Human Dignity and Bioethics

Human Dignity and Political Entitlements | 365
Many chimps are capable of learning language, but, by contrast, in
the chimp community it is a frill rather than something central to
their life, so we would not think of ourselves as required to spend
money to teach all chimps language, even if we accept the idea that
we have obligations to develop and promote the capabilities of nonhuman
animals.
Extending the Notion of Dignity: Animal Entitlements
If we take the line that I have recommended, refusing to ground
dignity in rationality alone, and insisting on grounding it in a varied
set of capacities that are all elements in the life of a type of animal being,
we can easily move onward to recognize that the world contains
many distinct varieties of dignity, some human and some belonging
to other species. What I have said about dignity in humans goes as
well for most animals (at least all those who move from place to place
and have complex forms of sentience—I am not going to comment
here on sponges and other related “stationary animals”). Namely,
animals have capacities that are dynamic and not static, that seek
expression in a characteristic form of life. They reach out, as it were,
for those types of functioning and are frustrated and made vain if the
animal is not permitted to develop them further internally and/or
is denied suitable external conditions for their expression. It would
seem that these capacities too inspire awe and should be objects of
respect. Respecting animal capacities would seem to require, at the
very least, undertaking not to impede animals’ chances to grow up
and lead flourishing lives.
These are controversial issues, and there is no space here to give
them the argument they deserve. One-third of my book Frontiers of
Justice is devoted to these questions, first arguing that our relationship
to nonhuman animals raises issues of justice, and then trying to
extend the capabilities approach to deal with these questions. Clearly,
the Aristotelian-Marxian account is suited for such extension in a
way that the Stoic rationalistic account of dignity is not. And I argue,
too, that it does better than Utilitarianism, because it can recognize
worth in a wide variety of distinct capacities for functioning, and is
not single-mindedly focused on pain and pleasure, which are very