I could not resist posting a link to this essay from my new favorite philosopher, Steven Pinker. A must read, if only to see him take on Kass. The arguments canvassed by Pinker should be familiar to anyone who follows our work on the dignity discourse in the law and ethics of biomedicine (I can hit you up with a reading list if you so wish). My favorite paragraph from the piece:
"First, dignity is relative. One doesn't have to be a scientific or moral relativist to notice that ascriptions of dignity vary radically with the time, place, and beholder. In olden days, a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. We chuckle at the photographs of Victorians in starched collars and wool suits hiking in the woods on a sweltering day, or at the Brahmins and patriarchs of countless societies who consider it beneath their dignity to pick up a dish or play with a child. Thorstein Veblen wrote of a French king who considered it beneath his dignity to move his throne back from the fireplace, and one night roasted to death when his attendant failed to show up. Kass finds other people licking an ice-cream cone to be shamefully undignified; I have no problem with it."
