Putting the Principle of Human Dignity to the Test: A “Useless” Concept from an American Perspective?

Abstract

The concept of human dignity has received renewed attention, for some time now, from legal scholars and commentators in the United States. It is cited in jurisprudential writings, in court opinions, and often in the Supreme Court’s dissenting opinions. Several scholars consider that it does already play a role in American constitutional jurisprudence; they appeal to a more consistent use of the concept in modern constitutionalism. However, there is a lot of disagreement as to whether human dignity should be incorporated into the domestic legal framework and whether importing a European concept, more attuned to communitarian values and possibly fraught with ambiguity and vagueness, is necessary. Many deem the notion of dignity, which is absent from the Constitution, alien to American tradition and culture. This chapter explores the use of dignity in some of the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court as well as in American bioethics through the so-called “Ashley case”—a case in which dignity, a notion seldom referenced in bioethics, was identified as the fundamental value at stake.