Implications For Human Dignity And Ethics Of The Nerve

This thesis explored a fundamental concept crucial to today’s discourse in law and ethics in general and in bioethics in particular, human dignity. After World War Ⅱ, the concept of human dignity has figured frequently in many of the universal documents without any explanation. As a result, there have been repeated requests for clarification of the meaning of the term. This thesis make it clear that there is no universal agreement on the meaning of human dignity. Some argue that dignity is a useless concept and question whether human dignity has any place in bioethical discourse at all. Others, by contrast, hold firmly to the view that dignity is a useful and essential concept, specially for bioethics, this is also my opinion.From the etymology speaking, the word "dignity" means something like "worthiness for esteem and inviolability", implies distinction. The conception of unequal human dignity represents by the three great men of the ancient Greece, they believe that human dignity as a virtue is possess by only a few people, it leads to the invidious distinctions between one human being and another, and it’s not fully at home in democratic times, because it keeps uneasy company with the democratic demand of equality. There is in fact a different kind of conception of human dignity, the conception of equal human dignity, it’s supported by many ethicists, it holds that equal dignity is inherent for all human beings, regardless of their circumstances, social standing, or accomplishments. By analyzing these two different kinds of conception of human dignity, we can know that to make case for human dignity as a robust bioethical concept for our age, we would have to show that dignity can be something universal and accessible to all human beings as such. As we can see, dignity is use to describe something that most valued, inviolable and irreplaceable. Besides, bioethics aims at guarding human life. To meet the conditions above, this thesis suggests that the dignity of the human person as a bioethical concept refers to the dignity of human life. Neuroethics as a new branch of bioethics, should be guided by the conception of human life dignity, it means that the practice and research of neuroethics must consider more about human life than enhancing human capacities or seeking the scientific truth.Overall, the task of this thesis is to illuminate, in a preliminary way, the question of human dignity and its enlightenment on neuroethics. To that end, it will first explore the etymology root of the modern notion of dignity, in order to find the traditional meaning of dignity. It will then inspect the notions of human dignity, in order to shed light on why we need to recognize the equal dignity of all members of the human species. Furthermore, it will suggest, tentatively, that a certain conception of human dignity origin from human life has an important role to play in bioethics. Finally, it will give an example of how human dignity can be a useful concept to apply in neuroethics.