A bioethicist named Alasdair Cochrane, who is, ironically, a deep thinker at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights in the UK, argues against intrinsic human dignity as a basis for establishing bioethical policies. He attacks various theories that promote human dignity, e.g., “as virtuous behavior,” Kantian dignity, and as species integrity. But my concern is his denial of human exceptionalism and denigration of the concept of “inherent moral worth.” From his article “Undignified Bioethics” published in the journal Bioethics (link to abstract):
The second important conception of dignity that we need to consider does not see dignity as a form of behaviour, but as a property. Under this conception, the possession of dignity by humans signifies that they have an inherent moral worth. In other words, because human beings possess dignity we cannot do what we like to them, but instead have direct moral obligations towards them. Indeed, this understanding of dignity is also usually considered to serve as the grounding for human rights. As Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.’
Do you now see the stakes in the debate over human exceptionalism? Cochrane hits the nail: If humans do not have intrinsic equal moral value, the philosophical bases of the U.S. Declaration of Independence (“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal…”) and the UN Declaration of Human Rights, are rendered impotent, and universal human rights becomes impossible to sustain. Moreover, if we deny intrinsic human dignity, we open the door to using human beings as objects and mere natural resources. Cochrane see this:
This conception of dignity as inherent moral worth certainly seems coherent enough as an idea. Indeed, we can also see why this conception of dignity is employed in certain debates around bioethics. For if all individual human beings possess dignity, then they should not be viewed simply as resources that we can treat however we please. To take an example then, it may be that we could achieve rapid and significant progress in medical science if we were to conduct wide-ranging medical experiments on groups of human beings. However, because human beings have dignity, so it is argued, this means that they possess a particular quality that grounds certain moral obligations and rights.
Alas, that crucial matter doesn’t matter to him, because he would rather judge each individual’s characteristics rather than the inherent attributes of our species:
If all human beings possess dignity–this extraordinary moral worth–we need some explanation of what it is about the species Homo sapiens that makes them so deserving. When we start looking at particular characteristics that might ground dignity – language-use, moral action, sociality, sentience, self-consciousness, and so on – we soon see that none of these qualities are in fact possessed by each and every human. We are therefore left wondering why all human beings actually do possess dignity.
Those individuals who happen to lack those attributes have either not developed them yet (embryos, fetuses, infants), or have illnesses or disabilities that impede their expression. But those attributes are unique to the human species, they are uniquely part of our natures. That some have not developed, or have lost, them, is irrelevant–particularly given the stakes. Indeed, judging the moral worth of individuals returns us to the pernicious thinking of eugenics and social Darwinism.
He claims, wrongly, that only Christian religion and its concept of the soul could justify human exceptionalism, which he denies as arbitrary and “controversial.” In place of human dignity, he argues a concept of “moral status:”
Obviously, given controversies over abortion, stem cell research, genetic interventions, animal experimentation, euthanasia and so on, bioethics does need to engage in debates over which entities possess moral worth and why. But these are best conducted by using the notion of ‘moral status’ and arguing over the characteristics that warrant possession of it. Simply stipulating that all and only human beings possess this inherent moral worth because they have dignity is arbitrary and unhelpful.
Hardly arbitrary, given the consequences of rejecting it and the uniqueness of human beings as the known universe’s only moral species. Unhelpful, perhaps–in that it would prevent fetal farming, killing for organs, using human being as lab rats, and other utilitarian horrors. But if we want universal human rights as a primary goal of society, intrinsic dignity is absolutely essential. He concludes his essay:
I urge for an undignified bioethics.
If we have an undignified bioethics, that is precisely the way we will treat the most vulnerable and defenseless among us. In this sense, we can see how radically bioethics is straying from true liberalism based on the ideal of universal human equality.
This is why bioethics matters. As proposed by Cochrane, bioethicists could become court apologists for tyranny. As we have seen in history, such advocacy by the intelligentsia opens the door to the most vile evil of which man is capable.
January 5th, 2010 | 2:21 pm
Does he address the political implications of his ideas, the ones that you are identifying?
Is he is setting up a dual world for ethics? One in which “inherent moral moral worth” is used to establish societies, and the other for bioethicists who establish moral value based on some “undignified” hierarchy of worth worked out according to someone’s (arbitrary) notion of which attributes matter more?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 5th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
He only focuses on why we should not abide by human dignity. But the implications of a ‘moral status’ approach–which would presumably be an analysis akin to peronhood theory, are clear.
January 5th, 2010 | 2:43 pm
[...] is straying from true liberalism based on the ideal of attaining universal human equality. More details and analysis over at Secondhand Smoke. Comments [...]
January 5th, 2010 | 3:22 pm
“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools”
January 5th, 2010 | 3:32 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Tristyn Bloom, Wesley J. Smith. Wesley J. Smith said: Pushing a Dangerous Anti-Human Exceptionalism “Undignified Bioethics” » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog – http://shar.es/aUVWm [...]
January 5th, 2010 | 3:32 pm
Good grief. I refuse to believe this man doesn’t fully grasp the implications of what he is saying. Are we so far removed from the last century, and all the horrors visited upon various groups of “less than human” human beings already?
What is in the water these egg-headed people drink? And why can’t we just stipulate that all human beings possess inherent moral worth?!??
January 5th, 2010 | 4:04 pm
Bioethics, to me, is inherently undignified.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 5th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
The thing is, it doesn’t have to be so, ECM.
January 5th, 2010 | 4:05 pm
Arbitrary? Has he looked in a dictionary lately? It describes “quality of life” and “personhood” to a T.
“You keep saying that word…I do not think it means what you think it means!”
January 5th, 2010 | 5:44 pm
Thank you for your article. The strength of bioethics ought to be, in fact, in human dignity. All of us possess “basic” human dignity if you will–whether we are morally wrong or morally correct. In other words, we are born in the image of God. Some of us may not behave in a dignified manner but that does not mean that because of that we may be subject to utilitarianism. In other words, we have to distinguish between different “levels” of human dignity. But just because we have to distinguish these, it does not mean that the defenseless and voiceless can used as objects through the means of abortion, assisted suicide, etc. Sometimes, pseudo-philosophers spend far too much time mincing words simply because they cannot look the Truth straight in the eye. And it is precisely this avoidance which secretly frightens them.
January 5th, 2010 | 6:40 pm
Reminds me of Pinker’s essay in TNR in May 2008:
http://www.tnr.com/article/the-stupidity-dignity
January 5th, 2010 | 9:29 pm
In a way, the man is correct that human exceptionalism needs Christianity. I’m not saying that people don’t already have a natural moral instinct that tells them there is something special about humans, because I believe they do have that. But the problem is this: when you choose to do bioethics explicitly WITHOUT Christianity and without appeal to a higher authority, you are left impotent. You may feel that you are exceptional, but you cannot defend that feeling in any kind of a reasonable way.
January 6th, 2010 | 3:52 am
This same line of thought shows up all over the place, and has done so for a while – for example, in Michael Tooley’s (in)famous article “Abortion and Infanticide.” In particular this set of moves:
1. Frame some concept that’s supposed to include all and only beings to whom we have moral responsibility: personhood, moral status, etc.
2. Having defined this concept in the abstract, profess wonder that anyone should think that a messy category like “human beings” should line up perfectly with the abstract concept. So Tooley, for example, throws out some absurd examples about robots and aliens with rationality and autonomy, on the one hand, and – crucially – about cancerous growths and teratomas, on the other hand.
3. Immediately conclude that some characteristic or bundle thereof has to be identified which will perfectly match up with the abstract concept.
4. Tinker with the account to deal with counterexamples.
Notice the really atrocious philosophy going on here (steps 1 and 2):
“When we start looking at particular characteristics that might ground dignity – language-use, moral action, sociality, sentience, self-consciousness, and so on – we soon see that none of these qualities are in fact possessed by each and every human. We are therefore left wondering why all human beings actually do possess dignity.”
There’s nothing to wonder about here. This is (one reason) why the “arbitrary” stuff rings so false. We don’t classify things as human beings according to necessary and sufficient conditions in the first place!
The other reason the “arbitrariness” bit is so ridiculous is, of course, the one Wesley brings up. Bernard Williams made effectively the same point in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, addressing Tooley in particular. Ethics is something we do – it’s our game, so to speak. So it makes a whole lot of sense to draw the magic circle around humans and not other animals. The affectation of wonder that anybody would think that all and only human animals “have moral status” is entirely an artifact of their philosophical strategy, which is abysmal and totally lacking in self-awareness, on the charitable interpretation:
Let’s start with a concept that’s messy but hugely important (human being), then, since we want to find some way to justify present and future practices that involve repugnant treatment of human beings, let’s just replace that concept with another one, define it in the abstract, and then hunt around for some real characteristics to “ground” it. Oh, and act really surprised that anybody would want to hold onto the original concept in the first place. Without that part it’s hard to sell it…
January 6th, 2010 | 4:35 am
I am reminded of Lenin’s “Who Whom?” If some humans do not have inherent moral worth or may lose it, who is to judge? Can Mr Cochrane object to a government harvesting the organs of living prisoners (whom the government has determined no longer possess moral worth) for the benefit of other citizens? Or that same government executing those prisoners when vital organs are required? If he does object, perhaps he could explain why his view rather than that of a government (possibly a democratically elected government) should prevail.
January 6th, 2010 | 1:16 pm
Speaking as a Christian, Anthony, Christianity gets a lot of things right, but I hardly think any religion has a monopoly on all good ideas — especially ideas that ought to be bloody obvious as human exceptionalism.
January 6th, 2010 | 2:11 pm
I didn’t mean that Christianity is necessarily the only faith that teaches human exceptionalism. I’m just contrasting Christianity with today’s vain philosophy of bioethics.
January 6th, 2010 | 2:19 pm
[...] I posted about a bioethics article that advocated dropping human intrinsic dignity as a fundamental …. This meme is profoundly dangerous to the medically vulnerable. Moreover and alas, human [...]
January 6th, 2010 | 3:08 pm
Wesley, I’ve had a thought running through my mind for a while and it keeps coming back to me when I make my weekly or so trip to the blog, that I’d like your take on:
Could another rational for WHY human exceptionalism makes sense is because it is our species? Said another way, very, very few species are cannibals. In fact, humans (as we are so often reminded by anti-war activists) are one of the few species that kill each other at all.
Could it be that the only needed justification for human exceptionalism is that it is OUR species and, to take a darwinistic view of things, whatever is to the benefit of the species is what survives. Clearly a species that recognizes that protecting itself is more likely to survive. It would therefore become simple biology/evolution that human exceptionalism not only makes sense but is a biological necessity.
What do you think?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 6th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Ken: That would be a Darwinian perspective, it seems to me. Every species puts themselves first, and usually only. But the fact is, we do take other species and systems into account, precisely because we are exceptional.
January 6th, 2010 | 3:57 pm
Ken, not to be overly picky, but lots of species kill their own and many cannibalize. Male lions who take over a pride kill off the prior alpha’s cubs. That behavior’s repeated among many other social species like wolves. Then there are battles over territory that can leave the losing group to starve.
Fish are very prone to eating their own young. OK for their species because they spawn so many.
I think of “Human exceptionalism” as more of a strategy than a truism. If we agree to accept it as a race, humanity benefits. Same with “universal human rights.”
Humans have created a cannibalism taboo because it keeps us from killing and eating each other. Besides that direct benefit, there are some nasty diseases associated with the consumption of human tissue, especially the brain (which can be a big part of human cannibal ceremonies). Kosher and halal restrictions on pork may have evolved similarly due to trichinosis infection.
Which is not to say that humans aren’t special critters, I am in fact very partial to us. But favoring our own species over others is perfectly natural and we really don’t need to justify it. We just need to be careful not to become victims of our own success.
January 6th, 2010 | 4:23 pm
“Could another rational for WHY human exceptionalism makes sense is because it is our species? Said another way, very, very few species are cannibals. In fact, humans (as we are so often reminded by anti-war activists) are one of the few species that kill each other at all.”
I don’t believe that is true. Even wolves fight, kill and eat each other. I’d say the vast majority of animal species do fight and kill members of their own species.
http://www.wolfsongnews.org/news/Alaska_current_events_3015.html
January 8th, 2010 | 11:11 am
But again you bring up faith — why is any faith necessary? I’m sorry if I am being anal, but I think this is an important point to be made if we hope to persuade the fence-sitters: good and true ideas exist independently of religious belief. I completely disagree that the secular bioethicist is “impotent.”
I was watching a PBS program one night this week. One guest, who I think was a Stanford biologist, pointed out that we are the only creature capable of worrying about things that might happen. From this I gathered that we must be the only creature that can imagine what the implications of today’s actions could be thirty years from now, and if we are informed, that arguably constitutes an obligation to act. It’s only taking a bit of logic to a reasonable conclusion.
February 10th, 2010 | 1:04 pm
[...] The Source asked me to expand my critique of the article in Bioethics urging that the field drop its (very tenuous) embrace of hum…. I was happy to do so, never wanting to miss an opportunity to discuss human exceptionalism. [...]
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