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J Med Ethics 2005;31:679-682 doi:10.1136/jme.2004.011130
  • Review essay

Making sense of dignity

  1. Richard E Ashcroft
  1. Correspondence to:
 Richard E Ashcroft
 Reader in Biomedical Ethics, Imperial College London, Medical Ethics Unit, 324 Reynolds Building, St Dunstan’s Road, London W6 8RP; r.ashcroftimperial.ac.uk
  • Received 4 November 2004
  • Accepted 4 January 2005

Abstract

In this review of Leon Kass’s Life, liberty and the defense of dignity and Deryck Beyleveld and Roger Brownsword’s Human dignity in bioethics and biolaw. I consider the prospects for a theory of dignity as a basis for bioethics research. I argue that dignity theories are worth exploring in more detail, but that research needs to consider both “antitheory” accounts of the language of bioethics, and to give more weight to accounts of dignity as an outcome of holding positive liberties and as something that has a psychological dimension.

Footnotes

  • Competing interests: none declared

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