CHAPTER 2: THE PRINCIPLE OF DIGNITY: A UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLE OF LIMITED SCOPE

Abstract

Internationally, as in many national texts, human dignity is repeatedly invoked as the cardinal reference in bioethics. In reality, this principle has particular legal characteristics linked to its dual nature of objective principle and subjective principle. However, insofar as it constitutes, in its objective dimension, an obstacle to the instrumentalization of the human being, it sometimes seems to present an incantatory and rhetorical character. In this sense, the conception of fundamental rights organized exclusively on the basis of the freedom of a self-centered individual turns out to be less protective than the principle of dignity as it is the basis of prohibitions.