Human Dignity and Bioethics

456 | Paul Weithman
reason for—the obligation some agent or agents are under to avert
it. The obligation of these agents is what is grounded immediately on
the badness of the state of affairs. Since the entitlement in question is
held against government, it must be that the bad is one that government
is under an obligation to avert. And, the proponent of the Aristotelian
Argument must think, it is a bad that government is obligated
to avert if it is to be properly respectful of human dignity.*
Instead of supposing that the proponent of the Aristotelian
Argument relies on (3a.2), I shall therefore suppose that he would
move from (1a), (2a) and (3a.1) to basic entitlements by appealing to
claims that are, in relevant respects, like those on which the Fittingness
Argument relies:
and
(3a.2.1) The bad of a human being’s having to live a life in which
she lacks the threshold capacities is one that government
must avert if it is to be appropriately respectful of human
worth.
(3a.2.2) Government must be appropriately respectful of human
worth.
(3a.2.3) The bad of a human being’s having to live a life in which
she lacks the threshold capacities is one that government
must avert.
V. The Aristotelian Argument: A Fuller Statement and
Assessment
Let me recapitulate the Aristotelian Argument so that all the steps are
before us. The argument begins, as we saw, with the claims that:
* Writing of her “capabilities approach” to justice, Martha Nussbaum says: “The
aim of the project as a whole is to provide the philosophical underpinning for
an account of basic constitutional principles that should be respected and implemented
by the governments of all nations, as a bare minimum of what respect for
human dignity requires.” See her Women and Human Development (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 5.