Human Dignity and Bioethics

62 | Robert P. Kraynak
While these two principles are cited to expand research, a third principle
is often raised to slow down or prohibit scientific experimentation
on the grounds that it “violates human dignity.” This expression
refers to the powerful moral intuition that certain practices are wrong
because they treat people as sub-humans or even as non-humans,
for example, when human beings are treated like “guinea pigs” for
experimentation without proper consent, or when human beings are
used as disposable objects for research and destruction.
While all three moral principles are important for bioethics, this
paper will focus on human dignity—the definition and grounding of
human dignity as well as the practical question of whether it provides
a workable guideline for decisions about biotechnology. The position
I will take is that human dignity is a viable moral concept for bioethics,
but one that needs clarification. To clarify the concept, I will
compare three models of man—the model of scientific materialism,
according to which man is a complex machine; the model of classical
philosophy which views man as a rational soul united to a body; and
the Biblical view of man as a creature made in the image of God. My
argument is that human dignity implies a special moral status for
human beings and that this special status ultimately requires a belief
in the human soul. Scientific materialism denies the soul and thereby
undermines human dignity, but most materialists find they cannot
do without the soul and restore it by various strategies. Classical philosophy
is more sensible in claiming that human beings have rational
souls united to physical bodies, but the theoretical underpinnings
of this doctrine are highly speculative. Surprisingly, the Bible and
Christian theology may make the strongest case for human dignity
because they recognize that human dignity is a mystery: the special
status of man cannot be reduced to any set of essential attributes but
rests on the mysterious “election” of man as the only creature in the
universe made in the image of God. I will conclude by showing why
human dignity, grounded in the mystery of the soul, should make
scientists think twice about experiments aimed primarily at advancing
earthly happiness and scientific knowledge.