Autonomy, Dignity, and Contingency

“’Faith. n. Belief without evidence, in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”
-- Ambrose Bierce, “The Devils Dictionary,” 1881 - 1911

Here is an excerpt from an essay by Leon R. Kass. Kass is one of a group of scholars assembled by the current administration to investigate policy decisions involving the ethical implications of biomedical research. This council, created in 2001 by George W. Bush, named the 555 page report, “Human Dignity And Bioethics.” It was published this Spring.

“Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone—a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive….Eating on the street is offensive—even when undertaken, say, because one is between appointments and has no other time to eat—displays [a] lack of self-control: it beckons enslavement to the belly….Lacking utensils for cutting and lifting to the mouth, he will often be seen using his teeth for tearing or chewing portions, just like an animal….This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if we ‘feel’ no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior.” (excerpt from Steven Pinker's article "The Stupidity of Dignity" in The New Republic, 5/28/98)

But what is ‘dignity’? That individual freedom must be respected is the hallmark of a working democracy. Since all of us share the capacity to experience pain and happiness, and to think and choose, it follows that individual rights, contingent on a respect for others, is intrinsic to an enlightened society. Personal autonomy, as a concept, is separate from the issue of dignity.

Why, because ‘dignity’ is a slippery term. Having a woman enclosed in a burqa with caged eyeholes is considered ‘dignified’ in some cultures. The Victorians thought it undignified for a woman to show an exposed ankle. The point here is that dignity is historically and culturally contingent. If dignity were an absolute, sacred value, how would we negotiate doctors’ visits (digital rectal exams), sexual interactions (fellatio and cunnilingus), travel (airline frisks), and gyms (mutual, and often unsightly, nakedness)?

Writing in “The New Republic” (5/28/08), Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, had this to say about dignity: ”We read that slavery and degradation are morally wrong because they take someone’s dignity away. But we also read that nothing you can do to a person, including enslaving or degrading him, can take his dignity away.”

We like to think ‘dignity’ is a sacrosanct value that should never be compromised. Wrong. Religious fundamentalism and totalitarianism base their authoritarianism exactly on the premise that they uphold the dignity of their citizens. Appeals to the dignity of this or that ideology are fundamental to secular and religious repression. Consider the caning some years ago of the American graffiti artist by the Indonesian government, or Kim Il Jong’s decree that all North Koreans conform to a rigid dress code. Dignity certainly has a place in one’s individual moral value system, but its claims are not, nor should they be, universal. Dignity is relative to subjective judgment. So, is malt slurping, beer swilling, smelly farting, and loud burping, something we need to police?

The report is heavily laden with Christian doctrine. This should give us pause. Kass’s essay relies on the divine authority of the Bible as evidence of why we should respect human life. He also quotes Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” as gospel in decrying the inherent dangers of bioethical progress. What this amounts to is citing fictions as secondary sources in arguing against the idea that individuals have the right to control their own bodies. If Kass wants to believe in the literal truth of scripture, that’s fine, but these kinds of private beliefs have no place in twenty-first-century public decisions on government biomedical policies.

At the heart of this is the question of whether life is a possession or gift. Kass sees a “mortal danger” in the idea that individual citizens should be able to do whatever they choose with their bodies. The idea that life is a gift rather than possession has long been an issue in the euthanasia debate. Citing Kant’s idea that individual autonomy has a duty to treat humanity as an end-in-itself, the argument is that this duty precludes suicide, abortion, and the taking of human life in general. And this sensibility should be honored. But while we should respect those who choose to see their existence as an episode in a larger scheme of things, the counter idea that personal autonomy implies a right to choose what we do with our own bodies should be equally respected.
Whether we have an immaterial soul or not should be immaterial in an enlightened society.