Dignity Never Been Photographed:Scientific Materialism, Enlightenment Liberalism, and Steven Pinker

摘要

In March 2008, the President's Council on Bioethics published a volume entitled, Human Dignity and Bioethics. It consists of essays penned by council members as well as other scholars and practitioners invited to contribute. As one would guess, the idea of human dignity and what it means for bioethics, both in theory and in practice, is the theme that dominates each of the works contributed to this impressive volume. But for those who have been following or participating in the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary world of secular bioethics during the past fifteen or twenty years, the insertion of the idea of "human dignity," or even the word "dignity," as the anthropological foundation of bioethics is highly unusual. Much of the cutting edge literature in bioethics, with few exceptions, tends to employ the language of modern political theory and contemporary analytic political philosophy and jurisprudence. So, for example, one finds in these cutting-edge works discussions about the meaning and implementation of the principles of autonomy, justice, nonmaleficence, and beneficence, as well as calls for the application of these principles to what constitutes physician neutrality, informed consent, and patients' rights. This project often goes by the name principlism. There is, of course, much that this project has contributed to the study and practice of bioethics.