Philosophical Perspective Human Dignity And Bioethics

There are two dimensions in describing dignity in the history of philosophy:one is from the dimension of moral metaphysics; the other is from the dimension of moral philosophy. The aim of the former is to provide a formal foundation that does not depend on any materials for practical principles including "personal dignity"; the aim of the latter is to provide a real material philosophical foundation for practical principles including "personal dignity".The former can be called purely former notion of dignity, its representative is the notion of dignity from free will; the latter can be called material notion of dignity, its representative is the notion of dignity as a right and the notion of dignity from life. The notion of dignity from free will based personal dignity on the free will of people, Kant believed that the will can make people choose to do the thing that follow the moral principle rather than the thing that depend on the natural rules, so the free will of people is the only thing that can be the basis of personal dignity. The notion of dignity as a right regards dignity as a right; they hold the view that not all people have the ability of logos, not all people have the ability of will, but all people want to avoid harm, in this point of view, dignity is the right of avoiding harm. The notion of dignity from life have the same train of thought, they thought that all people have life, that is to say, people's life have a special value, in this point of view, personal dignity equals to the dignity of life.These two types of the notion of personal dignity have their own problems:The notion of dignity from free will has to answer two questions, firstly, free will is a fact rather than a value, and how can you get the moral conclusion that people have dignity just from the fact that all people have free will. Secondly, post-modern philosophy holds a no-center philosophy; they believe that the traditional philosophy that aims to seek a foundation for moral principles is coming to an end. How can they response to this question. The notion of dignity as a right and the notion of dignity from life also have their problems. Besides the questions motioned above, they have to answer this question:whether or not they reduce the range of dignity? Dignity may not just mean a right or just from the value of life, dignity means a lot, is it reasonable to reduce the range of dignity?To reconstruct the notion of dignity, we have to solve two problems: the first one is to find a basis for personal dignity; the other one is to find a way to link the fact and the value. From the reality of the modern world, this article believes that the notion of dignity should be based on the notion of autonomy.