Recognizing Dignity

Recognizing personhood and the right to die with dignity.

Death cannot be viewed properly as either an event or a configuration. Indeed, multiple parts of the body can continue to live long after the disintegration of its central organization is recorded. Instead of collapsing at a moment in time, technological mechanisms are capable of sustaining the major bodily processes indefinitely--all designed to allow for the harvesting of needed organs for tr...

The simple dignity of sentient life: speciesism and human dignity.

Does the very idea of “human dignity” entail some moral disrespect for nonhuman animals? Put otherwise, does the notion of “human dignity” smack of speciesism (roughly, a view whereby nonhuman, sentient individuals are denied [adequate] moral standing on essentially arbitrary grounds)? Animal advocates, like James Rachels, often allege that there is a serious clash between the traditional view ...

Dying with dignity.

Science serves its readers as a forum for the presentation and discussion of important issues related to the advancement of science, including the presentation of minority or conflicting points of view, rather than by publishing only material on which a consensus has been reached. Accordingly, all articles published in Science-including editorials, news and comment, and book reviews -are signed...

Help with Dignity

“Liberality, Consideration and Dignity”

The words in the title were used by an elderly medical widow whose circumstances changed suddenly and she did not know where to turn to or how she was going to manage. The Royal Medical Benevolent Fund was contacted and as a result of her application and the back up report of the Area Visitor, this lady has been helped and her worries have been lifted from her shoulders. These words of thanks s...