Philosophia 48 (5):1807-1823.
    Secular arguments for equal and exclusively human worth generally tend to follow one of two strategies. One, which has recently gained renewed attention because of a novel argument by S. Matthew Liao, aims to directly ground worth in an intrinsic property that all humans have in common, whereas the other concedes that there is no morally relevant intrinsic difference between all humans and all other animals, and instead appeals to the membership of all humans in a special kind. In this (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Why Dignity is not the Foundation of Human Rights.Stamatina Liosi - 2016 - Public Reason 8 (1-2).
    This essay questions what is argued by many scholars today, namely that the moral concept of human dignity provides the basis for the establishment of human rights. More specifically, I critically discuss the two most prominent conceptions of human dignity, the ‘status’ and the ‘value’ conceptions of dignity, which are suggested today as the foundations of human rights. Ultimately, I propose a different, ‘duty-based’ philosophical account for the justification of the latter.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The boundaries of legal personhood: how spontaneous intelligence can problematise differences between humans, artificial intelligence, companies and animals.Jiahong Chen & Paul Burgess - 2019 - Artificial Intelligence and Law 27 (1):73-92.
    In this paper, we identify the way in which various forms of legal personhood can be differentiated from one another by comparing these entities with a—not too farfetched—hypothetical situation in which intelligence spontaneously evolves within the internet: spontaneous intelligence. In these terms, we consider the challenges that may arise where SI as an entity: has no owner, no designer, and no controller; has evolved into existence as a non-human created intelligence; is autonomous; has no physical form; and, although it exists (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Individualism in African Moral Cultures.Motsamai Molefe - 2017 - Cultura 14 (2):49-68.
    This article repudiates the dichotomy that African ethics is communitarian (relational) and Western ethics is individualistic. ‘Communitarianism’ is the view that morality is ultimately grounded on some relational properties like love or friendship; and, ‘individualism’ is the view that morality is ultimately a function of some individual property like a soul or welfare. Generally, this article departs from the intuition that all morality including African ethics, philosophically interpreted, is best understood in terms of individualism. But, in this article, I limit (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Cursed lamp: the problem of spontaneous abortion.William Simkulet - 2017 - Journal of Medical Ethics 43 (11):784-791.
    Many people believe human fetuses have the same moral status as adult human persons, that it is wrong to allow harm to befall things with this moral status, and thus voluntary, induced abortion is seriously morally wrong. Recently, many prochoice theorists have argued that this antiabortion stance is inconsistent; approximately 60% of human fetuses die from spontaneous abortion, far more than die from induced abortion, so if antiabortion theorists really believe that human fetuses have significant moral status, they have strong (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  • In Defense of Eating Vegan.Stijn Bruers - 2015 - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 28 (4):705-717.
    In his article ‘In Defense of Eating Meat’, Timothy Hsiao argued that sentience is not sufficient for moral status, that the pain experienced by an animal is bad but not morally bad, that the nutritional interests of humans trump the interests of animals and that eating meat is permissible. In this article I explore the strengths and weaknesses of Hsiao’s argument, clarify some issues and argue that eating meat is likely in conflict with some of our strongest moral intuitions.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • Speciesism as a Moral Heuristic.Stijn Bruers - 2013 - Philosophia 41 (2):489-501.
    In the last decade, the study of moral heuristics has gained in importance. I argue that we can consider speciesism as a moral heuristic: an intuitive rule of thumb that substitutes a target attribute (that is difficult to detect, e.g. “having rationality”) for a heuristic attribute (that is easier to detect, e.g. “looking like a human being”). This speciesism heuristic misfires when applied to some atypical humans such as the mentally disabled, giving them rights although they lack rationality. But I (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • A pluralist account of the basis of moral status.Giacomo Floris - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 178 (6):1859-1877.
    Standard liberal theories of justice rest on the assumption that only those beings that hold the capacity for moral personality have moral status and therefore are right-holders. As many pointed out, this has the disturbing implication of excluding a wide range of entities from the scope of justice. Call this the under-inclusiveness objection. This paper provides a response to the under-inclusiveness objection and illustrates its implications for liberal theories of justice. In particular, the paper defends two claims: first, it argues (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • (1 other version)Natural Good Theories and the Value of Human Dignity.Sebastian Muders - 2016 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 25 (2):239-249.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The ontological and moral significance of persons.Jason T. Eberl - 2017 - Scientia et Fides 5 (2):217-236.
    Many debates in arenas such as bioethics turn on questions regarding the moral status of human beings at various stages of biological development or decline. It is often argued that a human being possesses a fundamental and inviolable moral status insofar as she is a “person”; yet, it is contested whether all or only human beings count as persons. Perhaps there are non-human person, and perhaps not every human being satisfies the definitional criteria for being a person. A further question, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • The Core Argument for Veganism.Stijn Bruers - 2015 - Philosophia 43 (2):271-290.
    This article presents an argument for veganism, using a formal-axiomatic approach: a list of twenty axioms are explicitly stated. These axioms are all necessary conditions to derive the conclusion that veganism is a moral duty. The presented argument is a minimalist or core argument for veganism, because it is as parsimonious as possible, using the weakest conditions, the narrowest definitions, the most reliable empirical facts and the minimal assumptions necessary to reach the conclusion. If someone does not accept the conclusion, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Dignity's gauntlet.Remy Debes - 2009 - Philosophical Perspectives 23 (1):45-78.
    The philosophy of “ human dignity” remains a young, piecemeal endeavor with only a small, dedicated literature. And what dedicated literature exists makes for a rather slapdash mix of substantive and formal metatheory. Worse, ironically we seem compelled to treat this existing theory both charitably and casually. For how can we definitively assess any of it? Existing suggestions about the general features of dignity are necessarily contentious in virtue of being more or less blissfully uncritical of themselves. Because none of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Baruch Brody and the principle of justifiable homicide.Timothy Furlan - 2024 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 45 (5):329-361.
    In a series of papers in the early 1970s and in his important book _Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life_ (1975), Baruch Brody offered what remains to this day one of the most philosophically rigorous contributions to the debate concerning the morality of abortion and the ethics of homicide more generally. In this paper I would like to critically examine Brody’s argument that abortion is sometimes justifiable in some cases even when (1) one cannot claim self-defense, or (2) diminished (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Three Crucial Turns on the Road to an Adequate Understanding of Human Dignity.Ralf Stoecker - 2010 - In Paulus Kaufmann, Hannes Kuch, Christian Neuhaeuser & Elaine Webster (eds.), Humiliation, Degradation, Dehumanization. Human Dignity Violated. Springer Verlag. pp. 7-17.
    Human dignity is one of the key concepts of our ethical evaluations, in politics, in biomedicine, as well as in everyday life. In moral philosophy, however, human dignity is a source of intractable trouble. It has a number of characteristic features which apparently do not fit into one coherent ethical concept. Hence, philosophers tend to ignore or circumvent the concept. There is hope for a philosophically attractive conception of human dignity, however, given that one takes three crucial turns. The negative (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Looking Behind the Fear of Becoming a Burden.Brandy M. Fox - 2020 - HEC Forum 33 (4):401-414.
    As they age, many people are afraid that they might become a burden to their families and friends. In fact, fear of being a burden is one of the most frequently cited reasons for individuals who request physician aid in dying. Why is this fear so prevalent, and what are the issues underlying this concern? I argue that perceptions of individual autonomy, dependency, and dignity all contribute to the fear of becoming a burden. However, this fear is misplaced; common conceptions (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Dignity, Health, and Membership: Who Counts as One of Us?Bryan C. Pilkington - 2016 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 41 (2):115-129.
    This essay serves as an introduction to this issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. The five articles in this issue address a range of topics from the human embryo and substantial change to conceptions of disability. They engage claims of moral status, defense of our humanity, and argue for an accurate and just classification of persons of different communities within a healthcare system. I argue in this essay that though their concerns are diverse, the authors in this issue (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Human Dignity: Final, Inherent, Absolute?Sebastian Https://Orcidorg Muders - 2020 - Rivista di Estetica 75:84-103.
    In the traditional understanding, human dignity is often portrayed as a «final», «inherent», and «absolute» value. If human dignity as the core of the status of a human being did indeed have thos characteristics, this would yield a severe limitation for obligations that stem from the moral status of non-human animals, plants, eco systems and other entities discussed in environmental ethics; for obligations that arise from human dignity standardly take priority over the duties toward entities with non-human moral status. Yet, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Human Enhancement: Deontological Arguments.Markus Rüther & Jan-Hendrik Heinrichs - 2019 - Zeitschrift Für Ethik Und Moralphilosophie 2 (2):161-178.
    This is the second paper in a three-part series on the state of the enhancement debate. We report current trends and give an overview of established positions in the field of neuroenhancement. Unlike a number of articles on the bioethics of enhancement, we try to highlight connections between the contemporary debate and established positions in philosophical ethics. This specific perspective inspired the breakdown of our three-part series into consequentialist, deontological and virtue-ethical arguments.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • True dignity’ and ‘respect-worthiness.Sunday Adeniyi Fasoro - 2019 - Human Affairs 29 (2):207-223.
    In the Groundwork, Kant seems to make two paradoxical claims about the source of human dignity. First, he claims that if “rational nature exists as an end in itself” (Kant, 1998, p. 36), it is because “humanity is… dignity, insofar it is capable of morality” (Kant, 1998, p. 42). Second, he claims that although “autonomy is the ground of the dignity of human nature and of every rational nature” (Kant, 1998, p. 43), the human being can only have “dignity… insofar (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Institutionalizing Inequality: The Physical Criterion of Assisted Suicide.David Elliot - 2018 - Christian Bioethics 24 (1):17-37.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Interpretation of the Prohibition of Torture: Making Sense of ‘Dignity’ Talk.Elaine Webster - 2016 - Human Rights Review 17 (3):371-390.
    The right not to be subjected to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is invariably associated with ‘human dignity’. The idea of dignity plays some role in this right’s interpretation, although the content of the idea in this context, as in others, is unclear. Making sense of the dignity idea involves a number of challenges. These challenges give rise to the methodological-type question at the heart of this article: how should human rights lawyers go about articulating the content (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Abortion, Impairment, and Well-Being.Alex R. Gillham - 2023 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 48 (6):541-550.
    Hendricks’ The Impairment Argument (TIA) claims that it is immoral to impair a fetus by causing it to have fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Since aborting a fetus impairs it to a greater degree than causing it to have FAS, then abortion is also immoral. In this article, I argue that TIA ought to be rejected. This is because TIA can only succeed if it explains why causing an organism to have FAS impairs it to a morally objectionable degree, entails that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Mitochondrial Replacement Techniques, the Non-Identity Problem, and Genetic Parenthood.William Simkulet - 2021 - Asian Bioethics Review 13 (3):317-334.
    Mitochondrial replacement techniques are designed to allow couples to have children without passing on mitochondrial diseases. Recently, Giulia Cavaliere and César Palacios-González argued that prospective parents have the right to use MRTs to pursue genetic relatedness, such that some same-sex couples and/or polygamous triads could use the process to impart genetic relatedness between a child and more of its caregivers. Although MRTs carry medical risks, Cavaliere and Palacios-González contend that because MRTs are identity-affecting, they do not cause harm to an (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Minimally conscious state and human dignity.Jukka Varelius - 2008 - Neuroethics 2 (1):35-50.
    Recent progress in neurosciences has improved our understanding of chronic disorders of consciousness. One example of this advancement is the emergence of the new diagnostic category of minimally conscious state (MCS). The central characteristic of MCS is impaired consciousness. Though the phenomenon now referred to as MCS pre-existed its inclusion in diagnostic classifications, the current medical ethical concepts mainly apply to patients with normal consciousness and to non-conscious patients. Accordingly, how we morally should stand with persons in minimally conscious state (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Dignity and Human Dignity.Sebastian Muders - forthcoming - Philosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Біоетична концепція якості життя: Критичний аналіз.Kateryna Rassudina - 2021 - Наукові Записки Наукма. Філософія Та Релігієзнавство 7:71-77.
    Bioethics is an interdisciplinary science that deals with the moral aspects of medicine, biotechnology and the value of life in general. Quality of life concept is the basis for one of the models of bioethics. Its supporters understand the value of human life by relying on the categories of its qualitative characteristics. They argue that the value of life is relative and depends on certain criteria, and prove the permissibility to terminate it in some cases. Quality of life conception is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • On Age.William Simkulet - 2024 - De Ethica 8 (2):33-43.
    Age is determined by the amount of time that someone or something has existed. For example, a person born in 1980 and a 1980 vintage wine would each be 40 years old in 2020. Recently, Joona Räsänen has challenged this belief, arguing that in some cases one’s age is not determined by how long one has existed, but by some feature or set of features about one’s biology, experiences, and/or beliefs about themselves. In many cases, age is an ad hoc (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • (1 other version)La moralidad de la interrupción del embarazo.Mauricio Correa Casanova - 2014 - Veritas: Revista de Filosofía y Teología 31:115-131.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Putting Image into Practice: Imago Dei, Dignity, and Their Bioethical Import.Bryan C. Pilkington - 2017 - Christian Bioethics 23 (3):299-316.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation