Issues 150-126

Issue 134: Quante, Michael: Präimplantationsdiagnostik, Stammzellforschung und Menschenwürde. March 2002

The principle of human dignity, central in German bioethical debates, is shown to be a useful principle within a pluralistic ethics. To make this claim plausible two strategies have to be distinguished. The extensional strategy denies that some (kinds of) entities (e.g. human embryos or human embryonic stem cells) have human dignity, while the intensional strategy holds that some kinds of action are compatible with the human dignity of these entities. Taking preimplantation genetic diagnostics and human stem cell research as examples it is shown that the principle of human dignity can be an important ressource for justification within biomedical ethics, especially if the intensional strategy is used. Therefore the claim to ban the principle of human dignity rom biomedical ethics is repudiated.