IS 'DIGNITY' A STUPID CONCEPT?
Steven Pinker on Dignity and the President's Council on Bioethics
DATE: May 27, 2008

TIME: 2:50 PM EST

In an article published in the May 28th edition of The New Republic, Dr. Steven Pinker (whose views on the emerging field of neuromorality I’ve had occasion to consider in previous columns), questions whether the notion of ‘human dignity’ is really useful at all. To be sure, Pinker finds the notion not only unhelpful, but “stupid.”  He expresses this view in the context of a generally acerbic critique which at times becomes a rant against a recently released volume of commissioned essays entitled Human Dignity and Bioethics, published by the President’s Council on Bioethics.

In his TNR piece, Pinker largely reproduces the comments he made at the March 7th meeting of the Council as an invited participant of a three-member panel offering a response to the release of Human Dignity.  His assessment of the volume at the time—highly critical—can be summarized with this portion of his remarks: 

I see the current volume as designed to put dignity on a firmer conceptual basis and therefore provide the grounds for regulating or banning … disquieting [biomedical] practices [such as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, somatic cell nuclear transfer, surrogacy, in vitro fertilization and other reproductive technologies, and cloning].  This, I believe, is the ultimate goal of the President's Council, and it's why I think there was a thumb on the scale in choosing the authorship of the reports.  [T]he volume [fails to provide] a sound basis for dignity, and indeed, almost every essay notes that the concept remains ambiguous, slippery, and vague. 

To these critiques both of the Council volume and of the concept of ‘human dignity’ itself, Pinker adds a needless and mean-spirited diatribe against Dr. Leon Kass, the first chairman of the Council.  He also adds an amusing take on what he believes is a not-so-subtle plot by Catholic-minded ‘theocons’ to take control of the President’s Council on Bioethics—a nefarious conspiracy which Pinker believes to have uncovered after carefully connecting the dots.  Writes Pinker:

The Catholic Church, with its long tradition of scholarship and its rock-solid moral precepts, became the natural home for this [the Theocon] movement, and the journal First Things, under the leadership of Father Richard John Neuhaus, its mouthpiece. Catholicism now provides the intellectual muscle behind a movement that embraces socially conservative Jewish and Protestant intellectuals as well. When Neuhaus met with Bush in 1998 as he was planning his run for the presidency, they immediately hit it off. Three of the original Council members (including Kass) are board members of First Things, and Neuhaus himself contributed an essay to the Dignity volume. In addition, five other members have contributed articles to First Things over the years.

So there you have it:  the ‘vast right wing conspiracy’ meets in the basement of the Manhattan offices of First Things, the journal which the conspirators use as their playbook. This is all high praise for our friend Fr. Neuhaus.  It is also hysteria on the part of Steven Pinker.  

But such is the unfortunate tone of Pinker’s piece:  hysteria, ranting, anger.  How about some calm-headed, and perhaps justifiable and constructive critique for this volume?  Pinker is certainly intelligent and capable of expressing himself without the bitterness and hype, but this is seldom what you get from Pinker.  

Buried, then, under some of the most acerbic hype and over-the-top gratuitous affirmations that you will have read in quite some time, there are actually one or two thoughtful critiques of ‘theocon bioethics.’ Since I probably fit the bill of ‘theocon bioethicist’ as well as anyone else, allow me to offer some response, point per point, to Dr. Pinker.

Pinker: “The sickness in theocon bioethics goes beyond imposing a Catholic agenda on a secular democracy and using "dignity" to condemn anything that gives someone the creeps. Ever since the cloning of Dolly the sheep a decade ago, the panic sown by conservative bioethicists, amplified by a sensationalist press, has turned the public discussion of bioethics into a miasma of scientific illiteracy. Brave New World, a work of fiction, is treated as inerrant prophesy. Cloning is confused with resurrecting the dead or mass-producing babies. Longevity becomes "immortality," improvement becomes "perfection," the screening for disease genes becomes "designer babies" or even "reshaping the species."

Berg:  The last time I checked, we (those of us driving the “Catholic agenda”) have been fighting and scraping to get a seat at the table of mainstream biomedicine in order to have so much as a token voice on substantive bioethical issues. My being named to the Empire State Stem Cell Board was nothing short of a miracle in a field resolutely dominated by mainstream secular ethical perspectives. Call it the “Catholic agenda” if you want; I call it bioethics from within the natural law perspective. That such a perspective has such a large representation on the President’s Council is a rather amazing exception to the normal practice of boxing out those of us who question the new secular biomedical orthodoxy.  

As to the remaining elements of hyperbole in this paragraph:  I will grant that conservative bioethicists make one too many references to Aldous Huxley’s classic sci-fi novel. But Pinker could hardly disagree that the field of developmental biology is opening up unprecedented possibilities in biomedicine that will have a lasting and irreversible impact for better or for worse on the entire species. Cloning, if it ever works with human cells, can and likely will be used to “mass-produce” human embryos (embryonic “babies”) for research purposes. As to those pursuing a grasp of the genes that control aging, well, why stop at longevity? ‘Perfection’ is, to my knowledge, the goal generally sought in improving things, including the human organism—but I personally know of no conservative bioethicist (certainly there are some) who opposes all genetic enhancement in principle. Most of us are just suggesting that we slow down on the question of genetic enhancement and think this through a little more carefully. Pinker apparently has a problem with that. As to ‘designer babies’, well Steve, when you sex-select an embryo, when you abort a fetus because you discover it has a high propensity for developing colon cancer some day, or your medical team works to design a ‘savior sibling’ from whom they can eventually extract bone marrow to do a transplant for his or her ailing brother Johnny—in the minds of most sane individuals, that’s called designing babies, to not say eugenics.

Pinker [Finally making a plausible point]: “The reality is that biomedical research is a Sisyphean struggle to eke small increments in health from a staggeringly complex, entropy-beset human body. It is not, and probably never will be, a runaway train.”

Berg: Point well taken. Of course, Pinker—who later in the article accuses conservative bioethicists of exuding “overweening hubris” and of “soothsaying” the biomedical future—can no more look into a crystal ball than anyone else. And in the realm of developmental biology, it doesn’t have to be a runaway train for grave and irreparable harm to be done to humanity.

Pinker: “Worst of all, theocon bioethics flaunts a callousness toward the billions of non-geriatric people, born and unborn, whose lives or health could be saved by biomedical advances. Even if progress were delayed a mere decade by moratoria, red tape, and funding taboos (to say nothing of the threat of criminal prosecution), millions of people with degenerative diseases and failing organs would needlessly suffer and die. And that would be the biggest affront to human dignity of all.”

Berg: O, please! Not again. Grabbing the moral high ground with the “millions-of-people-who-could-be-cured-are-going-to-
die-needlessly-because-you-are-obstructing-scientific-
progress-with-your-conservative-(Catholic)-agenda” argument. Or better said, non-argument, and patent absurdity. Pinker just finished observing that “biomedical research is a Sisyphean struggle to eke small increments in health from a staggeringly complex” human body.  And perhaps Pinker is unaware that the mega-buck, $6 billion dollar California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (the state’s private funding agency for stem cell research, now—I might add—wholly beyond the grasp of us Catholic obstructionist conspirators) has proposed in its ten-year strategic plan, as a whopping, to-the-rescue-of-dying-humanity-goal, “to show [after 10 years] evidence that cell replacement therapy using derivatives of human embryonic stem cells is effective for at least one disease.”   

One disease.   

What then of the “millions of people with degenerative diseases and failing organs [who] would needlessly suffer and die?”  Or, is it rather, that stem cell research, even if entirely untethered from the least ethical concerns, is likely to yield precious little for these suffering people in the short term?  Am I to be accused of “callousness” for stating the obvious, something which most honest stem cell researchers themselves appear to recognize?  

So, Steve, if you really want us to take you seriously, please set aside the hyperbole, nastiness, and kvetching, and get down to the business of calm and reasonable consideration of how we as members of a liberal democracy can best allow this science to go forward in a way that respects “personal autonomy” and “respect for the person” – concepts which aptly describe something that you and I and many of us could agree on as dimensions of human dignity.

Rev. Thomas V. Berg, L.C. is Executive Director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person.

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Be Bearers of Truth
Benedict to the leaders of Catholic Universities in America
May 20, 2008 9:00 AM EST

In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed , Bill McGurn (former Bush speech writer now a regular Tuesday columnist at the Journal) penned some insightful thoughts about Wheaton College --an academically rigorous, Christian liberal arts college in Wheaton, Illinois. McGurn observed that at Wheaton, students, academics and administrators enter into a covenant which embodies a creedal set of beliefs and a promise to adhere to certain personal mores which accord with Christian faith. McGurn observed that Wheaton came under heavy criticism for applying its own standards and for calling one of its long-time faculty members on a breach of covenant. Wrote McGurn:

Whenever an institution or community applies its standards, it will likely be the heavy in the public eye. This is true whether the institution is a church, a school, a local government or even the Boy Scouts. Mostly this is because an institution is by nature more impersonal and hence less sympathetic than a human being. Partly it is because the rest of us, conscious of our own weaknesses, will tend to empathize with good people who come up short. And when the institution in question is an evangelical college, the champions of diversity go silent, and ridicule and caricature become the rule.

Wheaton understands this... At the same time, it proposes that people who freely join a community that is honest and upfront about its beliefs can reasonably be asked to abide by them. Wheaton's ways are not my ways. Yet there is something refreshing about an institution willing to stand up for its convictions rather than trim its sails to the prevailing winds.

Refreshing, indeed.

Wheaton College has a specific understanding of its Christian identity and simply expects and requires everyone in the Wheaton academic community to behave on campus and in the classroom in accord with that identity. 

At any number of Catholic universities by contrast, such a conviction would be perceived as quaint at best.  Which brings me to the topic of Pope Benedict's address last month to 200 presidents of Catholic universities and colleges in the U.S.

What did Benedict tell these individuals--so many of whom not only find a Wheaton approach to Christian identity on campus problematic, but have arguably also found the Church's minimalist requirements for Catholic identity[1] no less problematic?

First and foremost, affirmed Benedict, every Catholic educational institution is a place to encounter the living God who in Jesus Christ reveals his transforming love and truth. Consequently, the Pope said, a Catholic campus should also be a place that abounds on Christian witness.[2]

It follows that the dynamic between personal encounter, knowledge and Christian witness is integral to the " diakonia of truth"--or stewardship of the truth--which the Church exercises in the midst of humanity.

The Pope used the word 'truth' no less than 39 times.

He quite obviously finds the search for truth to be at the heart of a genuinely Catholic campus identity:

A university or school's Catholic identity is not simply a question of the number of Catholic students. It is a question of conviction - do we really believe that only in the mystery of the Word made flesh does the mystery of man truly become clear (cf. Gaudium et Spes , 22)? Are we ready to commit our entire self - intellect and will, mind and heart - to God? Do we accept the truth Christ reveals? Is the faith tangible in our universities and schools? Is it given fervent expression liturgically, sacramentally, through prayer, acts of charity, a concern for justice, and respect for God's creation? Only in this way do we really bear witness to the meaning of who we are and what we uphold.

In other words, is it evident that our Catholic institutions of higher learning foster a faculty and campus culture that gives unabashed and unambiguous expression to the truths of faith to which we adhere--sacramentally, liturgically and through the exercise of Christian charity?
The Pope gave ample expression to a number of things implied by that adherence to the truths of faith within a Catholic intellectual community, namely:

• That the truths of faith and of reason never contradict one another.

• That the Church "serves all members of society by purifying reason, ensuring that it remains open to the consideration of ultimate truths."

• That the Church "reminds all groups in society that it is not praxis that creates truth but truth that should serve as the basis of praxis."

• That "the Church never tires of upholding the essential moral categories of right and wrong, without which hope could only wither, giving way to cold pragmatic calculations of utility which render the person little more than a pawn on some ideological chess-board."

• That "any appeal to the principle of academic freedom in order to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the Church would obstruct or even betray the university's identity and mission."

While this speech did not quite rise to the intellectual caliber of his other two university addresses--at the University of Regensburg and the one he was scheduled to give at La Sapienza University in Rome--it nonetheless accomplished the modest goal of refreshing our understanding of what "Catholic identity" means and should look like at Catholic universities. In that sense, it was an address well tailored to its audience.  Personally, I do not share the disillusionment of those who were expecting Benedict to give his listeners a tongue lashing and read them the riot act. Benedict believes in the "semina Verbi"; he sows seeds of the Word--for the benefit of all. He also believes presidents of Catholic universities in the U.S. are intelligent and intellectually honest enough to give thorough consideration to his message. On that score, let's try to be optimistic.

_______________________________

[1] Four "essential characteristics" of that  identity are enshrined in John Paul II's 1989 Apostolic Constitution on Catholic Education Ex Corde Ecclesiae , n. 13:

1. a Christian inspiration not only of individuals but of the university community as such;
2. a continuing reflection in the light of the Catholic faith upon the growing treasury of human knowledge, to which it seeks to contribute by its own research;
3. fidelity to the Christian message as it comes to us through the Church;
4. an institutional commitment to the service of the people of God and of the human family in their pilgrimage to the transcendent goal which gives meaning to life.

[2] Cf. Spe Salvi , 4. 

Rev. Thomas V. Berg, L.C. is Executive Director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person.

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