Modern medicine is haunted by the question of when human life starts and when it ends up. We have been bequeathed the model which largely preponderates and which owes much of its strength to the Cartesian way of thinking. This model is however rather stiff and does not tally with exigencies as they have been posed by genetics, embryology and emergency medicine in recent time. In fact a contemporary of the philosopher mentioned Comenius sketched another model which can be employed in medicine and which treats the human being as an event entrenched amidst society as such. Against the common substantial model of human dignity it is possible to pose a procedural one based on the fact that the human being is embedded in a given society.

        Key words: human dignity - personalism - self - free will - hermeneutics.