Abstract

The analysis carried out in this contribution starts from the relief of the wide recourse, in bioethics and biolaw, to the notion of human dignity, invested with the role of a decisive argumentative resource, in order to persuade of the goodness of the positions upheld, and then emphasises the risk of its reduction to a rhetorical artifice, functional to the justification of diversified and incompatible value perspectives. There is, however, a way to rescue the notion from the limbo of indeterminateness and restore its significance as a value criterion of reference in relation to issues of central importance in the lives of all human beings. This is identified by subjecting the notion to a redefining operation, the inherent nature of which is clarified in bioethics and biolaw as contexts of rational argumentation, and whose metalinguistic assumptions are made explicit. Identified and proposed as ‘watchwords’ for the good use of the expression ‘human dignity’ are the three formulae: ‘preserving individuals from neglect by paying attention to their basic needs’; “preventing all forms of mortificationµ; “recognising that every individual is a person deserving of respect to the end of lifeµ. What emerges is a redefinition that brings into play solidarity and charity as values to which the actions of individuals and, even before that, political choices and allocation of resources must be guided, as functional as possible to improving the living conditions of all individuals, but that also and above all brings into play the value of autonomy. The notion of human dignity, whose boundaries are clearly delimited, is emphasised for its potential to steer towards positions that are more and more widely shared in relation to relevant thematic areas, in which the path to a convergent positive assessment of choices and lines of action has already been set in motion, although in some cases it has not yet reached its conclusion. End-of-life issues are taken as a privileged observatory of the significant role as a catalyst for the recognition of rights that redefined human dignity has already fulfilled, conveying consensus, and appears fit to play even in relation to the still divisive issues at the heart of the bioethical and biojuridical debate.