Human Dignity and Bioethics

Letter of Transmittal to
The President of The United States
The President
The White House
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. President,
The President’s Council on Bioethics
1425 New York Avenue, NW, Suite C100
Washington, D.C. 20005
March 1, 2008
With this letter I am pleased to send you Human Dignity and Bioethics:
Essays Commissioned by the President’s Council on Bioethics. Like the
Council’s earlier volume, Being Human: Readings from the President’s
Council on Bioethics, this book is an anthology, in this case a collection
of essays exploring a fundamental concept crucial to today’s
discourse in law and ethics in general and in bioethics in particular.
Since the Council’s establishment in 2001, the concept of human
dignity has figured frequently in many of the Council’s reports.
As a result, there have been repeated requests for clarification of the
meaning of the term. The Council has decided to respond by putting
the question to a diverse group of scholars, including members of the
Council, the better to provide a sense of the breadth of opinions on
what has become a controversial subject.
These essays make it clear that there is no universal agreement on
the meaning of the term, human dignity. Some argue that human
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