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Birth with dignity from the Confucian perspective

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Abstract

The development of biotechnologies has broadly interfered with a number of life processes, including human birth. An important moral question arises from the application of such medical technologies to birth: do biotechnological advancements violate human dignity? Many valid arguments have been raised. Yet bioethicists are still far from reaching a consensus on how best to protect the dignity of human birth. Confucianism is an influential ethical theory in China and presents a distinctive understanding of human dignity. In this paper, we reconstruct the two Confucian concepts of dignity—namely, universal dignity and personal dignity. We then apply these concepts to human birth in the context of biotechnologies involving embryos and genetic enhancement. We conclude that the dual Confucian understanding of dignity contributes a valuable perspective to the question of whether biotechnologies related to human birth violate human dignity.

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Notes

  1. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are the authors’ own.

  2. Yao and Shun are saints, while Jie and Zhi are bad people.

  3. Yao and Shun are sages in ancient China.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Katelyn MacDougald very much for her professional editing of this paper. Thanks also go to two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions. We are indebted to the National Foundation of Social Science of China for funding support for this research. Our gratitude also goes to Marcus Düwell for inviting us to take part in the joint research project Human Dignity in the Context of Bioethics—China and the West. This China Exchange Programme is jointly organized by the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) and the Ministry of Education of China. Marcus Düwell and Jianhui Li are the leaders of the project on the Dutch and Chinese sides, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Philosophy, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Jianhui Li

  2. Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College, Zhuhai, 519087, China

    Jianhui Li

  3. Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, 100732, China

    Yaming Li

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  1. Jianhui Li
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  2. Yaming Li
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Correspondence to Jianhui Li.

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Li, J., Li, Y. Birth with dignity from the Confucian perspective. Theor Med Bioeth 39, 375–388 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-018-9460-1

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