Abstract

Human dignity is a basic concept of medical ethics . It does not, however, reflect the status of animals which are used as models for experimentation in biomedical research. There is a crucial question: Are human beings just a certain kind of animal; or do humans – as an image of God – differ essentially from animals? In contrast to the modern view, the anthropology of Paracelsus, inspired by neo-Platonic ideas, shows the double character of human beings: Their animal body reveals the signature of nature and belongs to the earth and is mortal, whereas their angelic or spiritual body belongs to heaven and is eternal. The ideology of modern scientific medicine was coined especially by Darwinism, stressing evolution as a natural law which qualified human dignity as a relative value in regard to animal life. This opinion appears in the debates on eugenics until today . A new approach can be found when the metamorphoses from animal to human, and vice versa, are recognized. Such metamorphoses are shown by two stories of Franz Kafka, whose painful introspection presents the psychological problem of a traumatised dignity. Finally, Albert Schweitzer’s concept of ‹the reverence for life› displays a unique utopia of human dignity, including the dignity of all creatures