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Catholicism and Human Dignity
Sr. Mary Diana Dreger, OP, MD Ashley K. Fernandes, MD, PhD
What is human dignity?
Two compeCng anthropologies
Materialist Chris,an Personalism Thinks
Loves
Acts in Freedom Lives in solidarity with others
Faith
AGacks on Human Dignity: Dignity as a “Useless Concept”
(Ruth Macklin, BMJ, 2003) Macklin • Dignity adds nothing to
debates in bioethics that cannot be found outside the principle of respect for autonomy
• Dignity is “an infinitely elasCc” concept, (since anyone can use it in any way) making it meaningless.
• Dignity has a religious origin, overtone
Our rebu6al • Ignores the experienCal
encounter with another • Ignores experience of moral
acCon as a dual source of ethical formaCon (along with reason)
• Takes for granted a materialist anthropology
“Choice” as the Central Unit of Value
AGacks on Human Dignity: “The Stupidity of Dignity”(Steven Pinker, 2008) • First, dignity is relaCve. One doesn't have to be a scienCfic or
moral relaCvist to noCce that ascripCons of dignity vary radically with the Cme, place, and beholder…
• Second, dignity is fungible. The Council and VaCcan treat dignity as a sacred value, never to be compromised. In fact, every one of us voluntarily and repeatedly relinquishes dignity for other goods in life. Ge_ng out of a small car is undignified...Most pointedly, modern medicine is a gantlet of indigniCes. Most readers of this arCcle have undergone a pelvic or rectal examinaCon, and many have had the pleasure of a colonoscopy as well…
• Third, dignity can be harmful…[Jean Bethke] Elshtain rhetorically asked, "Has anything good ever come from denying or constricCng human dignity?" The answer is an emphaCc "yes." Every sashed and be-‐medaled despot reviewing his troops from a loey plaform seeks to command respect through ostentaCous displays of dignity…
#ShoutYourAborCon
Assisted Suicide
ChrisCne Horner, Huffington Post, July 2016
Dignity is what I make of it…
Dignity as a “Problem & A Mystery” (Gabriel Marcel)
A Problem • Can be examined
objecCvely, through reason
A Mystery • An experience examined
from within, “from the concrete experience of a person as person”
Dignity as a “Call & a Demand” (St. Pope John Paul II)
A Call • A “call” from the
(vulnerable) person, to an encounter with the incommunicable intrinsic dignity
A Demand • For a community to
recognize dignity in its call for individual and social jusCce
Human Dignity in Medicine
• Basic/inherent dignity vs aGributed/personal
• Dignity transcends “autonomy”/choice
• ConflaCon of moral and aestheCc senses of dignity
• Goal of medicine is to expose the pure, blinding dignity of the person
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