Peter Singer and Human Dignity
By Miguel Guanipa (05/31/08)
Whenever the fervent advocate of infanticide Peter Singer finds enough leisure time to muse upon any current moral issue, he invariably reserves enough space to declare his perpetual enmity against the proverbial thorn in his flesh that the Christian Religion has become. Such is the case in a recent essay titled “The Stupidity of Dignity” in which he launches on a venomous tirade against the President’s report on Human Dignity and Bioethics, and some of its contributors whom he scorns as eminently biased religious extremists.
Singer asks condescendingly: “How did the United States, the world's scientific powerhouse reach a point at which it grapples with the ethical challenges of twenty-first-century biomedicine using Bible stories?.” This is a disingenuous attempt by Singer to feed a common stereotype of the Bible thumping troglodyte with a science degree trying to inject his unwelcome religious affectations into a wholly different domain; all despite the fact that the teachings and doctrines contained in the Bible have historically played a rather significant role in the evolvement of scientific ethics. Yet Singer readily dismisses the report’s arguments –which he finds quite extraordinary – based on the curious grievance that they are grounded on a Judeo-Christian model.
The Christian faith has also consistently fostered urgency in the promotion of life’s inherent dignity, especially in defense of those who have typically found themselves at the mercy of “progress” in many an uncharted province of scientific research. Nevertheless Singer ridicules this worldview with virtual impunity in his essay, fully aware of the fact that his view still commands more respect in today’s popular culture, and that his ad hominem detour will save him the trouble of giving the report’s arguments even a perfunctory hearing.
Singer believes that the motives of religious people who profess to care about humanity should always be questioned, especially when they appeal to ineffable moral concepts like “dignity” to express their reservations against the wayward ethical tendencies of modern science. If only Singer knew that what naturally prompts him to defend the integrity of his cause and be so enraged against this presumed lack of intellectual honesty from his rivals is nothing less than his own sense of dignity. But for many bioethicists, such esoteric concerns are often trumped by what they see as their god given right to pursue their sometimes downright creepy experiments.
Granted the concept of dignity is hard to define in the vernacular commonly employed by materialists; but Singer’s superficial definition of dignity as a “phenomenon of human perception” is nothing more that the external appearance of good repute. This is a surface value assessment that has as much to do with the true meaning of dignity as prurient sexual desires have to do with the concept of love.
Singer’s examples of outward manifestation of dignity such as a despot who wishes to be exalted in public or a patient who pauses to relinquish his “dignity” at the expense of enduring a necessary rectal exam betray the patent superficiality of his assessment. It stands to reason that for Singer, a fetus – whose features sometimes resemble those of other mammals during the early uterine stage - does not have the same right to protection from harm as do most sentient humans who have already left the womb.
According to Singer, dignity flows primarily from one’s utility. The less useful to society, the less dignity one possesses. In this context, it makes sense why this highly esteemed Princeton University professor would openly endorse the killing of a disabled infant as a discretionary parental choice.
Still Singer agrees that the concept of autonomy - which is presumably easier to define and thus possesses greater moral weight than dignity – is derived from the principle that “no human has the right to impinge on the life, body, or freedom of another”. But does not a disabled child also have rights? And do not the benefactors from enhancements which are the byproduct of destroyed embryos impinge on the life, bodies and freedom of these humans who are slated for termination before they are even fully developed?
As predicted, Singer would commit these most vulnerable individuals to the status of non-persons; and since they are also not capable of verbalizing any informed consent – which Singer claims is the “bedrock of ethical research and practice” – their fragile lives, that hold so much potential to alleviate the emotional or physical suffering of others deemed less fortunate, are now up for grabs.
Accordingly, Singer decrees who should enjoy the inherent privileges that come with being a member of the worthy sentient. Those who will - at some undetermined future juncture - find healing from advances in “therapeutic cloning” are first in line; the embryos that will have to be harvested and killed in order to procure these guaranteed miracle cures are conveniently cast as non- persons, which relegates them to the bottom of the totem pole. For Singer, this is the preferred alternative to what he calls the “topsy-turvy value system” that defines dignity as viewed through the lens of Christian Ethics.
Depending on how we answer his pivotal question of who in today’s society should be granted the status of personhood, we can then address what Singer wily suggests is the subject of his dissertation, namely the question of whether dignity is at best a “squishy, subjective notion”. But to someone whom society has denied such a status the question is meaningless; there simply can not be any collective recognition of inherent dignity in an individual or people group that from the outset has been deemed expendable at best.
Thus follows Singer’s verdict that only those religious fanatics who uphold an over inflated image of human dignity are the ones who pose the greatest affront to it, for they stand in the way of others who continue to suffer needlessly. Ironically, Singer excoriates those who presumably abuse a principle that he himself negates; much like a frustrated atheist who deplores the capricious wrath of a God whose existence he stubbornly denies.
Ultimately, Singer’s anemic concept of dignity is closely aligned with his perception of those whom he categorically chooses to view as lesser than human, and when people are perceived as such, we have few qualms about treating them as though they did not possess any dignity. In short, the first step towards treating others in an undignified manner is to dehumanize them.
And Dignity is not something we ascribe to others by virtue of their status, power or influence, but something that we recognize (or at least should) as intrinsic in every human being by virtue of the fact that they are created in the image of God.
Ironically, Dignity is also what allows Singer to make his case and to have others solemnly consider it. It is what prompts his hearers to give pause and ponder what he has said, because he is also a human being, and thus worthy of a hearing.
But one would be tempted to think that Singer has been beguiled by a warped sense of dignity, which stems from the notion that he has sacrificed his precious time to carefully research his thesis, in order to arrive at the weighty verdict he deigns to pronounce on lesser humans.
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