Is human dignity incompatible with posthuman dignity?
Human dignity is sometimes invoked as a polemical substitute for clear ideas. This is not to say that there are no important moral issues relating to dignity, but it does mean that there is a need to define what one has in mind when one uses the term. Here, we shall consider two different senses of dignity: • Dignity as moral status, in particular the inalienable right to be treated with a basic level of respect. • Dignity as the quality of being worthy or honorable; worthiness, worth, nobleness, excellence.9 On both these definitions, dignity is something that a posthuman could possess. Francis Fukuyama, however, seems to deny this and warns that giving up on the idea that dignity is unique to human beings—defined as those possessing a mysterious essential human quality he calls “Factor X”10 —would invite disaster: Denial of the concept of human dignity—that is, of the idea that there is something unique about the human race that entitles every member of the species to a higher moral
