Human dignity: intrinsic or relative value?

Is human dignity an intrinsic value? Or is it a relative value, depending on the perception or assessment of quality of life? History had delineated some of its key features, but the advent of human rights and the Holocaust put special emphasis on this notion, particularly in the field of bioethics. But if modern medicine regards human dignity as crucial, it tends to support this notion while assessing and measuring it. The quality of life becomes the gauge for measuring human dignity, starting from a distinction between a viable and a non-viable existence, which may eventually lead to assisted death, or to letting die.

[Advance directives in France. Ethical reflections].

Advanced directives are a legal support enshrined in the Leonetti Law (2005). While rooted in a defensive and militant context, they hallow a "French Way" and draw a turning point in the political recognition of the autonomy of patients. They imply responsibility as much as prudence.