Journal Articles and Book Chapters by David Kirchhoffer
Bioethics, 2022
Religious pluralism in healthcare means that conflicts regarding appropriate treatment can occur ... more Religious pluralism in healthcare means that conflicts regarding appropriate treatment can occur because of convictions of patients and healthcare workers alike. This contribution argues for a presumption in favour of respect for religious belief on the basis that such convictions are judgements of conscience, and respect for conscience is core to what it means to respect human dignity. The human person is a subject in relation to all that is. Human dignity refers to the worth of human persons as members of the species with capacities of reason and free choice that enable the realisation of dignity as self-worth through morally good behaviour. Conscience is both a feature of inherent dignity and necessary for acquiring dignity as self-worth. Conscience enables a person to identify objective values and disvalues for human flourishing, the rational capacity to reason about the relative importance of these values and the right way to achieve them and the judgement of the good end and the right means. Human persons are bound to follow their conscience because this is their subjective relationship to objective truth. Religious convictions are decisions of conscience because they are subjective judgements about objective truth. The presumption of respect for religious belief is limited by the normative dimension of human dignity such that a person's beliefs may be overridden if they objectively violate inherent dignity or morally legitimate acquired dignity.
In the debates concerning the ethics of human enhancement through biological or technological mod... more In the debates concerning the ethics of human enhancement through biological or technological modifications, there have been several appeals to the concept of human dignity, both by those favouring such enhancement and by those opposing it. The result is the phenomenon of ‘dignity talk', where opposing sides both appeal to the concept of human dignity to ground their arguments resulting in a moral impasse. This article examines the use of the concept of human dignity in the enhancement debates and reveals that the problem of dignity talk arises because proponents of various positions tend to ground human dignity in different features of the human individual. These features include species-membership, possession of a particular capacity, a sense of self-worth, and moral behaviour. The article proposes a solution to this problem by appealing to another feature of human beings, namely their being-in-relationship-over-time. Doing so enables us to understand dignity as a concept that affirms the worth of human individuals as complex, multidimensional wholes, rather than as isolated features. Consequently, the concept of human dignity can serve both a descriptive and a normative function in the enhancement debates. At a descriptive level, asking what advocates of a position mean when they refer to human dignity will reveal what aspects of being human they deem to be most valuable. The debate can then focus on these values. The normative function, although it cannot proscribe or prescribe all enhancement, approves only those enhancements that contribute to the flourishing of human individuals as multidimensional wholes.
Human dignity is a contested concept in contemporary moral discourse. One of the causes of this i... more Human dignity is a contested concept in contemporary moral discourse. One of the causes of this is the varying claims concerning the ground of human dignity, including religious and non-religious grounds. Consequently, some scholars have called for the dismissal of the concept of human dignity. Others, however, seem to be attempting to resacralize the concept of human dignity by arguing that the only legitimate ground is a religious one. This article argues that the reason that the concept of human dignity has been so successful in expanding the moral circle is because of a conscious attempt to secularize the concept in the drafting of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This secularized conceptualization has found support in post-war developments in Roman Catholic Social Teaching. The resacralization is, therefore, contrary to both the secular and Roman Catholic understandings that have developed in the second half of the twentieth century. Furthermore, it does not present an adequate solution to the problem of dignity talk because it ignores the reason the drafters of the Universal Declaration opted for a secularized understanding of human dignity in the first place.
Foundations of Healthcare Ethics: Theory to Practice, edited by Ozolins and Grainger (Cambridge University Press, 2015), 2015
The concepts of personhood and human dignity are widely used in contemporary health-care ethics. ... more The concepts of personhood and human dignity are widely used in contemporary health-care ethics. This chapter provides a brief overview of how the concept of human dignity came to be so important in health-care ethics, and examines how the concept’s widespread use and relationship to the concept of personhood have led to problems regarding its meaning and relevance. A practical solution is then presented.
Questioning the Human: Toward a Theological Anthropology for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Boeve, De Maeseneer and Van Stichel (Fordham University Press, 2014)., 2014
With a challenging title, based on an anecdote about a dialogue between a scientist/philosopher a... more With a challenging title, based on an anecdote about a dialogue between a scientist/philosopher and a lady on the structure of the universe, David Kirchhoffer proposes that the insight that human beings are the world (rather than merely live in the world) should be our starting point for reflections on theological anthropology. Relationality thus being the key-word for an up-to-date theological anthropology, this chapter discusses the main challenges that such an anthropology faces: first, anthropocentrism (challenged by the ecological crises, the debate on who counts as a person and technology); second, historicity (as introduced by social-constructivism and as taken more seriously in the Christian tradition in recent decades); third, vulnerability (as a morally neutral consequence of our interdependency); and finally, language (as a means to engage with diverse discourses ranging from art through to philosophy,business and cognitive neuropsychology). More than claiming to know the solutions for these different challenges, Kirchhoffer rather encourages theologians to further reflect on them and the way they are discussed in theological and other discourses with a necessary (self-)critical epistemological suspicion. For only in this way will we arrive at a relevant theological discourse on what human beings are, and be a legitimate dialogue partner for other discourses.
INTAMS Review, 20, 1, 111-117., 2014
Australians responded enthusiastically to the calling of the Synod, though there appears to be a ... more Australians responded enthusiastically to the calling of the Synod, though there appears to be a tension between expectations of doctrinal reform and pastoral reform. The Bishops Conference allowed each diocese to consult as it saw fit and submit its findings, in light of which a committee of four bishops drafted the official submission to the Synod. Other materials were also sent to the Synod office, including some directly by dioceses and other Catholic organisations. The dioceses surveyed made the preparatory document and questionnaire available online and in print. There was a high level of frustration expressed with the complexity of many of the questions. The Conference and most dioceses did not publish the findings of the consultation or their submission to the Synod. Nonetheless, these are likely to reveal trends with regard to co-habitation, pre-marital sex, contraception, the treatment of divorced Catholics and same-sex marriage similar to those of other western countries based on an analysis of existing quantitative data from the National Church Life Survey, diocesan reports to which the researchers were given access, and the Catholic media. There is an apparent disconnect between the lived experience of many Catholics and Church teaching in these areas. Moreover, there is a tension between issues of doctrinal confusion, doctrinal rejection, and pastoral care which could have consequences for whether the Synod should consider doctrinal reform or need only focus on pastoral care. Most importantly, the responses demonstrate that Catholics in Australia want to be better informed about Church teaching, want to be consulted about these matters, and want to have a say in the formulation of Church teaching. Not taking these wishes seriously risks further alienating many Catholics from the Church who express a disjuncture between Church teaching and their own life experience in these matters.
Menschenwürde und Medizin: Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch, edited by Joerden, Hilgendorf and Thiele (Duncker & Humblot, 2013), 2013
Being Human: Groundwork for a Theological Anthropology for the 21st Century (Wipf and Stock, 2013), 2013
Being Human: Groundwork for Theological Anthropology for the 21st Century, edited by Kirchhoffer, Horner and McArdle (Wipf and Stock, 2013), 2013
Journal of Catholic Social Thought, 10, 2, 401-411, 2013
In light of recent criticisms of the concept of human dignity, this contribution offers a proposa... more In light of recent criticisms of the concept of human dignity, this contribution offers a proposal for the continued relevance of the concept for tertiary chaplaincy. It is important to consider the concept of human dignity in tertiary chaplaincy because: many higher education institutions continue to identify human dignity as a key value; the kinds of ethical issues that tertiary students face will often involve appeals to human dignity; and the religious connotations that have come to be associated with the concept fall within the scope of chaplains. Nevertheless, there have been recent calls for the concept of human dignity to be dismissed from ethical discourse as unhelpful. In ethical debate, dignity can be unhelpful when it leads to 'dignity talk', when there is disagreement about whether it is something human beings always already have or something that is realised through human activity, or when it conceals what people think is really at stake. In response to these criticisms, this contribution proposes a model for understanding human dignity that affirms the value of the human person as a multi-dimensional, historically-situated being in relationship to all that is, a being who is faced with difficult moral choices through which he or she makes meaning in his or her life. This model has both descriptive value in helping us to understand why people do what they do, and normative value in helping us evaluate what should be done.
South African Journal of Bioethics and Law, 5, 2, 2012
Biobanking policy needs to take into account the concept of human dignity, because this concept i... more Biobanking policy needs to take into account the concept of human dignity, because this concept is enshrined in both international and South African law. The accepted understanding of informed consent, which is also required by law, is inadequate for biobanking because it is often not possible to inform people of possible uses of their stored tissue.
If human dignity is understood as a multidimensional concept that corresponds to the multidimensionality of the human person, then human dignity can be said to be both (i) something that all people already have, as an inviolable worth that inheres in their potential to live meaningful lives; and (ii) something that people seek to realise through morally good behaviour in historically-situated relationships.
This understanding of human dignity can be used as both an interpretive lens and a normative vision. It is interpretive because it reveals how various attitudes to biobanking and the various proposed consent regimes – presumed, broad, and specific – might all be underpinned by appeals to human dignity. It is a normative vision because, given that all of these positions can be underpinned as morally meaningful with respect to human dignity, provision should be made for all of the possible consent regimes in law and in biobanking practice.
Nonetheless, where compromise cannot be avoided, then, at the very least, human dignity understood as the human potential to live a meaningful moral life must be protected.
Southern African Public Law, 27, 1, 119-135, 2012
The concept of human dignity is widely used in contemporary ethics and law as a foundational crit... more The concept of human dignity is widely used in contemporary ethics and law as a foundational criterion for moral reasoning. Nonetheless, the concept has recently received criticism from various quarters. Some of this criticism has come from representatives of the animal liberation movement. The concept of human dignity is accused of underpinning an ethics that is anthropocentric and speciesist. That is, human dignity is said to be used as the basis of an ultimately unjustifiable attribution of intrinsic moral worth only to human beings and to lead, consequently, to a detrimental prejudice against other species.
Annual Review of Law and Ethics, vol. 20, 2012
Human reproduction and genetic ethics, 2011
The rise of "dignity talk" has led to the concept of human dignity being critic... more The rise of "dignity talk" has led to the concept of human dignity being criticized in recent years. Some critics argue that human dignity must either be something we have or something we acquire. Others argue that there is no such thing as human dignity and people really mean something else when they appeal to it. Both "dignity talk" and the criticisms arise from a problematic conception of medical ethics as a legalistic, procedural techne. A retrieval of hermeneutical ethics, by contrast, offers a way to overcome both the legalism of contemporary ethics and the abuses and criticisms of the concept of human dignity. Such an ethics affirms both the inherent dignity of a human being as a multi-dimensional, meaning-seeking, historically-situated, relational individual, who desires to live a good life, and the realized sense of his/her own dignity toward which s/he works. As such, human dignity cannot be reduced to one feature of the human, and instead functions as both a descriptive category that avoids moralism, and as a normative category that allows relativity whilst avoiding relativism.
Menschenwürde und moderne Medizintechnik, edited by Joerden, Hilgendorf, Petrillo, Thiele (Nomos, 2011) , 2011
Human dignity has long been used as a foundational principle in policy documents and ethical guid... more Human dignity has long been used as a foundational principle in policy documents and ethical guidelines intended to govern various forms of biomedical research. Despite the vast amount of literature concerning human dignity and embryonic tissues, the majority of biomedical research uses non-embryonic human tissue. Therefore, this contribution addresses a notable lacuna in the literature: the relationship, if any, between human dignity and human tissue. This paper first elaborates a multidimensional understanding of human dignity that overcomes many of the shortcomings associated with the use of human dignity in other ethical debates. Second, it discusses the relationship between such an understanding of human dignity and 'non-embryonic' human tissue. Finally, it considers the implications of this relationship for biomedical research and practice involving human tissue. The contribution demonstrates that while human tissue cannot be said to have human dignity, human dignity is nevertheless implicated by human tissue, making what is done with human tissue and how it is done worthy of moral consideration.
New Blackfriars, 2009
Pope Benedict XVI often uses the concept of the dignity of the human person in his discourse. Thi... more Pope Benedict XVI often uses the concept of the dignity of the human person in his discourse. This article firstly attempts to present a synthesis of Benedict XVI's understanding of human dignity. The result is a multidimensional understanding of human dignity based on the belief that the human person is created in the image of God. Human dignity is constituted by the given-ness of human existence, the capacities inherent in being human—freedom, reason, love and community—and the telos of human existence, namely, spiritual union with God and the practical realisation of a peaceful and mutually edifying human coexistence. Based on this understanding of human dignity, Benedict XVI develops a normative morality. The second part of this article asks whether interpretations of this normative morality that would claim that some of these norms are absolute moral norms are in fact correct. Particular attention is paid to the apparent equation or reduction of human dignity to the dignity of life. The conclusion is, though it is possible to read Benedict XVI's normative morality as advocating absolute moral norms, such an interpretation would be usually incorrect in light of Benedict XVI's more comprehensive understanding of human dignity.
Bijdragen, 2009
Page 1. Become What You Are Alan Watts Page 2. BECOME WHAT YOU Page 3. Page 4. Become What You Ar... more Page 1. Become What You Are Alan Watts Page 2. BECOME WHAT YOU Page 3. Page 4. Become What You Are Alan Watt: SHAMBHALA Boston & London 2003 *<pgi®* Page 5. Shambhala Publications, Inc. Horticultural Hall ...
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Journal Articles and Book Chapters by David Kirchhoffer
If human dignity is understood as a multidimensional concept that corresponds to the multidimensionality of the human person, then human dignity can be said to be both (i) something that all people already have, as an inviolable worth that inheres in their potential to live meaningful lives; and (ii) something that people seek to realise through morally good behaviour in historically-situated relationships.
This understanding of human dignity can be used as both an interpretive lens and a normative vision. It is interpretive because it reveals how various attitudes to biobanking and the various proposed consent regimes – presumed, broad, and specific – might all be underpinned by appeals to human dignity. It is a normative vision because, given that all of these positions can be underpinned as morally meaningful with respect to human dignity, provision should be made for all of the possible consent regimes in law and in biobanking practice.
Nonetheless, where compromise cannot be avoided, then, at the very least, human dignity understood as the human potential to live a meaningful moral life must be protected.
If human dignity is understood as a multidimensional concept that corresponds to the multidimensionality of the human person, then human dignity can be said to be both (i) something that all people already have, as an inviolable worth that inheres in their potential to live meaningful lives; and (ii) something that people seek to realise through morally good behaviour in historically-situated relationships.
This understanding of human dignity can be used as both an interpretive lens and a normative vision. It is interpretive because it reveals how various attitudes to biobanking and the various proposed consent regimes – presumed, broad, and specific – might all be underpinned by appeals to human dignity. It is a normative vision because, given that all of these positions can be underpinned as morally meaningful with respect to human dignity, provision should be made for all of the possible consent regimes in law and in biobanking practice.
Nonetheless, where compromise cannot be avoided, then, at the very least, human dignity understood as the human potential to live a meaningful moral life must be protected.
The traditional answers from the past remain only theoretical possibilities unless they come to mean something to today's generation. Moreover, in light of new knowledge and circumstances, a new generation may call these old answers into question, and seek to reinterpret, or, indeed, provide alternatives to them.
In the 1960s, the Catholic Church's Second Vatican Council attempted such a reinterpretation, an aggiornamento, for the post-war generation of the mid-twentieth century by proposing, in Gaudium et Spes, a theological anthropology founded upon the ideas of human dignity and the common good. Fifty years later is an appropriate time to revisit those answers, and to seek again to reinterpret or provide alternatives to them, in light of new knowledge for a new generation.
Taking the themes of Gaudium et Spes as its starting point, this book looks at developments in theology and philosophy in the latter half of the twentieth century that call some of these 'old' answers into question. It identi fies some of the 'new knowledge and circumstances' that need to be taken into account for this generation's answer to the question of what it means to be human.
In five parts, leading philosophers and theologians
• offer interpretive lenses for reading the theological anthropology of the twentieth century;
• address the challenges of anthropocentricism, alterity, incarnation, and postmodernity for the notion of the human subject;
• tackle the important moral concepts of conscience, responsibility, evil and guilt;
• investigate the claims of atheism, fundamentalism, scientific naturalism, nihilism, and pluralism; and
• consider questions of the relationship between the individual and the community in the modern secular state.
In so doing, this book prepares the ground for the development of a theological anthropology for the twenty-first century.
The problem may stem from apparent disagreement regarding the meaning of human dignity and its basis. On one hand there are arguments that claim that (1) human dignity is a moral good that all human persons already inherently and inviolably have. These arguments can be further divided into two groups: (1a) the ontological group situates human dignity in the ontological status of human persons as, for example, made in the image of God or as members of the human species; (1b) the capacity group situates human dignity in the potential inherent in one or more typically human capacities, e.g. rationality, autonomy, and the capacities to act and to love, among others. On the other hand, there are arguments that claim that (2) human dignity is something that human persons acquire based on their moral behaviour. Here too, there are two groups: (2a) the psychological group situates human dignity in some subjective sense of self-worth as a person leading a meaningful life; (2b) the social group argues that a person acquires dignity to the extent that he or she lives a morally good life in a given social context.
Furthermore, the critics are suspicious of the link between human dignity and religious faith. First, the belief in human dignity is often grounded in religious beliefs, which is supposedly untenable in secular society. Second, appeals to human dignity are ostensibly covert attempts to foist allegedly ‘conservative’, religious moral agendas on secular society.
There are three possible responses to the above critique: (1) discard the concept of human dignity; (2) ignore the critique and continue to base the concept in one of the bases highlighted in Chapter 1; (3) develop a renewed understanding of the concept that takes the challenges posed by the critique seriously. Option (1) is methodologically unacceptable, and option (2) fails to resolve the problems. Which leaves option (3).
Option (1) is based on unacceptable methodological assumptions: (a) ethics is understood only as a legalistic techne that provides simple rules for the adjudication of moral dilemmas; (b) a hermeneutic of suspicion that deconstructs moral language is emphasised at the expense of a hermeneutic of generosity that takes meaning seriously; (c) there is an unjustifiable epistemological reductionism that seeks to ground human dignity in a single feature of the human person and to apply it to a single feature of the moral event.
Option (2) does not overcome the problem of ‘dignity talk’. It likewise suffers from reductionist views of ethics, the human person, and the moral event. This only aggravates the related problems of moralism and relativism. Moralism occurs when a group holds that only they are right and good and all others are wrong and bad. Moralism gives rise to relativism to the extent that other groups can only challenge the moralism of the first group by being equally moralistic, claiming that they are the ones who are really right and good. This is a form of relativism precisely because, for the respective groups, there is apparently no Archimedean point that can be used to adjudicate between their opposing moral claims. The only solution is either to overpower the other group, or to tolerate it.
Option (3) proposes alternative methodological assumptions that overcome the major problems with options (1) and (2): (a) ethics is understood to be a hermeneutical enterprise that seeks to understand and make sense of the meanings inherent in moral behaviour; (b) the human person is understood as a multidimensional, meaning-seeking and -giving historical, corporeal subject who is always intrinsically related to all that is, and who seeks to realise a meaningful sense of self-worth in and through her moral interactions with these relationships; (c) the moral event is understood as a multidimensional, time-bound occurrence that consists of, among other things, intentions, acts, and circumstances, all of which have a bearing upon the moral quality of the event. Thus, unlike the ‘either…or’ paradigm of the other two options, the third option begins from a ‘both…and’ paradigm that resists epistemological and ontological reductionism in favour of a view of reality that values the complexity and multidimensionality of the Gestalt. This, combined with the emphasis on the historicity of both the human person and the moral event, helps to overcome the challenges of moralism and relativism. Moralism is overcome because one is made aware of the ever-present possibility that one may be wrong. Relativism is overcome because, despite this possibility, and indeed bearing it in mind, we continue to seek the fullness of the Truth in conversation with others. The Truth cannot be reduced to particular interpretations, or indeed to the conversation. It is always transcendent, calling us forward. Two theological concepts are used to give expression to this reality, the Already and the Not Yet, and the Eschatological Proviso. The former underlines the fact that although we can already have glimpses of the Truth, we have not yet realised the fullness of the Truth in lived reality. The latter underlines the fact that no human endeavour, due to its historical character, can ever fully realise the Truth. We always remain, in that sense, tragic beings.
The findings of the legitimate application of a hermeneutic of suspicion are re-read using a hermeneutic of generosity, that is, a hermeneutic that seeks to reconstruct a meaningful understanding of the concept of human dignity based on the more holistic assumptions and a ‘both…and’ paradigm.
The result is the Component Dimensions of Human Dignity model (table 1) which serves as a descriptive lens through which we can interpret the meanings that particular individuals in particular circumstances ascribe to human dignity, as well as how these affect their moral choices. Moreover, the same model serves a normative function in that it can critique these particular understandings, for example, where they are reductionist, grounding dignity in an inadequate anthropology.
Table 1. The Component Dimensions of the Human Dignity Model
Component Dimension Complementary Duality
Already Not Yet
Existential Have (Potential) Acquire (Fulfilment)
Cognitive-Affective Inherent Worth Self-Worth
Behavioural Moral Good Morally Good
Social Others’ Dignity My Dignity
According to this model, at an existential level, all human persons Already have dignity because they are human persons, i.e., because they all have a range of inherent capacities that constitute a potential to live a meaningful, reflective, and morally good life. The most notable, though not the only, capacities that can be associated with human dignity include the abilities to reason, and to freely act in one’s society in a responsible way. Each person, however, in their historical situatedness, will seek to answer the irresistible drive to realise this potential by acquiring dignity in a unique manner.
The dignity that human beings seek to acquire is a consequence of, and therefore the fulfilment of, their potential. Their capacities mean that they can become aware of their inherent worth. To become aware of one’s inherent worth means that one now has a sense of self-worth, i.e., a conscious appreciation of one’s own dignity in relation to the world in which one lives. A person will seek to enhance this sense of self-worth through his or her behaviour in society, since life without a sense of self-worth is meaningless and the person will despair.
The person pursues this sense of self-worth through engaging in what she believes to be morally good behaviour. Since a society usually honours those who behave in what that society holds to be a morally good way, such behaviour is likely to enhance the person’s sense of self-worth. This provides the first sense in which human dignity is a moral good: the enhancement of a person’s sense of self-worth is among the legitimate, though not necessarily always conscious, ends to which his or her ‘morally good’ behaviour is directed. In other words, the fulfilment of his or her own dignity is an end in itself.
However, human dignity is also a moral good in the sense that, by virtue of their inherent worth, all human beings are legitimate ends of moral behaviour. This inherent worth means that all people already have dignity by virtue of their potential, regardless of whether this potential has been developed in any way (Others’ Dignity). Nevertheless, all of these others likewise aspire to achieving a sense of self-worth. Thus on a social level, and human beings are inherently social beings, I can never truly fulfil my dignity until all others have been able to fulfil their dignity. Thus dignity is a moral good, since I can only truly acquire the moral good of my dignity by working for the moral good of others’ dignity. And we clearly live in a world in which this is not yet the case.
The book demonstrates the descriptive and normative properties of the model by applying it to cases of interpersonal violence and end-of-life decisions.