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Dignity, Honour, and Human Rights: Kant's Perspective
Rachel Bayefsky
Political Theory 2013 41: 809 originally published online 8 September 2013
DOI: 10.1177/0090591713499762
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PTX41610.1177/0090591713499762Political TheoryBayefsky
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Dignity, Honour, and
Human Rights: Kant’s
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Political Theory
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DOI: 10.1177/0090591713499762
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Rachel Bayefsky1
Abstract
Kant is often considered a key figure in a modern transition from social
and political systems based on honour to those based on dignity, where
“honour” is understood as a hierarchical measure of social value, and
“dignity” is understood as the inherent and equal worth of every individual.
The essay provides a richer account of Kant’s contribution to the “politics
of equal dignity” by examining his understanding of dignity and honour, and
the interaction between these concepts. The essay argues that Kant appeals
to multiple varieties of dignity and honour, that he does not reject honour in
favour of dignity, and that he sees some versions of honour as conducive to
respect for dignity. Furthermore, the complexity of Kant’s views on dignity
and honour has implications for the theory and practice of human rights in
the current day.
Keywords
Kant, dignity, honour, autonomy, respect
Introduction
The concept of dignity now plays a significant role in several areas of political life. Participants in an array of social and political movements—from
civil rights to labour activism to gay rights1—have invoked dignity to support
1Yale
Law School, New Haven, CT, USA
Corresponding Author:
Rachel Bayefsky, Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA.
Email: [email protected]
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Political Theory 41(6)
their claims. In addition to the political salience of dignity, theorists in law,
philosophy, and politics have recently devoted greater attention to elucidating
this concept’s meaning and application.2 One context in which the concept of
dignity has become increasingly prominent is the theory and practice of
human rights.3 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that
“recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of
all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and
peace in the world.”4 The UN Covenants on civil and political rights, and on
social and economic rights, state that “these rights derive from the inherent
dignity of the human person.”5 Human rights activists worldwide have used
“dignity” as their rallying cry, and theorists such as Ronald Dworkin and
James Griffin have employed the concept of dignity in their accounts of
human rights.6
The particular understanding of dignity that is generally referenced in the
human rights literature, and in political theory more broadly, is “human dignity.” Human dignity is often treated as the “contemporary” conception of dignity and set off from “older” conceptions, in the following ways. First, human
dignity applies specifically to human beings rather than to other entities such as
offices, institutions, or states.7 Second, human dignity applies equally to all
human beings, as opposed to “restrictive” conceptions that accorded individuals at the top of the social order more dignity than others.8 Third, human dignity
is an inherent feature of the human personality, not a rank bestowed by social
recognition or a status conditional upon certain forms of behaviour.9
The “contemporary” conception of human dignity is frequently considered to have emerged from, and defined against, an older idea of honour. This
view is expressed prominently in Charles Taylor’s work on “The Politics of
Recognition”10 and appears in earlier work by Peter Berger.11 According to
this view, honour, which attaches to a person’s position within a hierarchical
social order, has been eclipsed by the contemporary conception of human
dignity, which applies equally to everyone as an intrinsic quality of personhood. As Mika LaVaque-Manty notes, the shift from honour to dignity as the
ground “upon which an individual’s political status rests” has been taken to
be a seminal change of modernity.12 Michael Sandel makes a less chronological but related claim:
For the unencumbered self, not honor but dignity is the basis of respect—the
dignity that consists in the capacity of persons as autonomous agents to choose
their ends for themselves. Unlike honor, which ties respect for persons to the roles
they inhabit, dignity resides in a self antecedent to social institutions. . . . For
selves such as these, reputation matters, not intrinsically, as a matter of honor, but
only instrumentally, as a business asset for example.13
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Sandel’s mention of “the dignity that consists in the capacity of persons as
autonomous agents to choose their ends for themselves” alludes to Kant—a
thinker who is often thought to have strongly influenced the development of
the modern concept of dignity.14 Kant is often identified as a crucial (if not
the crucial) progenitor of the form of human dignity that grounds human
rights. Jack Donnelly, for instance, writes in a discussion of the genesis of
human rights that “In Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) we first find a fully-formed
account of human dignity, very similar to that of the Universal Declaration,
that is placed at the center of moral and political theory.”15
Donnelly—and others—describe Kant’s conception of dignity as the
inherent worth of the human person, which grounds a duty to treat people not
as mere means but also as ends in themselves.16 As Christopher McCrudden
notes in his discussion of dignity in human rights discourse, Kantian dignity
is also traditionally characterized in terms of autonomy: “the conception of
dignity most closely associated with Kant is the idea of dignity as autonomy;
that is, the idea that to treat people with dignity is to treat them as autonomous
individuals able to choose their destiny.”17 Giovanni Bognetti, who labels
Kant the “father of the modern concept of human dignity,” explains Kant’s
view of dignity as follows: “man is a morally autonomous being, who as such
deserves respect and must never be treated, in general and especially by the
law, as only a means to contingent ends but always (also) as an end in himself.”18 On these accounts, Kant’s contribution to the development of dignity
consists in attributing to each human being an equal and unconditional worth
grounded in moral autonomy. The thrust of Kantian dignity is to mandate
certain forms of respect from, as Donnelly states, “all other individuals, society, and the state. And the details of that respect, especially in its political
elements, are specified through human rights.”19
In addition to being attributed a key role in the genesis of the type of dignity
that undergirds human rights, Kant is generally thought to have undermined
honour by rejecting socially defined measures of human worth.20 Roger
Sullivan indicates in a discussion of “the formula of respect for the dignity of
persons” that “Kant’s entire moral philosophy can be understood as a protest
against distinctions based on the far less important criteria of rank, wealth, and
privilege. . . . ‘Respect’ is radically different from the notion of ‘honour,’
which rests only on societal roles and prudential distinctions.”21 Manfred
Kuehn writes that “honourableness or Ehrbarkeit was for Kant a merely external form of morality . . . he realized clearly that it depended on the social
order” and so grounded morality not in honour, but in “the concepts of pure
reason.”22 According to Kuehn, Kant thereby rejects the honour-driven morality of both the nobility and the guilds in eighteenth-century Germany.23 Taylor
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traces the rejection of honour in favour of dignity to Rousseau and Kant, writing that Kant’s “use of the term dignity was one of the earliest influential
evocations” of the idea that “all humans are equally worthy of respect.”24
These scholars do not necessarily argue that Kant rejects all forms of honour.
Kuehn acknowledges that “honour also always remained important for
Kant,”25 and Taylor notes that he is “using honour in the ancient regime sense
in which it is intrinsically linked to inequalities.”26 Yet these scholars are not
particularly concerned about analyzing other forms of honour that may have
been more congenial to Kant, and they tend to use “honour” as shorthand for
a socially defined, hierarchical form of honour.27
Overall, then, Kant is thought to have contributed to a modern shift from
honour to dignity by rooting respect for persons in their autonomy instead of
their social standing—thereby enacting a transformation that was highly significant to the development of the human rights regime. This essay argues
that Kant’s views on dignity and honour are considerably more complex than
this account would suggest, and that the added complexity has implications
for the theory and practice of human rights.
First, I highlight nuances in Kant’s conceptions of dignity and honour,
respectively. Dignity for Kant is not merely unconditional human worth of a
kind that grounds a right to respect from others. Rather, Kant emphasizes
people’s duties to conduct themselves in such a way that they maintain their
dignity, and there are multiple interpretive possibilities regarding the actual
basis of dignity in Kant. Furthermore, honour for Kant is not merely an illegitimate, hierarchical, and socially defined view of human status. Kant recognizes multiple types of honour, some of which are consistent with, and indeed
beneficial to, moral autonomy. Kant does not even unequivocally reject
notions of honour that are based on particular social roles. Second, I question
the conventional account of the relationship between dignity and honour in
Kant’s philosophy, namely, that Kant rejects honour in favour of dignity. I
argue instead that Kant develops a conception of the “love of honour” conducive to the maintenance of dignity.
In making these arguments, I excavate features of dignity in Kant that are
under-emphasized in references to Kant in contemporary human rights discourse.28 My aim in doing so is not to detract from the relevance of Kant to
the human rights regime. Instead, I indicate that under-appreciated elements
of Kant’s thought on dignity and honour raise relevant considerations for
human rights theorists and practitioners, and that they can enrich the human
rights regime.
First, Kant’s emphasis on dignified standards for individual behaviour,
while diverging from the contemporary focus on standards for treatment by
others, can inform efforts to promote human rights respectfully by enabling
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individuals to maintain their own dignity. Second, Kant’s positive assessment
of certain forms of honour supports the view that honour can play a valuable
role in bolstering human rights – a view that has recently been propounded by
Kwame Anthony Appiah,29 and that also emerges from the practice of “naming
and shaming” human rights violators. Third, the social sensitivity of Kant’s
ideas on dignity and honour suggests that human rights grounded in Kantian
dignity can protect individual autonomy while simultaneously reflecting concern for the individual’s place in a social world. Human rights therefore need
not be considered overly individualist—a point that Allen Wood, for example, has made with specific regard to Kant’s ethics.30 This strengthens the
basis for socioeconomic rights designed to secure support for individuals
from society, and suggests that cultural traditions conceived as less individualistic should not reject human rights.
In addition to their relevance to the human rights regime, Kant’s views
also have implications for influential strands in contemporary political theory. Kant’s endorsement of certain forms of honour supports the emphasis on
respect and recognition in the literature on the “politics of recognition,”
among other work. At the same time, Kant’s negative valuation of other kinds
of honour helps to counter the tendency among some supporters of a “politics
of recognition” not to identify potential negative aspects of efforts to gain
social recognition.
In seeking to present a fuller and more accurate portrait of Kant’s views on
dignity and honour, this essay contributes to a broader attempt to “humanize”
Kant’s ethics by pointing out aspects of Kant’s philosophy that do not fit the
portrait of an austere moralist with little interest in social life.31 For instance,
my view that the “love of honour” could benefit efforts to adhere to moral
principles is in line with Robert B. Louden’s suggestion that Kant is concerned with identifying “aids and obstacles to morality” in practice, not simply with constructing a set of moral rules.32 This essay also joins Paul Saurette
in seeking to probe unconventional aspects of Kant’s moral philosophy—in
Saurette’s case, the role of humiliation in Kant as a force motivating moral
obedience.33 As I note later, however, I come to somewhat different conclusions than Saurette regarding the implications of Kant’s philosophy for the
contemporary protection of human rights.
This essay presents a richer account of Kant’s understanding of dignity
and honour than appears in the existing literature, but it builds on related
work. Oliver Sensen challenges the view that Kantian dignity connotes absolute moral worth, arguing that “dignity” refers to the relative property of sublimity or elevation over the rest of nature, and that for Kant, people only fully
realise their initial dignity if they use their freedom well.34 Michael Rosen, as
part of a rich discussion of Kant’s views on dignity, draws attention to a sense
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of “dignity” in the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (Grundlegung
zur Metaphysik der Sitten, 1785) that applies only to those who follow the
moral law,35 and notes that dignity for Kant crucially grounds duties to respect
the “humanity in one’s own person.”36 Stephen Darwall and Dietmar von der
Pfordten point out important distinctions in Kant’s presentation of dignity in
different writings, notably the Groundwork and the Metaphysics of Morals
(Die Metaphysik der Sitten, 1797).37
Recent scholars have also identified nuances in Kant’s ideas of honour.
LaVaque-Manty contends that Kant, rather than rejecting the honour-based
practice of duelling, reinterpreted it to reflect a standard of equal dignity
while retaining an emphasis on masculinity.38 Elizabeth Anderson likewise
argues that Kant reinterprets honour in an egalitarian direction.39 Susan Shell
suggests that honour for Kant, at least in some forms, is a proto-moral motive
that can work towards morality, or even to an ethics and politics of equal
dignity.40 Alex Livingston and Leah Soroko similarly contend that honour for
Kant serves a developmental purpose, but they emphasise that Kant views the
influence of honour as a feature of society in an unenlightened and immature
phrase.41 In a slightly different vein, Sussman suggests that Kant, instead of
rejecting the moral relevance of socially based honour, displays sensitivity to
social context not often associated with his writings.42
This essay draws on these attempts to complicate Kant’s views on honour
and dignity, but it moves beyond them in three main ways. First, I bring
together the interrogation of Kant’s conceptions of honour and dignity more
than is usually done. It is common for those “problematizing” Kant’s conception of either honour or dignity to ignore the other concept or to assume
that Kant understands it in a straightforward or conventional way.43 In order
fully to appreciate both terms and their relationship, however, it is useful to
consider Kant’s approaches to these concepts in tandem. Second, I avoid
presenting one Kantian view of dignity or honour, and the relationship
between them, as is sometimes done even in the literature challenging dominant interpretations of these concepts in Kant. For instance, Livingston and
Soroko present a view of honour in Kant as “a necessary yet insufficiently
developed understanding of moral worth” as an alternative to the view, proposed by LaVaque-Manty, that honour for Kant is “reinterpreted through the
practice of dueling to generate an egalitarian understanding of dignity.”44 It
might be more productive, however, for all of these authors to recognize the
presence in Kant’s writings of multiple types of honour, some of which Kant
endorses more than others. Third, I draw out implications of Kant’s views on
dignity and honour for contemporary human rights theory and practice.
In the second section, which focuses on Kant’s concept of dignity, I provide an account of Kant’s conception of “moral dignity” based on autonomy
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and note that this conception grounds duties on the part of dignity-bearers in
addition to mandating respect from others. I note that this aspect of Kant’s
dignity has an affinity with “older” conceptions of dignity found in Kant’s
own work and that it raises questions about the genuine grounding of dignity
in Kant (moral capacity as opposed to actually being moral, for instance).
Regardless of which of the interpretive possibilities that I explore is accepted,
the point remains that dignity for Kant crucially functions as the basis of
individual duties to behave in a certain way. This feature of Kantian dignity
is not much discussed in the human rights literature; it carries risks, but also
has the potential to influence positively human rights theory and practice.
The third section concentrates on Kant’s understanding of honour. I suggest that there are at least two senses of honour in Kant’s writings: a form of
the “love of honour” based on individuals’ being worthy of the good opinion
of others, and a socially defined form of honour, which is based on others’
opinions regardless of individual worth. For Kant, the “love of honour” can
be conducive to the maintenance of dignity based on moral autonomy.
Moreover, Kant’s portrait of socially defined honour is not unequivocally
negative; he considers this kind of honour to be “true honour” in the case of
soldiers and unmarried women. I argue that Kant’s views on honour support
honour-based strategies to promote human rights, as well as a socially sensitive understanding of dignity.
Dignity, Duty, and Human Rights
Dignity and Autonomy: Two Influential Passages
The conception of Kant’s views on dignity found most often in the human
rights literature is rooted in two influential passages from the Groundwork
and the Metaphysics of Morals. In the Groundwork, Kant differentiates things
with a “price” (Preis), which can be exchanged for something else, and things
with a “dignity” (Würde, also meaning “worth”), which are “raised above all
price” and therefore cannot be exchanged. Kant then writes that “morality,
and humanity insofar as it is capable of morality, is that which alone has dignity” (G 4:435) (see appendix for a list of translations).45 For Kant, morality
involves adherence to universal laws that one gives oneself. This lawgiving,
he indicates, possesses a dignity and should be treated with “respect”
(G 4:436). Kant concludes the Groundwork passage by stating that autonomy
(giving oneself a law) “is the ground of the dignity of human nature and of
every rational nature” (G 4:435-6). This formulation does not make it clear
whether dignity attaches to human beings by virtue of their moral capacity or
insofar as they are moral. I explore this issue below, along with a discussion
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of Kant’s distinction between humanity and personality. Here I simply note
that the Groundwork provides a source for the oft-cited tie between Kant’s
dignity and moral autonomy.
Further support for this connection comes from another influential passage, this time in the second part of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Doctrine
of Virtue or Tugendlehre. Here Kant draws a distinction, similar to the one in
the Groundwork, between things with price and things with dignity (MM
6:434-35). Now the human being himself takes on both aspects, regarded
from different angles. As a natural being, he has a price or external value; as
a “person,” or “the subject of a morally practical reason,” he is valued as an
“end in itself” and possesses “dignity” or “absolute inner worth.” Possessing
dignity gives rise to a certain relationship with other persons: he is to be
respected by them and can value himself equally to them (MM 6:435).
Moreover, the feeling of one’s inner worth arises from the “capacity for
internal lawgiving” and reverence for the “moral” human being within one’s
own person—indicating a basis for dignity in autonomy, or moral lawgiving
(MM 6:436). The Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der praktischen
Vernunft, 1788) similarly connects rational beings’ uniqueness with their
autonomy and the fact that they may not be treated as mere means: “A human
being alone, and with him every rational creature, is an end in itself: by virtue of the autonomy of his freedom he is the subject of the moral law . . .
such a being . . . is to be used never merely as a means but as at the same time
an end” (CPR 5:88).
These passages together provide support for a conception of dignity traditionally associated with Kant, especially in the human rights literature: dignity which attaches to human beings because of their autonomy and which
grounds a requirement to treat human beings as “ends in themselves.”46
Contributors to the human rights literature tend to conclude simply that
Kant’s conception of dignity mandates certain forms of treatment at the hands
of others, notably political authorities—for instance, as Rex Glensy puts it,
that “individuals ought never to be treated instrumentally by the state.”47 This
perspective is not incorrect, as dignity for Kant does give rise to claims for
respect from others, but it leaves out a significant part of Kant’s conception
of dignity, notably the emphasis on conducting oneself in accordance with
the “dignity of humanity.”
The Dignity-Bearer’s Duties
Maintaining the Dignity of Humanity. Kant indicates in the Critique of Practical
Reason that a person must ensure he “has maintained humanity in its proper
dignity in his own person and honoured it” (CPR 5:88). In the Metaphysics of
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Morals he makes clear that dignity not only entitles a person to certain forms
of treatment from others, but also requires a person to discharge a duty to
himself to act consistently “with the dignity of humanity in his person” (MM
6:420).48 In particular, such a person is prohibited from “making himself a
plaything of the mere inclinations and hence a thing” (MM 6:420). Examples
from the Metaphysics of Morals of conduct that violates the “dignity of
humanity” are grovelling before others (MM 6:436), “Complaining and whining, even crying out in bodily pain” (MM 6:436), and lying; Kant writes that
“By a lie, a human being throws away and, as it were, annihilates his dignity
as a human being” (MM 6:429). Kant adds to this list, in his lectures on pedagogy published in 1803, taking to drinking, committing “unnatural sins,” and
practising “all kinds of immoderation,” all of which “degrade the human being
far below the animals” (P 9:488-9). Elsewhere, the list of activities that defile
“the humanity in his own person” includes sex (even within marriage), masturbation, and “paederasty” (LE 27:346-7; MM 6:425).
The rest of this section discusses three issues raised by the idea of the
“dignity-bearer’s duties.” First, this idea has affinities with “older” conceptions of dignity, which are found in Kant’s own work; and comparing these
older conceptions to Kant’s account of dignity based on moral autonomy
reveals the ways in which Kant significantly altered the older conception
while maintaining one of its key features. Second, the idea that a person with
dignity must behave properly raises concerns about whether we can ever lose
our dignity, and so I examine the issue of the grounding of dignity in Kant.
Third, I explore the implications of the “duties of dignity-bearers” for human
rights theory and practice.
Dignity, Duty, and High Rank. The idea that bearers of dignity have certain
duties has affinities with “older” forms of dignity that are mentioned in Kant’s
own work. At several points after writing the Groundwork in 1784, Kant uses
“dignity” to refer to high social rank: of the nobility (MM 6:329), the government (CF 7:25), of rulers and ministers (PP 8:344), of royalty (Anth. 7:131,
CF 7:19), and even of Christ “as a divine mission” (Rel. 6:159). These usages
of dignity differ from one another in various ways, but they all associate dignity with high rank, and—except Christ—with a socially defined office. The
notion of dignity conferred by status in a social hierarchy runs back to the
Roman conception of “dignitas”49 and was common in Kant’s Prussia.50 I will
call this sense of dignity “hierarchical dignity” and differentiate it from
“moral dignity,” understood as the conception of the “dignity of humanity”
based on autonomy that emerges from the two passages of the Groundwork
and the Metaphysics of Morals quoted above. It seems that hierarchical dignity, according to the understandings of dignity presented by some authors
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cited above (Taylor, Sandel, and Berger, for instance), could also be classified
as honour.
Some commentators have noted Kant’s hierarchical usage of “dignity,”
but they tend not to connect it to more characteristically Kantian themes of
moral dignity in any particular detail.51 Here I suggest that comparing hierarchical dignity to moral dignity can illuminate what Anderson has referred to
as the “transformation” of an “ethic of honour” in Kant’s moral philosophy.52
My claim is not that Kant ascribes independent normative value to hierarchical dignity, but that Kant employs key features of hierarchical understandings
of dignity when he fashions his conception of dignity based on autonomy.
The resulting conception of moral dignity in Kant retains important features
of hierarchical dignity, notably the emphasis on acting in a way suited to the
possession of dignity. In a sense, my view broadens LaVaque-Manty’s statement that Kant used the social practice of duelling to deploy “the aristocratic
conception of masculine honor . . . in a politics of equal dignity.”53 The relationship between hierarchical dignity and moral dignity in Kant is not one of
simple replacement; rather, Kant draws on aspects of the former in creating
the latter.54
Certain parallels between hierarchical dignity and moral dignity in Kant
are as follows. First, Kant associates both kinds of dignity with the idea of
command, specifically command through lawgiving. Just as bearers of “dignities” in the hierarchical sense issue commands to the people (MM 6:329),
reason issues commands in the form of the moral law (CPR 5:143). The
image of the dignity-bearing political sovereign issuing laws is transposed
onto the realm of autonomous rational beings issuing moral commands in a
“kingdom of ends” (G 4:438). Autonomy for Kant, that is, takes the form of
moral self-legislation rather than simply the ability of people to “choose their
destiny,”55 as McCrudden characterizes a common understanding of Kant’s
autonomy-based dignity in the human rights literature. Second, both hierarchical dignity and moral dignity demand a certain attitude in response: an
attitude of respect. Dignity in a hierarchical political system requires respect
for high-ranked officials, such as legislators (CF 7:25) and monarchs (CF
7:19). Moral dignity, for its part, grounds a requirement to respect the moral
will (G 4:440) and a legitimate “claim to respect” for every human being
(MM 6:462).
Third—and most relevant to the discussion of the duty to respect “the
dignity of humanity in one’s own person”—both hierarchical dignity and
moral dignity require certain duties of their bearers. For Kant, some forms
of conduct would be “beneath the dignity” of a person with a given role or
status in a hierarchy. For instance, it would be beneath the dignity of a ruler
to sign a peace treaty with the secret intention of continuing war (PP 8:344)
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and beneath the dignity of the state legislator to become involved in controversies over church dogma (Rel. 6:113).56 The idea that possessing a highranking status obliges people to behave according to rules governing that
status is familiar from an “ethic of honour” which, in Anderson’s terms,
demands that those who possess certain “rights and privileges of rank” must
obey a “code of honour.”57 As noted above, Kant indicates that bearers of
moral dignity are required to conduct themselves so as not to make themselves into a “plaything of the mere inclinations” (MM 6:420). Just as certain conduct is beneath the dignity of a high-ranking official in Kant’s view,
certain conduct is, it seems, beneath the dignity of humanity.
Kant’s conception of moral dignity therefore draws on features of a traditional conception of hierarchical dignity—but these features are applied in a
very different context. In T.E. Hill’s terms, Kantian dignity involves “political metaphor”58; Kant transposes qualities conventionally associated with
high rank onto the autonomous will and fashions a conception of dignity that
falls in line with his emphasis on moral self-legislation. As David Tarbet
notes, metaphorical thinking is common in Kant, and the “legal metaphor” in
particular is influential in the Critique of Pure Reason.59 Kant’s employment
of the “legal metaphor” in this context signals an effort to formulate a sense
of “dignity” that does not depend on traditional markers of social status. But
the formulation of this sense of “dignity” does not simply involve the rejection of an old concept in favour of a new one; it involves the transformation
of the old concept, and in this transformation, features of the old concept are
carried over into the new. In particular, bearers of moral dignity are required
to conduct themselves in a way that suits the dignity of humanity—which is
not the dignity of a high social status but which is a high standard of conduct
nevertheless.
The idea that Kant draws on an earlier conception of dignity in order to
fashion moral dignity suggests that hierarchical dignity (which many would
associate with honour) can be transformed instead of rejected in the pursuit
of moral goals, including the protection of human rights. I take up this issue
in the third section. For now, I address a question that arises when considering the duty to respect the dignity of humanity. If bearers of dignity are
required to behave in a certain way, can they lose their dignity if they do not
behave accordingly? The basic issue involves the grounding of dignity in
Kant. Is dignity grounded in the capacity to adhere to the moral law, or in
actual adherence to the moral law, or in another trait? In the next section, I
canvass a few possible responses to this question. My aim is not to resolve
the issue fully but to indicate that multiple interpretations are compatible with
the idea that Kant emphasizes dignity as a ground of individual obligation in
addition to a basis of respect from others.
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The Grounds of Dignity in Kant
Because Kant refers frequently to the “dignity of humanity,” one way to
approach the question of the grounds of dignity is to ask what Kant means by
“humanity.” Kant describes “humanity” as “rational nature” (G 4:439) and
“the capacity to set oneself an end” (MM 6:392), and distinguishes it from
“personality,” which he describes as “respect for the moral law as of itself a
sufficient incentive to the power of choice” (Rel. 6:27). Wood describes this
distinction between humanity and personality as follows: “Humanity is the
capacity to set ends through reason,” while personality “is the rational capacity to respect the moral law and to act having duty or the moral law as a sole
sufficient motive of the will.”60 This might suggest that Kant grounds dignity
in the capacity to set rational ends, not the capacity to set moral ends. On this
account, human beings could never lose dignity when they act immorally,
because dignity is grounded in neither morality nor moral capacity.
But Kant seems to draw a strong connection between dignity and moral
capacity or morality, not only between dignity and rational capacity (for
instance, in G 4:435 and MM 6:436). Wood, though acknowledging that Kant
in the Groundwork writes about the dignity of humanity, indicates that
“Strictly speaking, Kant ascribes dignity not to ‘humanity’ but to ‘personality,’ that is, not to rational nature in general but to rational nature in its capacity to be morally self-legislative.”61 The view that moral capacity is the
ground of dignity is shared by Thomas E. Hill,62 and there is textual support
for the “moral capacity” view in the Groundwork, the Metaphysics of Morals,
and Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone.63
The “rational nature” view might perhaps be reconciled with the “moral
capacity” view by holding—as Wood does—that even if humanity and personality are distinct concepts, they are “co-extensive” in the sense that they
“apply necessarily to the same beings.”64 When Kant discusses the “dignity of
humanity,” then, he may be attributing dignity to all of those beings that possess humanity, but indicating that they possess dignity by virtue of their moral
capacity. Alternatively, one might read Kant’s references to the “dignity of
humanity” in light of his claim that “morality, and humanity insofar as it is
capable of morality, is that which alone has dignity” (G 4:435; emphasis
added) and suggest that Kant always implicitly qualifies his references to the
“dignity of humanity” with the caveat “humanity, insofar as it is capable of
morality.” Finally, one might hold that Kant’s attributions of dignity stand in
tension with each other—and that Kant has not fully resolved the issue of
whether dignity attaches to rational nature or to moral capacity.
A third possibility, in addition to the “rational nature” and the “moral
capacity” views, is an idea I will call the “enactment view.” According to this
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view, held for instance by Richard Dean, human beings must actually follow
the moral law in order to possess dignity, and they may lose their dignity
when they behave immorally.65 The “enactment view” is supported by Kant’s
attribution of dignity in the Groundwork not only to the capacity for morality,
but to moral human beings themselves, or moral conduct (G 4:434, 4:439440).66 At certain points, Kant suggests that people can “lose” or “throw
away” their dignity by violating certain duties (MM 6:429, LE 27:451),
implying that the maintenance of dignity depends on the fulfilment of at least
some moral duties.
The distinction between the “moral capacity” and the “enactment” views
could be interpreted as a difference of opinion about Kant’s conception of
autonomy. If Kantian autonomy refers to “the ability to give oneself the
moral law through reason,” as Wood holds,67 then dignity grounded in autonomy can be attached to moral capacity; whereas, if Kantian autonomy refers
to “the property of actually acting on [self-given] principles,” as Dean suggests it sometimes does,68 then the “enactment view” is more plausible.
Alternatively, a proponent of the “enactment” view could accept that autonomy consists of moral capacity, and that dignity is somehow “grounded” in
autonomy (perhaps in the sense that autonomy is necessary for dignity), but
hold that autonomy is still not a sufficient condition for dignity.
Someone who holds the enactment view need not be committed to the idea
that a person who loses his dignity by acting immorally can then be treated
any way by others. Kant emphasises the importance of a general attitude of
respect for fellow human beings (MM 6:466) and of not exhibiting “complete
contempt and denial of any moral worth to a vicious human being” because
everyone can improve (MM 6:463-64). Kant can also be interpreted, consistent with the “regulative” dimensions of Kant’s philosophy, as indicating that
we are morally obliged to act as if everyone had dignity even if we cannot
know whether they do.69 In fact, proponents of the “rational nature” and
“moral capacity” ideas could also adopt a “regulative” view, in the sense that
we must act as if human beings had the capacity to set rational ends, or to be
moral, even if we cannot know they have these capacities.
One way to mediate between the “rational nature” and the “moral capacity” views—and potentially the “enactment” view as well—is to draw on
Kant’s claim in the Critique of Judgment that man is born to be the ultimate
end of nature because of his “capacity for setting before himself ends of his
deliberate choice,” but “always on the terms that he has the intelligence and
the will to give to [nature] and to himself such a reference to ends as can be
self-sufficing independently of nature” (CJ 5:431). This account could be
interpreted to suggest that the ground of dignity is humanity understood as
the capacity to set rational ends, but human beings only realize this dignity to
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the extent that they are capable of—or actually do—set moral ends. A related
suggestion is Sensen’s view that Kant endorses “two stages of dignity.”70
People have an “initial dignity” based on their capacity to follow the moral
law, but they only “fully realize” this dignity if they use this capacity properly.71 These accounts emphasize the multi-layered aspects of Kantian dignity: humans are in some way “singled out” by virtue of their capacities, but
by virtue of being singled out, they are required to exercise these capacities
in a particular manner.
This survey of various ideas about the ground of dignity in Kant suggests
that the issue of how Kant grounds dignity is subject to multiple interpretive
possibilities. The complexity of interpreting Kant’s grounding of dignity,
however, does not obscure the broader idea that dignity in Kant serves as the
basis of duties regarding appropriate conduct. This duty may be one of respect
for inalienable dignity grounded in the capacity to set rational ends, or the
capacity to be moral; or it may be a condition for the possession of dignity; or
it may be a condition of “fully realizing” a pre-existing dignity. The overall
point remains that Kantian dignity makes demands of those who possess it, or
wish to possess it—and this raises questions about the suitability of Kant’s
views on dignity in grounding contemporary claims about human rights.
Human Rights and the Duties of Dignity-Bearers
The idea that Kantian dignity makes demands of its bearers is not often
reflected in the human rights literature, which instead emphasizes that
Kantian dignity grounds a claim for respect from other parties, notably the
state. In fact, the idea that bearers of dignity are required to behave in a certain way may appear uncongenial to the human rights regime. Saurette in The
Kantian Imperative argues that Kant’s moral philosophy, contrary to the
common notion that it is grounded in respect for dignity and autonomy, operates by inducing a feeling of humiliation that disciplines people into obedience to moral principles that they are expected to recognize as “common
sense.”72 Saurette then warns that Kant’s moral philosophy, which itself
endorses humiliation as a mode of discipline, may not be able to offer a sufficiently forceful critique of tactics of humiliation that violate human rights,
such as those used at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.73 Similarly, Kant’s views
on the duties of dignity-bearers may seem to contradict the “official” portrait
of Kant’s moral philosophy in a way that diminishes the value of Kant’s philosophy to the human rights regime. This is especially true if Kant holds that
people can lose their dignity; human rights declarations, after all, often
describe dignity as “inherent.” But even if the grounds of dignity are such
that people cannot lose their dignity, the notion of duties to respect the dignity
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of humanity might seem to focus attention in the wrong place. Human rights
advocates are devoted to ensuring equal respect for each person; their attention is not on holding victims of human rights abuses to certain standards of
behaviour. Stressing the duties of dignity-bearers may even seem like a sinister way of “blaming the victim” for the failure to maintain dignity.
In response, first, Kant does hold that dignity grounds respect from others,
and specifically equal respect; for instance, he states that a human being with
dignity “exacts respect for himself from all other rational beings” and can
“value himself on a footing of equality with them” (MM 6:435). Second, and
more directly, Kant’s emphasis on the individual’s duty to behave consistently with the duty of humanity need not be viewed as antithetical to contemporary human rights discourse and practice. The notion that dignity is not
only about being treated in a certain way by others, but also about one’s own
conduct, can help to support models of human rights promotion that treat
people not as passive beneficiaries of outside assistance, but as individuals
who should be enabled to maintain their own dignity. Such an approach could
support, for example, programs that empower marginalized groups to take a
more active role in societal decision-making processes, as well as programs
that provide microfinance funding.74 A “dignity-oriented” human rights program could also emphasize consultation with the intended beneficiaries of
human rights assistance regarding priorities and strategies.
Of course, the idea of “enabling” people to maintain their own dignity
suggests an attempt to create the conditions necessary for people to secure
dignity. To the extent that Kant’s account under-emphasizes the importance
of assistance from others in creating these conditions, his views illustrate a
risk that current scholars and activists face more generally: how to encourage
individual attempts to sustain dignity without implying that the maintenance
of dignity is merely a function of individual effort. Below I point out reasons
to think that Kant is actually sensitive to the social context within which
people become capable of claiming their dignity. Yet even when Kant seems
to suggest that maintaining dignity is solely a matter of individual effort, his
account of duties to respect the dignity of humanity in one’s own person can
provide a warning against excessively top-down models of human rights promotion, and direct attention towards the aim of reaching a point at which
individuals need not rely on external rights advocates for the preservation of
their rights.
Kant’s voice can therefore be added to debates about human rights in ways
different from merely grounding a requirement for non-instrumental treatment at the hands of others. Kant’s focus on the conduct of dignity-bearers
illustrates both potential benefits and risks involved in seeking opportunities
for people to maintain their own dignity. But the basic point emerging from
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Kant is that respecting people may involve seeing them as fellow human
beings capable of conducting themselves in a dignified manner, not simply as
victims. Such a perspective could prove helpful, not detrimental, to the
human rights regime.
Kant on the Varieties of Honour
In this section, I highlight limitations of the view that Kant rejects honour in
favour of dignity and draw out some implications of this view for the contemporary human rights regime and for certain strands of contemporary
political theory. In particular, I argue that Kant differentiates between various kinds of honour and holds some forms to be conducive to the maintenance of dignity.
The “Love of Honour” and Dignity
Eighteenth-century philosophers such as Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau differentiated “false” honour linked to birth and rank from “inner honour” or
“true honour,” which they tied to an individual’s personal rectitude and honesty.75 Kant likewise distinguishes morally corrupting forms of honour from
morally desirable ones and locates “true honour” in individual morality rather
than the pursuit of social approval (LE 27:664). Many expressions of this
distinction (though by no means all of them) come from his lectures on ethics. These lectures do not carry the same authority as published works, but
they can help in elucidating Kant’s views, especially when they are read in
conjunction with his published works.
In the Metaphysics of Morals and his lectures on ethics, Kant identifies a
quality called the “love of honour” (Ehrliebe) (MM 6:420, MM 6:463-6, LE
27:665). He indicates in his lectures that Ehrliebe is an attitude based on “true
honour” and involves seeking to be worthy of honour, while Ehrbegierde (the
“desire for honour” or “ambition”) involves seeking to be honoured by others
for the possession of moral worth, even if it is illusory (LE 27:665). Different
forms of honour are also distinguished by the standard of comparison involved
in each. For Kant, proper self-assessment depends on comparing oneself not
with others but with the “laws of the intellectual man” (LE 27:695/27:708)—
which he associates with the moral law (CPR 5:115). Kant’s treatment of selfassessment is in line with Rousseau’s criticism of a “sense of honour”
involving morally debilitating comparisons.76 Kant’s rejection of “external”
standards of self-evaluation also reflects the notion that each rational being
gives itself the moral law. A “love of honour” must be based on the effort to
live up to the dictates of autonomous reason, not on the opinions of others.
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It would be a mistake to conclude, however, that Ehrliebe has nothing to
do with the opinions of others. For Kant, the “lover of honour” is concerned
with the evaluation of others but does not substitute the approval of others
for the genuine pursuit of morality. Rather, he takes care that his actions are
perceived as good, but only in addition to being good. Kant thinks people
should care about others’ opinions for at least three reasons. First, concern
for others’ views can aid our moral efforts, by pulling us away from self-love
(LE 27:411), informing our moral judgment (LE 27:411), and strengthening
moral resolve (LE 27:666). Kant does not, however, allow a concern for others’ opinions to replace true moral behaviour; in matters “based on reason,”
such as “rectitude,” one must be guided by “one’s own principle” (LE
27:411). The second reason to care about others’ views is that we should
want to set an example of moral conduct (LE 27:411-2). One reason that
Kant might want people to set a good example is to preclude despair about
humanity’s moral potential.
A third reason for “lovers of honour” to pay attention to others’ opinions—
and the most important one for the purposes of this essay—is that allowing
others to hold oneself in contempt is contrary to the dignity of humanity. In
the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant characterizes “love of honour” as “a concern to yield nothing of one’s human dignity in comparison with others”
(MM 6:465), and describes “one who loves honor” as one “who claims the
respect from others, as everyone must” (MM 6:463). For Kant, we have a
“duty of loving honour,” based on “the principle of not lessening one’s worth
in the opinion of others . . . we are obligated not to demean the worth of our
own person in the judgment of others” (LE 27:635). Kant classifies the
requirement to preserve one’s honour as a duty to oneself, and he describes
breaches of duties to oneself as “a violation of the right of humanity in our
own person” which results in our losing “all inner worth” (LE 27:604). The
question of whether we can actually lose inner worth if we fail to preserve
honour raises issues about the grounds and alienability of dignity, discussed
above. The point here is simply that in Kant’s view, demeaning oneself in the
eyes of others is contrary to the respect that human beings should exhibit
towards themselves as bearers of “inner worth.”
Honour for Kant, then, is not simply an external appendage or an inimical
passion, but can actually play a role in discharging a duty to respect the dignity of humanity. Kant explains that “love of honour” is the virtue opposed to
vices contrary to “the innate dignity of a human being,” namely “lying, avarice, and false humility (servility)” (MM 6:420). More broadly, Kant associates living honourably with “maintaining” or “honouring” the dignity of
humanity, and dishonour with “violating” or “dishonouring” the dignity of
humanity (CPR 5:87-8, MM 6:429; LE 27:377; LE:29:631). Significantly, in
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addition to encouraging individuals to maintain their own dignity, the “love
of honour” can ground relations of reciprocal respect for the dignity of oneself and others. In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant notes that dignity grounds
a claim for equal respect (MM 6:435). A person who takes his dignity seriously will demand respect as an equal, but will demand no more than that;
otherwise, he will have shifted from the “love of honour” into “arrogance”
(MM 6:466). Instead of creating a strict dichotomy between honour and dignity, and rejecting the former in favour of the latter, Kant specifies a form of
honour that can operate in tandem with dignity.
Kant, Honour, and Human Rights
Earlier I discussed Kant’s move to fashion a conception of “human dignity”
that retains elements of “hierarchical dignity” while transporting them to the
context of moral autonomy. “Hierarchical dignity” fits into the category of
honour as defined by theorists such as Taylor, Sandel, and Berger; and Kant’s
move effectively creates a new kind of “honourable” person, one committed
to the moral law. Now we can add that Kant views the “love of honour” as a
positive force in bolstering adherence to the moral law.
Both of these ideas support the view that human rights advocates need not
reject honour, but can instead seek to influence the emergence of senses of
honour tethered to practices that respect human rights. Appiah has recently
argued, for instance, that practices such as duelling, foot-binding in China,
and transatlantic slavery ended partly because members of these societies
began to feel (in response to both outside criticism and internal advocacy)
that these practices were dishonourable, and that ending them was the honourable thing to do.77 Appiah urges advocates of “moral revolutions” not to
reject honour, but to seek to shape senses of honour that are compatible with,
and indeed conducive to, morally appropriate practices.78 Aspects of an
honour-based strategy are also present in contemporary efforts to “name and
shame” human rights violators in order to encourage adherence to rights
standards.79
The idea of seeking to shape morally beneficial senses of honour instead
of rejecting honour could be strengthened by Kant’s move to construct a
conception of honour that is compatible with, and conducive to, respect for
dignity. Just as Kant makes distinctions among different kinds of honour
and endorses forms of the desire for respect that are based on genuinely
valuable qualities, human rights advocates can seek to structure an environment in which individuals and states receive public respect for adherence to human rights standards, and in which violations of these standards
jeopardize their standing on the “world stage.” Such a use of honour might
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seem overly “instrumental,” but it need not be; one might think there is
intrinsic value in enabling individuals and states to gain respect for sound
reasons.
A related implication of Kant’s views has to do with the social sensitivity
of Kant’s understanding of dignity. One perspective on the modern “shift”
from honour to dignity, in Berger’s words, is that a “solitary self” has been
“perceived as the bearer of human dignity and of inalienable human rights.”80
Kant’s account of the “love of honour,” however, suggests that at least one
influential conception of dignity in the human rights literature is not based on
the picture of a “solitary self.” The Kantian self, precisely in order to respect
the “dignity of humanity,” seeks honour from others and presents himself to
others in a dignified manner. Contrary to Sandel’s claim that for the dignitybearing “unencumbered” self, reputation matters not “as a matter of honor,
but only instrumentally, as a business asset for example,”81 reputation for
Kant is a quality that the dignity-bearing self ought to uphold as a matter of
honour. Kant’s account suggests that one can both conceive of individual
worth as independent of social position and genuinely value certain forms of
social acknowledgment.
A conception of human rights based on Kantian dignity can therefore be
geared not only to the protection of inviolate individuals but also to the emergence of a social world in which individuals seek honour from others and
provide honour to them. This perspective can inform efforts to understand
human rights not as purely individualistic barriers to intrusion by others, but
as bases for certain kinds of respectful social life. Such a perspective may,
first, support a concern with social and economic rights, in order to enable
individuals to participate in a joint endeavour with others in society; and,
second, suggest that human rights should not be rejected as overly individualist by cultural traditions that are less so.82
Kant and the Politics of Recognition
In addition to its implications for human rights theory and practice, the idea
of Kantian dignity as a socially sensitive concept also aligns with streams in
political theory that emphasize the importance of respect from others. Jeremy
Waldron has recently argued, for instance, that citizens ought to be treated in
a way that preserves “the fundamentals of basic reputation” or “basic social
standing,” and that citizens’ dignity can be characterized in terms of “reputation” and “social standing” in addition to “a philosophical conception of
immeasurable worth.”83 Rawls famously referred to self-respect as “perhaps
the most important primary good.”84 Particularly prominent references to the
importance of social respect come from the literature on the “politics of
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recognition.” Theorists such as Taylor and Axel Honneth have focused on the
ethical and political importance of recognition, respect, and dignity, and have
traced this concern to Hegel’s work.85
While Kant’s account of honour supports the general notion that social
recognition is valuable, Kant’s work also suggests that the quest for recognition carries certain risks. The recognition literature tends to focus just on
those “struggles for recognition” that represent morally appropriate efforts on
behalf of marginalized groups to be recognized as equals,86 and may be insufficiently sensitive to the point that the urge to be respected can exceed its
proper bounds. The latter phenomenon may occur, for instance, when members of a formerly powerful group, such as a privileged race, are displaced
from their unjustly high societal position and seek to regain what they see as
the respect they are due.87 Kant’s distinction between the “desire for honour”
and the “love of honour”—and his insistence that a person with dignity
demand respect as an equal—highlights the need to distinguish proper from
improper desires for recognition. Kant’s account therefore suggests that it is
possible to be concerned about recognition while appreciating that the desire
for respect can go too far.
The social sensitivity of Kant’s account of honour comes to the fore in an
intriguing—and problematic—discussion of honour in the Metaphysics of
Morals. I close by exploring this aspect of Kant’s thought, which adds another
dimension of complexity to Kant’s account and further undermines the idea
that Kant rejected honour in favour of dignity.
The “Point of Honour”
Honour for unmarried women and soldiers. In the Metaphysics of Morals,
Kant discusses honour in a way that may seem out of step with his analysis
of the “love of honour” as the “genuine” kind of honour based on inner
moral worth. During his discussion of punishment in the first part of the
Metaphysics of Morals (the Doctrine of Right or Rechtslehre), Kant writes
that there are two types of murderers who may not be covered by Kant’s
general application of the death penalty in cases of murder (MM 6:336).
These are (1) an unwed mother who kills her baby and (2) a soldier who
murders a fellow soldier in a duel. In both cases, it is the “feeling of honour”
(Ehrgefühl) that leads to the crime: both individuals will be permanently
disgraced if they do not kill. Kant’s reasoning in this passage and even his
conclusion about whether or not the death penalty should be applied are difficult to interpret.88 The point for current purposes is that Kant takes very
seriously the notions of honour that apply to unwed women and officers due
to their membership in certain sub-classes of humanity. Kant indicates that
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the feeling of honour that leads to both cases is “true honour, which is
incumbent as duty on each of these two classes of people” and writes that the
concept of honour “is here no illusion” (MM 6:336). What is this “true honour,” and how is it related to the “love of honour” discussed in the previous
section?
The passage can be illuminated through an examination of Kant’s unpublished lecture notes on Ehrenpunkt (the “point of honour”) in his notes on the
Metaphysics of Morals in Volume 23 of his Gesammelte Schriften.89 In these
notes, Kant indicates that the “point of honour” occurs when the misdeeds of
an individual can cause an entire class to lose its reputation for honour,
because public opinion bases the value of the whole class on the “love of
honour” (Ehrliebe) of its members. For Kant, there are only two such classes:
soldiers and unmarried women. The public holds that bravery is the essential
characteristic of a soldier, and chastity that of an unmarried woman. A lapse
on the part of an individual member of either class would result in “degradation” for the entire class (23:363). Kant seems to treat responsibility for the
degradation of a class as problematic both because it is a crime in itself, that
is, a “crime against the class” (23:364) and because the individual’s own
worth depends on the public opinion of the honour of his or her class (23:364).
The concerns that Kant raises in the reflection notes seem to be extremely
“un-Kantian,” especially considering the analysis of the “love of honour” in
the previous section. First, why should the degradation of a class be a source
of moral concern for Kant? Second, the previous analysis of the “love of honour” cast this quality as depending fundamentally on the worthiness to be
honoured, rather than the views of others. But Kant suggests that the “love of
honour” of soldiers and unmarried women depends essentially on being perceived as honourable, rather than actually being so. The honour that the
unmarried woman preserves by killing her baby, after all, is built on deception,
and the soldier who kills his fellow in a duel may have been in the wrong.
Kant’s discussion of the honour of classes is not incorporated into the
published Metaphysics of Morals in any detail. Kant notes that “the honour of
one’s sex” and “military honour” are forms of “true honour” that are “incumbent as duty on each of these two classes of people” (MM 6:336), but he does
not appeal to the idea of not degrading a class in order to justify the importance of these forms of honour. The published text does, however, reflect the
view in the notes that “true honour” includes a form of honour defined by
social perception. The question, then, is why Kant attaches significance to
socially-defined honour, and how this form of honour relates to the love of
honour that depends on inner moral worth.
One possibility is that Kant views female honour and military honour as
brute facts of public life in his day and age. He may be willing provisionally
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to grant respect to these forms of honour, given that public opinion currently
values them so highly, while supporting the eventual phasing out of such
notions of honour.90 In the case of duellers, the idea that Kant sought the
eventual phasing out of feudal notions of soldiers’ honour may be plausible,91
although in his notes Kant still seems to view soldiers risking their lives for
their honour with a degree of genuine approbation. In the case of women,
however, it is not at all obvious that Kant sees female honour as a temporary
accommodation to public opinion.
The issue cannot be resolved here, but we can draw tentative conclusions
about socially defined honour in Kant. Kant’s treatment of certain social
ideas of honour as “true honour” suggests a sensitivity to the way in which
personal honour is realised in social context. He seems to recognise that some
kinds of people are simply unable to regain any social standing when public
opinion has judged them to have lost their honour. Kant’s idea may be that a
disgraced soldier or an unmarried mother cannot possess the “love of honour,
that is, a concern to yield nothing of one’s human dignity in comparison with
others” (MM 6:465) because this person has already forfeited all honour in
the eyes of others. Such a person would be incapable of fulfilling what Kant
views as a duty to the dignity of humanity (that is, the duty to love honour).
At the same time, conflicts may arise between violating the dignity of humanity by, for instance, lying (as the unmarried mother might well do), and violating the honour of a specific class. In this case, there is a question whether
Kant can consistently urge people to choose the former. More broadly, the
contextual sensitivity of Kant’s analysis of the “point of honour” may not sit
easily with Kant’s broader emphasis on self-valuation based on internal moral
worth.
Perhaps Kant’s description of socially-defined honour should be viewed
less as a prescription about the way people should act than as an acknowledgment of the importance of social recognition to people’s moral striving in
certain cases. For instance, some argue today that a society wishing to encourage lawful conduct should not permanently stigmatize criminal offenders, for
this will undermine their motivation to engage in lawful behaviour and
encourage them to turn to sub-groups in which breaking the law is not considered shameful in order to derive various goods, including esteem.92 Kant’s
acknowledgment of the debilitating consequences of the loss of social respect
suggests that he may recognize the importance of creating social conditions
under which people can pursue lawful ways of life. In the discussion of
“duties of dignity-bearers” I noted that the human rights regime appears to
place greater emphasis than Kant on the conditions that enable people to
maintain their own dignity; however, Kant may be closer to this perspective
than it previously seemed.
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Overall, this essay has highlighted aspects of Kant’s thought on dignity
and honour that are under-emphasized in the conventional portrait of the birth
of the “modern concept of human dignity.”93 I have sought to show that
Kant’s highly influential account of dignity can offer the human rights regime
more than a brief formula for grounding human rights. Kant raises issues
about individual maintenance of dignity, the grounds of dignity, the relevance
of honour, and the relationship between internal moral worth and social
respect, which can inform the theory and practice of human rights more
broadly than is usually thought. I hope to have opened the door to additional
multi-dimensional readings of Kant’s views on dignity and honour, and their
relationship to the contemporary human rights regime.
Appendix
Kant Translations
Gregor, Mary J., ed. 1996. Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Heath, Peter, and Schneewind, J. B., eds. 1997. Lectures on Ethics. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Wood, Allen, and Di Giovanni, George, eds. 1996. Religion and Rational Theology.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zöller, Günter, and Louden, Robert, eds. 2007. Anthropology, History, and Education.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Gabriel Citron, David Miller, Mark Philp, and two anonymous
reviewers for their assistance in preparing this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. For instance, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail
that “Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial
injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.” “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,”
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in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Speeches and Writings of Martin Luther
King, Jr. (New York: HarperCollins, 1990), 296. See also Grace Lee Boggs,
“Respecting the Dignity of Labor,” Bill Moyers Journal, August 31, 2007, http://
www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/08/respecting_the_dignity_of_labo.
html; Reva Siegel, “Dignity and Sexuality: Claims on Dignity in Transnational
Debates over Abortion and Same-Sex Marriage,” International Journal of
Constitutional Law 10, no. 2 (2012): 377.
2. Recent contributions to the burgeoning literature on human dignity include Jeremy
Waldron, Dignity, Rank, & Rights (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012);
Michael Rosen, Dignity: Its History and Meaning (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2012); George Kateb, Human Dignity (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2011); Oliver Sensen, “Human Dignity in Historical
Perspective: The Contemporary and Traditional Paradigms,” European Journal
of Political Theory 10, no. 1 (2011), 71–91.
3. Christopher McCrudden details different understandings of dignity in human
rights adjudication across many jurisdictions, “Human Dignity and Judicial
Interpretation of Human Rights,” European Journal of International Law 19,
no. 4 (2008): 655–724.
4. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948, http://www.
un.org/en/documents/udhr/.
5. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, December 16, 1966, http://
www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm; International Covenant on Economic,
Social, and Cultural Rights, December 16, 1966, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/
law/cescr.htm.
6. James Griffin, On Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992);
Ronald Dworkin, Is Democracy Possible Here? Principles for a New Political
Debate (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
7. David Feldman, “Human Dignity as a Legal Value: Part I,” Public Law 44
(1999), 683.
8. Teresa Iglesias, “Bedrock Truths and the Dignity of the Individual,” Logos 4
(2001), 120–23; Michael Meyer, “Kant’s Concept of Dignity and Modern
Political Thought,” History of European Ideas 8, no. 3 (1987): 320.
9. Sharon Krause, Liberalism with Honor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2002), 15; Sensen, “Human Dignity in Historical Perspective,” 72–75.
10. Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” in Multiculturalism and “The
Politics of Recognition” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 27.
11. Peter Berger, “On the Obsolescence of the Concept of Honor,” European Journal
of Sociology 11, no. 2 (1970): 342.
12. Mika LaVaque-Manty, “Dueling for Equality: Masculine Honor and the Politics
of Dignity,” Political Theory 34, no. 6 (2006): 715.
13. Michael Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public
Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 82.
14. Stephen Darwall, “Kant on Respect, Dignity, and the Duty of Respect,” in Kant’s
Ethics of Virtue, ed. Monika Betzler (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008), 187.
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Bayefsky
15. Jack Donnelly, “Human Dignity and Human Rights,” Swiss Initiative to
Commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the UDHR, June 2009, http://www.
udhr60.ch/report/donnelly-HumanDignity_0609.pdf, 20. See also McCrudden,
“Human Dignity and Judicial Interpretation of Human Rights,” 659.
16. Giovanni Bognetti, “The Concept of Human Dignity in European and US
Constitutionalism,” in European and US Constitutionalism, ed. G. Nolte (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005), 89; Iglesias, “Bedrock Truths,” 173.
17. McCrudden, “Human Dignity and Judicial Interpretation of Human Rights,”
659. Other characterizations of Kantian dignity in terms of autonomy—though
they do not necessarily follow the “able to choose their own destiny” formulation—are found in Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” 57; Thomas E. Hill,
Autonomy and Self-Respect (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991),
43; O’Connell, “The Role of Dignity,” 273.
18. Bognetti, “The Concept of Human Dignity,” 89–90.
19. Donnelly, “Human Dignity and Human Rights,” 23. See also Rex Glensy, “The
Right to Dignity,” Columbia Human Rights Law Review 43 (2011): 76.
20.Roger Sullivan, Immanuel Kant’s Moral Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989), 197.
21.Sullivan, Immanuel Kant’s Moral Theory, 197.
22. Manfred Kuehn, Kant: A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2001), 281.
23.Kuehn, Kant: A Biography, 281–82.
24. Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” 41.
25. Kuehn, “Kant’s Critical Philosophy and Its Reception—The First Five Years
(1781-1786),” The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy, ed.
Paul Guyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 646.
26. Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” 27.
27. Some scholars do mention different kinds of Kantian honour, albeit without a
particularly detailed analysis: Hill, Autonomy and Self-Respect, 160; Allen Wood,
Kant’s Ethical Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 263.
28. This essay therefore aligns in a broad sense with Samuel Moyn’s effort to revise
our understanding of foundational concepts in the human rights regime in The
Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2010).
29. Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Honor Code (New York: Norton, 2010).
30. Allen Wood, “Human Dignity, Right, and the Realm of Ends,” Acta Juridica
(2008), 60.
31. For instance, Marcia Baron, Kantian Ethics Almost without Apology (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1995); Anthony Louden, Kant’s Impure Ethics: From
Rational Beings to Human Beings (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002),
13–14.
32.Louden, Kant’s Impure Ethics, 13–14.
33. Paul Saurette, The Kantian Imperative: Humiliation, Common Sense, Politics
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), especially 102–41.
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34. Sensen, “Kant’s Conception of Human Dignity,” Kant-Studien 100, no. 3 (2009):
309–31.
35.Rosen, Dignity, 29.
36.Rosen, Dignity, 150.
37. Dietmar Von der Pfordten, “On the Dignity of Man in Kant,” Philosophy 84,
no. 3 (2009): 371–91; Darwall, “Kant on Respect, Dignity, and the Duty of
Respect.” Further recent literature on Kant and dignity includes Rosen, Dignity:
Its History and Meaning; Thomas Christiano, “Two Conceptions of the Dignity
of Persons,” Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik 16 (2008), 101–25; Sensen, Kant on
Human Dignity (Germany: De Gruyter, 2011); Susan Shell, “Kant on Human
Dignity,” in In Defense of Human Dignity, ed. Robert P. Kraynak (South Bend:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), 53–80; Joachim Hruschka, “Kant and
Human Dignity,” in Kant and Law, ed. B. Sharon Byrd and Joachim Hruschka
(Ashgate, 2006), 69–86. Originally published in German in Archiv für Rechtsund Sozialphilosophie 88 (2002): 463–80.
38. LaVaque-Manty, “Dueling for Equality,” especially 724–33. See also Alex
Livingston and Leah Soroko, “From Honor to Dignity and Back Again: Remarks
on LaVaque-Manty’s ‘Dueling for Equality,’” Political Theory 35, no. 4 (2007):
494–501, and LaVaque-Manty, “Response to Livingston and Soroko,” Political
Theory 35, no. 4 (2007): 502–07.
39. Elizabeth Anderson, “Emotions in Kant’s Later Moral Philosophy: Honor and
the Phenomenology of Moral Value,” in Kant’s Ethics of Virtue, ed. Monika
Betzler (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008), 124–25, 137–40.
40. Shell, “Kant on Democratic Honor,” in Gladly to Teach, Gladly to Learn: Essays
in Honor of Ernest Fortin, ed. Michael Foley and Brian Benestat (Lexington,
MA: Lexington, 2002), 252. See also David Sussman, “Shame and Punishment in
Kant’s Doctrine of Right,” The Philosophical Quarterly 58, no. 231 (2008): 301.
41. Livingston and Soroko, “From Honor to Dignity and Back Again,” 497–98.
42. Sussman, “Shame and Punishment,” 314.
43. Examples of those who focus on Kantian dignity without considering honour
in depth include Pfordten, “On the Dignity of Man in Kant”; Hruschka, “Kant
and Human Dignity”; Christiano, “Two Conceptions of the Dignity of Persons”;
Sensen, “Kant’s Conception of Human Dignity.” Examples of those who emphasize the nuances in Kant’s understanding of honour without taking into account
the complexity of Kantian dignity include Anderson, “Emotions in Kant’s Later
Moral Philosophy,” and Sussman, “Shame and Punishment.” Anderson, for
instance, sometimes uses “dignity” interchangeably with “honour” (137), but at
times she suggests that Kant’s ethic of personal dignity emerged out of an older
ethic of honour (142).
44. Livingston and Soroko, “From Honor to Dignity and Back Again,” 497.
45. Page citations refer to the Akademie edition of Kant’s works. “G” stands for
Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der
Sitten); “MM” for The Metaphysics of Morals (Die Metaphysik der Sitten),
made up of the Doctrine of Right (Rechtslehre) and the Doctrine of Virtue
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(Tugendlehre); “CPR” for The Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft); “CJ” for The Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft);
“Rel.” for Religion within the Boundaries of Reason Alone (Religion innerhalb
der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft); “Anth.” for Anthropology from a Pragmatic
Standpoint (Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht); “CF” for Conflict of
the Faculties (Streit der Fakultäten); “PP” for Perpetual Peace (Zum ewigen
Frieden); “LE” for Lectures on Ethics (Vorlesungen über Ethik); and “LP” for
Lectures on Pedagogy (Pädagogik).
46. Bognetti, “The Concept of Human Dignity,” 89–90.
47. Glensy, “The Right to Dignity,” 76.
48. See Rosen, Dignity, 142–56; Sensen, “Kant’s Conception of Human Dignity,” 316.
49. Iglesias, “Bedrock Truths,” 120–21; Waldron, Dignity, Rank, & Rights, 30.
50.Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck, Geschichtliche
Grundbegriffe: historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in
Deutschland (Stuttgart: Klein-Cotta, 1972–1989), 666.
51. Meyer notes that for Kant “there are positions of dignity defined by the traditional rules and expectations of the present society” but ends by indicating that
this is a starting-point for future research into “Kant’s overall use of the notion of
dignity.” “Kant’s Concept of Dignity,” 328–29. Sensen considers the “archaic”
conception of dignity, used to indicate some aspect of rank, to be part of the
general Kantian understanding of dignity as elevation, but his main analysis of
Kantian usages of dignity does not take up the “archaic” conception in detail.
“Kant’s Conception of Human Dignity,” 319–20. Waldron considers the presence of a conception of “dignity as rank” in Kant’s later work but questions
whether this account can be connected to Kant’s Groundwork understanding of
dignity as “worth beyond price.” Dignity, Rank, & Rights, 23–26. Waldron does
suggest that Anderson’s work may bridge the gap (26-27).
52. Anderson, “Emotions in Kant’s Later Moral Philosophy,” 138.
53. LaVaque-Manty, “Dueling for Equality,” 716.
54. See Waldron, Dignity, Rank, & Rights, 33.
55. McCrudden, “Human Dignity and Judicial Interpretation of Human Rights,”
659.
56. See also MM 6:318 and SF 7:19.
57. Anderson, “Emotions in Kant’s Later Moral Philosophy,” 137.
58.Hill, Respect, Pluralism, and Justice: Kantian Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000), 25.
59. David Tarbet, “The Fabric of Metaphor in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason,”
Journal of the History of Philosophy 6, no. 3 (1968): 265–70.
60.Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought, 118–19. According to Christine Korsgaard, for
instance, “humanity” refers to our capacity for “choosing, desiring, or valuing
ends.” Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), 114. According to Dean, “humanity” refers to the higher standard of the
“good will.” The Value of Humanity in Kant’s Moral Theory (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 2006), 18.
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61.Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought, 115.
62.Hill, Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant’s Moral Theory (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1992), 178.
63. For instance, G 4:435; MM 6:436; Rel. 7:58.
64. Wood, “Human Dignity, Right, and the Realm of Ends,” 54.
65.Dean, The Value of Humanity, 20–21.
66. See also Rosen, Dignity, 29–30.
67.Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought, 118.
68.Dean, The Value of Humanity, 234.
69. Scholars who stress the “regulative” dimensions of Kant’s thought include Patrick
Loobuyck—who indicates that we can act as if dignity exists even if it does not,
in “Intrinsic and Equal Human Worth in a Secular Worldview: Fictionalism in
Human Rights Discourse,” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 3,
no. 9 (2004): 67, 71–72; and Loren Goldman writing about belief in the possibility of progress, “In Defense of Blinders: On Kant, Political Hope, and the Need
for Practical Belief,” Political Theory 40, no. 4 (2012): 499.
70. Sensen, “Kant’s Conception of Human Dignity,” 313–14.
71. Sensen, “Kant’s Conception of Human Dignity,” 314.
72.Saurette, The Kantian Imperative, 109–35.
73.Saurette, The Kantian Imperative, 236–45.
74. See for instance the work of American microfinance partnership DignityFund,
“Dignity Fund: About Us,” DignityFund.com, 2013, http://dignityfund.com/about/,
and the Hungary-based International Centre for Democratic Transition’s project
“Increasing Lebanese Women’s Participation in Public Life,” ICDT.hu, 2007, http://
www.icdt.hu/projects/all-projects/increasing-lebanese-womens-participation-inpublic-life.
75. Brunner, Conze, and Koselleck, Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, 23–27.
76. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality,” The Social
Contract and Discourses, trans. G. D. H. Cole (London: Everyman, 1973), 72.
77.Appiah, The Honor Code.
78.Appiah, The Honor Code, 170.
79. James Meernik et al. describe “naming and shaming” campaigns carried out by
such organizations as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. “The
Impact of Human Rights Organizations on Naming and Shaming Campaigns,”
Journal of Conflict Resolution 56, no. 2 (2012): 233–56.
80. Berger, “On the Obsolescence of the Concept of Honor,” 342.
81. Michael Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent, 82.
82. For a description of how Kant’s conception of dignity could work in tandem with
other cultural traditions, see Wood, “Human Dignity, Right, and the Realm of
Ends,” 60–61.
83.Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2012), 5, 60.
84. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1999), 386.
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85. Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” in Multiculturalism and “The
Politics of Recognition,” ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1992), 25–73; Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral
Grammar of Social Conflicts (London: Polity Press, 1995); Nancy Fraser
and Axel Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical
Exchange (London: Verso, 2003).
86. Barbara Hobson, “Introduction,” in Recognition Struggles and Social Movements,
ed. Barbara Hobson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 1.
87. Examples from white Southern resistance to integration are contained in Karen
Anderson, “Massive Resistance, Violence, and Southern Social Relations:
The Little Rock, Arkansas, School Integration Crisis, 1954–1960,” in Massive
Resistance: Southern Opposition to the Second Reconstruction, ed. Clive Webb
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 207–08. For criticism of Honneth
on this point, see Nancy Fraser, “Distorted beyond All Recognition,” in Fraser
and Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition?, 205, 227.
88. For commentary, see LaVaque-Manty, “Dueling for Equality,” and “Response
to Livingston and Soroko”; Livingston and Soroko, “From Honor to Dignity
and Back Again”; Sussman, “Shame and Punishment”; Jennifer Uleman, “On
Kant, Infanticide, and Finding Oneself in a State of Nature,” Zeitschrift für
Philosophische Forschung 54, no. 2 (2000): 173–95. Anderson, “Emotions in
Kant’s Later Moral Philosophy,” 141–44.
89. In Vol. 23 of Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften. These notes are rarely introduced
into discussions of Kant on honour. Although they are not as authoritative as
published writings, they contextualise Kant’s discussion of what we might call
“honour killing” and provide a deeper understanding of his concerns.
90. Cf. Kant’s treatment of the nobility, which the state has a “provisional right”
to leave intact until public opinion concerning the nobility gradually changes
(MM 6:329). See also Livingston and Soroko, “From Honor to Dignity and Back
Again,” 497–99.
91. Kant at some points is quite critical of the honour involved in duels, for instance
in Anth. 7:253. Indeed, in the Vol. 23 reflection notes, he comments that the
“point of honour” has given rise to many tragedies (Ak. 23:369). For a detailed
discussion of Kant’s views on duelling, see LaVaque-Manty, “Dueling for
Equality,” 724–33.
92. See Posner, Law and Social Norms, 100–03.
93. Bognetti, “The Concept of Human Dignity,” 89.
Author Biography
Rachel Bayefsky received her D.Phil. in Politics from the University of Oxford in
2013 and is now a J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. Her D.Phil. thesis was titled
“Humiliation and Liberal Democratic Politics.” Her article “The State as a Temple of
Human Freedom: Hegel on Religion and Politics” appeared in Hegel, Religion, and
Politics, ed. Angelica Nuzzo (SUNY Press, 2013), and her review of Human Dignity
by George Kateb was published in The Review of Politics in Fall 2011.
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