Includes bibliographical references (pages 151-153).Also published in: Pellegrino, Edmund D., Adam Schulman, and Thomas W. Merrill, eds. Human Dignity and Bioethics, 129-153. Norte Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009.The gulf separating humans from all other species can sensitize us to our potential for dignity. Only humans have linguistic capacities capable of sustaining cumulative transmissible cultures. Ideas pass from mind to mind. Our ideas and deliberated practices re-configure our brain structures. The human brain, the most complex thing known in the universe, can generate ideals. Humans become existential and ethical persons, embodied "spirit.
