Human Dignity and Bioethics

Human Dignity and Public Discourse | 217
arguments for “death with dignity.” Morally, however, the dignity
of the human person is affirmed most importantly not in the assertion
of one’s autonomy but in the protection of others who are most
subject to having their dignity violated. Therefore, in bioethics as in
medicine more generally, the first rule is “Do no harm.” That first
rule enjoins us to protect and maintain something that is recognized
as good in its being.
That first rule is perceived by some to be a restriction on scientific
and technological progress, and it is intended to be exactly that.
More precisely, it is a frankly moral placing of limits on what some,
driven by what is aptly described as the scientific or technological
imperative, deem to be progress. Morality is not to be pitted against
genuine progress, and we should be grateful for all the advances that
have been made and no doubt will be made in “the relief of man’s
estate” (Bacon). But it is precisely the business of ethical and moral
reason to make normative judgments regarding present and proposed
measures aimed at such relief. This is true with respect to the dignity
of the human person and with respect to more ambitious proposals
aimed not so much at relieving as at transforming “man’s estate.” In
this connection, Dr. Schulman’s citing of C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition
of Man is entirely to the point.
Understanding of the questions before us has not been well served
by the ill-defined discipline of bioethics. Militating against the task of
normative moral judgment is not only the scientific and technological
imperative, with all the fame and glory attending “breakthrough”
achievements, but also the weight of inestimable financial interests.
Think, for instance, of what those who can pay will pay for a significant
extension of their life span or for the “perfect baby.” It is only
somewhat cynical to observe that institutions with the greatest vested
interest in dubious advances have recruited the best bioethicists that
money can buy.
One must acknowledge that bioethics as an intellectual institution
is, in significant part, an industry for the production of rationalized—sometimes
elegantly rationalized—permission slips in the
service of the technological imperative joined to the pursuit of fame
and wealth. Which is not to deny that such permission slips are also
issued in the service of what some believe to be the relief of suffering
and the enhancement of man’s estate. Even when bioethics is