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Immanuel Kant

Kant’s Theory of Human Dignity

Matt McManus explains why people have absolute worth.

“What is related to general human inclinations and needs has a market price ; that which, even without presupposing such a need, conforms with a certain taste has a fancy price ; but that which constitutes the condition under which alone something can be an end in itself has not merely a relative value, that is, a price, but an inner value, that is, dignity … Morality, and humanity insofar as it is capable of morality, is that which alone has dignity.”
(Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals)

While there remains no consensus on what dignity is, by far the most important and famous conception of it remains the classical liberal account developed by Immanuel Kant. The fame is well deserved, even if Kant’s articulation of his conception of dignity is occasionally quite confusing.

Part of the difficulty in giving an account of Kant’s idea of dignity is that he gives different formulations of it. Moreover, it is not always clear what theoretical role dignity is intended to play in his wider system.

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