the various connotations Attached to the term “dignity” as situated along a continuum. One end of the continuum represents the moral and the other the aesthetic. Basic dignity as desenbed above, falls clearly toward the moral end of this continuum. This the term carries connotations of something objective and absolute. Although moral notions are not nearly as objective and absolute as some might think or hope, they bear a certain objective quality that enables them to serve as a basis of social norms and policies. Personally, referenced notions of dignity on the other hand, tend more towards the aesthetical. As such they are more subjective and contingent in nature. Most appeals of human dignity convey something both the moral and the aesthetical.
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If he destroys himself in order to escape from painful circumstances, he uses a person merely as a means to maintain a tolerable condition up to the end of life. But a man is not a thing that is to say, something which can be
used merely as means, but must in all actions be always considered as an end in himself. I cannot therefore, dispose in any way of a man in my own person so as to mutilate him, to damage or kill him. This impermissibility suicide also forbids euthanasia as an unacceptable wing to the fact that these two concepts have their interconnectedness. The suicidal intention is present in both situations and death is brought upon the patient sorely by his own wish and request. However, despite the fact that the Kantian notion of dignity was influential and made it clear on the impermissibility of killing either the person either in the individual or that of another person, rationality alone cannot be the center and totality of our being as humans and cannot be completely that which makes humans have dignity …show more content…
Admittedly that one's sense of dignity and one's real dignity are not exactly the same thing. The feeling of dignity being compromised like in loss of bodily function or dependence on others does not really put any harm on one's real dignity. It is this basic question posed to us by euthanasia that Patrick Lee and Robert P George are tenaciously occupied with. One could ask Could ask what is it that is in man apart from being a moral agent that makes it wrong for him to be euthanized by another? Their response to this is the possession of "a rational nature" despite the fact that not all human beings can have it actualized and although certain conditions such as mental disability might put this at mute, every human being has moral worth or dignity based on this rational nature inherent in us all 81 Their position that although animal interest in suffering should not be overlooked, based on that alone (the ability to feel pains and desire to avoid it doesn't put us as human beings on the same level of moral worthiness with the other animals. Ability to feel pain is just an aspect which human beings share with other animals but it is only human beings that have this rational nature. Thus, what distinguishes those entities that have full moral status (inherent dignity) from those that do not
If he destroys himself in order to escape from painful circumstances, he uses a person merely as a means to maintain a tolerable condition up to the end of life. But a man is not a thing that is to say, something which can be
used merely as means, but must in all actions be always considered as an end in himself. I cannot therefore, dispose in any way of a man in my own person so as to mutilate him, to damage or kill him. This impermissibility suicide also forbids euthanasia as an unacceptable wing to the fact that these two concepts have their interconnectedness. The suicidal intention is present in both situations and death is brought upon the patient sorely by his own wish and request. However, despite the fact that the Kantian notion of dignity was influential and made it clear on the impermissibility of killing either the person either in the individual or that of another person, rationality alone cannot be the center and totality of our being as humans and cannot be completely that which makes humans have dignity …show more content…
Admittedly that one's sense of dignity and one's real dignity are not exactly the same thing. The feeling of dignity being compromised like in loss of bodily function or dependence on others does not really put any harm on one's real dignity. It is this basic question posed to us by euthanasia that Patrick Lee and Robert P George are tenaciously occupied with. One could ask Could ask what is it that is in man apart from being a moral agent that makes it wrong for him to be euthanized by another? Their response to this is the possession of "a rational nature" despite the fact that not all human beings can have it actualized and although certain conditions such as mental disability might put this at mute, every human being has moral worth or dignity based on this rational nature inherent in us all 81 Their position that although animal interest in suffering should not be overlooked, based on that alone (the ability to feel pains and desire to avoid it doesn't put us as human beings on the same level of moral worthiness with the other animals. Ability to feel pain is just an aspect which human beings share with other animals but it is only human beings that have this rational nature. Thus, what distinguishes those entities that have full moral status (inherent dignity) from those that do not