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The stupidity of dignity.
Loren Michael
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=d8731cf4-e87b-4d88-b7e7-f5059cd0bfbd
What is human dignity?
Steven Pinker basically argues that it's basically a kind of anti-progressive reflex, largely from a religiously-inspired corner of society where they try and say that scientific progress is a threat to some transcendent humane norm.
Anyways, read the article. It's long, but it will educate you and you don't want to be more stupid on top of your pathetic dignity, do you, dummy? Then, let's discuss it.
Here's a cut and paste of the first chunk:
EDITed for a title more reflective of the original article.
What is human dignity?
Steven Pinker basically argues that it's basically a kind of anti-progressive reflex, largely from a religiously-inspired corner of society where they try and say that scientific progress is a threat to some transcendent humane norm.
Anyways, read the article. It's long, but it will educate you and you don't want to be more stupid on top of your pathetic dignity, do you, dummy? Then, let's discuss it.
Here's a cut and paste of the first chunk:
This spring, the President's Council on Bioethics released a 555-page report, titled Human Dignity and Bioethics. The Council, created in 2001 by George W. Bush, is a panel of scholars charged with advising the president and exploring policy issues related to the ethics of biomedical innovation, including drugs that would enhance cognition, genetic manipulation of animals or humans, therapies that could extend the lifespan, and embryonic stem cells and so-called "therapeutic cloning" that could furnish replacements for diseased tissue and organs. Advances like these, if translated into freely undertaken treatments, could make millions of people better off and no one worse off. So what's not to like? The advances do not raise the traditional concerns of bioethics, which focuses on potential harm and coercion of patients or research subjects. What, then, are the ethical concerns that call for a presidential council?
Many people are vaguely disquieted by developments (real or imagined) that could alter minds and bodies in novel ways. Romantics and Greens tend to idealize the natural and demonize technology. Traditionalists and conservatives by temperament distrust radical change. Egalitarians worry about an arms race in enhancement techniques. And anyone is likely to have a "yuck" response when contemplating unprecedented manipulations of our biology. The President's Council has become a forum for the airing of this disquiet, and the concept of "dignity" a rubric for expounding on it. This collection of essays is the culmination of a long effort by the Council to place dignity at the center of bioethics. The general feeling is that, even if a new technology would improve life and health and decrease suffering and waste, it might have to be rejected, or even outlawed, if it affronted human dignity.
Whatever that is. The problem is that "dignity" is a squishy, subjective notion, hardly up to the heavyweight moral demands assigned to it. The bioethicist Ruth Macklin, who had been fed up with loose talk about dignity intended to squelch research and therapy, threw down the gauntlet in a 2003 editorial, "Dignity Is a Useless Concept." Macklin argued that bioethics has done just fine with the principle of personal autonomy--the idea that, because all humans have the same minimum capacity to suffer, prosper, reason, and choose, no human has the right to impinge on the life, body, or freedom of another. This is why informed consent serves as the bedrock of ethical research and practice, and it clearly rules out the kinds of abuses that led to the birth of bioethics in the first place, such as Mengele's sadistic pseudoexperiments in Nazi Germany and the withholding of treatment to indigent black patients in the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study. Once you recognize the principle of autonomy, Macklin argued, "dignity" adds nothing.
Goaded by Macklin's essay, the Council acknowledged the need to put dignity on a firmer conceptual foundation. This volume of 28 essays and commentaries by Council members and invited contributors is their deliverable, addressed directly to President Bush. The report does not, the editors admit, settle the question of what dignity is or how it should guide our policies. It does, however, reveal a great deal about the approach to bioethics represented by the Council. And what it reveals should alarm anyone concerned with American biomedicine and its promise to improve human welfare. For this government-sponsored bioethics does not want medical practice to maximize health and flourishing; it considers that quest to be a bad thing, not a good thing.
Many people are vaguely disquieted by developments (real or imagined) that could alter minds and bodies in novel ways. Romantics and Greens tend to idealize the natural and demonize technology. Traditionalists and conservatives by temperament distrust radical change. Egalitarians worry about an arms race in enhancement techniques. And anyone is likely to have a "yuck" response when contemplating unprecedented manipulations of our biology. The President's Council has become a forum for the airing of this disquiet, and the concept of "dignity" a rubric for expounding on it. This collection of essays is the culmination of a long effort by the Council to place dignity at the center of bioethics. The general feeling is that, even if a new technology would improve life and health and decrease suffering and waste, it might have to be rejected, or even outlawed, if it affronted human dignity.
Whatever that is. The problem is that "dignity" is a squishy, subjective notion, hardly up to the heavyweight moral demands assigned to it. The bioethicist Ruth Macklin, who had been fed up with loose talk about dignity intended to squelch research and therapy, threw down the gauntlet in a 2003 editorial, "Dignity Is a Useless Concept." Macklin argued that bioethics has done just fine with the principle of personal autonomy--the idea that, because all humans have the same minimum capacity to suffer, prosper, reason, and choose, no human has the right to impinge on the life, body, or freedom of another. This is why informed consent serves as the bedrock of ethical research and practice, and it clearly rules out the kinds of abuses that led to the birth of bioethics in the first place, such as Mengele's sadistic pseudoexperiments in Nazi Germany and the withholding of treatment to indigent black patients in the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study. Once you recognize the principle of autonomy, Macklin argued, "dignity" adds nothing.
Goaded by Macklin's essay, the Council acknowledged the need to put dignity on a firmer conceptual foundation. This volume of 28 essays and commentaries by Council members and invited contributors is their deliverable, addressed directly to President Bush. The report does not, the editors admit, settle the question of what dignity is or how it should guide our policies. It does, however, reveal a great deal about the approach to bioethics represented by the Council. And what it reveals should alarm anyone concerned with American biomedicine and its promise to improve human welfare. For this government-sponsored bioethics does not want medical practice to maximize health and flourishing; it considers that quest to be a bad thing, not a good thing.
EDITed for a title more reflective of the original article.
Loren Michael on
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I don't think that's useless.
Which is why I agree with that article, such an imprecise concept is not a useful one in such discussions. Autonomy does the job.
I'm not sure how a strong sense of one's self-worth is anti-progressive.
It is anti-progressive because it's imprecise, so it bogs down the progression of discussion in the field he wants to change it in. He's basically saying it's not a very useful word to employ in such a discussion. I doubt he cares how most people use it who aren't participating in the discussion.
It's fairly personal, aside from the assumption that most people at least possess some form of it.
I'm not sure if I'd define any concept that isn't universal and precise as "non-progressive." Humanity isn't exactly a bunch of perfectly-functioning machines united towards one goal. And even if it was, that goal would probably assume some sort of self-worth on the part of all people.
I'd say the concept of dignity is mostly about self-respect and that an action becomes undignified when carrying it out would cause one to lose esteem in one's own eyes.
Personally I would believe that any technology that would allow me to carry out life for a longer time autonomously, and live more fully dignifies me (noting of course that no one was harmed or had their rights impinged by said technology.)
If someone believes however that somehow altering their god-given (haha) structure is degrading, such a person should be allowed to make a decision of foregoing any such "yucky" medical procedures.
The fact that policy is being decided on the concept of "yucky" hidden behind a loosely defined idea of "human dignity" (and since when has the Bush administration been the leading authority on that?) I find slightly unsettling.
Don't you see? All leisure is taking away precious time that could be spent being more progressive! Ice-cream, television, music, internet foru-
Well, shit.
He's not generalising it like you are. He's saying it's redundant to the discussion of morality. It's a purely academia article, to clarify further discussions without bogging them down.
Dignity is completely outmoded in a discussion that includes that term. Self-worth is tied into reason and choice.
EDIT: Oh, I think Morninglord's post above mine is also a response to me, fittingly enough. I amend!
AMENDMENT: I think, then, that they're right that the notion of "dignity" presented to them is purely an anti-progressive impulse, couched in much less relevant and outmoded beliefs than the language they use would have it seem. I would object, though, to the title of this thread because it seems to encroach on a different topic than the paper we're discussing.
That's the Bush administration for you.
Having personal dignity is a good tool for survival. The problem is when, like this committee, a person decides that their personal definition of dignity should extend beyond themself.
So if one's self-worth is dependent on the choices one makes, how do we factor in people being born/thrust into different situations with different choices, none of which we may deem as "correct?"
You haven't read the linked article.
The person she's talking about is not the same person putting forth the idea of dignity being covered by personal autonomy.
Good point. All four definitions cover it.
They have a minimum requirement to not suffer, a minimum requirement to prosper, a minimum requirement to choose and a minimum requirement to reason.
In your case, you would feel a sense of self worth if you still got to choose some everyday actions which reduced your suffering and increased your prosperity.
It's a relationship between them all. If it all happens, you get self worth. You don't need the word dignity.
After investigating further this is acadamia mixing up dignity and religious conceptions of humanity because fundies throw out "dignity" as an excuse sometimes. They really should know better.
He was a Bush appointee though.
No, it's them trying to continue academic criticism of fundamental gibberish by removing their ability to toss about generalised terms with a shovel in the face of a bioethics report to the president that is almost completely filled with Judeo-Christian themed values.
The report refers to the authority of the fucking bible as self evident without any critical examination of the claim. This is bible thumping dressed up as bioethics.
It's pathetic.
I don't really understand this sort of writing. You know your audience is academic, you don't need an essay to tell them water is wet.
He's really just preaching to the choir.
You do though if they are using a word that means water and ice and are using it generally so you can't tell if they mean frozen or liquid water.
Else all forms of water would just be water, wouldn't they.
It's all about precision man. You be as precise as possibe in an academic essay. Sometime they invent whole new terms just because the english language doesn't have the right word for a specific context. Take a gander at some of the general threads in any one of these forums and see how many times people get angry over someone using a word for one definition, when they thought it was another. Look how many posts are wasted each time.
Precision is important.
I know. There seem to be a lot of unqualified lunatics in your public service after the last few years. Its worrying.
Cat for "Understatement of the year", 2008.
I felt a shiver of fear when I read the contents of that report. That shit is messed up.
How indeed.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Dignity, the belief that you are worth of esteem and respect, has *NOTHING* to do with bioethics. People should be attacking the perversion of that term, not the term itself.
The anti-intellectual fearmongers who stand to gain politically on both the left and right from shutting down medical research are probably glad you are letting them define the terms of the debate this way - because if you do, it makes their victory certain.
The TRUE affront to human dignity is that these people think it is worth it to let people suffer and die so that their squishy sensibilities aren't affronted.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Here's the article "Dignity is a Useless Concept"
Let's tone down the ignorant raging a little here shall we.
Any use of dignity outside the field of medical ethics is perfectly A-OK and unthreatened by this article. Creating technical jargon specific to a field in order to clarify discussion in the field is not surprising, and is never intended to be applied outside the field.
They don't have PR because that fact does it for them.
In addition, a tip on academia: titles are deliberately made eye grabbing, to get people to read the article and to distinguish it from a sea of other articles published every day. You always need to read at least the abstract or introduction/conclusion of the article before you make a decision, at least in bioethics.
For the lazy ragers amongst us, chew on this first if you can't be bothered to read the article:
Anybody raging like that from here on will be subject to piercing questions. I am taking notes. There will be a quiz.
The scariest part is that many of them won't be leaving when the new administration comes in. So a Dem president is going to find the agencies he's nominally in charge of at war with him.
This whole issue sounds to me like a prime example of why governments should be completely secular.
This. It's much like the Dworkin-definition of "porn" used to make the claim "all porn is rape".
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
He makes other points that are not only valid, but also carry far more importance.
I think it should be a matter of great worry to every non-fundie American that their president is advised by a bunch of regressive nutjobs on scientific issues.
Make no mistake people: shit like this starts innocently enough. We saw how that ended up in Turkey.
Being relocated isn't so bad, at least nobody got killed.
Is anyone else fed up with the high degree of scientific illiteracy (or just general technological ignorance) that appears to be /necessary/ to get elected to political office in the United States? See, for example, Ted Stevens and The Series of Tubes.
(BTW, a friend of mine just got me reading these boards, so I look forward to enlightening all of you with my pearls of unshakable wisdom)
Oh, I totally agree. And yes it is absolutely alarming that our President takes his cues from religious headcases, not just on scientific issues, but on everything else from foreign policy to health. Our country is effectively being run by eschatologically-obsessed fundamentalist Christians. That scares the shit out of me.
However, it has little or nothing to do with "dignity" as a concept, except that Christians have a different notion of "dignity" than non-Christians. Big freaking surprise there.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I mean, I think the disparagement is a bit over the top in here. It was a short and interesting article which could be summed up as: 1) Here is what those wacky conservatives are up to. 2) This is why I think it's silly. 2a) Because dignity is subjective, duh!
Well, the main thing the author was pointing out was not that Christians have a different notion of dignity than non-Christians, but that even their own notion of dignity contradicts itself in the stances they take in various issues. He was pointing out the inconsistency in a concept they commonly use to fuel their arguments, which is a valid point worth talking about.
The Malkin article is pretty good.