Defining Dignity

Pinker's essay has a number of problems. He makes the "dignity position" seem extreme (quoting one person saying that licking ice cream in public is an undignified use of the body) and borders on ridicule. He tests illustrations such as the pettiness of the immortal Greek gods by scientific standards. Though he claims that claims of violation of human dignity is a smokescreen for "obstructionist bioethics" he fails to intelligibly articulate an ulterior motive for obstructing apparent scientific "progress."

Perhaps the worst problem in Pinker's essay is his understanding of human dignity.

from The Stupidity of Dignity

First, dignity is relative. One doesn't have to be a scientific or moral relativist to notice that ascriptions of dignity vary radically with the time, place, and beholder. In olden days, a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. We chuckle at the photographs of Victorians in starched collars and wool suits hiking in the woods on a sweltering day, or at the Brahmins and patriarchs of countless societies who consider it beneath their dignity to pick up a dish or play with a child. Thorstein Veblen wrote of a French king who considered it beneath his dignity to move his throne back from the fireplace, and one night roasted to death when his attendant failed to show up. Kass finds other people licking an ice-cream cone to be shamefully undignified; I have no problem with it.

Second, dignity is fungible. The Council and Vatican 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. Getting out of a small car is undignified. Having sex is undignified. Doffing your belt and spread- eagling to allow a security guard to slide a wand up your crotch is undignified. Most pointedly, modern medicine is a gantlet of indignities. Most readers of this article have undergone a pelvic or rectal examination, and many have had the pleasure of a colonoscopy as well. We repeatedly vote with our feet (and other body parts) that dignity is a trivial value, well worth trading off for life, health, and safety.

Third, dignity can be harmful. In her comments on the Dignity volume, Jean Bethke Elshtain rhetorically asked, "Has anything good ever come from denying or constricting human dignity?" The answer is an emphatic "yes." Every sashed and be-medaled despot reviewing his troops from a lofty platform seeks to command respect through ostentatious displays of dignity. Political and religious repressions are often rationalized as a defense of the dignity of a state, leader, or creed: Just think of the Salman Rushdie fatwa, the Danish cartoon riots, or the British schoolteacher in Sudan who faced flogging and a lynch mob because her class named a teddy bear Mohammed. Indeed, totalitarianism is often the imposition of a leader's conception of dignity on a population, such as the identical uniforms in Maoist China or the burqas of the Taliban.

Pinker makes the common parochial error of confusing dignity with self-concept. Such a shallow, surface definition of dignity is exactly what Catholics should fight against. Pinker's understanding of dignity could not really obstruct anything in bioethics because babies and the elderly do not have dignity as described by Pinker. For a Catholic, human dignity is an inherent value that comes from being a person. The concept of dignity is not respect for individual qualities. It is a respect for human nature.

Pinker creates a political conspiracy out of a thoughtful philosophical exercise. He creates an emaciated view of human dignity and acts as if he has disproved the entire concept because he is able to knock down his straw man. The real discussion about human dignity not a discussion about blocking scientific development. It is a discussion about clearly defining authentic human development. It is a solid and incredibly important discussion - and it's not going away just because Pinker and others of his ilk want it to.