TY - JOUR T1 - Dignity and equality in healthcare JF - Journal of Medical Ethics JO - J Med Ethics SP - 651 LP - 652 DO - 10.1136/medethics-2017-104665 VL - 44 IS - 9 AU - Pengbo Liu Y1 - 2018/09/01 UR - http://jme.bmj.com/content/44/9/651.abstract N2 - This paper critically examines Barclay’s conception of dignity proposed in her ‘Dignitarian Medical Ethics’. According to Barclay, a subject S enjoys dignity if and only if S is reliably treated as having equal social status. I argue that Barclay’s view faces a number of practical and theoretical problems. First, it is not obvious that failing to treat someone as a social equal is incompatible with respecting her dignity. Second, it is not always clear what treating someone as a social equal amounts to in practice. To be more compelling, her conception of dignity needs to be supplemented with a more principled and substantive account of the content of equal treatment. ER -