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Background
Background
Kant’s work on the idea of inherent human dignity occurred against a surprisingly sparse backdrop, philosophically speaking:
Ancient Greek philosophy tended to emphasise the idea that rationality was the defining human characteristic, allowing individuals to grasp reality beyond illusions. For Roman society, the concept of dignitas held significance for the aristocracy, but extending it universally was incompatible with a slave-holding society dominated by Roman citizens.
In the 5th century, Boethius defined a person as an individual with a rational essence, potentially bridging the gap towards respect for all humans, but it was in the Renaissance that the idea really took off. In 15th century Florence, Humanist thinkers like Pico della Mirandola championed the concept of human dignity in works like his "Oration on the Dignity of Man." Pico thought that Humans occupy a unique position in the "Great Chain of Being," possessing free will to choose their path on this scale. However, he believed achieving true dignity necessitated virtuous living, implying a hierarchy of dignity based on morality. His ideas faced opposition in the 16th century from the papacy, religious figures like Savonarola, and the Counter-Reformation.
The Protestant Reformation tended to focus on predestination, grace, and human sinfulness, offering no significant contribution to the evolving concept of universal human dignity.
Human beings as ends and not means
Human beings as ends and not means
Kant reasoned that humans are special beings in that we have the ability to make free choices, to rise above our brute instincts. (Everything else in the world is driven by purely mechanistic forces.)
This freedom of the will is a feature of our human reason, and it confers on us an inherent dignity that is valuable in and of itself.
We have a moral responsibility, then, to treat people in ways that reflect their inherent value, and not to reduce people to mere objects of instrumental value.
So, we should avoid treating people as mere means. For example, if I make a deceitful promise to you with the intention of acquiring financial gain, then I’m treating you as a thing or instrument and not recognizing your inherent value.
Also, we should actively treat people as ends - helping them retain their dignity. For example, if I let my talents decline, then I am not acknowledging my inherent worth as a rational person who shapes the world through my decisions; I’m not treating myself as an end. If I fail to help people in need, then I am not helping them maintain their dignity; I’m failing to treat them as an end.
Kant summarised all of this in his Second Formulation of the Categorical Imperative:
Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.
— Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of MoralsKant believed that this was simply another way of formulating the same principle expressed in the first formulation, which was:
Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
— Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of MoralsAnd he followed the first and second with his third formulation:
Thus the third practical principle follows [from the first two] as the ultimate condition of their harmony with practical reason: the idea of the will of every rational being as a universally legislating will.
— Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of MoralsDiscussion
Discussion
One major issue with Kant's Second Formulation is that it doesn't apply to animals or nature. Are we correct in not treating animals with dignity? Can't we even argue that the sublime in nature nature deserves both respect and awe, and is not to be treated as a means (for fracking, or laying oil pipelines and electricity pylons)?
That said, isn't the notion of inherent dignity more convincing than that of 'rights'? Saying that the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, and the gulags were wrong because they violated rights seems very weak.
We can think of what Simone Weil wrote:
‘If someone tries to browbeat a farmer to sell his eggs at a moderate price, the farmer can say: “I have the right to keep my eggs if I don’t get a good enough price.” But if a young girl is being forced into a brothel she will not talk about her rights. In such a situation the word would sound ludicrously inadequate’
—Simone Weil, ‘Human Personality’,Tasks
Tasks
Explain Kant's Second Formulation of the Categorical Imperative.
Explain an objection to Kant's view.
Evaluate Kant's position.
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