Who are 'people' and why are they 'like us'?: the language-game of dignity

The word 'dignity' has been applied in the context of everything from hospital gowns to the image of God. Despite calls to jettison the concept from moral philosophy, the term persists, and definitional schema abound. This essay argues that 'dignity' is a placeholder for fundamental values, a 'buck-passing' move that signals the strength of feeling behind the argument. Like a 'burning' or 'stabbing' pain without fire or blades, claims of dignity violation help to diagnose the kind of moral harm that elicits the feeling of indignation. In this sense, 'dignity' is a move in a language game that challenges the epistemic constraints around who matters. To demonstrate how 'dignity' operates as a move in a language-game rooted in embodiment, I conclude with a consideration of how deceased bodies are treated in medical education and the Honor Walk. If understood as a call to evaluate who counts as 'people-like-us' and how they should be treated, dignity remains a valuable concept in bioethics despite its ambiguity.