n discussions on palliative care and in palliative care we often hear references to the idea of a ‘death with dignity’ or a ‘dignified death’ in different forms. Dignity is obviously one of the more central concepts in discussions on the topic of a good death, and it is frequently used to label good dying and death, and good care for dying people.† Still, a problem in relation to the concept of dignity is that it is used in a number of different ways and it is far from clear what it implies to talk in terms of dignity in relation to death and dying. In Saunders & Baines (1983) it is even argued that this lack of clarity should result in us not using the concept. In this short paper I will outline and develop some ideas concerning this developed in my thesis A good death. On the value of death and dying (Sandman, 2001). First I will present a number of different uses and connotations of the term ‘dignity’ found in the palliative (and other) care contexts. Then I will focus specifically on the idea of human dignity and its relevance to palliative care. The first part of that discussion will be devoted to the basis of such a human dignity and the second part to the implications that accepting such a dignity will have for palliative care.