Human Dignity in Bioethics From Worldviews to the Public Square [Hardcover]

Human Dignity in Bioethics brings together a collection of essays that rigorously examine the concept of human dignity from its metaphysical foundations to its polemical deployment in bioethical controversies. The volume falls into three parts, beginning with meta-level perspectives and moving to concrete applications.

Part 1 analyzes human dignity through a worldview lens, exploring the source and meaning of human dignity from naturalist, postmodernist, Protestant, and Catholic vantages, respectively, letting each side explain and defend its own conception. Part 2 moves from metaphysical moorings to key areas of macro-level influence: international politics, American law, and biological science. These chapters examine the legitimacy of the concept of dignity in documents by international political bodies, the role of dignity in American jurisprudence, and the implicationsand challengesfor dignity posed by Darwinism. Part 3 shifts from macro-level topics to concrete applications by examining the rhetoric of human dignity in specific controversies: embryonic stem cell research, abortion, human-animal chimeras, euthanasia and palliative care, psychotropic drugs, and assisted reproductive technologies. Each chapter analyzes the rhetorical use of human dignity by opposing camps, assessing the utility of the concept and whether a different concept or approach can be a moreproductive means of framing or guiding the debate.

Setting the Stage  1. Human Dignity in the Throes? An Introduction to the Volume Stephen Dilley and Nathan J. Palpant  2. Human Exceptionalism and the Imago Dei:The tradition of Human DignityDavid H. Calhoun  Part 1: The Source and Meaning of Human Dignity in Worldview Context  3. A Catholic Perspective on Human Dignity Christopher Tollefsen  4. A Prolc