Human Dignity and Bioethics

The Religious Character of Human Dignity | 389
the modern age on the ethics of human rights—“they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” not “unalienable
duties”—was a tragic mistake. Obviously the mistake can’t be undone;
in itself there’s no point discussing it. But bioethicists can
choose any assumptions they like. They can choose an ethics of human
duty for their own use; and if they do, they will be choosing
wisely. (Unconventionally, but wisely.)
Secular vs. Religious Morality
First, what right do I have introducing religion—quotations from
the Talmud no less—into the clean, rational, sterile domain of western
philosophy?
Let’s start by considering what secular ethics has to say nowadays.
Obviously there is no single answer. But here is one example, for concreteness.
Modern ethics points us towards “an increased sensitivity”
to various things—“to the environment, to sexual difference, to gender,
to people different from ourselves in a whole variety of ways….”
Modern ethics suggests that we must be “careful, and mature, and
imaginative, and fair, and nice, and lucky.” 2
I am quoting from the last page of the last chapter of a respected
recent introduction to ethics by Simon Blackburn, whose suggestions
sound like a parody of left-wing thinking. They ask for nothing
noble, uplifting or even difficult. They do not call on us to be generous
or just, decent, good, honest, kind, gracious, merciful or loving.
One thinks of a famous proclamation by the prophet Micah: “Man,
it has been told you what is good, and what the Lord requires of you:
only to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God” (Micah
6:8). Justice, mercy, humility—tall orders, yet man is capable of
filling them. We all know men and women (at least a few) who have
done it. These are no pie-in-the-sky demands.
Modern ethics falls short of human capacities. It asks too little.
It’s too small for the human soul. We ought to send it back and demand
something roomier. (Speaking of roomy, what does the medieval
Christian art of the Gothic cathedral tell us about man’s capacities?
“Be great! Be worthy of the sublime grandeur and beauty of this
place that man and God built together. Be humble: there are regions