Human Dignity and Bioethics

Dignity and Enhancement | 179
solid immovability, the dignified quietly defies the world. 10
Finally, regarding the bearers of such dignity, Kolnai remarks:
[T]he predicates…are chiefly applicable to so-called “human
beings,” i.e. persons, but again not exclusively so: much dignity
in this sense seems to me proper to the Cat, and not a
little, with however different connotation, to the Bull or the
Elephant…. Is not the austere mountainous plateau of Old
Castile a dignified landscape…? And, though man-made,
cannot works of art (especially of the “classic,” though not
exactly “classicist,” type) have a dignity of their own? 11
The term “enhancement” also needs to be explicated. I shall use the
following rough characterization:
Enhancement: An intervention that improves the functioning of
some subsystem of an organism beyond its reference state; or that
creates an entirely new functioning or subsystem that the organism
previously lacked.
The function of a subsystem can be construed either as natural
(and can be identified with the evolutionary role played by the subsystem,
if it is an adaptation), or as intentional (in which case the
function is determined by the contribution that the subsystem makes
to the attainment of relevant goals and intentions of the organism).
The functioning of a subsystem is “improved” when the subsystem
becomes more efficient at performing its function. The “reference
state” may usually be taken to be the normal, healthy state of the subsystem,
i.e., the level of functioning of the subsystem when it is not
“diseased” or “broken” in any specific way. There is some indeterminacy
in this definition of the reference state. It could refer to the state
that is normal for some particular individual when she is not subject
to any specific disease or injury. This could either be age-relative or
indexed to the prime of life. Alternatively, the reference state could be
defined as the “species-typical” level of functioning.
When we say “enhancement,” unless we further specify these and
other indeterminacies, we do not express any very precise thought. In
what follows, however, not much will hinge on exactly how one may
choose to fill in this sketch of a definition of enhancement.