Abstract

This forum discusses some of the key issues concerning the interplay between human dignity and personal autonomy. The analysis is developed from different, although similar, points of view (philosophy of law, private and public comparative law). It focuses on topics that are particularly relevant to many contested rights: those relating to beginning and end-of-life matters, reproductive rights, and the commercial disposal of the human body. All of the essays here collected proceed from the significant ambivalence of the notions of dignity and autonomy in order to critically explain the unsettled connections between fundamental legal values.