Human Dignity and Bioethics

476 | Daniel P. Sulmasy, O.F.M.
whether the value at stake is attributed or intrinsic.
I have suggested that there is yet a third category of values, inflorescent
values. Certain processes or states of affairs in an intrinsically
valuable entity are considered especially valuable. This is the
case because these processes or states of affairs either are conducive to
or instantiate the flourishing of an intrinsically valuable thing as the
kind of thing that it is. The flourishing of a member of a natural kind
is a good state of affairs, but that goodness depends upon something
about the kind of thing that is flourishing. Thus, the value of that
state of affairs is, in a sense, derivative. One might be tempted to say
that flourishing is intrinsically good, but the goodness of flourishing
is always dependent upon the kind of thing that is said to be flourishing,
and thus that state of affairs is not, strictly speaking, intrinsically
valuable. Rather, it is the thing that is flourishing that is intrinsically
valuable, and its flourishing can only be understood in terms of the
intrinsic value of that thing.
On this view, human virtues, such as courage, are not, in a technical
sense, intrinsically valuable. We seek virtue not for its own sake,
but for the sake of our humanity. For instance, since the virtue of
courage is a state of affairs of an individual member of the human
natural kind, the value of courage is dependent upon knowledge of
what kind of thing a human being is and upon the value of being human.
Human virtues are good because they instantiate aspects of the
flourishing of the human natural kind in virtuous individuals.
What relationship does this discussion have to dignity? “Intrinsic
dignity” is just the name we give to the special type of intrinsic
value that belongs to members of natural kinds that have kind-specific
capacities for language, rationality, love, free will, moral agency,
creativity, aesthetic sensibility, and an ability to grasp the finite and
the infinite. The phase “attributed dignities” refers to several noninstrumental
values that are attributed to members of any natural
kind that has intrinsic dignity. The phrase “inflorescent dignity” refers
to a variety of states of affairs in which a member of a natural
kind that has intrinsic dignity is flourishing as the kind of thing that
it is. By definition, then, intrinsic dignity is the fundamental notion
of dignity. One defines attributed and inflorescent dignity in terms
of intrinsic dignity.
The next step in the argument is to note that, if there are intrinsic