So I'm here today to offer some reflections about dignity.

But before I get started, I want to make two general remarks.

First, my purpose today is not to get you to do anything.

Rather, my purpose is reflective in nature.

I invite you to spend some time reflecting on dignity,

especially in light of an examination of the nature of the human

soul. Secondly, although I shall be talking a lot about dignity from various perspectives,

I'm leaving out exactly what it means to treat others with dignity. That question is left

open for further discussion. We have plenty of our on our plate as it is. The title

mentions a human soul and human dignity. The fundamental purpose of the talk is to identify

the minimal set of individuals for whom dignity applies. I grant that indeed this set could

very well be larger than the set that I seek to establish today.

Here's a little bit about my method.

To begin with an uncontroversal set of individuals that we naturally expect should be afforded dignity,

identify key similarities among these individuals, and then examine those similarities to see which among

them are essential and useful to establish the group members for the set of individuals with

dignity. From the get-go, I will tell you that a key similarity among these individuals relevant

for the dignity question is that each is said to possess a soul.

However, as we'll see, possession of a soul may not include other similarities we associate with those individuals to whom we extend dignity.

Let's look at where we'll begin. Continuing on the last point I made from the previous slide,

we treat those with dignity that are specially like us.

That is, a plausible beginning point for the dignity question

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