The Dignity of the Human Person as a ‘Universal of Medical Ethics’

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

The destiny of medicine, nay that of humanity itself, largely depends on our way of thinking about the human person and about human dignity. None of the seven goods medicine is called to serve can be separated from human dignity, which gives human life, human suffering, human integrity of form, etc., their peculiar moral relevance and distinguishes them profoundly from animal life and animal health, and from the integrity of animal form. Since all the ends of medicine are so closely bound up with human dignity, a philosophy and ethics of medicine has to give primary weight to the questions of the human person and of her value, and to bring to evidence and then to analyze carefully this fundamental value called ‘human dignity,’ its objectivity, its sources, and its dimensions. For if this value is only subjective and dependent on our opinions, it does not possess any true morally binding force nor can it be the source of human rights that are independent from political whims of tyrants and from popular vote and ought to be respected by medical professionals. Moreover, if just one of its many sources and dimensions were taken to be the only source and dimension of human dignity, and its other dimensions and sources neglected, then the physician might unjustly exclude hosts of human beings from the realm of those beings that possess human dignity, and act accordingly.KeywordsMedical EthicHuman DignityRational NatureHuman PersonHuman SoulThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.