The concept of human dignity plays an increasing role in contemporary ethics and, bioethics, as well as in human rights instruments. Nonetheless, far from being a novel notion, it has been the subject of many centuries of philosophical inquiry. Its origins can be traced back to Antiquity and is present with different nuances and in varying degree in many civilizations and cultures. Although this brief account is focused on the special development of the notion in the Western philosophical tradition, it is noteworthy that the idea of an intrinsic human worthiness is also present in other cultural settings (UNESCO, 1984; Qianfang, 2000; Sachedina, 2009).Every individual has inherent worth and accompanying rights; second, to stress that human dignity holds a prominent position as an overarching principle in the international instruments relating to bioethics that have been adopted since the end of the 1990s, and finally, to point out that the idea of dignity plays also an important guiding role as a moral standard for patient care.
