Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends (Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy) 9780367460013, 9781032185613, 9781003027874, 0367460017

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This collection examines the many dimensions of dignity in Kant’s thought. By focusing on the relationship between dignity and Kant’s Kingdom of Ends, it takes a novel approach to an important topic and demonstrates both depth and breadth. With contributions from talented scholars all over the world, it is a must-have for Kantians and philosophers working on human dignity. Krista K. Thomason Swarthmore College USA

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends

This book advances our understanding of the nature, grounds, and limits of human dignity by connecting it with Kant’s notion of an ideal moral community, or “Kingdom of Ends”. It features original essays by leading Kant scholars and moral and political philosophers from around the world. Although Kant’s influential injunction to treat humanity as an end in itself and never merely as a means has garnered the most attention among those interested in analyzing human dignity with a Kantian lens, Kant himself places much more emphasis on the Kingdom of Ends as crucial for defining human dignity. The chapters in this collection focus not only on interpretive issues related to the Kingdom of Ends but also on practical applications that have the potential to advance discussions about the nature and foundations of rights, the content of moral principles, the importance of moral ideals and attitudes, and the nature of moral motivation. Exploring and connecting the ideas of human dignity and the Kingdom of Ends significantly deepens our moral understanding, advances discussions in moral and political philosophy, and enhances our appreciation of Kant’s moral theory. Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends: Kantian Perspectives and Practical Applications will appeal to scholars and advanced students of Kant, moral philosophy, political philosophy, and political theory. Jan-Willem van der Rijt is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Umeå University (Sweden). His research is centered on the themes of dignity, wellbeing, and strategic interaction. He authored The Importance of Assent: A Theory of Dignity and Coercion (2012) and co-edited Wellbeing in Contemporary Society (2015) and Focal Points in Negotiation (2020). Adam Cureton is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee (USA). He primarily works on issues in moral theory, Kant’s moral philosophy, and practical ethics, especially the philosophy of disability. He co-edited Disability and Disadvantage (2009), Disability in Practice (2018), and The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability (2020).

Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy

Kant on Intuition Western and Asian Perspectives on Transcendental Idealism Edited by Stephen R. Palmquist Hume on Art, Emotions, and Superstition A Critical Study of the Four Dissertations Amyas Merivale A Guide to Kant’s Psychologism via Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Wittgenstein Wayne Waxman Kant and the Continental Tradition Sensibility, Nature, and Religion Edited by Sorin Baiasu and Alberto Vanzo Beyond Autonomy in Eighteenth-Century British and German Aesthetics Edited by Karl Axelsson, Camilla Flodin, and Mattias Pirholt Kant’s Critical Epistemology Why Epistemology Must Consider Judgment First Kenneth R. Westphal The Experiential Turn in Eighteenth-Century German Philosophy Edited by Karin de Boer and Tinca Prunea-Brettonet Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends Kantian Perspectives and Practical Applications Edited by Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton For more information about this series, please visit: https://www. routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Eighteenth-Century-Philosophy/ book-series/SE0391

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends Kantian Perspectives and Practical Applications Edited by Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton

First published 2022 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 Taylor & Francis The right of Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-46001-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-18561-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-02787-4 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874 Typeset in Sabon by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)

In memory of Wim van der Rijt and For Julie

Contents

List of Contributors xi Acknowledgments xiv Abbreviations for Kant’s Works xv Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends: An Introduction

1

JAN-WILLEM VAN DER RIJT AND ADAM CURETON

PART I

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends in Kant’s Groundwork 27   1 The Dignity of Freedom

29

PAUL GUYER

  2 The Kingdom of Ends in the Groundwork 51 OLIVER SENSEN

  3 “Closer to intuition (according to a certain analogy) and thereby to feeling:” Making Kant’s Kingdom of Ends Intuitive

68

MARK TIMMONS

  4 Kant’s Understanding of Human Dignity as Self-Determination in the Realm of Ends DIETMAR VON DER PFORDTEN

88

x Contents PART II

The Politics of Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends

107

  5 Honeste Vive: Dignity in Kant’s Theory of Juridical Obligation 109 ALICE PINHEIRO WALLA

  6 All Kings in the Kingdom of Ends?

132

JEREMY WALDRON

  7 The Transmutation of Dignity: Kant, Neo-Roman Republicanism, and the Commonwealth of Ends

148

JAN-WILLEM VAN DER RIJT

  8 Respect and Retribution in the Kingdom of Ends

168

DAVID SUSSMAN

  9 Kantian Human Dignity and a “Community of Rights” 190 MARCUS DÜWELL

10 Poverty, Dignity, and the Kingdom of Ends

206

CORINNA MIETH AND GARRATH WILLIAMS

PART III

The Ethics of Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends

225

11 Legislating in the Fray: Lillian Hellman and the Kingdom of Ends

227

SARAH HOLTMAN

12 The Kingdom of Ends as Ideal

249

KIRAN BHARDWAJ

13 Gaslighting, Self-Respect, and the Kingdom of Ends

266

CYNTHIA A. STARK

14 Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment in the Kingdom of Ends

283

ADAM CURETON

15 Deliberating with Solidarity, Respect, and Appreciation

310

THOMAS E. HILL, JR.

Index

330

Contributors

Kiran Bhardwaj teaches philosophy at Phillips Academy, Andover. She completed her PhD in philosophy as a Royster Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research is in Kantian ethics and moral psychology. She has been awarded a Tang Fellowship for 2019–22, in which she and her collaborators are developing an ethics pedagogy for computer science classes. Adam Cureton is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee. He primarily works on issues in moral theory, Kant’s moral philosophy, and practical ethics, especially the philosophy of disability. He co-edited Disability and Disadvantage (2009), Disability in Practice (2018), and The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability (2020). His current research focuses on the nature of reason and its connections to autonomy and respect. Marcus Düwell is Guest Professor at the TU Darmstadt. He has a research focus on foundations in moral philosophy, philosophical anthropology, climate ethics, and bioethics. He has been managing director of the International Centre for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (1993–2001) and director of the Ethics Institute at Utrecht University (2002–20). He is editor of the Cambridge Handbook on Human Dignity (2014), author of Bioethics (2013), and co-author of The Sole Fact of Pure Reason (2020). Paul Guyer is the Jonathan Nelson Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at Brown University and the Florence R.C. Murray Professor of Humanities emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. He is General Co-Editor of the Cambridge Edition of Kant, in which he co-translated Kant’s first and third Critiques, his Notes and Fragments, and translated Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. His many books on Kant include, most recently, Kant on the Rationality of Morality (2019) and Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant (2020). He is also the author of A History of Modern Aesthetics (2014) in three volumes and A Philosopher Looks at Architecture (2021). He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

xii Contributors Thomas E. Hill, Jr. is Kenan Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His essays are collected in Autonomy and Self-Respect (1991), Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant’s Moral Theory (1992), Respect, Pluralism, and Justice (2000), Human Welfare and Moral Worth (2002), Virtue, Rules and Justice (2012), and Beyond Duty (forthcoming). He edited A Blackwell Guide to Kant’s Ethics (2009) and co-edited Kant’s Groundwork (2002) and Disability in Practice (2018). Sarah Holtman is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She holds a JD from the University of Virginia and a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A specialist in Kant’s practical philosophy, Holtman’s works include Kant on Civil Society and Welfare (Cambridge Elements, 2018). Her published articles have appeared in Ethics, Kant-Studien, American Philosophical Quarterly, Kantian Review, Utilitas, and the Blackwell Guide to Kant’s Ethics. Corinna Mieth is Professor for Political Philosophy at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, and was fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin in 2020/21. She has worked on Kant’s practical philosophy, the political philosophy of John Rawls, global justice, positive duties, human rights, and human dignity. Her recent research interests concern migration, moralism, and compromise. Alice Pinheiro Walla is Associate Professor at the Philosophy Department, McMaster University, Canada. She is interested in understanding the nature of legal obligation and ethical duties, as well as global duties arising from the territorial rights of states and the cosmopolitan rights of all persons independently of nationality, from a Kantian perspective. Oliver Sensen is Associate Professor in Philosophy at Tulane University. He is the author of Human Dignity (forthcoming), and Kant on Human Dignity (2011). He is the editor of Kant on Moral Autonomy (2012), as well as the co-editor of Kant’s Tugendlehre (2013), Kant’s Lectures on Ethics: A Critical Guide (2015), The Emergence of Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Philosophy (2018), and Respect (2021). Cynthia A. Stark is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah. She works in the areas of feminist, political, and moral philosophy and has written about self-respect, pornography, impartiality, Rawls, social contract theory, gun rights, disability, the ethics of care, Fight Club, egalitarianism, and gaslighting. Her work appears in Noûs, The Journal of Philosophy, Hypatia, The Journal of Political Philosophy, Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, and The Monist, among others. David Sussman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on Kant’s practical philosophy and related issues of moral responsibility, forgiveness,

Contributors  xiii punishment, and torture. Currently, he is trying to make some sense of the connection between practical reasoning and basic forms of interpersonal antagonism, exclusion, and hatred. Mark Timmons is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. He is the author or co-author of many articles on metaethics, normative ethical theory, and Kant’s ethics. Some of his essays on Kant’s ethics are featured in Significance and System: Essays on Kant’s Ethics (2017), and he is the author of Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue: A Guide (2021), both published by Oxford University Press. He and Sorin Baiasu are co-editors of The Kantian Mind (2022). Jan-Willem van der Rijt is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Umeå University (Sweden). His works cover a wide variety of issues in political philosophy and ethics, including dignity, human rights, coercion, retributive justice, wellbeing, self-respect, and admiration. In addition, he has published on the rationality of homo oeconomicus, coalition formation in politics, and focal point theory. He authored The Importance of Assent: A Theory of Dignity and Coercion (2012) and co-edited the volumes Wellbeing in Contemporary Society (2015) and Focal Points in Negotiation (2020). Dietmar von der Pfordten is Professor for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy at the Georg-August-University, Goettingen, Germany. He has been a Visiting Professor in Italy (Cagliari) and the Netherlands (Groningen) and a visiting scholar at Harvard University, NYU, and Columbia University. He is a member of the Academy of Thuringia in Erfurt and the European Academy of Sciences. His books are Deskription, Evaluation, Praeskription (1993), Ökologische Ethik (1996), Rechtsethik (2001), Concepts in Law (edited with. Jaap Hage, 2009), Menschenwürde, Recht und Staat bei Kant (2009), Normative Ethik (2010), Suche nach Einsicht (2010), Rechtsphilosophie (2013), and Menschenwürde (2016). Jeremy Waldron is University Professor at New York University. He grew up in New Zealand, and his career has included appointments at Edinburgh, Berkeley, Columbia, and Oxford. Professor Waldron’s books include The Dignity of Legislation (1999), Torture, Terror and Trade-offs (2010), and One Another’s Equals (2017). He has delivered major lectures, including the Holmes Lectures at Harvard, the Tanner Lectures at Berkeley, and the Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh. Garrath Williams is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics, Philosophy & Religion, Lancaster University, UK. He has broad interests in moral and political philosophy, especially the philosophy of responsibility, Kant’s practical philosophy, and Hannah Arendt’s thought. He also works in applied ethics and public policy, with special interests in bioethics, public health, and business corporations.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to many people who helped to make this volume possible. We thank our universities and philosophy departments at Umeå University (Van der Rijt) and the University of Tennessee (Cureton). The idea for this volume originated at the conference Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends, which was held at the University of Bayreuth in 2018. We thank the staff at the University of Bayreuth for their aid in organizing this conference and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for their generous sponsorship. We wish to express our appreciation to Tom Hill for his help in planning the conference and for his friendship and support. We are grateful to our contributors for their patience with us, particularly during these trying times, and for insightfully engaging with a difficult, pressing, and important set of issues in moral philosophy and Kant scholarship. The bibliographies list many of the scholars who have contributed to our shared understanding of human dignity, the Kingdom of Ends, and Kantian moral philosophy more generally. They have significantly influenced us and the contributors in ways that go beyond what can be properly acknowledged here. The Routledge editors and staff, particularly Andrew Weckenmann and Alexandra Simmons, have been encouraging, patient, and efficient throughout the process of putting this volume together. We are especially grateful to our families and friends for their continuing love and support.

Abbreviations for Kant’s Works

Unless otherwise indicated, Kant’s works are referenced by these abbreviations followed by volume and page numbers from Kants Gesammelte Schriften, edited under the auspices of the Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1908-13). Translations of Kant’s works, unless otherwise indicated, come from The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992-). A/B Anth CF CPJ CPrR Eth-C Eth-Mr2 Eth-V G IUH L-Anth L-Log L-Th MM Ped MPT PM Refl Rel RevS

Critique of Pure Reason Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View “The Conflict of the Faculties” Critique of the Power of Judgment Critique of Practical Reason Moral Philosophy: Collins’s Lecture Notes Morality According to Prof Kant: Mrongovius’s Lecture Notes Kant on the Metaphysics of Morals: Vigilantius’s Lecture Notes Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim” Lectures on Anthropology Lectures on Logic Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion The Metaphysics of Morals Lectures on Pedagogy “On the Miscarriage of all Philosophical Trials in Theodicy” “What Progress has Been Made in Metaphysics since Leibniz and Wolff?” Reflexionen Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason “Review of Schulz’s Attempt at an Introduction to a Doctrine of Morals for all Human Beings Regardless of Different Religions”

xvi  Abbreviations for Kant’s Works RTL TP TPP WIE WOT

“On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy” “On the Common Saying: That may be Correct in Theory, but it is of no Use in Practice” Toward Perpetual Peace “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” “What does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?”

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends An Introduction Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton

This volume brings together two moral ideas: human dignity and the kingdom of ends. Human dignity is the fundamental, inherent worth or elevated status that all people share. It is presently a major topic in ethics, political philosophy, and many other disciplines. The colorfully and evocatively named kingdom of ends comes from the 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant and denotes the ideal of a perfect moral community: a society where everyone freely recognizes the demands of morality and acts accordingly. Both notions share a strong aspirational quality. Even though Kant regarded them as closely related, the connections between them have not received the academic attention that they warrant. It is this lacuna that Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends brings to the fore. As the chapters in this volume show, exploring the interrelations between these two ideas reveals important new insights about the nature of human dignity, opens novel perspectives on the role and place of the kingdom of ends in Kant’s philosophical system, and has significant practical implications for how we should regard and treat one another, deliberate about moral issues, and organize our political systems. In this introduction, we first discuss the idea of human dignity and situate this volume in the wider literature on that topic. Second, we introduce Kant’s concept of a kingdom of ends in the context of his moral framework. Third, we explain in more detail why it is worthwhile to analyze these two ideas in tandem. Lastly, we outline the structure of the volume and briefly discuss the individual chapters.

I.1 Human Dignity As an object of academic interest, the topic of human dignity has undergone remarkable growth in the last two-and-a-half decades. Prior to around the mid-1990s, discussions of the notion of human dignity remained largely confined to the context of law – where human dignity features in various international agreements and covenants as well as in a number of constitutions written after WWII – and to debates about distinct practical issues, such as those concerning the ethics of abortion DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-1

2  Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton and euthanasia. Systematic and detailed analyses of its meaning and the derivation of its practical implications remained relatively rare, however. In analytic philosophy, the importance of human dignity tended to be formally acknowledged, but, notable exceptions notwithstanding (e.g., Hill 1991, 1992; Gewirth 1984, 1992), most leading figures seemed hesitant to build their theories too explicitly on a notion often regarded as rather vague, intangible, perhaps even ethereal.1 This has radically changed since around the turn of the century. No doubt a variety of societal developments – including, but not limited to, the abuses inflicted in the name of the so-called “war on terror” after the 9/11 attacks (both on suspects and in terms of curtailments of crucial civic rights of the people at large), the development of new technological and bio-technological advances, and the persistence of global poverty and rising inequality – played a significant role in creating a situation where an exclusive focus on traditional notions like freedom and wellbeing increasingly seems insufficient to adequately capture vital aspects of some of the most pressing challenges of our time. Dignity is now widely regarded as one of the most important fundamental moral values.2 It still, indeed increasingly so, features prominently in the analysis of foundational questions in the contexts of human rights (Gewirth 1984, 1992; Kretzmer and Klein 2002; Griffin 2008; Habermas 2010; Tasioulas 2013; Van der Rijt 2017; Gilabert 2019) and bioethics (e.g. Joerden et al. 2013, Pellegrino et al. 2009, Beyleveld & Brownsword 2002), but dignity has also been invoked in connection with issues as varied as identity (Fukuyama 2018), recognition (Honneth 2004), second-personal authority (Darwall 2006), personal and social standards (Killmister 2020), capabilities (Nussbaum 2006, 2009), honor (Margalit 1996), humiliation and degradation (Kaufmann et al. 2010, Stoecker 2003, Fuller 2006), torture (Sussman 2005, Luban 2014), coercion (Van der Rijt 2009, 2012), legislation (Waldron 1999), rank and nobility (Waldron 2007, 2012; Neuhäuser and Stoecker 2014), uniqueness and irreplaceability (Zagzebski 2016), respect and self-respect (Hill 1991, 1992, 2000, 2012; Margalit 1996; Schaber 2010; Carter 2011; Cureton 2013, 2016), disability (Cureton 2016, 2020, 2021) and many other issues.3 In short, discussions of human dignity are widespread. A common and fundamental thread in this wide variety of analyses and accounts is that a concern for human dignity seems to be the ready antidote to a wide variety of ways in which people can be demeaned, degraded, or in other ways not properly respected. Whereas wellbeing can be seen as the paradigmatic example of a consequentialist value that is to be promoted or maximized, human dignity typically serves as its quintessential deontological counterpart, grounding strict limitations on what may be done to people. Viewed from this perspective, it is not that surprising that, when it comes to historical authors, the most influential figure in the literature on human dignity is the 18th-century Prussian

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends  3 philosopher Immanuel Kant. Not only is Kant widely seen as the first major thinker to insist that each and every person has an equal and absolute dignity that raises him/her in moral importance above all other creatures and which must be respected at all times, but he also is the first to put human dignity at the core of his moral and political philosophy – or, at least, so he is often interpreted. Moreover, Kant’s famous second formulation of the Categorical Imperative (often referred to as the Formula of Humanity (FH)) – “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” (G 4:429, Kant’s emphasis) – is broadly regarded as one of the most apt ways of capturing (at least an essential aspect of) what it means to treat a person with fundamental respect. If there is one thing that is incompatible with respecting a person, it is to treat him/her as a mere tool to be used, or even worse, used up, at one’s discretion. Even those who are not much enamored by the rest of Kant’s philosophy often agree that this principle captures something deep and essential about the nature of morality. As a result, it has become commonplace, both in the context of Kant scholarship and outside it, to link the demands of human dignity – either in whole or in part – to Kant’s injunction to treat all people as ends in themselves and never merely as means. The so-called ‘prohibition on instrumentalization’ is perhaps the clearest example of this, figuring prominently in ethics and in jurisprudence (cf. Schaber 2012, p. 32; von der Pfordten 2009, pp. 375–6). Interpreting human dignity in line with the Formula of Humanity is not without its problems, however. First of all, deriving the exact practical implications of the Formula of Humanity has proven notoriously difficult. Though determining whether someone uses someone else as a means is usually easy enough, it is often unclear exactly when the demand not to treat someone merely as a means, but always also as an end in itself, is satisfied. As a result, an impressive body of literature has sprung up that seeks to explicate the practical implications of the demand to treat human beings as ends-in-themselves (examples include Donagan (1977), Wood (1999, 2008), Hill (1992), Korsgaard (1996), Kerstein (2002, 2013), Dean (2006), Formosa (2017)). Second, and perhaps more significantly: as natural as it may seem to link dignity to the Formula of Humanity, Kant himself does not directly emphasize this link. In fact, he does not mention dignity at all when he discusses the Formula of Humanity in his famous Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals. As some authors have pointed out (e.g., von der Pfordten 2009; Habermas 2010; cf. also Van der Rijt 2012, Ch. 5), Kant only introduces the notion of the dignity of persons in the context of his discussion of the third formulation of the Categorical Imperative, according to which we each must regard ourselves as a “lawgiving member of a … kingdom of ends” (G 4:439).4 Third, within Kant scholarship, a debate has arisen as to whether the traditional way of interpreting human dignity, which is based on the

4  Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton presumption that it is the Formula of Humanity that explicates dignity, provides a correct picture of Kant’s understanding of the dignity of persons. In this standard interpretation, dignity is interpreted as what has been called a ‘metaphysical value property’ (Sensen 2011) or an ‘inner transcendental kernel’ (Rosen 2012): an inherent preciousness that human beings have simply by virtue of their humanity. According to this view, dignity is somewhat like the metaphysical equivalent of an incandescent diamond core that people have at the very heart of their being, perfect in itself and impossible to tarnish: nothing that can be done to people can ever diminish it, nor can it be enhanced in any way. This view of dignity has its attractions, such as emphasizing the inherent and infinite worth of every individual person, but also significant drawbacks, such as difficulties explaining its practical implications. If dignity truly cannot be tarnished, as this view would have it, then not even atrocities like slavery or torture could rob a person of their dignity (although these acts clearly seem to violate the dignity of persons). Moreover, treating a person with respect does not enhance their dignity in any way, as their dignity is already absolute in itself. Such a view of dignity seems to make dignity into something that can be admired or revered when we contemplate the elevated worth of humanity, but, as critics have pointed out, in practical terms its implications are obscure. These implications might even appear contradictory in tragic circumstances in which it seems we cannot respect the dignity of everyone involved; for example, in cases in which the only way to save someone’s life is to deceive, insult, or coerce others. Indeed, it is often the inner-transcendental-kernel view of dignity that is implicitly targeted, sometimes even mocked, by those skeptical of the current rise of human dignity into a fundamental legal or moral notion. A number of Kant scholars have, however, started to challenge the view that Kant thought of dignity as an inner transcendental kernel (e.g., Sensen 2011, Hill 2014), arguing instead that his understanding of dignity is that of a supreme (moral) status. Such a view brings Kant more in line with notions of dignity that were common in his time and, importantly, arguably provides avenues to avoid many of the problems faced by inner transcendental kernel views on dignity. These three considerations together provide the main rationale for this volume: if the standard interpretation of human dignity, based on a supposed direct link between human dignity and the Formula of Humanity, raises serious philosophical difficulties, faces significant challenges as an interpretation of Kant, and has otherwise become controversial, then the obvious place to start looking for ways to address these issues is to turn back to how Kant introduced the notion of dignity in his writings: in direct connection to the idea of a kingdom of ends. Such a change of focus is not just opportune for the sake of historical interest and Kant scholarship, but, given Kant’s prominence in and enduring influence on the human dignity literature as a whole, ‘getting dignity right’ is also of

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends  5 major importance if we are to successfully address the wide range of practical moral and political problems that we face in present-day society, as several of the chapters in this volume testify.

I.2 The Kingdom of Ends Kant famously gives three formulations of the Categorical Imperative: the Formula of Universal Law (FUL: “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law” G 4:421 Kant’s emphasis), the aforementioned Formula of Humanity, and the Formula of the Kingdom of Ends (FKE).5 FKE has received markedly less attention in the literature than the first two formulas. Though the idea of a kingdom of ends has inspired crucial aspects of major works of contemporary moral and political philosophy, such as John Rawls’ theory of justice (Rawls 1971/1999), Thomas Scanlon’s account of moral motivation (Scanlon 1998), and Thomas E. Hill Jr.’s constructivist ethics (Hill 2002, Part I, 2012, Part III), FKE has not generated the same amount of philosophical interest as FUL and FH. Notably, unlike with FUL and FH, Kant himself does not provide an explicit formulation of FKE in imperative form. Such a formulation can, however, be constructed from what Kant says. H.J. Paton, for instance, expresses FKE as: “So act as if you were always through your maxims a law-giving member in a universal kingdom of ends” (Paton 1971, 185 Paton’s emphasis). This principle immediately leads to the questions: what does Kant mean by a ‘kingdom of ends’ and what does it mean to be ‘a law-giving member’ in it? Unfortunately, such questions turn out to be more easily posed than answered. Not only are Kant’s own elucidations, at least at first glance, rather cryptic,6 but possible interpretations of relevant passages also vary so widely that virtually anything substantial one can say about it is bound to be contested (as illustrated by the diversity of interpretations proffered in different chapters of this volume). This introduction is not the place to try and settle any of the contested elements of FKE, so we will introduce the concept of a kingdom of ends in a more circumspect way here, focusing on several of the controversies that surround it. Most of what Kant has to say directly about the kingdom of ends is contained in a few, largely consecutive pages in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: G 4:434–9. References to the kingdom of ends in his other works are sporadic and often do not seem to provide much in terms of new direct information on its nature. Kant does, however, return to the kingdom of ends at the very end of the Groundwork, where, after reminding his readers that reason must know its limits to avoid ‘impotently flap[ping]’ about ‘among phantoms’ and that the supreme motive for moral action cannot be found in the world of sense, he reassures us that we may take comfort and inspiration from contemplating the ‘noble ideal of a universal kingdom of ends in themselves’ and our possible membership in it (G 4:462–3).

6  Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton This gives rise to the first controversy we will discuss about the kingdom of ends: how central is it to Kant’s thought? Those who wish to downplay its importance will point to the fact that he only deals with it in any substantial detail at one point in his work, and that this discussion takes only a handful of pages. Moreover, so they may point out, its appearance in the final pages of the Groundwork suggests that its role is not that fundamental: it appears to be little more than a permissible balm to sooth bruised human egos when they recognize that they have to subject themselves to the unbending yoke of the moral law. Those who, to the contrary, believe that the idea of a kingdom of ends is of crucial importance to correctly understand Kant’s practical philosophy will claim that significance cannot be deduced from quantity and that the location of his comments and especially their contents are what counts. And in the case of the kingdom of ends, these are arguably quite momentous indeed. Not only do these comments appear in the context of Kant’s discussion of the Categorical Imperative, which is for him the supreme principle of morality and the very foundation on which all of his moral framework rests, but Kant makes quite explicit that, amongst the various formulations of the Categorical Imperative provided, FKE is the most complete one (G 4:436). In addition to the question of its importance to Kant’s system, with possible answers varying from a relatively minor concession to human psychology in the context of moral motivation to the keystone that keeps his entire system upright, a second source of controversy concerns the nature of the kingdom of ends itself. In short, what is this oddly named entity supposed to be? Kant introduces the kingdom of ends as follows: The concept of every rational being as one who must regard himself as giving universal law through all the maxims of his will, so as to appraise himself and his actions from this point of view, leads to a very fruitful concept dependent upon it, namely that of a kingdom of ends. By a kingdom I understand a systematic union of various rational beings through common laws. Now since laws determine ends in terms of their universal validity, if we abstract from the personal differences of rational beings as well as from all the content of their private ends we shall be able to think of a whole of all ends in systematic connection (a whole both of rational beings as ends in themselves and of the ends of his own that each may set himself), that is, a kingdom of ends, which is possible in accordance with the above principles. For, all rational beings stand under the law that each of them is to treat himself and all others never merely as means but always at the same time as ends in themselves. But from this there arises a systematic union of rational beings through common objective laws, that is, a kingdom, which can be called a kingdom of ends (admittedly only

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends  7 an ideal) because what these laws have as their purpose is just the relation of these beings to one another as ends and means. (G 4:433, emphases in original) This passage is quite dense in information and many of the details are contested, but several aspects are worth highlighting. The first thing that stands out is Kant’s description of the concept of a kingdom of ends as ‘very fruitful’. Independently of the question how fundamental the kingdom of ends is to his overall moral theory, this characterization does suggest that Kant intends the notion to have notable impact and that he wants to draw his readers’ attention to it. Exactly in what way the kingdom of ends is supposed to be fruitful, however, is not immediately obvious. Second, the notion of a kingdom of ends has direct connections to FUL and FH. The demand to never treat rational beings as mere means but always as ends in themselves is repeated almost verbatim, and the focus on objective laws that ensure this is the case has obvious connections to FUL – indeed, a page later (G 4:434) Kant makes this explicit, and he further emphasizes the link between FUL and FH by stressing that it is the ability to see oneself as giving universal law that makes it possible for a rational being to be regarded as an end in itself. As a result, it seems safe to conclude that the idea of a kingdom of ends combines FUL and FH. What is contested, however, is whether that is all FKE does, or whether it also adds something of its own to Kant’s account of the supreme principle of morality or to his moral framework more generally (and if so, what that is).7 Third, as Kant stresses that the kingdom of ends is to be conceived as a union of rational beings (and a systematic one at that), the question arises exactly what kind of union Kant has in mind here. It seems clear that the rational beings that make up a kingdom of ends do not cease to be individual beings and fully merge into some larger entity. It would be hard to make sense of the kingdom of ends as a systematic union if that were the case, and, besides, Kant explicitly states that the rational beings in the kingdom of ends still may set their own personal ends. Hence, it seems clear that the rational agents that make up a kingdom of ends retain some form of individuality within it. This, combined with the focus on lawgiving, leads some commentators to argue that the kingdom of ends is to be thought of in political terms, i.e., as a state8 (Waldron (Chapter 6) and Van der Rijt (Chapter 7) both propound this view, for instance), but other commentators contest this (e.g., von der Pfordten (Chapter 4) or Flikschuh 2009). After thus introducing the notion of a kingdom of ends as a systematic union of rational beings under common laws, Kant goes on to claim that there are two ways in which a rational being can belong to a kingdom of ends. He can belong to it as sovereign or as a member, and the distinction between the two lies not in their capacity as law-givers, but in the way they relate to these laws once they are given:

8  Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton A rational being belongs as a member to the kingdom of ends when he gives universal laws in it but is also himself subject to these laws. He belongs to it as sovereign when, as lawgiving, he is not subject to the will of any other. A rational being must always regard himself as lawgiving in a kingdom of ends possible through freedom of the will, whether as a member or as sovereign. He cannot, however, hold the position of sovereign merely by the maxims of his will but only in case he is a completely independent being, without needs and with unlimited resources adequate to his will. Morality consists, then, in the reference of all action to the lawgiving by which alone a kingdom of ends is possible. (G 4:433, emphases in original) To those favoring a political interpretation of the kingdom of ends, this talk of a sovereign, law-giving members, and subjects is further evidence for their view, but other interpretations are possible. Thus, for instance, it is commonly assumed that the fully independent being who adopts the role of sovereign in the kingdom of ends is God.9 If that is the case, then an alternative interpretation is that the kingdom of ends should be understood as analogous, not to a state, but to the idea of heaven: the Kingdom of God. Viewed from this perspective, the kingdom of ends can be regarded as something like a condition that humanity can approach ever closer as humanity makes moral progress through the course of history (even if it will likely never fully achieve moral perfection). Kant’s claims that a kingdom of ends would actually come into being if the demands of morality were universally followed (G 4:438) and that the kingdom of ends is nonetheless ‘only an ideal’ fit well with this interpretation and can be further supported by the important role Kant ascribes to hope in his philosophy in general. If one adopts such a perspective, then a crucial question becomes how perfect a world, how ‘heavenly’, a kingdom of ends is. If one pushes this line of thought too far, then the kingdom of ends can all too easily by caricatured as an otherworldly fantasy and used by those hostile to the Kantian project to ridicule the entire Kantian approach to moral philosophy as esoteric, metaphysically fishy, or at the very least unrealistically hopeful. Where the Formula of Humanity tends to be sympathetically received even by many moral philosophers who do not consider themselves part of the Kantian tradition, the idea of a kingdom of ends tends to raise eyebrows. Of course, such a caricature relies on pushing the analogy to the Kingdom of God too far, and the obvious response is simply not to do that. Instead, those who favor interpreting the kingdom of ends by analogy with the idea of a Kingdom of God tend to focus on the ways in which the kingdom of ends falls short of heaven: Kant’s idea of a kingdom of ends may be inspired by the idea of the Kingdom of God, but it certainly is not identical

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends  9 to it. Thus, for instance, in his chapter Timmons (Chapter 3) explores the similarities between a kingdom of ends and Kant’s notion of a universal church, whereas Sensen (Chapter 2) explores the relations between the kingdom of ends and Kant’s notion of the highest good (a state of affairs in which happiness is proportional to virtue). This brings us to the last major source of controversy we want to mention here: the term ‘kingdom of ends’ itself, or rather, its suitability as a translation of the German phrase ‘Reich der Zwecke’. As many translators and commentators have pointed out, the German term ‘Reich’ is not easily translated to English. Indeed, if one were to translate the English term ‘kingdom’ to German, it would translate as ‘Königreich’, not ‘Reich’. Moreover, given all the controversies surrounding the kingdom of ends, it is important to stress that the choice of translation is often not neutral between the various interpretations. In this volume alone, the preferred translations range from the traditional translation ‘kingdom’, first introduced by Patton with the deliberate intention to highlight connections to the Kingdom of God (Paton 1947/1971 p. 188), to ‘realm’ (von der Pfordten), ‘empire’ (Guyer), and ‘commonwealth’ (Van der Rijt). Moreover, these are by no means the only possible translations: ‘domain’ would be another example. Undoubtedly, the above list of controversies – the role and significance of the kingdom of ends in Kant’s broader theory; the exact nature of its relation to the other formulations of the Categorical Imperative; whether, and if so to what extent, the kingdom of ends is political in nature; whether, and if so to what extent, it is similar to the Kingdom of God; how best to translate ‘Reich der Zwecke’; and what the implications of any position taken on any of these matters are – is far from exhaustive, but it indicates that the kingdom of ends is an underexplored, yet (potentially) central, notion of Kant’s thought. We hope that this volume will inspire further research on the topic. Let us now turn to the specific angle taken in this volume: why is it worthwhile to analyze the ideas of dignity and a kingdom of ends in tandem?

I.3 Dignity in the Kingdom of Ends Prior to his introduction of the idea of a kingdom of ends, Kant mentions the term dignity only at four, somewhat scattered, instances. In all of these four instances, Kant contrasts dignity with what he regards as the baser motive of inclination: he speaks of the dignity of strict laws that we may not corrupt by making allowances for our inclinations (G 4:405); of the dignity of reason itself, which self-consciously overcomes the inclinations (G 4:411); of the dignity of moral concepts whose dignity is found ‘in the purity of their origin’ (i.e. reason) (G 4:411); and of the inner dignity of the command of duty, which is best recognized when

10  Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton the action demanded is not supported by any other motives, including, again, inclination (G 4:425). In these cases, Kant appears to use the term dignity to stress the importance and sublimity of acting from the motive of duty alone: doing the right thing simply because it is recognized as the right thing to do. By themselves, none of these instances help us much if we are interested in the way Kant’s understanding of dignity informs our contemporary idea of human dignity, because in none of them is dignity directly attributed to persons, moral agents, or even to rational beings in general. It is only immediately after Kant’s discussion of the two different roles of sovereign and member in the kingdom of ends that we find the first passage that can be read as attributing dignity to human beings simply by virtue of their humanity (which for Kant equates to their rationality): Reason accordingly refers every maxim of the will as giving universal law to every other will and also to every action toward oneself, and does so not for the sake of any other practical motive or any future advantage but from the idea of the dignity of a rational being, who obeys no law other than that which he himself at the same time gives.10 This is then immediately followed by Kant’s famous distinction between things which have a price and moral beings who have dignity: In the kingdom of ends everything has either a price or a dignity. What has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; what on the other hand is raised above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity. What is related to general human inclinations and needs has a market price; that which, even without presupposing a need, conforms with a certain taste, that is, with a delight in the mere purposeless play of our mental powers, 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 worth, that is, a price, but an inner worth, that is, dignity. Now, morality is the condition under which alone a rational being can be an end in itself, since only through this is it possible to be a lawgiving member in the kingdom of ends. Hence morality, and humanity insofar as it is capable of morality, is that which alone has dignity. (G 4:434–5, emphases in original) This passage is, after the various formulas of the Categorical Imperative and Kant’s opening comments on the good will, amongst the most cited of the entire Groundwork. Indeed, many introductory ethics courses

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends  11 include a discussion of the distinction between things with a price and persons who have dignity. Rarely, however, is it stressed that this distinction is introduced with the explicit prefix ‘[i]n the kingdom of ends …’, and even more rarely are the full implications of this prefix explored. Notable exceptions are von der Pfordten (2009) and Habermas (2010), who each argue that Kant’s notion of dignity is closely tied to the kingdom of ends and cannot be correctly understood apart from it. They criticize, for example, the common trend of trying to transpose Kant’s notion of dignity directly to present-day human rights discourse and practice.11 We agree with von der Pfordten and Habermas that Kant’s notion of dignity cannot be properly understood without taking the kingdom of ends into account. Kant mentions dignity eight more times in the Groundwork, and seven of these (G 4:435, 436 (twice), 438, 439, 440 (twice)) are in the remainder of the section that introduced the kingdom of ends.12 These include all instances where Kant attributes dignity to persons or humanity, including the one where he equates dignity with an ‘unconditional, incomparable worth’ (G 4:436). To Kant, the idea of a kingdom of ends, and the idea that human beings have dignity, are intimately related. As the chapters in this volume testify, the kingdom of ends is a ‘very fruitful’ concept indeed, and exploring it leads to a richer understanding of the nature of human dignity and its importance. A note on usage: our contributors differ in their preference for ‘dignity’ versus ‘human dignity’ and in whether or not they capitalize ‘kingdom of ends’. The latter difference is mainly stylistic, but the former difference calls for some comment. Though, in moral philosophy, the terms ‘dignity’ and ‘human dignity’ are often used interchangeably, the addition of ‘human’ in the latter is not necessarily vacuous. To speak of ‘human dignity’ suggests that there is another type of dignity that is distinct from it. This contrasting type of dignity can, however, be interpreted in different ways. On one reading, the term ‘human dignity’ contrasts with non-human dignity. In such a view, human dignity represents the special value that is embodied by members of the species homo sapiens, but other animal species may be regarded as special in their own way too, and thus said to have a different kind of dignity (e.g., Nussbaum 2009, p. 365). Such species-essentialist positions are highly controversial, however, and this is not the standard way that the term ‘human dignity’ is interpreted. It is more common to contrast ‘human dignity’ with what are sometimes called contingent notions of dignity, the standard example of which is ‘social dignity’. In this interpretation, both human dignity and contingent dignity apply exclusively to (human) persons, but the difference lies in how, when, and why they apply to them. Human dignity is the dignity that people are said to have simply by virtue of their humanity, whereas social dignity is the dignity that attaches to certain positions of high status within society, such as that of judges, ministers, and presidents, the holders of high-ranking positions in ecclesiastic or academic

12  Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton hierarchies, or, in older times, members of the nobility. Social dignity is contingent and usually hierarchical in nature: it is often bestowed by society on some of its members and not on others, and, being fully dependent on social recognition, society can also decide to take it away from those who currently have it. Human dignity, in contrast, is inherent and egalitarian in nature: it stresses the equal and elevated worth of each and every individual person. At the most basic level, every person is of equal moral importance, and at the same time they hold a special position in the moral cosmos in that they matter in ways that other beings and things do not. Moreover, as the only requirement to qualify for human dignity is humanity itself, nothing that a person does, nor anything that is done to them, can diminish or remove this dignity. It is this inherent notion of dignity that is the main focus of this volume.

I.4 Outline of the Volume In the remainder of this introduction, we provide an overview of the chapters in this volume. I.4.1 Part I. Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends in Kant’s Groundwork Kant offers his most sustained and systematic accounts of human dignity, the kingdom of ends, and the relationship between them his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. The four essays in this section aim to interpret these ideas and connections as Kant develops them, primarily in the Groundwork. The first essay focuses on Kant’s idea of human dignity and its implications for how we should understand his idea of the kingdom of ends. In “The Dignity of Freedom,” Paul Guyer proposes an interpretation of Kant’s idea of dignity as an absolute, equal, and incommensurable status that all people have in virtue of their freedom to adopt their own goals, purposes, and other ends. Guyer develops his account by analyzing the various uses of “dignity” in Kant’s published and unpublished writings, with special emphasis on those that appear in the Groundwork. He highlights a tension among these uses of ‘dignity,’ namely that Kant sometimes attributes dignity to people because of their freedom to set ends, while at other times he attributes it only to morally good people who exercise their freedom in accordance with the laws of morality. The former view suggests that, according to Guyer’s interpretation of Kant, dignity is grounded in humanity, that humanity is the freedom to set ends, and that the freedom to set ends entails having abilities and dispositions to legislate and act on moral principles. The latter view, in contrast, entails that few of us have dignity, because we are far from being morally perfect people. Guyer claims that we cannot resolve this tension on

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends  13 textual grounds but that we also do not need to do so. In Kant’s view, we are all subject to moral duties towards all people regardless of how morally good or bad they might be. Whether they have achieved dignity in the latter sense of moral goodness is of limited practical relevance. Although, as Guyer explains, the moral worth of other people can sometimes affect certain specific duties we have – we may, for example, favor good people with our beneficence or punish evildoers for their crimes – this does not affect our fundamental obligation to act with dignity towards everyone by acting in accordance with the idea of a kingdom (or empire) of ends. Whereas Guyer begins with a discussion of dignity and draws out implications for the kingdom of ends, the next two essays focus on Kant’s idea of the kingdom of ends and explore how it can enhance our understanding of his notion of dignity. In “The Kingdom of Ends in the Groundwork,” Oliver Sensen traces the origins of the kingdom of ends in Kant’s philosophy, explores its structure and role in the Groundwork, and discusses its connections to Kant’s ideas of autonomy and dignity. Kant originally introduced the idea of a kingdom of ends, according to Sensen, to make his supreme moral principle more appealing and intuitive than it otherwise might be by giving us grounds to hope that, in the end, happiness will be apportioned to moral worth in the form of the highest good. In the Groundwork, so Sensen argues, Kant affords a new role to the kingdom of ends, which is to show what would happen if everyone acted as fully autonomous agents. Dignity, as Kant discusses it in the context of the kingdom of ends, is not, according to Sensen, an intrinsic value, a basis of moral obligation, or a justifying ground for the kingdom of ends. Instead, dignity is a twofold elevated status that members of the kingdom of ends have in virtue of being persons who are capable of morality and who, additionally, achieve moral perfection. Throughout his essay, Sensen also highlights and comments on puzzling features of dignity and the kingdom of ends. These include the foundation of dignity in reason’s unconditional demands, the contrast between dignity and other kinds of value, connections between the kingdom of ends and Leibniz’s Kingdom of Grace, and the role the kingdom of ends plays in moral motivation. In “’Closer to intuition (according to a certain analogy) and thereby to feeling:’ Making Kant’s Kingdom of Ends Intuitive,” Mark Timmons explores Kant’s claim that reflecting on the idea of the kingdom of ends helps to make his moral framework more intuitive and appealing than it otherwise might be. The kingdom of ends is an abstract and purely rational idea that, like the idea of God, cannot be fully captured by anything we can possibly sense or imagine. Timmons suggests that the kingdom of ends can nonetheless be partially symbolized or “made intuitable” by analogy with communities of people that we can imagine and, to some degree, perhaps even encounter in real life. Timmons explains how Kant’s concept of a church enhances our understanding of the kingdom of ends,

14  Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton much as thinking of a watchmaker supposedly makes the abstract idea of God more intuitive to us. According to Timmons, reflecting on symbols of the kingdom of ends, which might also include certain types of families and friendships, further strengthens our moral dispositions, commitments, and feelings. These symbols of a morally perfect world, in particular, help us to recognize and feel our own dignity as morally self-legislating persons in community with others. Timmons’ analysis includes discussions of Kant’s conceptions of analogy, symbolization, the ethical commonwealth, and the highest good, which all help to explain the important roles that human dignity and the kingdom of ends play in Kant’s moral psychology. The final essay of this section interprets Kant’s ideas of dignity and the kingdom of ends together but regards them as secondary to other, more central, aspects of Kant’s framework, most notably the universal law formula of the Categorical Imperative. In “Kant’s Understanding of Human Dignity as Self-Determination in the Realm of Ends,” Dietmar von der Pfordten argues that dignity and the kingdom (or realm) of ends play limited, derivative, but nonetheless still substantial roles in Kant’s moral theory. Von der Pfordten contends that the most important appearance of the term dignity in Kant’s works is in his discussion of the Kingdom of Ends Formula of the Categorical Imperative. Von der Pfordten, however, takes issue with certain aspects of the standard translation of a key passage in the Groundwork and argues that, in that passage, Kant distinguishes between the fundamental form of the categorical imperative, namely the Formula of Universal Law, and all other formulas, which derive from it according to the categories of unity, multiplicity, and totality, respectively. These other formulas, including the Kingdom of Ends Formula, represent various ways of imagining or making vivid to ourselves the supreme principle of morality. The Kingdom of Ends Formula, in particular, allows us to imagine, through the category of totality, what a morally perfect world would be like, if only imperfectly so. The idea of dignity complements this picture by revealing a way in which each of us is equally connected to a moral “totality” of the world (i.e., the kingdom of ends) through the autonomy or the capacity for self-legislation that we all share. Because we are never able to apprehend them fully, however, the ideas of dignity and the kingdom of ends cannot directly guide our actions. Nonetheless, reflecting on these ideas satisfies a quasi-religious need to see ourselves as part of a larger moral whole. I.4.2 Part II. The Politics of Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends Kant’s idea of a Reich der Zwecke, with its appeal to a kingdom, empire, or commonwealth and its roles of sovereign, lawgiving members, and subjects, clearly invokes parallels to a political arrangement. His idea of dignity might similarly have political analogues if it is understood as a status or position akin to ones traditionally defined within political

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends  15 systems, such as the dignity of a duke, king, or citizen. Exploring these and other political congruencies arguably deepens our understanding of human dignity and the kingdom of ends as well as of their connections. A further way in which politics, broadly conceived, can enhance our understanding of these ideas is by examining how political, legal, and social structures help to instantiate and give determinate content to what might otherwise be rather abstract and vague ideas. The six essays in this section emphasize various political perspectives on human dignity and the kingdom of ends. In “Honeste Vive: Dignity in Kant’s Theory of Juridical Obligation,” Alice Pinheiro Walla explores how the ideas of human dignity and the kingdom of ends that Kant develops in his moral philosophy are represented in his political and legal philosophy. She draws on Kant’s political and legal writings to develop a juridical analogue of human dignity. This analogue in the legal sphere includes the innate status of legal blamelessness unless we have acted wrongly and of legal freedom according to which we cannot be made subject to legal obligations simply through the choices of others without our consent. According to Pinheiro Walla, honeste vive is a perfect, legal duty to ourselves not to act in ways that encourage others to treat us as if we lacked juridical dignity. Instead, we are always to assert this inherent worth to others. Pinheiro Walla develops her view by discussing a wide range of topics in Kantian political and legal philosophy, including the sole innate right, the right of humanity, and the need for a juridical condition. She emphasizes important similarities and dissimilarities between autonomy or self-legislation in the ethical and legal domains. And, despite their apparent connections, she cautions against interpreting the kingdom of ends in terms of Kant’s conception of a legal system. This is because, according to Pinheiro Walla, the idea of juridical dignity is essential to addressing issues of legal obligation and authority that do not arise for the ideally rational people in a kingdom of ends. The next three essays, in contrast, argue that detailed engagement with Kant’s political ideas is of crucial importance to understand his notions of human dignity and the kingdom of ends. In “All Kings in the Kingdom of Ends?,” Jeremy Waldron argues that the republican regime favored by Kant in his political and legal philosophy – a regime of citizens who legislate the laws that they are themselves subject to – is mirrored in Kant’s description of the kingdom of ends. Like a republican state, the kingdom of ends includes a large and diverse group of people who legislate the system of laws that adjudicate conflicts among them. Both ideas also emphasize the fundamental equality among lawgivers. Because the act of law-giving typically bestows a high standing and dignity on those who legislate laws, Waldron draws an analogy between the dignity of citizens in a Kantian republic and the dignity of persons as law-givers in a kingdom of ends. As a formulation of the Categorical Imperative, the demand to imagine ourselves as law-givers in a kingdom of ends makes us vividly aware

16  Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton of our own dignity and that of others. In arguing that Kant’s political philosophy sheds much-needed light on his moral philosophy in these and other ways, Waldron also takes issue with what he sees as some common misconceptions about the kingdom of ends. He maintains that the kingdom of ends is better conceived as a republic rather than a literal kingdom, that God is not to be regarded as its head, and that dignity is a noble rank or high status that all people share rather than an objective value grounded in rational nature. In “The Transmutation of Dignity: Kant, Neo-Roman Republicanism, and the Commonwealth of Ends,” Jan-Willem van der Rijt draws on the neo-Roman republican political tradition to interpret Kant’s idea of dignity and to show how Kant manages to turn the older, strictly hierarchical conception of dignity into the essentially egalitarian notion we know today. Like the ancient Romans, the neo-Roman republicans of the 17th and 18th centuries, so Van der Rijt argues, thought of dignity as a vaunted rank or status in a political system. Whereas the ancient Roman notion of dignitas was highly stratified, however, the neo-Romans turned dignity into a binary notion: either you are sui iuris, i.e., free from domination, and you enjoy the dignity of a freeman, or you are not and then your position is similar to that of a slave and dignity is denied to you. According to Van der Rijt, Kant draws on this binary account in his development of the notion of a kingdom (or commonwealth) of ends to derive the dignity of the moral agent from their ability to give moral law. Van der Rijt supports this claim by demonstrating how Kant, conceptualizing God as an Idea of Reason, carefully crafts the kingdom of ends in such a way as to ensure that His elevated status as supreme head does not pose a threat to the dignity of other moral agents. Based on his analysis of the kingdom of ends, Van der Rijt goes on to show how regarding oneself as a law-giver to a kingdom of ends, as a model of adopting ‘the practical point of view’, commits us to recognizing the dignity of every moral agent. In “Respect and Retribution in the Kingdom of Ends,” David Sussman proposes a novel justification for Kant’s controversial claim that wrongdoers deserve to suffer for their immoral actions. Although moral retributivism may appear to conflict with the dignity that everyone shares, Sussman explains how dignity, properly understood, justifies moral retributivism. Sussman appeals to Kant’s legal and political philosophy to give determinate moral content to the formal idea of dignity that, he contends, lies at the heart of Kant’s moral philosophy. Dignity, according to Sussman, is a moral status of authority and accountability that must be instituted in actual and determinate systems of legal rights. These rights must in turn be secured by legal punishment, which should be apportioned in ways that represent all people, including the criminal herself, as a co-legislator of their shared legal system. Legal punishment, Sussman maintains, is thus a crucial element of the way relations of right, which are essential to respecting the dignity of persons, are constituted. Moreover,

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends  17 once instituted as part of a legal system, punishment becomes a way for society as a whole to show respect for the dignity of both victims and criminals. Punishing criminals, Sussman argues, is the principal way in which the people, speaking in one voice, express to one another that they acknowledge and value the rights of victims. Failure to punish, on the other hand, is often a demeaning insult by society to the victim, dismissing or disregarding the inviolability of their rights and calling their equal status into question. Developing the idea of dignity by appeal to a system of legal rights, Sussman argues, suggests a concreate interpretation of the kingdom of ends as an ideal political arrangement. The final two essays of this section continue the theme raised by Sussman that the practical implications of human dignity and the kingdom of ends must be derived through actual political, legal, or social structures that help to give substantive content to those ideas. In “Kantian Human Dignity and a ‘Community of Rights’,” Marcus Düwell explores the relationships among human dignity, human rights, and an ideal moral community. Human dignity, according to Düwell, is a status that we must ascribe to all people in order to regard ourselves as practical agents. According to Düwell’s account, when we take up the practical perspective at all, we are rationally committed to regarding ourselves and others as able to make things happen in the world, as subjects to moral and prudential requirements, and as finite, embodied, and culturally embedded people who have to make judgments about what to believe, do, and hope. We must also respect the equal moral status of others within a universal moral outlook of mutual justifiability. Our own dignity and that of other people is grounded in, and entailed by, our common ability to understand ourselves in these ways. We should thus promote and respect the conditions that enable our own self-understanding, and that of others, as acting and judging beings. Human rights, according to Düwell, are properly understood as claims people have to these biological, social, and psychological conditions of agency. The necessary features of human agency itself, Düwell concludes, are thus what we should focus on when we respect the more specific status we each have within a community of human rights. Düwell explains how his analysis fits with and justifies core features of current human rights practices. He also applies his account to practical challenges that the human rights regime must navigate, such as environmental degradation, technological progress, global poverty, and cultural diversity. In “Poverty, Dignity, and the Kingdom of Ends,” Corinna Mieth and Garrath Williams present a novel explanation of the way poverty undermines the dignity of people. The primary indignity of poverty, according to Mieth and Williams, is not that poor people are exploited or that others fail to assist them in their need. Poverty violates the dignity of poor people first and foremost because it excludes them from essential forms of social cooperation. Social cooperation, Mieth and Williams argue, is

18  Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton an essential element in Kant’s idea of the kingdom of ends. The kingdom of ends, as Kant describes it, is a systematic union of people who relate to one another both as ends and as means. A basic part of a person’s dignity as a potential member of the kingdom of ends thus lies in their ability to contribute positively to the lives of others. Because poverty typically prevents people from doing this, allowing people to remain in dire poverty amounts to treating them as useless beings and so violates their dignity. Respecting someone’s dignity, Mieth and Williams argue, therefore requires treating them as fellow useful members of an ideal social union, whereas allowing them to remain in poverty denies them this solidarity and instead socially marginalizes them. In addition to developing a neglected connection in Kant’s work between dignity, usefulness, and the kingdom of ends, Mieth and Williams emphasize several advantages of their conceptualization of the indignity of poverty. These include its emphasis on the social and institutional determinates of poverty, its ability to address both relative and absolute poverty, and its emphasis on affording people opportunities to be useful to one another in ways that diminish social marginalization and exclusion. I.4.3 Part III. The Ethics of Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends The ideas of an equal, inviolable, and great worth or status that all people share and of an ideal community of people who are united by their effective commitment to morality might never be fully acknowledged or realized in our world. Reflecting on these ideas of human dignity and the kingdom of ends and incorporating them into our lives can nonetheless help us to cultivate morally appropriate attitudes, diminish cynicism, identify wrongdoing, and deliberate about moral issues more effectively than we otherwise would. The five essays in this section consider these and other ways in which commitments to human dignity and the kingdom of ends can help us to become morally better people. The first two essays explore how reflecting on human dignity and the kingdom of ends helps us to develop a morally good character by shaping our moral attitudes, enhancing our moral capacities, and orienting us towards moral ideals. In “Legislating in the Fray: Lillian Hellman and the Kingdom of Ends,” Sarah Holtman considers what character traits are conducive to good moral decision-making in especially trying circumstances. Using the playwright and memoirist Lillian Hellman as a leading example, Holtman identifies a tension between, on the one hand, the character traits of an ideal Kantian agent, and, on the other hand, the character traits that are most likely to help people make good moral decisions in difficult circumstances. Holtman argues that Hellman’s somewhat unreflective moral tenacity, her largely unreasoned resistance to social norms, and her curiosity about memory led her admirably to refuse to testify against other people for Joseph McCarthy’s House Committee on Un-American

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends  19 Activities. These character traits, according to Holtman, seem to conflict with those of an ideal Kantian agent. Such an ideal person deliberates about moral issues from the perspective of the kingdom of ends in which she is concerned to find moral standards that are justifiable to all, respects the humanity of all people, values each person’s dignity as a co-legislator of the moral law, and prizes the resulting moral principles themselves. Holtman explores Kant’s discussions of enlightenment and character to suggest that the traits Hellman exhibited are vital stepping stones for imperfect human beings who strive for, but perhaps never achieve, full Kantian agency. Holtman explains, for example, how moral stubbornness opposes moral laziness and cowardice. Although the three traits Holtman discusses can sometimes also lead us morally astray, as they did on a few occasions for Hellman, Holtman contends that they are nonetheless crucial aids in the long and arduous process of moral self-realization. In “The Kingdom of Ends as Ideal,” Kiran Bhardwaj explores the function of ideals in developing a moral character. She focuses on the ideal nature of the kingdom of ends, which Bhardwaj characterizes as a harmonious, socially-embedded community of people who respect the dignity of all, promote one another’s permissible ends, and legislate and follow through on genuine moral principles. Imagining this ideal, according to Bhardwaj, can help us to become morally better people than we presently are. Drawing on contemporary accounts of imagination, Bhardwaj highlights how our imaginings are often, in various respects, highly realistic and that the desires and feelings that our imaginings elicit can persist past an imaginative episode. For instance, vividly imagining a car wreck can aid a race-car driver to visualize how she will safely navigate the track in an upcoming race. Imagining, as best we can, what an ideal kingdom of ends would be like, Bhardwaj maintains, can shape our natural desires and feelings, especially our social motivations, around that ideal. Doing so also tends to strengthen pro-social feelings and desires while weakening or eliminating opposing ones. Imagining a kingdom of ends helps us think through ways of resolving possible conflicts and disagreements we might encounter and gives us hope that such a world is possible. Moreover, imagining ourselves as moral deliberators in an ideal world enhances our skills of moral deliberation. In sum, imagining what an ideal social world would be like can make us morally better people by helping to align our desires, feelings, hopes, and ways of thinking with the demands and ideals of morality. The third essay in this section focuses on ways in which ideas of human dignity and the kingdom of ends can help us to avoid subverting the moral capacities and character of other people. In “Gaslighting, Self-Respect, and the Kingdom of Ends,” Cynthia A. Stark argues that gaslighting other people about their moral judgments undermines their moral agency in ways that violate their dignity and interfere with bringing about a kingdom of ends. To gaslight someone about her moral judgments, according

20  Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton to Stark, is to lead her to regard those judgments as mistaken or unreliable without having sufficient grounds to call her judgments into doubt. An example is unjustifiably and repeatedly denying that an accuser was sexually harassed. Gaslighting others in this way violates their dignity by leading them to doubt their ability to make accurate moral judgments. Losing confidence in one’s own moral capacities, Stark argues, often interferes with using them well. Gaslighting other people also violates their dignity by leading them to lose respect for themselves or, in certain cases, even to actively violate their self-respect. When they doubt their own moral capacities and judgments, victims of gaslighting are likely to allow others to treat them in inappropriate ways. They are also likely not to understand, appreciate, and assert their own rights to complain when they are wronged. And victims of gaslighting are liable to suffer moral disorientation about the correct standards of morality more generally. As a result of this, gaslighting stands in the way of realizing an actual kingdom of ends. According to Stark, gaslighting distorts the self-conceptions of victims, keeping them from seeing themselves as potential members of such an all-inclusive and equal moral community. The final two essays share the aim of developing a conception of the kingdom of ends as an ideal moral perspective for deliberating about principles, policies, and actions. They propose various values and interests that are drawn from the human dignity we all share and that properly motivate moral legislators in an ideal kingdom of ends who strive to formulate norms that are justifiable to all actual people. In “Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment in the Kingdom of Ends,” Adam Cureton develops the notion of substantive rational interests and argues that this idea enhances our understanding of dignity, autonomy, the kingdom of ends, and their relationships to one another. Rational interests, Cureton explains, are needs, drives, or dispositions of reason itself. They are distinct from our natural desires and inclinations. Rational people as such, according to Cureton, care about certain things for their own sake. Cureton focuses on three such interests that Kant attributes to reason itself: interests in acquiring knowledge of all kinds, in correcting any errors in our thinking, and in achieving enlightenment. These interests of reason, Cureton maintains, provide criteria for whether a principle could be willed as a universal law or would be legislated in a kingdom of ends. Cureton analyses several presumptive moral standards that are justifiable to everyone in virtue of their shared rational interests concerning knowledge, error, and enlightenment. These include standards regarding the protection of freedom of thought and speech, the demand that we educate children and overcome biases in our thinking, and prohibitions on deceiving and manipulating others. Cureton goes on to show that respecting our shared rational interests is an essential part of what it means to respect both our own dignity and that of others. He also argues that the idea of a kingdom of ends, understood as an ideal community of

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends  21 people who govern themselves in all aspects of life by rational standards, must be broadened to encompass a commitment to the interests of theoretical as well as practical reason. Finally, in “Deliberating with Solidarity, Respect, and Appreciation,” Thomas E. Hill, Jr. characterizes three basic moral attitudes that should orient and guide us when we specify, interpret, and apply moral principles. The moral attitudes of solidarity and respect, Hill claims, reflect core aspects of Kant’s ideas of dignity and the kingdom of ends, while the moral attitude of appreciation, Hill contends, is consistent with, or supported by, central features of Kant’s philosophical framework. Solidarity, Hill argues, is an effective commitment to inclusiveness of all people, to caring about everyone, and to ensuring that our actions are justifiable to all people as fellow law-givers in a kingdom of ends. Respect for persons as such, Hill explains, is recognizing and upholding each person’s dignity, which he interprets as a moral status defined by the moral duties, rights, and other principles of the kingdom of ends to which all reasonable and rational persons aspire. And appreciation, according to Hill, is a readiness to discover, pay attention to, and take in things that are intrinsically good, such as a work of art, a beautiful natural landscape, and an infant’s smile. In ordinary language and commonsense, Hill maintains, intrinsic goodness does not presuppose certain controversial metaphysical claims but instead indicates that we have reasons for valuing something beyond its utility or pleasantness. Hill develops and illustrates these three moral attitudes with several examples, showing how they can serve to appropriately orient the collective moral deliberations of groups of people, such as a city council considering its policing policies or a family deciding how to handle their mother’s dementia.

Notes 1 Joel Feinberg’s oft-quoted, but notably tentatively phrased speculation ‘what is called "human dignity" may simply be the recognizable capacity to assert claims’ (Feinberg 1970, 252) may serve as an example. 2 This is not to say the notion is without its detractors. For examples of socalled ‘dignity skepticism’, varying somewhat in degree, see e.g., Macklin (2003), Pinker (2008), Rosen (2012), Birnbacher (2013), Beitz (2013), Rosen (2014), Sangiovanni (2017). 3 For analyses of the way dignity features in law, see e.g., Tiedemann (2012), McCrudden (2008) or Becchi & Mathis (2019). For interdisciplinary overviews see Düwell et al. (2014) or McCrudden (2014). For a historical overview, see e.g., Debes (2017). For short introductions see e.g., Rosen (2012), Schaber (2012) or von der Pfordten (2016). For works dealing exclusively with dignity in Kant see e.g. Sensen (2011) or Kato & Schönrich (2020). 4 References to Kant’s work refer to the standard Akademie Ausgabe; see p. xv for a list of the abbreviations used. Literal citations are taken from the Cambridge translations (Kant 1996). 5 We confine our discussion here to the three formulas explicitly endorsed by Kant. Following Paton (1947/1971, p.129), many commentators recognize

22  Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton five formulations of the Categorical Imperative, however: the three mentioned, the Formula of the Law of Nature (FLN: ‘Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature’ (G 4:421) and the Formula of Autonomy (FA: ‘So act that your will can regard itself at the same time as making universal law through its maxim’ (G 4:434)). 6 For instance, in answer to these questions, Kant defines a kingdom (in this context) as ‘a systematic union of various rational beings through common laws” (G 4:433), but that raises at least as many follow-up questions as it answers. See, for example, Hill (1972). 7 Kant himself famously claims that all three formulas are “at bottom only so many formulae of the very same law, and any one of them of itself unites the other two in it” (G 4:436), but that claim seems to have done little to settle the question of how exactly the three formulas relate to one another. 8 In the later Metaphysics of Morals, Kant defines a state as “a union of a multitude of human beings under laws of right” (6:313). 9 Though see Waldron (Chapter 6 of this volume) for a dissenting view. 10 It should be noted, though, that, depending on one’s interpretation of the qualification “who obeys no law other than that which he himself at the same time gives”, there is room for debate whether Kant here truly ascribes dignity to every human being, or only to those who act morally. 11 For a defense of the position that a Kantian notion of dignity can ground human rights, see e.g. Van der Rijt (2017). 12 The eighth instance (G 4:442) again concerns Kant attributing dignity to morality itself.

Works Cited Becchi, P. & K. Mathis (eds.) (2019) Handbook of Human Dignity in Europe. Cham: Springer. Beitz, C. (2013). Human dignity in the theory of human rights: Nothing but a phrase? Philosophy & Public Affairs, 41, 259–90. Beyleveld, D. & R. Brownsword. 2002. Human Dignity in Bioethics and Biolaw. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Birnbacher, D. (2013) ‘Menschenwürde-Skepsis’ in: J. Joerden, E. Hilgendorf & F. Thiele (eds.) Menschenwürde und Medizin. Ein interdiszipläres Handbuch. Duncker & Humblot. pp. 159–75. Carter, I. (2011) ‘Respect and the Basis of Equality’ Ethics, Vol.121, No.3, pp. 538–71. Cureton, A. (2013). “From self-respect to respect for others.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 93 (4):166–87. Cureton, A. (2016). “Offensive beneficence.” Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2 (1):74–90. Cureton, A., and A. Silvers. (2018). “Respecting the Dignity of Children with Disabilities in Clinical Practice.” HEC Forum 29 (3):257–76. Cureton, A. (2020). “The limiting Role of respect.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability, edited by A. Cureton and D. Wasserman, 380–398. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cureton, A. (2021). “Treating disabled adults as children: An Application of Kant’s conception of respect.” In Respect, edited by R. Dean and O. Sensen. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends  23 Darwall, S. 2006. The Second-Person Standpoint. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dean, R. 2006. The Value of Humanity in Kant’s Moral Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Debes, R. (ed.) (2017) Dignity: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Donagan, A. (1977) The Theory of Morality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Düwell, M., J. Braarvig, R. Brownsword, & D. Mieth (eds.) (2014) The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Feinberg, J. (1970). ‘The nature and value of rights’. Journal of Value Inquiry 4: 243–57. Flikschuh, K. (2009) ‘Kant’s kingdom of ends: Metaphysical, not political’ In: J. Timmermann (ed.), Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A Critical Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 119–39. Formosa, P. (2017). Kantian Ethics, Dignity and Perfection. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fukuyama, F. (2018). Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Fuller, R. (2006). Somebodies, Nobodies and the Politics of Dignity. San Francisco: Berret-Koehler Publishers. Gewirth, A. (1984) ‘The epistemology of human rights’ Social Philosophy & Policy 1, pp. 1–24. Gewirth, A. (1992) ‘Human dignity as the basis of rights’ in: Meyer, M. & W. Parent (eds.) The Constitution of Rights: Human Dignity and American Values. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 10–28. Gilabert, P. (2019) Human Dignity and Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Griffin, J. (2008). On Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Habermas, J. (2010). “The concept of human dignity and the realistic utopia of human rights.” Metaphilosophy 41 (4):464–80. Hill, T. E., Jr. (1972). “The Kingdom of Ends.” In Proceedings of the Third International Kant Congress: Held at the University of Rochester, March 30– April 4, 1970, edited by L. Beck, 307–15. Dordrecht: Springer. Hill, T. E., Jr. (1991) Autonomy and Self-Respect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hill, T. E., Jr. (1992) Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant’s Moral Theory. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hill, T. E., Jr. (2000) Respect, Pluralism, and Justice: Kantian Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill, T. E., Jr. (2002) Human Welfare and Moral Worth: Kantian Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill, T. E., Jr. (2012) Virtue, Rules and Justice. Kantian Aspirations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill, T. E., Jr. (2014) ‘In defence of human dignity: Comments on Kant and Rosen’ in: McCrudden (ed.). Understanding Human Dignity. Oxford University Press. pp. 313–26. Honneth, A. (2004) ‘Recognition and justice: Outline of a plural theory of justice.’ Acta Sociologica 47 (4), pp. 351–64.

24  Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton Joerden, J., E. Hilgendorf & F. Thiele (eds.) (2013) Menschenwürde und Medizin. Ein interdiszipläres Handbuch. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Kant, I. (1996) Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kato, Y. & G. Schönrich (eds.) (2020) Kant’s Concept of Dignity. Berlin: De Gruyter. Kaufmann, P., H. Kuch, C. Neuhäuser, and E. Webster (eds.) (2010). Humiliation, Degradation, Dehumanization: Human Dignity Violated. Dordrecht: Springer. Kerstein, S. (2002). Kant’s Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kerstein, S. (2013) How to Treat Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Killmister, S. (2020). Contours of Dignity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Korsgaard, C. (1996). Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kretzmer, D. & E. Klein. (2002). The Concept of Human Dignity in Human Rights Discourse. Brill | Nijhoff. Luban, D. (2014). Torture, Power, and Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Macklin, Ruth. (2003). “Dignity is a useless concept.” British Medical Journal 327 (7429):1419–20. Margalit, Avishai. (1996). The Decent Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. McCrudden, C. (2008) ‘Human dignity and judicial interpretation of human rights’ The European Journal of International Law 19 (4): 655–724. McCrudden, C. (ed.) (2014) Understanding Human Dignity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Neuhäuser, C., and R. Stoecker. (2014) “Human dignity as universal nobility.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by M. Düwell, J. Braarvig, R. Brownsword and D. Mieth. Cambridge, MA. Nussbaum, M. (2006). Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Nussbaum, M. (2009) ‘Human dignity and political entitlements’ in: E. Pellegrino, A. Schulman & T. Merill (eds.) Human Dignity and Bioethics. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 351–80. Paton, H. (1947/1971). The Categorical Imperative: A Study in Kant’s Moral Philosophy. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pellegrino, E., A. Schulman & T. Merill (eds.) (2009) Human Dignity and Bioethics. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Pinker, S. (2008). “The stupidity of dignity: Conservative bioethics’ latest, most dangerous ploy.” The New Republic 238:28–31. Rawls, J. (1999). A Theory of Justice. Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Rosen, M. (2012). Dignity: Its History and Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rosen, M. (2014) ‘Dignity: The Case Against’ in McCrudden (ed.). Understanding Human Dignity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 143–54. Sangiovanni, A. (2017). Humanity without Dignity: Moral Equality, Respect, and Human Rights. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends  25 Scanlon, T. (1998). What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Schaber, P. (2010) Instrumentalisierung und Würde. Mentis. Schaber, P. (2012) Menschenwürde. Reclam. Sensen, O. (2011). Kant on Human Dignity. Berlin: De Gruyter. Stoecker, R. (2003) ‘Menschenwürde und das Paradox der Entwürdigung’ in R. Stoecker (ed.) Menschenwürde: Annäherung an einen Begriff. Vienna: öbv&hpt. pp. 133–52. Sussman, D. (2005). “What’s wrong with torture?” Philosophy and Public Affairs 33:1–33. Tasioulas, J. (2013). “Human dignity and the foundations of human rights.” In Understanding Human Dignity, edited by Christopher McCrudden, 293–314. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tiedemann, P. (2012) Menschenwürde als Rechtsbegriff. Eine Philosophische Klärung. 3rd Edition. Berlin: BWV. Van der Rijt, J. (2009) ‘Republican dignity: The importance of taking offence.’ Law and Philosophy 28, No. 5, pp. 465–92. Van der Rijt, J. (2012). The Importance of Assent: A Theory of Coercion and Dignity. Dordrecht: Springer. Van der Rijt, J. (2017). “Inherent dignity, contingent dignity and human rights: Solving the puzzle of the protection of dignity.” Erkenntnis 82 (6):1321–38. von der Pfordten, D. (2009) “On the dignity of man in Kant” Philosophy 84, pp. 371–91. von der Pfordten, D. (2016) Menschenwürde. Munich: Verlag C.H. Beck. Waldron, J. (1999) The Dignity of Legislation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Waldron, J. (2007). “Dignity and rank.” Archives Européennes de Sociologie 48. Waldron, J. (2012). Dignity, Rank, and Rights. New York: Oxford University Press. Wood, A. (1999). Kant’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood, A. (2008). Kantian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zagzebski, Linda. (2016). “The dignity of persons and the value of uniqueness.” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 90, pp. 55–70.

Part I

Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends in Kant’s Groundwork

1 The Dignity of Freedom Paul Guyer

1.1 Introduction Great claims have often been made for Kant’s concept of dignity. Actually, in his main published works in moral philosophy he uses the word we translate as “dignity” (Würde) sparingly – a few more than a dozen times in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, twice in the Critique of Practical Reason, and once in the Doctrine of Virtue of the Metaphysics of Morals – and never to say anything that he could not and does not say without it. In the most complete lectures in moral philosophy, Collins and the other transcriptions associated with it and Vigiliantius, he does not appear to have used the term at all.1 Of course, the student transcribers might have missed Kant’s usage of the term, which does occur in some of the Reflexionen or notes that Kant himself used for his lectures. But the note-takers would probably not have missed the term altogether if Kant had used it frequently. Be that as it may, my claim is that Kant’s occasional talk of dignity is just one, rhetorical expression among others of the unconditional binding force of the moral law. Nevertheless, examination of both the published passages in which Kant does use it and some of the notes, primarily from the 1770s, where it also appears can shed some light on what is the key concept in Kant’s moral philosophy, namely humanity as the freedom of human beings to set their own ends. This essay will explore the connection between Kant’s concepts of dignity and humanity, and will attempt to resolve a tension in Kant’s account of the latter, namely whether dignity attaches to the general capacity of human beings to set their own ends and the capacity for morality that this (somehow) implies, or only to the use of this capacity actually to set ends that are themselves already approved of by morality. My view is that the latter interpretation risks circularity and is best avoided.

1.2 Dignity Dignity is not a property of any person in its own right, like height or weight, but a rank or standing accorded to a person in virtue of something DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-3

30  Paul Guyer else that is more like a property. In traditional usages of dignitas in Latin, Würde in German, or “dignity” in English, the term signifies elevated standing ascribed to an individual in virtue of an office or, in the words of the lexicographers the brothers Grimm, “social rank” – holders of offices in government or church enjoy a dignity that others do not in virtue of their office. A derivative sense connotes a manner of conduct expected of the holder of such an office. The Oxford Latin Dictionary gives the following senses for dignitas, though not in this order: rank, status, or a position conferring rank, etc.; fitness for a task, i.e., fitness for a position conferring rank; the quality of being worthy, excellence, or impressiveness, i.e., that of someone’s conducting themselves as expected for the high rank or office they hold; and a condition in which one enjoys one’s own and others’ esteem, presumably for the rank one holds and for one’s conducting oneself in accordance with that rank.2 The idea seems to be that dignity requires as one necessary condition holding a certain position or office, then as an additional necessary condition acting in the manner expected of one holding such a condition, which in turn entitles one to esteem in the eyes of others and oneself. The Oxford English Dictionary begins its definition with “the quality of being worthy or honorable, worthiness, worth, nobleness, excellence,” but then suggests that such a quality is linked to “Honorable or high estate, position, or estimation,” or an “honorable office, rank, or title,” and finally states that the term also connotes “Nobility or befitting elevation of aspect, manner, or style; becoming or fit stateliness, gravity”;3 again, the idea is that dignity accrues to one who holds a certain, high rank and who conducts him- or herself as befits that rank, i.e. as should be expected of persons holding such a rank (although, of course, dignitaries do not always act with the dignity required by their office). Finally, the Deutsches Wörterbuch of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm derives modern Würde from older forms (Old High German Wirdî, Middle High German wirde) meaning rank, status, office, and thus defines it most generally to mean “social rank or station [Stand] and the status [Geltung] or honor” resulting therefrom, to which already attaches even in Old High German “desert” (Verdienst), i.e., respect for acting in accordance with such a rank or station, thus “in application to persons … conduct and norm of inner being and acting and their sensible expression in appearance and conduct.”4 Again, the term connotes holding high office, acting in accordance with it, and being recognized as doing so. In all of these ideas of dignity, the common idea is that a person is due respect as holding a certain office or rank, that the person should act in accordance with the expectations for conduct and deportment in that office, and that others should accord them that respect for satisfaction of both conditions. Or, officeholders should treat their offices and themselves with due respect, and others should accord them that respect – but surely the first requirement also means that officeholders should treat those over whom they have rank but also for whom

The Dignity of Freedom  31 they are responsible appropriately according to the standards of their office, whatever that might involve. There is no suggestion in these definitions that everyone has dignity and should be accorded dignity; on the contrary, rank or station implies difference in status, so on this traditional meaning some people have dignity that others do not. Obviously this is a fundamental difference from Kant’s conception of dignity. Kant’s view is that there is such a thing as the “dignity of humanity” or dignity in humanity as such;5 everyone has humanity, it would seem; so everyone has dignity or is due respect.6 The kind of dignity that Kant has in mind does not attach to particular offices or ranks that only some people enjoy while others, indeed the majority of others, do not, precisely because that kind of dignity consists in some people outranking others. The essence of Kantian morality is that no one outranks anyone else. Nevertheless, some features of the traditional conception of dignity are useful for thinking about Kant’s special conception. First, dignity in the traditional sense is not anything like an intrinsic property of persons, but at best a second-order property that attaches to them in virtue of something else, namely a special rank or status that they hold – itself, to be sure, also not an intrinsic property in the same way as, perhaps, a person’s genome might be.7 For Kant, dignity attaches to persons, all persons, in virtue of their humanity, in the form of the “dignity of humanity,” but since humanity turns out to be freedom, dignity attaches to persons in virtue of their freedom.8 The freedom of human beings is the fact from which morality begins and derives; the dignity of humanity is just an expression of that foundational fact. Second, Kant’s conception of dignity reproduces the twofold character of traditional dignity, although in Kant’s case this might seem to be a source of tension: sometimes he says that dignity lies in or attaches to freedom as the capacity for morality, which all persons have, but sometimes he suggests that it attaches to a particular person in virtue of her morally correct use or exercise of that capacity, that is, in virtue of her being moral. In contemporary terms, sometimes Kant seems to treat dignity as a status inherent in all human beings, sometimes as a status contingent upon morally good behavior. This tension needs to be resolved. In the next section, I clarify the link between dignity and freedom in Kant. In the following section, I examine the apparent tension between Kant’s suggestions that dignity attaches to the freedom of human beings as such and that it attaches only to the morally correct exercise of that freedom, the achievement rather than merely the necessary condition of morality. The final section proposes a way around this difficulty, at least at the level of actual moral practice. The key idea is that the moral obligations of each of us arise from our own freedom and that of others, thus if you like from our own inherent dignity and that of others, but do not depend upon the moral achievements of those to whom our obligations are owed, or their contingent dignity.

32  Paul Guyer

1.3 Freedom Let us begin with the relevant texts. As there are not many more than a dozen references to dignity in Kant’s published works in moral philosophy, so there are only around a half-dozen such references in Kant’s notes (Reflexionen).9 The first of these is R 1179, found among the notes for Kant’s lectures on anthropology, the text for which was the chapter on empirical psychology in Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s Metaphysica,10 and as such focusing on the definition of character and referring to dignity only as part of that definition. The phrase “dignity of humanity” has already been quoted from this note, but here is more of it: What is essential in a good character is the worth [Werth] that one places in himself (in humanity), with regard to actions related to himself as well as in relation to others. For character signifies that the person has derived the rule of actions from himself and from the dignity of humanity. Self-selected and firm resolves demonstrate a character, although only if they are similar to one another. He who binds himself to arbitrary rules makes an artificial character; for those are not maxims.11 This note, dated from 1772 to 1775, contains several clues about Kant’s nascent moral philosophy. It suggests that the moral law (“rule”) must originate within the self, but not arbitrarily, so not in mere personal preference. It introduces the term “maxim,” but, contrary to some of Kant’s later suggestions that a maxim is whatever rule a person happens to act on, “subjectively,”12 it contrasts genuine maxims with arbitrary rules. It suggests that morality concerns how one regards and acts toward oneself as well as how one regards and acts toward others; morality is not just a matter of “what we owe to each other.”13 And it suggests that the “rule of action” for the agent with a good, that is moral, character is to be derived from what is in herself, namely the “dignity of humanity.” But it does not explain what humanity consists in, and since dignity is, as I am assuming, not an intrinsic property but is dependent on humanity, the status that humanity itself should have, this note does not yet tell us very much about dignity itself. Another note from the same period, although this time found among notes in a section of his copy of Baumgarten’s Metaphysica that Kant discussed in his metaphysics rather than anthropology lectures, connects morality to humanity, but without using the word for dignity at all: “Morality is the correspondence of the free power of choice with the end of humanity and of human beings in general, namely with necessary conditions of the universal ends of humanity and of human beings.”14 The reference to free choice (freyen Willkühr) is crucial, for it implies that only beings who have such choice are moral agents, or subject to moral demands and assessment; but it still does not tell us what humanity is, or what relation there might

The Dignity of Freedom  33 be between free choice and humanity. This note could also suggest that the “end of humanity” or “universal ends of humanity” is somehow to be defined independently of the free power of choice, as an external constraint on the use of freedom, which would thus be a necessary condition for moral imputability (as it always is for Kant)15 but not sufficient to constitute the normative content of morality. That is yet to come. Several other passages offer what we might call a nominal definition of dignity, which we also find in the most prominent invocation of dignity in Kant’s published work, namely that dignity is a kind of value on which no price can be placed, and which therefore cannot be traded against other values on which prices can be placed. Thus, in another note from the early reflections on anthropology, although here he is explicitly talking about good will rather than dignity, Kant says that The good that can be imputed to someone, i.e., that stems from his good will, is his merit; that which can certainly be ascribed to him, but which is not from his good will, is his talent. The latter determines outer worth (in the market of Algiers), the latter determines his inner worth before conscience. The former: what he is good for; the latter, how good he is.16 The market of Algiers was, of course, a slave-market, where human beings were bought and sold at prices reflecting the services that could be expected from them; the value of good will has nothing to do with that. That the good stemming from a good will is something that can be imputed to a person implies that such a will must be a free will. The connection with dignity may not be clear, but other passages say the same thing about dignity, namely that it is a value beyond ordinary price. Thus, in a note that could only be ascribed generally to the years from 1776 to 1789, and entered into Baumgarten’s section on utilitas, to which Kant is obviously making a pointed contrast, he writes that utilitas is “A value for which something else can be given as an equivalent.” By contrast, “Virtue has no price. Dignity is the inner value, which therefore has no price.”17 The same thought is expressed in the main discussion of dignity in the Groundwork: In the empire of ends everything has either a price or a dignity. What has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; what on the other hand is raised above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity.18 These statements tell us something about dignity, or whatever has dignity or should be accorded dignity, namely that it is incommensurable with other sorts of values and cannot be traded off against them. But it does not tell us what dignity consists in or what grounds it.

34  Paul Guyer However, several notes directly link dignity with freedom, not merely as a necessary condition for having dignity but as what grounds it, or as the first-order property on which it supervenes. Reflection 5444 (1776–8) does not use the word, but states Kant’s underlying premise that freedom itself is the fundamental value grounding all morality: “Nothing is absolutely good (unconditioned in every respect) except the existence of freely acting beings.”19 Kant’s formula “absolutely good (unconditioned in every respect),” is, of course, reminiscent of his opening statement about the good will in the Groundwork, but what he here states to be of absolute value is what he now says grounds dignity. Thus one note that might still be from the 1770s says that The dignity of human nature lies solely in freedom, through it we alone can become worthy of any good. But the dignity of a human being (worthiness) rests on the use of freedom, whereby he makes himself worthy of everything good.20 And two notes assigned to the 1780s also assert the connection between dignity and freedom: Freedom has dignity on account of its independence; it also has a high price, for through it we are able to become authors of the good in accordance with our own concepts, which we can extend and multiply far beyond the natural instincts of animals;21 and The dignity of humanity in one’s own person is personality itself, that is, freedom; for one is only an end insofar as one is a being that can set ends oneself. The irrational, who cannot do that, have worth only as means.22 The last of these notes is particularly important, because here, instead of connecting dignity to freedom, Kant connects it to humanity, as in his earlier phrase the “dignity of humanity” – but now he finally defines humanity, and defines it in the same terms that he subsequently does in the Metaphysics of Morals, namely as the freedom to set one’s own ends. For in the Introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue in that final system of moral philosophy, Kant twice defines humanity in this way. First, he says that “A human being has a duty to raise himself from the crude state of his nature, from his animality, more and more toward humanity, by which alone he is capable of setting himself ends”;23 then he says that “The capacity to set oneself an end – any end whatsoever – is what characterizes humanity (as distinguished from animality.”24 These definitions come from Kant’s discussion of the imperfect duty of self-perfection

The Dignity of Freedom  35 as one of the two ends that are also duties in the Introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue. But later, in the discussion of what is in fact the perfect duty to self to avoid servility, Kant says that a human being regarded as a person, that is, as the subject of a morally practical reason, is exalted above any price; for as a person (homo noumenon) he is not to be valued merely as a means to the ends of others, but as an end in itself, that is, he possesses a dignity (an absolute inner worth) by which he exacts respect for himself and from all other rational beings in the world.25 This passage says that what makes a human being the proper subject of morality and puts her beyond all price, thus gives her dignity, is her personality. This makes her, that is, requires all of us to respect her and treat her as, an end in itself; but what is it to value someone as an end in herself? It is not to treat her as merely as a means to the ends of others – in other words, it is to let her set her own ends. To be an end in oneself, which is the ground of having dignity, or being treated with dignity or respect, is to have the capacity to set one’s own ends. These definitions, together with the statements in Kant’s notes, lead to the conclusion that human dignity, as grounded in humanity, is grounded in the ability of human beings, as far as we know uniquely ours among all animals or at least what distinguishes our humanity from mere animality, to set our own ends, whatsoever ends we set. The capacity to set our own ends, not the particular ends that we set, is what entitles and requires all of us to treat ourselves and each other with dignity, thus with a respect for our own ability to set ends which will have to be reconciled with the ability of all other human beings to set their own ends. Treating ourselves and all others in this way is the fundamental requirement of morality and can be expressed as the requirement to treat all as having dignity, which is really the same as treating oneself and all others with dignity. My underlying assumption is that the fundamental principle of morality arises solely from humanity as the freedom to set one’s own ends – as long as that is understood as the freedom of all to set their own ends, which requires that each permissible use of freedom be compatible with all others. This constraint is in some way set by pure reason as such, not by any antecedent principle of morality or special conception of practical reason.26 It is in this sense that Kant’s principle of morality requires no foundation other than freedom itself. However, some of Kant’s notes, as well as some of his published remarks about dignity, might seem to complicate this straightforward attribution of dignity and the foundation of morality to the freedom of human beings to set their own ends as such, suggesting instead that only setting one’s ends in one particular way, namely the way comprehending what is allowed as permissible and demanded as mandatory by morality, grounds

36  Paul Guyer dignity. I did not quote the whole of R 5444, the note from 1776–78 that began with the blanket statement that “nothing is absolutely good … except the existence of freely acting beings.” That statement did not seem to place any direct constraint on what sort of ends free beings might set for themselves in the exercise of their freedom, which would thus appear to be of unconditional worth no matter how it is used. But Kant continues this note thus: “and in these, not understanding, happiness, etc., but the disposition to make good use of everything that is mediately good. Thus the practical disposition of good aims [Absichten, also translatable as “intentions”]. This is therefore the goodness of the will.”27 This could suggest that humanity as the ability to set one’s own ends is only a necessary condition of the unconditional worth that constitutes dignity or demands treatment with dignity, namely the necessary condition of imputability or responsibility at all, but that worth and therefore dignity is fully realized only when morally good ends or aims are realized. Kant would then be saying that there is no unconditional worth in using one’s freedom just to pursue theoretical ends (ends of the understanding), for example, or merely prudential ends (happiness), but that unconditional worth lies only in using one’s freedom to pursue morally permissible or mandatory ends. This would make freedom as simply the freedom of each to set his or her own ends a necessary but not a sufficient condition of dignity.28 Such a conclusion would have the unfortunate result of leaving us having to look beyond the freedom to set one’s own ends itself, to look to some further moral principle, for that which is of absolute value and the proper object of dignity, in spite of Kant’s other suggestions early and late (as in the Metaphysics of Morals) that freedom as such is what constitutes our value and dignity – the thesis that Kant also states in his lectures on ethics with the statement that freedom is the “inner worth of the world.”29 But another one of Kant’s notes suggests one way around this problem. This is Reflection 7248, already quoted, but which I quote again with added emphasis: “Freedom has dignity on account of its independence; it also has a high price, for through it we are able to become authors of the good in accordance with our own concepts …”30 Given Kant’s contrast in both his notes and the Groundwork between the market price that can be set on the realization of ordinary, particular ends, and dignity as value beyond all price, this remark, read the way I have suggested, could be taken to say that freedom as such is what is beyond all price, and thus has dignity, while a market price, including a high one, can be set on the realization of any particular end that a person might set for herself. Good ends might merit a high price, even a very high price, but independence as such, and only that, would be beyond all price, and would thus have dignity. Kant’s moral theory would thus not need a source of absolute value other than freedom itself. Whether or not that is a satisfactory resolution of one problem, a slightly different tension may present itself in Kant’s published remarks on dignity, so let us turn to those now. But first, a brief remark on the

The Dignity of Freedom  37 first invocation of the concept of dignity in the Groundwork. This comes at the conclusion of Section I, where Kant says that “a propensity to rationalize against those strict laws of duty and to cast doubt upon their validity, or at least upon their purity and strictness, and, where possible, to make them better suited to our wishes and inclinations,” is “to corrupt them at their basis and to destroy all their dignity.”31 This is just a way of saying that the moral law and more particular laws are unconditionally binding, not to be modified to make them better suited to other interests, thus not to be traded off against the latter as if they all had a market price. So here Kant applies his concept of dignity to the moral law rather than to agents. In so doing he is using his definition of dignity as beyond all price, but not telling us anything new about the ground of the moral law or its dignity. The same is true of one of Kant’s two references to dignity in the Critique of Practical Reason, where he speaks of the “dignity of a supreme practical principle”; this is only another way of expressing the “purity and sublimity of the moral law,” that it is beyond any price that could be set by an “empirical interest.”32 It does not tell us anything about what grounds the moral law and places it beyond all price.

1.4 Capacity or Realization? Rather, the issue I am now interested in arises at the next passage in the Groundwork where Kant talks of dignity, in the comments following his statements of the formulae of the categorical imperative. Here he makes two statements that seem at odds: on the one hand, he says that “morality, and humanity insofar as it is capable of morality, is that which alone has dignity”; on the other hand, he says that Reason … refers every maxim of the will as giving universal law to every other will and also to every action toward oneself, and does so not for the sake of any other practical motive or future advantage but from the idea of the dignity of a rational being, who obeys no other law than that which he himself at the same time gives.33 The issue here is that the first passage seems to attach dignity to the capacity to give the moral law (which might already seem a more demanding condition than simply the capacity to set oneself ends); the second seems to attach it to actually obeying or acting in accordance with the moral law.34 These are clearly different: on Kant’s view, at least, every mature human being, thus perhaps everyone past early childhood and before senility, has the capacity to give herself the moral law, that is, to test proposed maxims of action by the test of universalizability even if not to formulate the test in those terms,35 and Kant also believes that everyone is free or able to act in accordance with the moral law;36 but he certainly does not believe that everyone always obeys the moral law, certainly not that everyone always

38  Paul Guyer acts from the moral law as opposed merely to prudently acting in outward conformity to it,37 indeed for all we know, he thinks, maybe no one ever does more than the latter. Similarly, several pages later Kant says that we represent “a certain sublimity and dignity in the person who fulfills all his duties,” but a few lines later that “the condition of a possible giving of universal law through its maxims – this will possible for us in idea – is the proper object of respect; and the dignity of humanity consists just in this capacity to give universal law.”38 Again, there is a difference between saying that our dignity rests on our capacity to give the moral law and that it depends on our actually fulfilling all our duties, that is, acting in accordance with the moral law which, let us stipulate, we do give to ourselves. Another way of putting the point would be to say that Kant believes every human being possesses autonomy of the Wille, that is, can and does give herself and could act in accordance with the one and only autonomous principle of morality rather than any heteronomous principle of action, but that not everyone, and maybe no one ever fully, achieves autonomy of the Willkür, their actual choice of maxims.39 So which is it that gives us our dignity, the capacity to give ourselves the moral law and the capacity to act in accordance with it, or actually acting in accordance with it? Kant’s second reference to dignity in the Critique of Practical Reason, finally, suggests the former: [T]he pure moral motive … which – not only because it is the only one that can ground a character (a consistent case of mind in accordance with unchangeable maxims) but also because it teaches the human being to feel his own dignity – gives his mind power, unexpected even by himself, to tear himself away from all sensible attachments so far as they want to rule over him and to find a rich compensation for the sacrifices he makes in the independence of his rational nature and the greatness of soul to which he sees that he is called.40 Here dignity is attached to our ability to give ourselves the moral law and the motive that law or its self-legislation offers us to tear away ourselves from all other sensible attachments or incentives. But to have a motive to reject merely sensible incentives if and when the moral law calls for that, although a necessary condition of actually rejecting such incentives, is not the same as actually rejecting them and thereby acting in accordance with the moral law. Yet the other passages from the Groundwork remain, in which Kant suggests that actually fulfilling our duty is a condition of properly enjoying dignity, so that giving ourselves the moral law and a motive to comply with it would be at most a necessary but not a sufficient condition for enjoying dignity and meriting respect from others. On the latter account, every human being would be capable of enjoying dignity, but not every human being would actually be entitled to enjoy or be treated with dignity.

The Dignity of Freedom  39 To put it in other terms, which is it that gives us our dignity: our legislative capacity, our ability to give ourselves the moral law, our legislative capacity combined with executive capacity to act on our own legislation, or our executive success in actually acting in accordance with it? Since a legal system works only if it fulfills both its legislative and its executive function, this way of putting the question leads to one thought: surely our ability to give ourselves the moral law, as a legislative exercise of our own freedom, and our ability to act in accordance with our own moral legislation, are necessary conditions of our dignity; if we were simply subject to a law or laws given to us by another authority, then, on a traditional understanding of dignity, we would not be able to claim any dignity in being subject to the law; the dignity would accrue only to the one who outranks us and is thereby entitled to give the law to us, for example, God. Nor would it seem plausible to claim dignity if we were incapable of acting in accordance with such legislation. But these conditions leave open the question of whether being a free agent that can give itself the moral law is enough to ensure one’s dignity, or must one also act in accordance with this self-given law in order to satisfy the sufficient conditions for enjoying dignity?41 The passages that we have considered from the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason may have allowed us to make one advance over the position suggested by some of Kant’s early notes and his eventual definition of humanity in the Doctrine of Virtue, the position, that is, that dignity attaches to us just in virtue of our ability to set our own ends. The published works have suggested to us that our dignity attaches at least to two abilities: the ability of each of us to set his or her own ends, and the ability of each of us to give ourselves the moral law, at least tacitly, in the form of subjecting our proposed maxims to the test of universalizability, and thereby to give ourselves a motive for obeying the moral law, thus making it at least possible for us to obey this law. Let us grant that the capacity to give oneself the moral law goes hand in hand with the capacity to set oneself any end whatsoever, since setting an end is not the same as merely having an inclination, but involves using reason to consider whether to elevate an inclination into an end, and reason forces us at least to consider the moral law. The details of this connection are not my concern here.42 But even satisfying both of these conditions is not the same as actually complying with the moral law or fulfilling all, or any particular percentage, of our duties. So the question remains, do we enjoy dignity, or are we entitled to be treated with dignity, just because we satisfy the former conditions, or must we also actually fulfill all our duties in order to be so entitled? And this is a serious question, because it is all too obvious that some people, or all people some of the time, or maybe even all people all of the time, do not really fulfill their moral obligations. Does this mean that they do not enjoy dignity, and are not entitled to be treated with dignity? Or that they are entitled to be treated with dignity only to the degree with which they comply with the demands of morality?

40  Paul Guyer This question cannot be settled simply by quoting some explicit statement or other by Kant, since, as we have seen, he makes statements on both sides of the issue. We need to find a sound argument from his premises rather than obiter dicta in order to settle it. However, I would suggest a work-around: we do not really have to settle this question at all, because it is clear that Kant thinks that each of has, in virtue of our own reason, the unconditional obligation to act only on universalizable maxims, and/or to treat the humanity in every person, oneself and all others, as an end and never merely as a means, and/or to act so that “all maxims from one’s own lawgiving harmonize into a possible empire of ends, as an empire of nature,”43 an empire of ends being “a whole of all ends in systematic connection (a whole both of rational beings as ends in themselves and of the ends of his own that each may set himself).”44 This is a condition in which all persons are treated as ends, not merely as means, and in which the particular ends of each are promoted and realized but only insofar as that is consistent with the first requirement. The crucial point is that each of us has the obligation to act in accordance with the imperative expressed by any of these formulations or by the system of them45 regardless of whether others are fulfilling their obligation or not;46 the very existence, even the possible existence of others, as beings capable of setting their own ends and, if you like, of legislating the moral law, imposes this obligation on us whether or not they are fulfilling their own obligation. So the question whether anyone possesses dignity only if they are actually fulfilling their duties does not even have to be reached, because we have the obligation to universalize our maxims, to treat ourselves and all others as ends, and to harmonize our own maxims with a possible empire of ends regardless of what anyone is actually doing. To put the point in a way that goes back to our original discussion of the traditional meaning of the terms for dignity, each of us has our own obligation to act with dignity, to act in a dignified manner, which for Kant means to act as required by the moral law, regardless of what anyone else is doing and might merit by their actions. Basically, that is none of our business; our obligations remains the same. Of course, we do not ignore how others are actually behaving, that is, how they are actually using their own freedom of choice and action, in all contexts. Notoriously, we threaten people with sanctions for some violations of moral law – that subset of violations which fall into the sphere of Recht, or juridically enforceable law – and exercise these sanctions on them, or punish them, if they do actually violate the relevant law. And, of course, we can express our disapproval of others (or ourselves) in various ways for actions that violate morality even if they do not violate the penal code. How do we reconcile that with our unconditional obligation to act with dignity toward them? Let us now turn to this so-to-speak practical question.

The Dignity of Freedom  41

1.5 Acting with Dignity The solution to the tension in Kant’s formulations of the basis of dignity, then, is to focus on the dignity of the moral subject rather than the moral object, the agent rather than the patient, that is, the realization that it is incumbent on each of us to act with dignity toward others whether or not the others are themselves fulfilling all of their own duties. What does this entail in practice? What obligations do we have toward others solely in virtue of their freedom to set their own ends, regardless of what ends they actually set for themselves, thus whether those are in compliance with the demands that duty makes on them? I consider this question in two contexts: the imperfect duty to promote the happiness of others by helping them realize their particular ends; and the use of coercion or punishment to enforce some demands of duty, those that fall into the realm of Recht.47 First, Kant’s version of the traditional distinction between perfect and imperfect duties must be kept in mind. For writers in the natural law tradition from Grotius to Achenwall, this was the distinction between obligations toward others that include the right of those others to enforce fulfillment against those who have the obligation, and obligations that do not give others that right.48 Kant’s distinction is rather a necessary condition for making the traditional distinction, namely a distinction between specific duties, typically of omission, that we have toward others, and indeterminate and open-ended obligations, typically duties of commission, that we have toward others in general. This is the distinction between the proscription of specific kinds of actions and the prescription of “only the maxims of actions, not actions themselves,” which “leaves a playroom (latitudo) for free choice in following (complying with) the law.”49 For example, the duty not to defraud is a perfect duty, which any agent can satisfy toward anyone and everyone simply by not defrauding anyone, and which gives any specific person defrauded or threatened with fraud a claim against the specific person making that threat or committing that fraud; but the duty to be beneficent or charitable, although it places a burden on everyone to be charitable in some way and to some extent, ordinarily does not give one person a specific claim against another specific person to provide what the first might need, since there are an indefinite number of people who may need charity and an indefinite number of ways in which someone may be charitable, so the choice how and to whom to be charitable must be left up to the agent committed to the maxim of beneficence, not to the hopeful recipient of charity. To be sure, the line between perfect and imperfect duty may not always be as sharp as this suggests: duties of omission may also be expressed as duties of commission, thus the duty of omission not to fail to pay your debt, is convertible with the duty of commission to repay your debt, so the distinction between omission and commission may not be the best way to distinguish between perfect and imperfect duties; much more importantly,

42  Paul Guyer there may be particular circumstances, such as saving a drowning child when you are the only one around who could do it, in which there really can be no choice about to whom and how the general duty to be charitable must be realized. But let’s leave such details aside. The general point is that our perfect duties to others (of course, Kant also recognizes perfect as well as imperfect duties to oneself) are duties to all others, regardless of their own virtue or vice, while imperfect duties to other are addressed to others in general but can only ever be satisfied with regard to some particular others. Certainly in the case of the duty to be charitable, Kant’s only example of imperfect duty to others in the Groundwork and the central case of such duty in the Metaphysics of Morals,50 since one person cannot possibly be charitable to everyone who might need charity in every way in which they might need it, even the agent fully committed to the maxim of beneficence must pick and choose to whom and how to be charitable. That being so, there is no reason why approbation of the particular ends of others and approbation of their moral character in general cannot be at least one basis for deciding how best to satisfy one’s own imperfect duties. Kant makes at least the first part of this clear in his introductory discussion of the happiness of others as one of the two great ends that are also duties, alongside one’s own perfection. Kant says: When it comes to my promoting happiness as an end that is also a duty, this must therefore be the happiness of other human beings, whose (permitted) end I thus make my own end as well. It is for them to decide what they count as belonging to their happiness; but it is open to me to refuse them many things that they think will make them happy but that I do not, as long as they have no right to demand them from me as what is theirs.51 If I owe someone else repayment of a debt that I voluntarily incurred, I have an obligation toward them and they have a claim against me to repay it, whatever I think of their own morality and the morality of their freely chosen ends. If I have borrowed money from a wealthy scoundrel, I have to repay it, not just give it to someone whom I think more needy and more deserving. But the duty of beneficence presents me with a more complex situation. On the one hand, if I am going to be charitable to someone else, I can be charitable only by helping them realize some end of theirs, which may not (antecedently) be my own, thereby contributing to their happiness, not my own.52 On the other hand, if I do not approve of their end, especially if I do not think that it is morally permitted, I do not usually have any obligation to direct my charity their way, for my resources will always be finite and there will almost always be plenty of others, indeed for all practical purposes an infinitude of others, who could use my charity equally well to realize ends and a conception of happiness of which I do approve. I am allowed to use my judgment in this

The Dignity of Freedom  43 regard as a basis for deciding how best to fulfill my imperfect duty. More generally, although Kant does not explicitly say this, it would seem reasonable to think that if I have a choice whether to direct my beneficence toward someone whom I believe to be morally meritorious or toward someone else whom I believe to be vicious, I can use my judgment to direct my charity toward the former even if I have no objection toward the specific end of the latter in question.53 The general point remains that while in the case of perfect duty, I owe that to everyone simply in virtue of their humanity as their freedom to set any ends whatsoever, whatever I think of their own motives and compliance with morality and of the morality or even just prudence of their particular ends, when it comes to imperfect duty, since my own resources for beneficence are inevitably limited and I inevitably have to make choices how best to expend them, I can take into account the morality of other persons, the moral permissibility of their particular ends, and even my own assessment of the prudence of their particular ends. So in the case of perfect duty, I have obligations to all others grounded solely in their humanity of others as simply their freedom to set their own ends as well as the general natural conditions of human existence,54 while in the case of imperfect duty I can also consider whether they are actually fulfilling their own obligations, among other factors. Indeed, although Kant does not explicitly says this, surely I should also consider the morality of others in deciding how to direct my own beneficence. It is in general a good thing to help other people, but not a good thing to help Barbara Herman’s art thief, or a tyrant.55 The second case I want to consider is that of the use of coercion and punishment. Obviously when I exercise coercion against another or punish him for a violation of duty, I am taking into account whether that person has fulfilled his duties – not all of them, to be sure, since no one has an individual or collective right to coerce others to fulfill their imperfect duties or to punish them for not doing so, but one or more from among that subset of perfect duties toward others that are fit subjects for coercive enforcement in the first place. Here the question is rather whether by responding with coercion or punishment to another’s violation of or failure to fulfill some specific duty, we are violating the dignity of their humanity itself, or treating their humanity, their freedom to set their own ends, as merely a means to some end of our own (such as our security), and not as an end in itself. Obviously Kant does not think so. For his general conception of what it is to treat the humanity of everyone as an end and not merely a means, as expressed in the image of an empire of ends, is that everyone be treated as an end and their particular permissible ends be made the ends of all, that is, that anyone be treated as an end insofar as that is compatible with everyone being so treated. What it is to treat the humanity of one person as an end in itself cannot be determined in isolation, but only under the condition that the humanity of everyone be equally treated as an end in itself. Kant makes this clear in his Universal

44  Paul Guyer Principle of Right, which, as already suggested, governs certain of our perfect duties to others, namely those in which one person’s freely chosen actions can interfere with the freedom of others to choose their own actions: “Any action is right if it can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law, or if on its maxim the freedom of choice of each can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law.”56 (Whether one person’s action can or does interfere with the freedom of others is an empirical matter, but the principle is a priori.) Respecting the humanity of each does not mean granting unbridled freedom to each regardless of its effect on all; it means devising a scheme for granting the maximal freedom of choice and action to each consistent with an equal freedom for all. If the threat of coercion is an unavoidable part of such a scheme, that is no disrespect for the humanity of all; and since a threat of coercion is no threat at all if there is no punishment for an actual violation, then this will apply to punishment as well. Or it will at least if the point of punishment is deterrence of violations of the scheme of equal maximal freedom – which is indeed how Kant at least sometimes thinks of the punishments of “princes,” i.e., human governments, leaving punishment as retribution up to God.57 That punishment is compatible with respecting the dignity of humanity even in the one upon whom it is inflicted is the premise of Kant’s complex discussion of “the right to punish and grant clemency” in the Doctrine of Right. This is not the place to track all the twists and turns of this involuted section, in which Kant attempts to defend capital punishment. But it should be noted that the underlying premise of his argument is that punishment is compatible with the humanity and therefore the dignity of the person punished. This is clear as he lays down the first condition for rightful punishment, namely that the person punished can never be used merely as a means, even to a morally permissible or mandatory end, such as deterring others from the commission of crime, unless that perpetrator has actually and freely committed a crime: Punishment by a court (poena forensis) – this is distinct from natural punishment (poena naturalist), in which vice punishes itself and which the legislator does not take into account – can never be inflicted merely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or for civil society. It must always be inflicted upon him only because he has committed a crime. For a human being can never be treated merely as a means to the purposes of another or be put among the objects of rights to things: his innate personality protects him from this, even though he can be condemned to lose his civil personality.58 Punishment must be a response to a freely committed act if it is to be compatible with recognition of the humanity of the criminal – which is here

The Dignity of Freedom  45 obviously being equated with the freedom to set one’s own ends, any ends whatsoever, and not just morally approved ends. Kant then goes to further lengths to argue that the criminal has actually freely chosen his own punishment, although he has done so as a rational rather than merely natural being: No one suffers punishment because he has willed it but because he has willed a punishable action; for it is no punishment if what is done to someone is what he wills, and it is impossible to will to be punished. – Saying that I will to be punished if I murder someone is saying nothing more than that I subject myself together with everyone else to the laws … As a colegislator in dictating the penal law, I cannot possibly be the same person who, as subject, is punished in accordance with the law … Consequently, when I draw up a penal law against myself as a criminal, it is pure reason in me (homo noumenon), legislating with regard to rights, which subjects me, as someone capable of crime and so as another person (homo phaenomenon), to the penal law …59 Kant may need to appeal to his distinction between homo noumenon and homo phaenomenon — although in the Doctrine of Right that is just the distinction between pure reason and sensibility, not necessarily the distinction between thing in itself and appearance – to pull it off, but by use of this distinction he attempts to argue that punishment is consistent with the humanity and freedom of the one who is punished, because as a rational even if not a merely natural person even that person wills the system of right. Since dignity is respect for the freedom and thus humanity of all, even penal punishment is consistent with the dignity of all.60 As I suggested earlier, the way to think about the tension between Kant’s suggestions that dignity lies simply in humanity as the freedom to set one’s ends and his suggestions that it also requires actual fulfillment of all of one’s duties is to focus on our own dignity as agents rather than on the morality of those toward whom we act – to think about what it is for ourselves to act in a dignified manner rather than whether others are entitled to our regard in virtue of their own motives and actions. The way in which each of can show his or her own regard for the dignity of humanity in him- or herself is by treating humanity, the freedom to set our own ends, always as an end and never merely as a means in ourselves and in everyone else. The question of whether or not another has fulfilled all his duties and has some special claim either on our beneficence or on our punishment is a question that arises only in special circumstances.

Notes 1 The transcription that bears the name of Georg Ludwig Collins bears the date “Winter Semester, 1784–85,” but is virtually identical to the transcription

46  Paul Guyer by Johann Friedrich Kaehler from the summer semester, 1777, so is a copy at some remove or other from that or they are both copies from a common source from the 1770s; the Collins transcription differs significantly from the Mrongovius transcription, also from the winter semester, 1784–85, which does seem to be a transcription of what Kant was actually saying at that time. The transcription of Kant’s course on the metaphysics of morals written by his lawyer Johann Friedrich Vigilantius is from the winter semester, 1793–94. All these sources suggest that for a central period of two decades the concept of dignity was not actually indispensable for Kant’s presentation of his moral philosophy, at least to his students. For Collins, Mrongovius, and Vigilantius, see (Kant 2001a); for Kaehler, see (Kant 2004). 2 Glare (1996, 542). 3 Murray (1971, 726 (D, 356)). 4 Grimm and Grimm (2004, 2060–88). 5 Kant, Reflection 1179 (1773–75? 1772–73?), 15:421, in Kant (2005, 411). 6 Oliver Sensen attributes to Stoicism the extension of dignity from some human beings who hold rank over others to all human beings, as holding rank over the rest of nature. See Sensen (2011, 6–7, 153–7, 165–72). 7 Michael Rosen (2012) seems to equivocate on this point, in one passage treating dignity as a “kind of value” or something that has a value “intrinsic to it” (p. 23), in other treating it as something expressing or supervening on an “essential, respect-worthy kernel of human agency” (p. 26). I am arguing that dignity should be understood in the latter sense, although not as attaching solely to the capacity to give the moral law which might be the “kernel of human agency” but to human agency as such. (I will not try to offer a precise account of what an intrinsic property of a person might be, since my argument is that dignity is not one. Then again, my argument presupposes that humanity is an intrinsic property of all human persons.) 8 Thus I agree with Oliver Sensen that dignity is not some sort of metaphysically fundamental value that exists on its own; see Sensen (2011, 4–5). The issue between us is rather whether the freedom to which dignity attaches can itself be considered a fundamental value; see (Sensen 2011, 79–87). Sensen refers to a number of my papers, beginning with “Kant’s Morality of Law and Morality of Freedom” (1993), reprinted in Guyer (2000b), and “Freedom as the Inner Value of the World,” appearing for the first time in English in that collection (Guyer 2000a). More recently, I have argued that perhaps even deeper in Kant’s thought than the assumption that the intrinsic and absolute value of freedom is indemonstrable is the argument that it is simply a fact that we all know that human beings do have free wills, and that it would be a contradiction, thus a simply logical violation of pure reason, for us to acknowledge that fact yet to deny it, at least tacitly, by our conduct; see Guyer (2019, 12–34). 9 More precisely, in the selection translated in Notes and Fragments. 10 Baumgarten’s Metaphysica was first published in 1739; Kant first taught from the third edition (1750), and then, after 1757, from the fourth edition. The reflections on anthropology and metaphysics in the Akademie edition (vols. 15, 17, 18) were drawn from Kant’s copy of the latter; recently, his notes in his copy of the third edition have been published, but they add nothing to our materials for the development of Kant’s ethics. See Kant (2019); the fourth edition along with some of the reflections drawn from that has been translated as Baumgarten, Metaphysics: A Critical Translation with Kant’s Elucidations, Selected Notes, and Related Materials (Kant 2014). 11 Kant, R 1179, 15:521; Kant (2005, 411). 12 See Kant (1996a, 56).

The Dignity of Freedom  47 3 See Scanlon (1998). 1 14 Kant, R 4611 (1772–3), 17:609; Kant (2005, 609). 15 For much later evidence for this claim, see Kant (2001b, 6,37, 83). 16 Kant, R 1175 (1773–5? 1772–3?), 15:519; Kant (2005, 411). 17 Kant, R 5350, 18:159; Kant (2005, 414). 18 Kant, Groundwork, 4:434; Kant (1996a, 84). 19 Kant, R 5444, 18:183; Kant (2005, 414). 20 Kant, R 6856 (1776–8? 1780–9?). 19:181; Kant (2005, 441). 21 Kant, R 7248 (1780–89), 19:294; Kant (2005, 474). 22 Kant, R 7305 (1780–89), 19:307; Kant (2005, 476) 23 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, Doctrine of Virtue, Introduction, section V.A, 6:387; Kant (1996b, 518). 24 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, Doctrine of Virtue, Introduction, section VIII, 6:392; Kant (1996b, 522). 25 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, Doctrine of Virtue, §11, 6:434–5; Kant (1996b, 557). 26 Again, I have proposed an interpretation of what I take to be Kant’s fundamental argument for this position in Guyer (2019, 12–34). 27 Kant, R 5444, 18:183; Kant (2005, 414). 28 The position that only the moral use of freedom constitutes the humanity that is always to be treated as an end and never merely as a means has been defended by Richard Dean (2006). 29 Kant, Moral Philosophy Collins, 27:344; Kant (2001a, 125). This sentence is immediately followed by the further statement that “insofar as it is not restrained under certain rules of condition, [freedom] is the most terrible thing there could ever be.” These “rules” might seem to be some external moral constraint on freedom. But Kant then says that freedom “has to be restricted not, though, by other properties and faculties, but by itself. Its supreme rule is: … so to behave that any use of powers is compatible with the greatest use of them…. Only under certain conditions can freedom be consistent with itself” (27:346; Kant (2001a, 126)). The freedom to set one’s own ends has to be constrained only by pure reason’s general principle of self-consistency. In my view this is one expression of Kant’s foundation of the fundamental principle of morality. 30 Kant, R 7248, 19:294; Kant (2005, 474). My emphasis. 31 Kant, Groundwork, 4:406; Kant (1996a, 60). 32 Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 5:71; Kant (2007, 197). 33 Kant, Groundwork, 4:434-5; Kant (1996a, 84). 34 The second sort of view, as I have mentioned, is defended by Richard Dean; the first, that what is of unconditional value, thus has dignity, is the capacity to give the moral law, not just the capacity to set ends, is defended by Henry E. Allison (2011, e.g., 217). 35 See Groundwork, 4:404; Practical Philosophy, pp. 58–9. 36 See Critique of Practical Reason, 5:30; Practical Philosophy, p. 163. 37 Kant, Groundwork, 4:397–8; Practical Philosophy, p. 53. 38 Kant, Groundwork, 4:440; Practical Philosophy, pp. 88–9. 39 Kant’s introduces the concept of autonomy into the Groundwork as characteristic of the supreme principle of morality, and then immediately treats it as “the property of the will by which it is a law to itself”; Groundwork, 4:440 (Kant 1996a, 89). Kant’s word here is Wille (in the genitive form of Willens), and even though he has not yet firmed up the distinction between Wille and Willkür as he will in the Religion, the autonomous will that is the source of the autonomous supreme principle of morality is clearly Wille as pure practical reason rather than Willkür as the capacity for choice. At least here Kant is not talking about autonomous choice.

48  Paul Guyer 0 Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 5:152; Kant (2007, 262). 4 41 The analogy between morality and actual legal systems is imperfect. In many traditional and contemporary regimes, there are many offices with dignity but no legislative authority and different degrees of executive authority; an actual legal system can function with less than perfect compliance with its laws, even on the part of its dignitaries; and neither Kant nor anyone else expects full compliance with the moral law. But that’s the problem with making dignity dependent on compliance: few or no one would be entitled to full dignity if it did so depend. 42 See Guyer (2019). 43 Kant, Groundwork, 4:436; Kant (1996a, 86) Practical Philosophy, p. 86. 44 Kant, Groundwork, 4:433; Kant (1996a, 83). I prefer “empire” to the customary translation of Reich as a “kingdom” because “empire” connotes a multiplicity of regional sovereigns coexisting with each other under the overlordship of an emperor, who in the moral case might simply be the moral law or its personification in the ideal of God; the idea that all subjects of the moral law are also actually its legislators or sovereigns in their own right is missing from the connotation of “kingdom.” 45 On Kant’s formulations of the categorical imperative as comprising a systematic expression of a single moral law, see Allen Wood (2008, 68–84). 46 We can see Kant’s commitment to this position already in the Critique of Pure Reason, in Kant’s argument in the Canon of Pure Reason for the necessary assumption of the possibility of the highest good; see A 809–10/B 837–8. 47 I have argued that, following the natural law tradition, Kant views Recht as that part of morality or subset of moral duties which, on moral grounds, can and should be coercively enforced; see Guyer (2016) and “Enforcing the Moral Law” (forthcoming). 48 See, for example, Achenwall (2020, §98, 81–2). 49 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, Doctrine of Virtue, Introduction, section VII, 6:390; Kant (1996b, 521). 50 See Kant, Groundwork, 4:423 and 430; Kant (1996a, 75, 81) Practical Philosophy, pp. 75, 81; and Metaphysics of Morals, Doctrine of Virtue, §§29– 31, 6:452–4; Kant (1996b, 571–3). 51 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, Doctrine of Virtue, Introduction, section V.B, 6:388; Kant (1996b, 519). 52 Though once I decide to promote the realization of the end of another it in a sense then becomes my own end as well. 53 Of course, Kant does not believe that we have perfect knowledge of the motivations and thus of the morality of others, or even of ourselves (Groundwork, 4:407; Kant (1996a, 61)), so our judgments on this basis about how best to fulfill our imperfect duties will also be corrigible. 54 On the relation between a priori principles and the empirically known general conditions of human existence in the derivation of all human duties, both perfect and imperfect, see Metaphysics of Morals, Introduction, 6:217; Kant (1996b, 372). 55 See Barbara Herman (1993, 4). 56 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, Doctrine of Right, Introduction, section C, 6:230; Kant (1996b, 387). It is appropriate for Kant to include the reference to maxim in this formulation, since criminal law typically requires a mens rea, concerning itself with the injury an agent intended by his action or at least could reasonably have foreseen from it: a would-be murderer does not get (entirely) off the hook just because he was a bad shot and missed, nor is a person properly subject to criminal punishment for an unfortunate but entirely unforeseeable result of an otherwise innocent action. (Tort liability is another matter.)

The Dignity of Freedom  49 57 See Moral Philosophy Collins, 27:286; Kant (2001a, 79). On retributivism as not consistent with Kant’s basic moral philosophy, see Wood (2008, 206–23). 58 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, Doctrine of Right, General Remark E, 6:331; Kant (1996b, 473). 59 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, Doctrine of Right, General Remark E, 6:335; Kant (1996b, 476). 60 This is a point that Allen Wood has long stressed, e.g., Wood (2008, 219).

Works Cited Achenwall, Gottfried 2020. Prolegomena to Natural Law. Translated by Corina Vermeulen. Edited by Pauline Kleingeld. Groningen: University of Groningen Press. Allison, Henry E. 2011. Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb. 2014. Metaphysics: A Critical Translation with Kant’s Elucidations, Selected Notes, and Related Materials. Edited by Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers. corrected ed. London: Bloomsbury. Dean, Richard. 2006. The Value of Humanity in Kant’s Moral Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Glare, P. G. W. 1996. Oxford Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. 2004. Deutches Wörterbuch. Online ed. Vol. 30. Trier: Trier Center for Digital Humanities. Guyer, Paul. 2000a. “Freedom as the Inner Value of the World.” In Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness, 96–125. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Guyer, Paul. 2000b. “Kant’s Morality of Law and Morality of Freedom.” In Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness, 129–71. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Guyer, Paul. 2016. “The Twofold Morality of Recht: Once More Unto the Breach.” Kant-Studien 107 (1): 34–63. Guyer, Paul. 2019. Kant on the Rationality of Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Herman, Barbara. 1993. The Practice of Moral Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1996a. “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.” In Practical Philosophy, edited and translated by Mary J. Gregor, 37–108. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1996b. “The Metaphysics of Morals.” [MM]. In Practical Philosophy, edited and translated by Mary J. Gregor, 353–603. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2001a. Lectures on Ethics. Translated by Peter Lauchlan Heath. Edited by Peter Lauchlan Heath and J. B. Schneewind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2001b. “Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason.” [Rel]. In Religion and Rational Theology, edited by Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni, 39–216. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2004. Vorlesung Zur Moralphilosophie. Edited by Werner Stark. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

50  Paul Guyer Kant, Immanuel. 2005. Notes and Fragments. [NF] Translated by Curtis Bowman, Paul Guyer and Frederick Rauscher. Edited by Paul Guyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2007. Critique of Practical Reason. [CPrR], edited and translated by Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2019. Neue Reflexionen: Die Frühen Notate Zu Baumgartens “Metaphysica” Mit Einer Edition Der Dritten Auflage Dieses Werks. Edited by Günter Gawlick, Lothar Kreimendahl and Werner Stark. Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt: Frommann-Holzboog. Murray, J. A. H. 1971. The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rosen, Michael. 2012. Dignity: Its History and Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Scanlon, T. M. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Sensen, Oliver. 2011. Kant on Human Dignity, Vol. 166, Kantstudien Ergänzungshefte. Berlin: De Gruyter. Wood, Allen W. 2008. Kantian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2 The Kingdom of Ends in the Groundwork Oliver Sensen

2.1 Introduction Kant’s moral formula, “every rational being must act as if he were by his maxims at all times a lawgiving member of the universal kingdom of ends” (G 4:438),1 is still little understood. On the one hand, it seems as if Kant puts it forth as a culmination, “a complete determination” (G 4:436) of all moral requirements; on the other hand, apart from the short passages in the Groundwork, the kingdom of ends only receives a passing mention in his other ethical writings, and does not seem to play a major role there.2 So, it is not clear why exactly Kant introduces the formula in the Groundwork, and it is also not fully understood what exactly it says. For instance, does the requirement emphasize the importance for human beings to form a community, or does it try to empower every individual as a co-equal legislator of moral laws? Is it a device to select mid-level principles, such as giving a certain percentage of your income to charity, or a way to express the supreme moral principle?3 Does the formula have one role, or many? In order to better understand the often-neglected concept of a kingdom of ends, I will ask some simple questions: (1) Why does Kant include the kingdom of ends in the Groundwork (Section 2.2)? (2) What exactly is the kingdom, i.e., where, if anywhere, does it exist, and what is its internal structure (Section 2.3)? (3) What exactly does the Formula of the Kingdom of Ends require of us, and what is its relation to such notions as autonomy (Section 2.4), worth (Section 2.5), and dignity (Section 2.6)? I shall argue that Kant uses the concept of a kingdom of ends because it is an aspect of a commonly familiar idea: hope that morality will be rewarded with happiness. In the Groundwork, Kant repurposes the idea to combine several formulas of his supreme principle of morality: If everyone tests whether one’s maxim could also spring from the will of every other human being, and acted accordingly, a kingdom of ends would result.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-4

52  Oliver Sensen

2.2 Why a Kingdom of Ends? At first glance, the reason why Kant includes the Formula of the Kingdom of Ends in the Groundwork seems clear. He says that he uses different formulations “of the very same law” in order to “bring an idea of reason closer to intuition (by a certain analogy) and thereby to feeling” (G 4:436; cf. 437). So, Kant uses the Kingdom of Ends formula in order to make his supreme moral principle more accessible and appealing. But this only moves back our initial question one step because now we have to ask: Which idea does the kingdom of ends exemplify, and is it a natural idea that is very widely in use, or is it a scholarly notion that was widely known by intellectuals at Kant’s time? There is something to be said for the latter idea. As Klaus Reich and others have pointed out, the particular form of the Groundwork is in part a reaction to Garve’s 1793 translation and commentary of Cicero’s De Officiis (cf. Reich 1939). Kant’s contemporary, Haman, reports in a letter that Kant writes the Groundwork as a response to Garve (cf. Kuehn 2001: 278). So, it seems possible that Kant talks about the good will, duty, autonomy, dignity, and the Kingdom of Ends because these are concepts that he found in Cicero and included them to bring his own idea closer to the intuition of learned readers of this time. However, this claim would have to be qualified. As far as I can see, there is no direct reference to a kingdom of ends in either Cicero or Garve. Instead, Kant directly credits Leibniz and Augustin for this idea (cf. CPRA812/B840; Eth-Mr2 29:629, 610). Kant models his kingdom of ends on their idea of a kingdom of grace (cf. Leibniz, Monadology §87, Principles of Nature and of Grace §15–16). So, a quick answer to our initial question is that Kant includes the concept of a kingdom of ends in the Groundwork because scholars of his time were familiar with Leibniz’ image of a kingdom of grace and this conception well expresses Kant’s main moral idea. But even this answer is not yet the full story. For from what I have said so far, it seems as if Kant puts forth the concept of a kingdom of ends in order to express his criterion of moral rightness, in a broad sense. A criterion of rightness is a principle that can determine whether a proposed plan of action (a maxim) is morally right or not. A maxim that does not contradict the principle of rightness “is permitted; one that does not accord with it is forbidden” (G 4:439). It seems as if Kant first formulated his supreme moral principle, and then tried to express it in terms of Leibniz’ kingdom of grace in order to bring his main idea closer to intuition. In fact, however, Kant developed the concept of a kingdom of ends in order to answer a motivational problem. In 1781, Kant refers to Leibniz’ kingdom of grace in the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (cf. CPR A812/B840). The context is the question: “If I do what I should,

The Kingdom of Ends in the Groundwork  53 what may I then hope?” (CPR A805/B834). His answer is his familiar discussion of the highest good: Kant understands morally good conduct as the worthiness to be happy, and “he who has not conducted himself so as to be unworthy of happiness must be able to hope to partake in it” (CPR A813/B841). But since we cannot expect that the world we live in will reward moral conduct with happiness, we have to hope for the existence of an all-powerful and just God who will reward us, and for a future life or moral world in which we will be happy (cf. CPR A809–14/B837–42). What is important to note is that, beginning with the Groundwork in 1785,4 Kant changed his views on moral motivation. In 1781, for the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant introduces the “moral world” (CPR A808/B836) or the kingdom of ends in order to explain the “obligating force” (CPR A815/B843), or the incentive to act morally. These are two things, but Kant thinks that both are explained by the highest good. On the one hand, the reward of happiness given out by God serves to explain why moral laws are binding: “everyone also regards the moral laws as commands, which, however they could not be if they did not … carry with them promises and threats” (CPR A811/ B840). On the other hand, the highest good also explains why human beings are in fact motivated to act morally: “Thus without a God and a world that is now not visible to us but is hoped for, the majestic ideas of morality are, to be sure, objects of approbation and admiration but not incentives for resolve and realization” (CPR A813/B841). In 1781, Kant felt that he needed the idea of a kingdom of ends in order to explain moral motivation and obligation. This, of course, is not his final, well-considered view. Since 1785, Kant emphasizes “that it is not necessary to assume the existence of God as a ground of all obligation in general (for this rests, as has been sufficiently shown, solely on the autonomy of reason itself)” (CPrR 5:125f). He emphasizes that “there is no need to base it [duty] on incentives of fear and hope” (CPrR 5:129) and says very clearly that the highest good “is not … to be taken as its [reason’s] determining ground, and the moral law alone must be viewed as the ground for making the highest good and its realization or promotion the object” (CPrR 5:109). The purpose of a moral world in which moral behavior is rewarded with happiness is now to give “comforting hope, though not certitude” (CPrR 5:123n.). In the heat of the moment, one should do the right thing simply because it is right (cf. G 4:390). But just because the highest good is not the motive of one’s action, this does not mean that it does not play any role. The difference between a determining ground and the role of the highest good can be seen as akin to what Bishop Butler described as a “cool hour” (Sermon XI: 117) of reflection. In the heat of the moment, one should not perform a morally good action in order to bring about the highest good. However, if one reflects on what one did, or anticipates a morally good action in a cool

54  Oliver Sensen hour of reflection, one can think of the highest good as the result or “consequence” (CPR A 811/B839) of one’s behavior. Again, the consequences are not the reason why one acts, or what makes the action right, but: “it is one of the inescapable limitations of human beings … to be concerned in every action with its result, seeking something in it … that they can love” (Rel 6:7n.). In a cool hour of reflection the idea of a moral world includes the “hope of being happy” (CPR A810/B838) and can help us not being demoralized.5 In the Groundwork, accordingly, we find traces of the original purpose of the moral world or kingdom of ends, but now it is adjusted for Kant’s new, mature account of moral motivation. For instance, Kant says that even though a rational being scrupulously follows this maxim himself, he cannot for that reason … count upon the kingdom of nature … to harmonize with him … toward a kingdom of ends …, that is, upon its favoring his expectation of happiness. (G 4:438) Here Kant alludes to several aspects of his account of the highest good, for instance, that we cannot expect nature to reward moral conduct, but that on some level we do hope to be rewarded for moral conduct with happiness. At the same time, Kant does not see this hope for happiness as the moral incentive. This can only be respect for the moral law (cf. G 4:400). Nevertheless, “the noble ideal of a universal kingdom of ends in themselves (rational beings)” is a “useful and permitted idea … for producing in us a lively interest in the moral law” (G 4:462). In the Groundwork, Kant therefore retains the idea of a moral world or kingdom of ends, but now it is not an incentive for moral behavior but can at most be something we hope for as a reward. In one usage, it is the basis for a permitted consolation in a cool hour of reflection so that one does not get demoralized. In this section I am merely concerned with the origin of the kingdom of ends or the reason why Kant includes it in the Groundwork. In Section 2.3, I shall look more closely at what the kingdom of ends contains. For instance, does the kingdom come about (1) if everyone always behaves morally, or (2) does it also require that moral behavior will be rewarded with happiness?6 Regarding the moral behavior, (1), one could further ask whether it is enough that everyone (i) acts morally in their outward behavior, e.g., shopkeepers do not overcharge customers, (ii) whether everyone has to act on a moral maxim (e.g., not to overcharge one’s customers), or (iii) whether one also has to follow the maxim from the motive of duty and not from inclination. Kant does not fully specify the latter question. However, he does not only bring up the concept of a kingdom of ends in connection with producing an interest in the moral law, but also assigns a new function to the kingdom of ends.

The Kingdom of Ends in the Groundwork  55 The ideal of a kingdom becomes a criterion of moral rightness, or a test of whether one’s maxims is morally permissible. In particular, the concept of the kingdom of ends presents a complete architectonic of how one can morally evaluate a maxim: One can isolate a maxim and merely test whether it can be universalized without a contradiction (Formula of Universal Law). One could look at the recipients of one’s actions and determine whether one treats them as ends in themselves (Formula of Humanity). Or one can focus on the totality of both aspects combined: A progression takes place here, as through the categories of the unity of the form of the will (its universality), the plurality of the matter (of objects, i.e., of ends), and the allness or totality of the system of these. (G 4:436) These three aspects are the categories of quantity (cf. CPR A80/B106) applied to a maxim. Kant uses the Formula of the Kingdom of Ends to judge together the form and matter of a maxim (cf. G 4:436). In the Groundwork, Kant refers to the formula in order to present a complete architectonic of the criteria of moral rightness. I shall analyze in Section 2.3.2 what exactly this involves. In sum: Kant includes the concept of a kingdom of ends in the Groundwork in order to bring the supreme principle of moral rightness closer to intuition. The intuition is not just a scholarly knowledge of Leibniz’s kingdom of grace, but for Kant it “is natural for every rational being and determined a priori and necessarily through the very same reason” (CPR A813/B841). For instance, if you apply for a job, and you know that others will cheat on their CV, you realize that you might not stand a chance. For moral considerations, it is unthinkable for you to lie on your CV. It is natural to imagine a moral world, or a kingdom of ends, in which everyone behaves morally, and to hope that your moral conduct will also be rewarded with happiness. In its main discussion of the Groundwork, Kant now uses this natural idea for a new purpose of explaining the criterion of moral rightness. But what, more concretely, is the kingdom of ends?

2.3 What Is the Kingdom of Ends? Kant’s motivation for including the kingdom of ends in the Groundwork – I have argued in the previous section – is complicated. The content of the Formula of the Kingdom of Ends also requires a careful analysis. Does Kant emphasize the importance of particular human communities in determining the concrete duties we have, or does he postulate an other-worldly realm as the reward for moral behavior? Is the kingdom of ends the culmination of Kant’s moral philosophy, or a relatively minor idea that answers a side-issue?

56  Oliver Sensen Where exactly does the kingdom of ends exist (2.3.1), what is its internal structure (2.3.2), and what does it require of an agent (2.4)? 2.3.1 The Existence of the Kingdom of Ends Regarding the existence of the kingdom of ends, Kant emphasizes that it is an “ideal” (G 4:433, 462), i.e., the visualization of a complete specification of an abstract idea (cf. CPR A568/B596). It is not something that is real, but it could actually come about if moral maxims “were universally followed” (G 4:438). As such, it is a goal or an envisioned possible future state. In the Groundwork, we find several ideas of his later discussion of the highest good: that the kingdom of ends is a moral world; that it is not a determining ground, but a “permitted idea” (G 4:462) in a cool hour of reflection; and that it can help us to take an interest in morality even if it does not promise us any rewards. However, the similarities between Kant’s discussion of the highest good and the Groundwork discussion of the kingdom of ends does not mean that both are the same idea. On the one hand, the highest good might describe what an individual could hope for in an afterlife (cf. CPR A805/ B834), while the kingdom of ends seems to be a state in this world that would come about if everyone would act morally. On the other hand, if the kingdom of ends could come about in this world, it might not include happiness as an integral part. Even if everyone were to act morally, there still might be natural disasters, pandemics etc. So, when exactly would the kingdom come into existence? One could argue that it needs the highest good, i.e.: “happiness distributed in exact proportion to morality” (CPrR 5:110) for the kingdom to exist. Kant seems to say, for instance, that one cannot expect nature to support one’s expectation of happiness in reward for moral behavior, and that this would be a hindrance for establishing the kingdom of ends: even though a rational being scrupulously follows this maxim himself, he cannot for that reason count upon every other to be faithful to the same maxim nor can he count upon the kingdom of nature … to harmonize with him … toward a kingdom of ends …, that is, upon its favoring his expectation of happiness. (G 4:438) Here it seems as if a kingdom of ends only comes about if it rewards morality with happiness. This uncertainty whether moral behavior will lead to happiness – even if you are perfectly moral, you still might be hit by a bus – might also explain why Kant sees God as part of the kingdom of ends. By itself, it would not be clear why Kant includes in the kingdom or realm a “sovereign” (G 4:433) who is “a completely independent being, without needs and with unlimited resources” (G 4:434). A sovereign with

The Kingdom of Ends in the Groundwork  57 unlimited resources seems to be needed to reward moral behavior with happiness. This is parallel to Kant’s discussion of the postulate of God’s existence for the realization of the highest good (cf. CPrR 5:124–32). However, there is equally good reason to interpret Kant as saying that following moral maxims by itself is enough to bring about the kingdom of ends. Kant says assertively that “such a kingdom of ends would actually come into existence through maxims whose rule the categorical imperative prescribes to all rational beings if they were universally followed” (G 4:438). By contrast, his arguments for happiness as a reward for morality are less certain since they only give “comforting hope, though not certitude” (CPrR 5:124n, cf. Rel 6:51). The textual basis is therefore too thin to decide the issue. There are similar ambiguities in Kant’s discussion of the highest good. It is debatable, for instance, whether the highest good is only possible in an after-life, or whether it could come about in this world (cf. Reath 1998; Guyer 2005: 289; Pasternack 2014: 31–6). My sense is that it is more accurate to first separate the different aspects Kant talks about. It is one thing whether everyone follows universalizable maxims, and another if this will be rewarded with happiness. If this is correct, then the kingdom of ends is an ideal about morality and does not necessarily involve happiness. But unlike discussions of the highest good, where Kant seems to switch between one’s own happiness, and the happiness of the world at large (cf. CPrR 5:110f), the kingdom of ends would come into existence by a collective morality. In the end, whether happiness is required for the existence of the highest good or not, might be less relevant. This is because of a further ambiguity surrounding issues of the highest good. In one sense, the highest good is a description of what is good for an agent, but in another sense it is also a duty (cf. Reath 1988: 595). The main discussion of the kingdom of ends (cf. G 4:434–40) is about duty and what is in our power. Any corresponding happiness is not in our power (CPrR 5:119, 129). It is therefore an additional question whether the kingdom of ends humans build justifies a hope for happiness (cf. G 4:438, 462). 2.3.2 The Internal Structure of the Kingdom of Ends So far I have tried to analyze why Kant includes the kingdom of ends in the Groundwork, and when it would come into existence. The next question is what a kingdom of ends would look like in its internal structure. What exactly is the internal structure and function of the kingdom of ends? Furthermore, does it put an emphasis on the role of an empirical community in generating moral laws – in contrast to a test by one’s individual reason? Does it give a procedure for finding mid-level principles that tell us more concretely what is right – in contrast to an abstract, supreme principle?

58  Oliver Sensen In emphasizing the kingdom of ends, Kant’s focus is here not on actual, empirical lawgiving of a community. To think of a kingdom of ends, Kant only looks at the formal relation between rational beings, not their empirical ends: “we abstract from the personal differences of rational beings as well as from all the content of their private ends.” If we do that, “we shall be able to think of a whole of all ends in systematic connection … that is, a kingdom of ends” (G 4:433). This does not mean that one abstracts from the fact that human beings have inclinations and strive for happiness – otherwise they would be a sovereign in the kingdom of ends, and not merely a member (cf. G 4:434). But the particular ends we have are not part of the structure or what is essential about the kingdom of ends. To put it differently: If our world community would succeed in bringing about the kingdom of ends, there would be trees, rivers, and hills. But these are not an essential part of the structure of a kingdom of ends.7 At this point, Kant’s focus is therefore not on the importance of community norms that a particular group has to develop based on their needs and circumstances (cf. MM 6:468–9). Accordingly, Kant does not give a definite method for deriving more concrete mid-level principles, nor does he illustrate such a method with examples (cf. G 4:432n). Instead, he recommends using the “strict method” of the Formula of Universal Law to derive concrete duties (G 4:436f). The general requirement he mentions is to make a kingdom of ends possible: “every rational being must act as if he were by his maxims at all times a lawgiving member of the universal kingdom of ends” (G 4:438). The emphasis is on the result that would come about if people were to abide by the other two formulas, the Formula of Universal Law that requires that one’s maxim could be willed as a universal law, and the Formula of Humanity: “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” (G 4:429). If one now abstracts from empirical ends people actually set themselves and focuses on universalizable laws that “determine ends in terms of their universal validity,” then we can think of “a systematic union of rational beings through common objective laws, that is, a kingdom, … because what these laws have as their purpose is just the relation of these beings to one another as ends and means” (G 4:433). Kant’s emphasis is therefore not on an actual, empirical lawgiving, but on the form of equality that would result between ends in themselves if they were universalizing their maxims: “A rational being belongs as a member to the kingdom of ends when he gives universal laws in it but is also himself subject to these laws” (G 4:433). This emphasis on giving universal law rather than legislating based on one’s own personal desires explains why Kant’s discussion of the kingdom of ends is preceded and followed by a discussion of autonomy – not what we nowadays conceive of autonomy, but Kant’s notion. It also explains what more concretely one should do. In the elaboration of our duty, Kant abstracts from happiness.

The Kingdom of Ends in the Groundwork  59

2.4 Autonomy Kant’s discussion of the kingdom of ends is closely intertwined with a discussion about autonomy, so much so that autonomy and kingdom of ends have been classified as two versions of one formula (cf. Paton 1947: 129). This seems odd at first since one could take the kingdom of ends to emphasize community, and autonomy to emphasize individualism. However, the link lies in the fact that for both concepts Kant’s key emphasis is that one should abstract from all personal, private ends. Accordingly, a central claim of Kant’s notion of autonomy is that the agent should give universal laws for all: he is subject only to laws given by himself but still universal and that he is bound only to act in conformity with his own will, which, however, in accordance with nature’s end [dem Naturzwecke nach] is a will giving universal law. (G 4:432) Kant introduces autonomy as another formula of the Categorical Imperative. He calls it “the third practical principle of the will” (G 4:431), or “the principle of the autonomy of the will” (G 4:433). The formula runs: “act only so that the will could regard itself as at the same time giving universal law through its maxim” (G 4:434). Kant introduces the formula to express two moral requirements in one formula. The first moral requirement is that one should do the right thing (act on a universalizable maxim), the second that one should do it simply because it is the right thing to do, and not from any further motive: “For, in the case of what is to be morally good it is not enough that it conform with the moral law but it must also be done for the sake of the law” (G 4:390). The purpose of the Formula of Autonomy is to make the second part, the motivational requirement, a part of the command about what to do, or “to indicate in the imperative itself the renunciation of all interest” (G 4:431) as incentive. Kant explains the connection in the following way: If one focuses on giving universal law, then one will abstract from one’s own private interests in order to accommodate the acceptability of one’s law to others. Therefore, one’s principle “can have no interest as its basis” (G 4:432). The central point of Kant’s notion of autonomy is accordingly not the idea that an agent gives a law to herself, such as a New Year’s resolution, but that one’s law is not based on a private end and is only therefore a law that everyone could accept. It is important to notice that Kant’s concept of autonomy is different from our contemporary, ordinary notion of it (cf. O’Neill 2003). In our contemporary concept, autonomy means something like self-governance. As such, it is a capacity one has, a goal one should have for one’s life, and a right one can claim from others (cf. Hill 1991: 44–51). It is like a New Year’s resolution,

60  Oliver Sensen where one reflectively endorses a certain plan of action. However, as such the notion would be paradoxical. For if Kant had in mind that I declare my plan, based on my private preferences, as a universal law for others, I would seem to undermine the autonomy of others (cf. Stratton-Lake 2013: 247). It would be as if I declare that everyone should engage in a certain activity, such as climbing mountains, or supporting a certain sports team. Kant’s notion of autonomy is different (cf. Sensen 2015b). In its core, it is a concept about the metaphysical source of the moral law: “Pure reason … gives (to the human being) a universal law which we call the moral law” (CPrR 5:31; cf. CPJ 5:196f). The idea is that one does not have to learn the moral law from experience, e.g., one’s parents or society, but that it is a function of one’s own reason. It is akin to an innate principle. However, this is not meant in the sense that the principle was implanted in us, e.g., by nature (cf. G 4:425f), but that reason prescribes it “as soon as we draw up maxims of the will for ourselves” (CPrR 5:29). In the first instance, therefore, autonomy is a “property” or “mode [Beschaffenheit]” (G 4:447, 440) of pure reason. On a second level, it is also a general requirement for what could ground a moral theory (cf. G 4:440–5). The idea is that any theory that does not ground the moral law in a direct command of pure reason cannot yield unconditional obligation. For a law from another source (e.g., one’s own happiness or society) has “to carry with it some interest by way of attraction or constrain” (G 4:433), e.g., to be happy or to fit into society. But in this case, one does not arrive at a “duty but instead at the necessity of an action from a certain interest [to be happy or fit in with society]” (G 4:433) One would not be unconditionally obligated, but this way “only hypothetical imperatives become possible: I ought to do something because I will something else” (G 4:441, e.g., to become happy or fit in with society). Likewise, a New Year’s resolution cannot even generate a duty for oneself, since I, as the one binding myself, “could always release the one put under obligation” (MM 6:417). On a third level – and this is relevant in our context – autonomy is a categorical imperative, i.e., a demand for an individual agent. The specific feature of the Formula of Autonomy is that it commands the agent to abstract from all private interest and focus on giving universal law. But how does this formula differ from the standard Categorical Imperative that commands us to only act on maxims that one can will to be a universal law (cf. G 4:421)? While in the case of the Categorical Imperative one focuses on the maxim itself, the Formula of Autonomy points one’s attention to the fact that one legislates for others as well: “it can only be a command that everything be done from the maxim of one’s will as a will that could at the same time have as its object itself as giving universal law” (G 4:432). In order to test one’s maxims, one therefore takes up the perspective of others, and sees if the maxim could spring from their will as well: “Reason accordingly refers every maxim of the will as giving universal

The Kingdom of Ends in the Groundwork  61 law to every other will and also to every action toward oneself, and does so … from the idea of the dignity of a rational being” (G 4:434). Since the agent abstracts from her own private ends, the Formula of Autonomy emphasizes that her proposed maxim must be able to agree with other agents as well: every will … is restricted to the condition of agreement with the autonomy of the rational being, that is to say, such a being is not to be subjected to any purpose that is not possible in accordance with a law that could arise from the will of the affected subject himself. (CPrR 5:87) If I test my maxim against the Formula of Autonomy, I focus on whether other agents could agree to my end as well. I thereby focus on the other agents as equals, and this explains why autonomy leads “to a very fruitful concept dependent upon it, namely that of a kingdom of ends” (G 4:433). If I focus on others as equals, I imagine a possible kingdom of ends. It also explains why Kant includes a discussion of dignity in his analysis of the kingdom.

2.5 Worth and Price Most often, one reads the kingdom of ends passage in the Groundwork because of its discussion of dignity. Here Kant seems to be saying that all human beings have an “inner” (G 4:435) or “unconditional, incomparable worth” (G 4:436), and he seems to define “dignity” as such a worth (cf. Korsgaard 1996: 119–24; Wood 1999: 115). This standard reading immediately creates a conflict with Kant’s famous emphasis that only a good will can have such an unconditional worth (cf. G 4:393). However, the standard reading seems to fit better with Kant’s demand that even a criminal, a human being who gives no indication of having a good will, deserves respect (cf. MM 6:463), and this reading is therefore more popular in the literature. The standard reading also seems to fit well with the message of the kingdom of ends that all human beings are equal. However, the purpose of Kant’s passage is not to make a foundational claim about the value of human beings that justifies the kingdom of ends (cf. G 4:431). Kant’s aim is not to argue from dignity to the kingdom of ends, but the other way around: “In the kingdom of ends everything has either a price or a dignity” (G 4:434). The focus of the dignity passage is on an ideal situation, the kingdom of ends in which all members already follow moral commands (cf. also Darwall 2008: 176), and the passage further explicates the structure of the kingdom. In the kingdom, price and dignity are exclusive. What does Kant mean by price? Kant’s first specification is that something that has a price is replaceable: “What has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent” (G 4:434). In the first instance, Kant seems to refer to things: pencils,

62  Oliver Sensen tables, and chairs. However, he specifies further what it means to ‘have a price’: “What is related to general human inclinations and needs has a market price; that which … conforms with a certain taste … has a fancy price” (G 4:434f). What is important is that ‘having a price’ is connected to certain contingent, natural attitudes of human beings. A price is not an intrinsic property, like a price tag, or anything one could see under an ontological x-ray if one looks at an object in isolation. Rather, what gives something a price is our attitude: If I see a pencil on my desk, it has a certain function, and can be replaced by a pencil with a similar function. The pencil gets its price by my need to write something down, and if something else can perform the same function, the pencil is replaceable and has a market price. If there is a painting on the wall, the painting does not only have a market price, but it might also appeal to my taste and as such it has a fancy price. But in both cases, a price is generated by human attitudes. A different way of expressing this is to say that these objects have “merely a relative worth, that is, a price” (G 4:435). However, Kant’s claims about worth and price are even more dependent on the agent than it first appears. For his own examples of what has a price are not things at all: “Skill and diligence in work have a market price; wit, lively imagination and humor have a fancy price” (G 4:435). The kingdom of ends abstracts from the existence of things. Kant merely focuses on the relation of rational beings, and “the ends … that each may set himself” (G 4:433). There is, therefore, a double dependence on attitudes in Kant’s account of worth: First, the metaphysical nature of ‘value’ consists in an attitude of valuing. Second, the objects that ‘have value’ in the thought experiment of a kingdom of ends are attitudes and actions. (This does not preclude that in another context Kant can say that physical objects have relative value as things, cf. G 4:428.) This is important, because in his discussion of the kingdom of ends the contrast to relative worth, inner or unconditional worth, merely refers to attitudes as well: “on the other hand, fidelity in promises and benevolence from basic principles … have an inner worth” (G 4:435). Regarding the metaphysical nature of value, when Kant says that something ‘has value’ or ‘is good’ – he uses these interchangeably (cf. G 4:393) – the function is not to describe a metaphysical thing or feature one sees under an ontological x-ray. Rather, ‘is good’ is another way of expressing what reason prescribes: “the will is a capacity to choose only that which reason independently of inclination cognizes as practically necessary, that is, as good” (G 4:412). When reason prescribes an action as necessary, one can also say that the action is good or has value. But one does not thereby describe a distinct property an object has, but that reason recommends or prescribes the action. There are two types of value, based on two types of prescriptions. If reason prescribes an action as a necessary means to something else, e.g., ‘if you want to go to Australia quickly, take a plane,’ it expresses a hypothetical prescription:

The Kingdom of Ends in the Groundwork  63 Now, if the action would be good merely as a means to something else the imperative is hypothetical; if the action is represented as in itself good, hence as necessary in a will in itself conforming to reason, as its principle, then it is categorical. (G 4:414) This has important implications for Kant’s understanding of which entities have absolute or unconditional value. As Kant repeatedly says, it is only a morally good disposition or a person’s character that has absolute value: Thus good or evil is, strictly speaking, referred to actions … and if anything is to be good or evil absolutely (and in every respect and without any further condition), … it would be only the way of acting… and consequently the acting person himself …, but not a thing. (CPrR 5:60) But, surely, Kant also thinks that the highest good and humanity in each of us has absolute value?8 The highest good, of course, contains a morally good disposition, or virtue, and as such is the “supreme condition” (CPrR 5:110) of its value. The addition of happiness only makes it a complete good. However, does this mean that a human being who lacks a morally good disposition does not have an absolute value and therefore does not need to be respected? The answer, I believe (cf. Sensen 2011), is that value is not the reason why one should morally respect another.9 Kant famously says that only a good will has absolute value (cf. G 4:393). He holds that not all human beings have a good will (cf. MM 6:463), but that all human beings should be respected, even the criminal (cf. MM 6:462f). Value is not the reason why one should respect another. Kant says that “the existence of man is not by itself a factum that produces any obligation” (Eth-V 27:545). Absolute value is only something an agent can give herself by being morally good: “it is the value that he alone can give to himself, and which consists in what he does …, i.e., a good will is that alone by means of which his existence can have an absolute value” (CPJ 5:443, cf. 208). But why, then, should one respect other human beings? Kant says repeatedly that any form of obligation has to come from the Categorical Imperative as an immediate prescription of the agent’s reason, not the detection of an outside value (see Section 2.4 above). Even the duty towards other people rests on the agent’s duty to follow the law of her own reason: “since the law by virtue of which I regard myself as being under obligation proceeds in every case from my own practical reason” (MM 6:417f; cf. 239; CPrR 5:31). Kant also states this alternative justification clearly in our passages. For instance, he says that “all rational beings stand under the law that each of them is to treat himself and all others never merely as means but

64  Oliver Sensen always at the same time as ends in themselves” (G 4:433). The requirement to morally respect others is a direct command of the agent’s own reason. Kant also states this explicitly when he discusses this command more fully: “This principle of humanity … because of its universality … must arise from pure reason” (G 4:431). Necessity and strict universality cannot arise from experience but must have its origin completely a priori (cf. CPR B3–4). The requirement to respect others is universal and necessary: One should respect all others and do it always. This requirement is not based on any experience (e.g., of a value in another), which would always be relative and contingent. The kingdom of ends passage therefore does not introduce an absolute value all human beings possess. As we have seen, it is not meant to give a justification for universal respect (cf. G 4:431), but merely explains “the relation of these beings to one another as ends and means” (G 4:433). It is again important to remember that Kant is talking about an ideal situation. He explicated the kingdom of ends as the result that would come about if moral laws “were universally followed” (G 4:438). Accordingly, one has to be morally good to be part of this kingdom: “A rational being belongs as a member to the kingdom of ends when he gives universal laws” (G 4:433) Giving universal was Kant’s analysis of a being that acts from autonomy, i.e., that abstracts from all private ends (see Section 2.4 above) and consequently has a morally good disposition. Therefore, “morality is the condition under which alone a rational being can be … a lawgiving member in the kingdom of ends” (G 4:435; cf. 438); for, only morality “makes him fit to be a member of a possible kingdom of ends” (G 4:435).

2.6 Dignity If what we have said so far is correct, then the question of how Kant uses ‘dignity’ in the kingdom of ends passage is of minor relevance. This is because Kant is not concerned with justifying the kingdom of ends and respect owed to others. In addition, worth is not something all human beings possess innately (see Section 2.5 above). However, it is a standard view in the Kant literature that ‘dignity’ means ‘absolute worth’ and that the two can be used interchangeably (cf. Wood 1999: 115; Allison 2011: 226). This view, of course, has some textual evidence in its favor, for instance, when Kant says: “an inner worth, that is, dignity” (G 4:435), and “a dignity, that is, an unconditional, incomparable worth” (G 4:436) So, it is natural to read ‘dignity’ as being synonymous with ‘absolute worth.’ However, two facts should give us pause in making this equation. First, Kant specifies ‘dignity’ in the same context also as a “prerogative” (G 4:438) and “sublimity” (G 4:439–40). Those are not per se values. Kant uses ‘sublimity’ to say that something is absolutely great (cf. CPJ 5:248), i.e., that something is infinitively “raised above” something else (cf. G

The Kingdom of Ends in the Groundwork  65 4:434 and 435). Second, we have seen that ‘has worth’ is not a description of an object, but a special kind of estimation, a prescription where reason deems something to be unconditionally necessary. So, even if dignity is a value, it is not a foundational property of an object that by itself grounds moral requirements. But is dignity itself a type of worth? There is a way in which dignity can be said to be both an elevation as well as a worth. Take first an example of an object that has a relative value, such as a fancy price. If you have two pictures on your wall, one might be a print that can be replaced by an identical print you can buy in the store. The other picture is a photo of which you do not have a negative or digital record. To you it might be irreplaceable and priceless. In this scenario, the photo is in your estimation infinitely raised above price and has a dignity to you. (Of course, in Kant’s conception, the worth of the photo is still relative and conditioned: It depends on your inclinations and taste. If they change, or if you receive a second copy, the value of the picture changes. Only moral dispositions are truly raised above all price.) And there is a second way in which one can say that dignity is a worth or value. If one thinks of a scale or a mathematical value, then dignity is the place that is off the charts, where the number is infinitely raised above other values. So, dignity can be a value in a certain sense, but the message of Kant’s passage is not that dignity is an additional property an object has intrinsically (in contrast to an unconditioned prescription of reason), and it is not the justification why one should respect another human being. Rather, Kant’s message is that moral attitudes, as the value of a good will, is infinitely raised above other forms of value, such as a market or fancy price: “Nature, as well as art, contains nothing that … it could put in their place; for their worth does not consist in the effects arising from them, in the advantage and use they provide, but in dispositions” (G 4:435, cf. 4:393). However, dignity is not per se a value, but expresses that – on a certain scale – one thing is raised above something else (cf. Sensen 2011: 164–80). Accordingly, Kant uses dignity in very different contexts. He talks about the “dignity of a philosopher” (Ped 9:26), the “dignity of mathematics” (CPR 3:323), and the “dignity of a teacher [Würde des Lehrers]” (Rel 6:162; my translation). In these contexts, dignity is not per se a moral, non-mathematical value, but expresses that something is raised above all else on a certain scale of comparison (e.g., the authority a teacher has in the classroom). In our passage, he uses it in two different applications: “morality, and humanity insofar as it is capable of morality, is that which alone has dignity” (G 4:435). These are two different stages of dignity. In virtue of the ability to give universal law (the capacity of morality), human beings have an “initial dignity” (CF 7:73). But only if one makes use of this ability, and actually develops a morally good will (autonomy as universal law-giving) does one realize one’s initial dignity: “The dignity of human nature lies only in its freedom … But the dignity of one

66  Oliver Sensen human being (worthiness) rests on the use of his freedom” (Refl 6856, 19:181; my translation). Both senses elevate human beings above the rest of nature, and both are a “dignity (prerogative) he has over all merely natural beings” (G 4:438). In the context of the kingdom of ends – because Kant focuses on a situation where everyone is actually morally good (see Section 2.5 above) – the main emphasis is on our realized dignity: there is indeed no sublimity in him insofar as he is subject to the moral aw, but there certainly is insofar as he is at the same time lawgiving with respect to it and only for that reason subordinated to it. (G 4:439–40) To have a morally good will, i.e., to give laws that are not just based on one’s private ends, but that could be accepted universally, is what Kant describes as autonomy. This condition, “as free with respect to all laws of nature, obeying only those which he himself gives and in accordance with which his maxims can belong to a giving of universal law” (G 4:435), is what distinguishes members in the ideal kingdom of ends from all things of nature. From this it follows that: “Autonomy is therefore the ground of the dignity of human nature and of every rational nature” (G 4:436).

2.7 Conclusion In the Groundwork, Kant refers to the ideal of a kingdom of ends to bring the supreme moral principle closer to intuition. To do that, he relies on a concept he had developed prior to his mature philosophy, the kingdom of ends. While it initially served as moral motivation, the proper motivation is replaced in his mature philosophy with the concept of autonomy. But Kant alludes to it in the context of autonomy to express a world that would come about if everyone were to act morally. As such, it is not just a criterion of moral rightness, but also a result one can hope for in a cool hour of reflection.10

Notes 1 All Kant translations, unless otherwise stated, are from the Cambridge Edition of Kant’s works. Page numbers refer to the volume: page of the Academy edition of Kants Gesammelte Schriften (de Gruyter, 1902–), or the A- and B-editions of the Critique of Pure Reason. 2 There is a passing mention in CPrR 5:82, and in the Mrongovius II lecture notes, cf. Eth-Mr2 29:610f, 629. 3 See the other contributions to this volume for a variety of interpretations. 4 For the historical development of Kant’s views on moral motivation see Sensen (2015a). 5 For further discussion of this point, see Sensen (forthcoming).

The Kingdom of Ends in the Groundwork  67 6 I thank Jan-Willem van der Rijt for pressing me on this point. 7 I thank Jan-Willem van der Rijt for pressing me on this. 8 I thank Adam Cureton for pressing me on this point. 9 Kant uses two forms of respect: reverentia refers to an involuntary feeling the moral law, or a moral good person (cf. CPrR 5:76), can invoke in us. The respect one ought to have for others is observantia (cf. MM 6:462). This is similar to Darwall’s distinction between appraisal and recognition respect (cf. Darwall 2008: 179). 10 I would like to thank the two editors as well as an audience in Bayreuth for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

References Allison, Henry (2011), Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Darwall, Stephen (2008), “Kant on Respect, Dignity, and the Duty of Respect” in: Kant’s Ethics of Virtue, ed. M. Betzler, Berlin: de Gruyter: 175–200. Guyer, Paul (2005), Kant’s System of Nature and Freedom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hill, Thomas (1991), Autonomy and Self-Respect, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Korsgaard, Christine (1996), Creating the Kingdom of Ends, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kuehn, Manfred (2001), Kant. A Biography, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Neill, Onora (2003), “Autonomy: The Emperor’s New Clothes,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplement 77: 1–21. Pasternack, Lawrence (2014), Kant on Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, London: Routledge. Paton, H.J. (1947), The Categorical Imperative, London: Hutchinson & Co. Reath, Andrews (1988), “Two Conceptions of the Highest Good,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 26: 593–619. Reich, Klaus (1939), “Kant and Greek Ethics (II.),” Mind 192: 446–63. Sensen, Oliver (2011), Kant on Human Dignity, Berlin: de Gruyter. Sensen, Oliver (2015a), “The Supreme Principle of Morality,” in: Kant as Lecturer, ed. R. Clewis, Berlin: de Gruyter, 179–99. Sensen, Oliver (2015b), “Autonomie,” in: Kant-Lexikon, vol. 1, eds. M. Willaschek et al., Berlin: de Gruyter: 203–6. Sensen, Oliver (forthcoming), “Kant on Proofs of the Existence of God in the Second Critique (1788),” in: Kant on Proofs, ed. I. Goy, Berlin: de Gruyter. Stratton-Lake, Philip (2013), “Morality and Autonomy,” in: Kant on Moral Autonomy, ed. O. Sensen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 246–61. Wood, Allen (1999), Kant’s Ethical Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

3 “Closer to intuition (according to a certain analogy) and thereby to feeling” Making Kant’s Kingdom of Ends Intuitive Mark Timmons In his classic 1947 The Categorical Imperative: A Study in Kant’s Moral Philosophy, H. J. Paton comments on the kingdom of ends formula of Kant’s supreme principle of morality writing: As in the case of the other formulae the Formula of the Kingdom of Ends is useless for those who seek to determine moral duties by a process of theoretical demonstration, but it is illuminating to those who are willing to adopt it as a principle of action. In some ways, as Kant recognizes, it is the most human and the most moving of all his principles. One thing that war brings home even to the most unreflective is that men are greatly moved and uplifted by playing their part, without thought of self-interest, in a great common enterprise under a great leader. (192–3) Following the quoted remarks and considering that the kingdom of ends formula is meant to bring the moral law “closer to intuition,” Paton laments that Kant does not attempt to describe even “on the highest abstract level” (193) what a moral life guided by the ideal of a kingdom of ends would be like.1 Even so, one can still raise two related questions about the supposedly “most human and moving” of Kant’s principles that pertain to its practical significance. One question is about the psychological import of this formula for individuals: how can it be the most moving of all principles of morality in the life of individuals? Also, since a kingdom, as Kant conceives it, is a community of rational beings, one may ask about the social significance of the concept of the kingdom of ends: of what significance is it for community life? These questions of practical significance raise the question of how Kant’s conception of a kingdom of ends brings the moral law closer to intuition and thereby to feeling – the topic of this chapter. Regarding its social significance, I plan to explore how the idea of a kingdom of ends is related to Kant’s conception of a visible church discussed in the Religion which, I argue, represents one way DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-5

“Closer to intuition”  69 to partially symbolize (by analogy) the kingdom of ends, thus bringing moral concepts closer to intuition and thereby to (moral) feeling. Thus, symbolizing the kingdom of ends by the visible church – making the kingdom of ends itself closer to intuition – is how it can bring moral concepts closer to intuition.2 At the level of individuals, reflection on the concept of autonomous legislation of the moral law – the ground of one’s dignity and central to the concept of a kingdom of ends – is meant to play a significant role in an individual’s moral psychology affecting moral feeling. In developing these claims, I take as a point of departure Kant’s laconic remark in the Metaphysics of Morals about acquiring virtue: this capacity as strength (robur) is something that must be acquired, by means of elevating the moral incentive (the representation of the law) by contemplating (contemplatio) the dignity of the pure law of reason in us, and at the same time by practice (exercitio) (DV 6: 397)3 As I will explain, practicing virtue connects to the idea of a visible church by creating a sense of community in which the practice of virtue is arguably (according to Kant) most likely to flourish, while contemplation of one’s autonomous nature bolsters one’s sense of dignity. Further, practicing virtue in community and contemplation of one’s autonomous nature are, as Kant mentions, ways of strengthening one’s moral resolve and, of course, do so by affecting moral feeling. In what follows, I argue for two guarded claims: the universal church partially symbolizes the kingdom of ends, and contemplation of one’s autonomous nature can play a role in gaining access for the moral law – access being a basis for one’s recognition of the law gaining psychological influence over one’s behavior. These are ways in which the idea of the kingdom of ends figure positively in Kant’s moral psychology. To briefly preview: §3.1 reviews how Kant introduces the idea of a kingdom of ends in the Groundwork. §3.2 summarizes the roles of analogy and symbolization in bringing supersensible concepts closer to intuition and discusses an apparent problem for symbolizing the kingdom of ends by analogy with a kingdom of nature, as suggested in the Groundwork. A proposed solution to this problem, developed in §§3.4–3.6, is found in the Religion’s conception of a universal “visible” church. These sections, then, address the social significance of the kingdom of ends, symbolized by a visible church, in bringing moral concepts closer to intuition. §3.7, then, turns to contemplation in its intended role of enlivening the moral incentive and thus moral feeling through reflection on a “glorious ideal of a universal kingdom of ends in themselves of rational beings” (G 4: 462), thereby addressing its psychological import for individuals as such. §8 is the chapter’s conclusion.

70  Mark Timmons

3.1 A Very Fruitful Concept After affirming in Section II of the Groundwork that there is only a single supreme principle of morality, identified as the categorical imperative (G 4: 421), Kant proceeds to introduce a series of formulae as ways of expressing the single supreme principle (including the formula of the kingdom of ends) which, among other things, are supposed to “bring an idea of reason closer to intuition (according to a certain analogy) and thereby to feeling” (G 4: 436). His introduction of the kingdom of ends proceeds as follows. After presenting and illustrating the humanity formula, Kant introduces the idea of the will of every rational being “as a universally legislating will” – the “specific mark” (G 4: 431) that distinguishes categorical from hypothetical imperatives. This idea reveals that a rational will is not just subject to the moral law, but is subject in such a way that it is self-legislating (autonomous) – the ground of the dignity of each rational being. This idea furthermore “leads to a very fruitful concept” of a kingdom of ends, which marks a transition from the status of individual rational beings to a community composed of all rational beings – a kingdom. By ‘kingdom,’ Kant understands “the systematic union of rational beings through common laws” yielding a “whole of all ends (of rational beings as ends in themselves, as well as the ends of its own that each of them may set for itself) in systematic connection” (G 4: 433). The laws governing such a kingdom concern the relation between individual members interacting with one another as means and ends. Besides finite rational beings who are subject to moral laws as commands of reason (its members), the kingdom as a community of all rational beings includes as its head God – a “completely independent being” (G 4: 434) without needs and whose will, unlimited in power, necessarily conforms to the moral law. This kingdom is “only an ideal” (G 4: 433) corresponding to an idea of moral perfection and thus not something that finite rational wills can collectively realize.4 In a kingdom of ends, all members fully comply with the moral law both in letter and spirit, each thus realizing a virtuous disposition. In a state of complete perfection, the morally permissible private ends of everyone (whose realization constitutes the happiness of each) are met, since happiness is a necessary end of all finite rational beings (CPrR 5: 25). The kingdom of ends as such is a state of moral perfection at the level of community, while the kingdom of ends as a kingdom of nature is a state of both moral and “physical perfection.”5 Understood this way, the realization of a kingdom of ends as a kingdom of nature is one in which God ensures that finite creatures participating in the kingdom of ends are rewarded with happiness in proportion to their virtue. Therefore, the kingdom of ends as a kingdom of nature (so conceived) just is the realization of the highest good.6 What interests me, and what I will proceed to develop, is Kant’s remark that the kingdom of ends is to be conceived on analogy with a kingdom

“Closer to intuition”  71 of nature, which is mentioned at 438 of the Groundwork. First, Kant states the kingdom of ends formula of the supreme principle of morality: Accordingly, every rational being must so act as if through its maxims it were at all times a legislating member of the universal kingdom of ends. The formal principle of these maxims is: so act as if your maxim were to serve at the same time as a universal law (of all rational beings). This is then followed immediately by reference to the analogy: Thus a kingdom of ends is possible only according to the analogy with a kingdom of nature – but the former just according to maxims, i.e. self-imposed rules, the latter just according to laws of externally necessitated efficient causes. Regardless of this, the whole of nature, even though it is viewed as a machine, is still – in so far as it has reference to rational beings as its ends – given for that reason the name of a kingdom of nature. The kingdom of nature referred to here is arguably nature considered as a teleological system, which is how commentators tend to understand it.7 The kingdom of ends formula and associated analogy to a kingdom of nature is supposed to help one “obtain access for the moral law” (G 4: 437).8 This relation between a kingdom of ends and a kingdom of nature raises questions about the role of analogy in Kant’s philosophy and how it is related in his practical philosophy to helping one obtain access for the moral law by bringing moral ideas closer to intuition and thereby to feeling. To investigate this, let us consider what Kant says about a particular use of analogy.9

3.2 Closer to Intuition (According to a Certain Analogy) One crucial use of analogy in Kant’s thinking is to secure the “objective reality” of concepts of reason (ideas in Kant’s technical sense), requiring that they be “exhibited” in sensible intuition if they are to be used in philosophical theorizing. The topic of exhibiting concepts is explained in §59 of the third Critique where Kant addresses the general issue of securing the objective reality of concepts. He begins the section with this remark: Establishing that our concepts have reality always requires intuitions. If the concepts are empirical, the intuitions are called examples. If they are pure concepts of the understanding, the intuitions are called schemata. But if anyone goes as far as to demand that we establish the objective reality of the rational concepts (i.e., the ideas) for the sake of their theoretical cognition, then he asks for something

72  Mark Timmons impossible, because absolutely no intuition can be given that would be adequate to them. (CPJ 5: 351) Schemata for pure concepts of the understanding (e.g. , ) are, as Kant remarks, “direct” means of exhibition. Yet, there is a way to “indirectly” exhibit pure rational concepts (including moral ones) for use in practical cognition by symbolizing them. Symbolic exhibition uses an analogy (for which we use empirical intuitions as well), in which judgment performs a double function: it applies the concept to the object of a sensible intuition; and then it applies the mere rule by which it reflects on that intuition to an entirely different object, of which the former object is only the symbol. (CPJ 5: 352) This description is less than pellucid; however, Kant gives examples. One of the simplest employs the relation between an artificer and an artifact (e.g., watchmaker and watch) comparing it to the relation between God (the idea to be symbolized) and nature. In this case, an artificer symbolizes God. Here, reference to analogy cannot be a form of inductive inference, familiar from logic.10 Rather, the kind of analogy at issue points to a relation holding between the referent of the pure rational idea and some sensible relatum – a relation that is identical to the relation holding between items that can be presented in sensible intuition (or can be related to sensible intuitions by laws of nature). In the example at hand, the relation is the understanding’s a priori concept of causation. The double function of judgment mentioned in the above quote serves to foreground the common relation. First, we apply the concept of an artificer to a sensible intuition of a watchmaker as intelligence and her relation to certain organized objects: an instance of determining judgment. In reflecting on the relation between the watchmaker and watch we employ the pure concept of causation, employing judgment in its reflecting use. We then transfer this pure concept in reflecting on the relation between God and nature, whereby we symbolize God by a watchmaker. In this way, the concept of God: is supplied with an intuition that judgment treats in a way merely analogous to the procedure it follows in schematizing; i.e., the treatment agrees with this procedure merely in the rule followed rather than in terms of the intuition itself, and hence merely in terms of the form of reflection rather than its content. (CPJ 5: 351)11 We thus gain a conception of God, “making the concept of the supreme being sufficiently determinate for us” (P 4: 358), though we are not

“Closer to intuition”  73 permitted on pain of anthropomorphizing to attribute to God the kind of intelligence and will characteristic of a human artificer.12 13 Kant employs the use of analogy for symbolization in the second Critique to secure the objective reality of the supreme principle of morality expressed by the universal law formula.14 Because I want to contrast the universal law/universal law of nature analogy with the kingdom of ends/kingdom of nature analogy, let us briefly consider the former. The idea is that the formula of universal law (FUL), act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become universal law, expresses a constraint on morally permissible maxims. However, the constraint expresses a law of supersensible freedom and thus is not something that can be applied directly to choice and action as events in the sensible world either through an example as with empirical concepts or by way of the sort of schematization employed concerning the pure concepts of the understanding. As Kant explains, although FUL purports to represent a principle for use in judging the morality of actions as events (or possible events) in the sensible (natural) world, it seems absurd to want to find in the sensible world a case which, though as such it stands only under the law of nature, yet admits of the application to it of a law of freedom and to which there can be applied the supersensible idea of the morally good, which is to be exhibited in it in concreto. (CPrR 5: 68) What is required, then, is an analogy relating the universal law formula to sensible intuition. To accomplish this, in a section of the second Critique, “On the typic of the principle of pure practical judgment” (CPrR 5: 67–71), Kant proposes the universal law of nature formula (FLN), so act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature (ibid.), as the “typic” or symbol of “pure practical judgment.” The analogy here is purely formal: using the law of cause and effect as it pertains to the natural world (lawfulness as natural necessity) one can provide a “rule of judgment” (CPrR 5: 69) applicable in the sensible world. One thereby relates this rule of judgment to the universal law formula which expresses the lawfulness of moral necessity – the moral necessity of choice and action that results from one’s capacity for choice (Willkür) being determined by the fundamental law of freedom. More specifically, one judges the moral permissibility of one’s maxim of action of the form, when in circumstances C, I will do/omit A in order to E, by judging whether one could consistently will one’s maxim while simultaneously willing that everyone adopts and act on a type-identical maxim – as if it were a causal law of nature that when in circumstances C persons do/omit A to realize end E. Making use of the “form of lawfulness” one thereby secures the objective reality of the concept of moral

74  Mark Timmons necessity and thus that of the supreme principle of morality. Thus, FUL (or, more precisely, the rule of judgment it expresses) is exhibited by the rule of judgment FLN expresses – the latter a symbolic representation of the former – for use in practical judgment and decision-making by human beings in the natural world.15 If we now compare the analogy between the universal law and universal law of nature formulae on one hand with the kingdom of ends/kingdom of nature analogy on the other, there are important differences. First, while the first pair concern the testing of maxims for moral permissibility, the latter concern the goal or object of morality – an ideal state of affairs to be promoted. That is, the kingdom of ends formula arguably does not represent a free-standing test of maxims,16 rather, insofar as it represents more than just a mere combination of other formulae,17 it points to an ideal that one has a duty to promote by acting only on those maxims that one can will as universal law or, equivalently, by acting on maxims that treat all persons as ends in themselves.18 Second, while the universal law of nature formula employs a mechanistic conception of nature with its causal laws, as noted earlier, the analogy with a kingdom of nature employs a teleological conception of nature. But if Kant meant to draw an analogy between the kingdom of ends and a kingdom of nature (construed teleologically) for symbolization then, unlike the watchmaker/God and the FLN/FUL symbolizations, more than one step would be required for exhibiting the concept of the former. This is because viewing nature teleologically as involving the idea of purposes in nature as well as that of the systematicity of nature as a whole – which are not represented in sensible intuition – must themselves be symbolized to secure their objective reality.19 Thus, the symbolic exhibition of the concept of a kingdom of ends must be a multi-step process. This would be one way to interpret the claim that the kingdom of ends conceived on analogy with a kingdom of nature only brings the concept of the former “closer” to intuition because the latter does not itself provide a symbolic exhibition of the sort described in the above quotes from the third Critique.20 There would thus be further work to do to secure the objective reality of the concept of a kingdom of ends by exhibiting the concept via symbolization.21 However, perhaps Kant’s remark about viewing the kingdom of ends on analogy with a kingdom of nature is only meant to evoke an image of the highest good in which members of the former (by being virtuous) are conceived as members of a realm of nature in harmony with their moral character whereby virtue is proportionally rewarded with happiness. Insofar as evoking this image is psychologically useful in reinforcing one’s moral resolve, it serves the purpose of affecting moral feeling – a theme we find elsewhere in Kant’s writings22 and that we revisit below in Section 3.7. Nevertheless, the project of exhibiting via symbolization in the manner set forth in the third Critique (and elsewhere) is worth

“Closer to intuition”  75 pursuing to see where it leads. This is what I propose to do in the following four sections, beginning in the next section with a discussion of the role of the “visible church” in symbolizing the kingdom of ends.

3.3 Counteracting Evil with United Forces Insofar as the kingdom of ends is symbolized by analogy to exhibit the concept, it is symbolized by what Kant refers to as the “visible church” introduced in Part III of the Religion, “The Victory of the Good over the Evil Principle, and the Founding of a Kingdom of God on Earth.” The “good principle” refers to the subordination of incentives of self-love to moral incentives; the “evil principle” reverses this order – an expression of the innate propensity to evil that afflicts human beings discussed in Part I of Religion. Overcoming this innate propensity requires that one undergo a change of heart resulting in a firm resolve to subordinate incentives of self-love to incentives of morality constitutive of a good will. However, one is still susceptible to the evil of vice owing partly to other human beings and one’s so-called predisposition to humanity. This predisposition “can be brought under the general title of self-love which … involves comparison (for which reason is required); that is, only in comparison with others does one judge oneself happy or unhappy” (Rel 6: 27). Self-love involves the inclination to “gain worth in the opinion of others” (ibid.), but anxiety about others seeking superiority over oneself can lead to various kinds of hostility toward others including “envy, addiction to power, avarice and the malignant inclinations associated with these” (Rel 6: 93–4). So, despite having resolved to subordinate considerations of self-love to those of morality, being with other human beings makes one vulnerable to recidivism. In Part III of Religion, Kant considers how it is possible for human beings who are committed to complying with duty out of a sense of duty can protect themselves from such recidivism. The solution is “counteracting evil with united forces” (Rel 6: 94) guided by the ideal of an ethical community that itself is guided by the aim of encouraging and maintaining virtue among its members, thus encouraging a “kingdom of virtue” (Rel 6: 95) conceived as under the command of God and thus also as a “people of God” (Rel 6: 99). Arguably, the idea of an ethical community is closely related to, if not the same as, the idea of a kingdom of ends whose full realization under God would constitute the highest good – a state of affairs in which its members each realize the highest degree of virtue possible for human beings, making them worthy of a proportionate degree of happiness, and (assuming this proportionality is made real) thereby achieving the highest degree of happiness possible for them. So understood, the idea of a kingdom of ends is what Kant refers to throughout the Religion as the kingdom of God.23 Kant argues that this kind of community can only be realized in the form of a church. But, again, a

76  Mark Timmons church that fully realized an ethical community is an ideal and thus not something that human beings can bring about. Kant refers to this ideal as the “church invisible” (Rel 6:101). Yet, he sets forth a blueprint for how human beings can approximate it – at least to some degree – which he refers to as a “visible church.” 24

3.4 Greatly Scaled Down Under Human Hands The church invisible, then, although it is “the mere idea of the union of all upright human beings under direct yet moral divine world governance” (Rel 6: 101), serves as a model or “archetype” for a “visible church;” something that could be realized and consisting of several congregations unified by the principles upon which they are founded. Kant remarks that the visible church “is greatly scaled down under human hands” (Rel 6: 100) since it is restricted regarding the means for establishing a union of the sort envisioned, given “the conditions of sensuous human nature” (Rel 6: 100) and for reasons having to do with human weakness that we take up in the next section. It is also scaled down because, while there is an obligation to promote the highest good (or ethical community), the specific responsibility of human beings is to strive toward a union of persons who make themselves as individuals and as a community worthy of happiness. The realization of the highest good in which happiness is proportional to, and the result of, virtue requires postulating God who ensures this ideal state.25 It is the visible church that symbolizes (at least in part) the ideal of the ethical community (understood as a church) for the purpose of exhibiting this ideal. Kant specifies four provisions or “marks” that a visible church must aspire to realize if it is to represent or symbolize the invisible church; provisions that follow (perhaps somewhat loosely) the first Critique’s table of categories (i.e., quantity, quality, relation, and modality). Regarding quantity, it is to be a single church concerning its unifying purpose (numerical unity) and in being open to the totality of well-disposed human beings (universality).26 Furthermore, it is united by a single guiding purpose of promoting virtue, i.e. promoting compliance with duty from pure moral incentives (quality in the sense of purity). As far as the mark of relation is concerned, the church is to be an organization that is free in at least three ways: (i) free from interference by external political powers, (ii) that one is free to join, and (iii) where its members enjoy a kind of equality incompatible with the sort of church hierarchy characteristic of, for example, Roman Catholicism (as Kant conceived it), thus avoiding the “degrading distinction between laity and clergy” (Rel 6: 122). This condition of equality is one way the church recognizes the dignity of all its members.27 Finally, a true universal church, given its mission, must have an unalterable constitution containing a priori moral principles of reason (modality) publicly expressed by a constitution allowing for “accidental regulations that only concern the administration of the church” (Rel 6: 102). These four

“Closer to intuition”  77 provisions, then, express “the form” of an ethical community on which a visible church representing and thereby symbolizing this ideal must be grounded. To illuminate the kind of community whose form he has just described and thereby to distinguish it and its constitution from any form of political community and corresponding political constitution (e.g., monarchy, aristocracy, democracy), Kant invokes the image of a household. It includes an invisible moral father, whose holy son “knows the father’s will and yet stands in blood relation with all the members of the family” and communicates the father’s will to the family members – members who “honor the father in him [the son, M.T.] and thus enter into a free, universal and enduring union of hearts” (Rel 6: 102). Kant does not elaborate, but this household image can serve to give some intuitive content to the various provisions governing an ideal ethical community along the following lines.28 A household is a single entity (numerical unity) conceived as a universal family (universality of a kind), whose members are considered free and equal people (relation) who are committed to the non-selfish end (purity) of promoting and maintaining the flourishing of the family. To thus promote this end, the family members are governed by an unchangeable family code that unites them, producing an “enduring union of hearts,” mentioned later in Rel, part IV, in connection with the Christian sacrament of communion as “brotherly love” (see below, Section 3.6). Perhaps the household symbolism helps bring the ideal of an ethical community conceived as a church closer to intuition by contrasting this community and its organization with forms of political organization. Yet another symbol that brings the ideal ethical community even closer to intuition is the visible church as a humanly possible approximation of the ideal.

3.5 Something That the Senses Can Hold On to Instituting a visible church requires taking into consideration facts about human nature, including human weaknesses. As for how a visible church can serve its end of promoting a community of individuals dedicated to virtue that will help guard them against the vices of envy, addiction to power, greed, and other such malignancies, there are rituals and symbols constituting church practices that promote the community’s end of creating a social environment in which virtue can flourish. Both facets of a visible church give human beings “something that the senses can hold on to” (Rel 6: 109) and thus figure in the symbolic representation of the ethical community. Let us consider each facet. The visible church has as its end the moral progress of human beings by encouraging the virtue of each of its members (commitment to the moral law) and which, as a “pure religious faith” (Rel 6: 102), represents the moral law as commands of God. To truly express one’s commitment to God it is necessary and sufficient to comply with the moral law out

78  Mark Timmons of respect for it – the essence of human virtue. However, human beings, “due to a peculiar weakness” (Rel 6: 103), tend to suppose that as with a human dignitary where one expresses one’s honor by gestures or rituals that are in themselves morally indifferent, so also to honor God requires engaging in activities – in themselves of no intrinsic moral worth – that express one’s devotion to God. That is, there is a strong human “propensity to a religion of divine service” (Rel 6: 106) rather than a purely moral religion. A religion of the former sort supposes that in addition to moral laws there are institutional statutory laws the observance of which constitutes properly honoring God. Cognition of such statutory laws is thought possible only through revelation found in scripture and thus thought to be grounded in historical fact. So, while the question, “How does God wish to be honored?,” is answered by simply being a person of virtue, the question, “How does God will to be honored in a church (as a congregation of God)?,” given the so-called propensity to divine service and the need for empirical confirmation that certain statutes represent the will of God – “statutory legislation only proclaimed through revelation” – requires “a historical faith which we call ‘ecclesiastical’ in contradistinction to a pure religious faith” (Rel 6: 105). In essence, this is Kant’s explanation for why a moral religion will need to rely for its institution and maintenance on an ecclesiastical faith, although he envisions a gradual movement away from a need for scriptural revelation and those statutes whose source, unlike moral laws, is historical rather than pure reason. Important for present purposes is that the statutory laws of the visible church, although they are not moral laws or ground moral duties, nonetheless play an important moral role as rituals of symbolic significance.

3.6 Sensible Intermediaries That Serve as Schemata Part IV of Religion, “Concerning Service and Counterfeit Service under the Dominion of the Good Principle or Of Religion and Priestcraft,” is devoted to distinguishing a true moral religion from the “delusion of religion” that results from attributing to mere church statutes and rituals unconditional worth, while they can at most be useful in promoting the end of a purely moral religion – a community of virtue. Kant concludes part IV of Religion by discussing the proper role of certain religious rituals within a visible church. The role of analogy and symbolism again play a crucial role in advancing the end of practicing virtue. Kant remarks that “the true (moral) service of God,” i.e., obedience to moral laws in both letter and spirit as commands of God, is “just as invisible” as the kingdom of God. He then remarks: Yet for the human being the invisible needs to be represented through something visible (sensible), indeed what is more, it must be accompanied by the visible for the sake of praxis and, though intellectual,

“Closer to intuition”  79 made as it were an object of intuition (according to a certain analogy); … [which, M. T.] is only a means of making intuitive for ourselves our duty in the service of God … (Rel 6: 192) For members of the visible church, there are four fundamental duties symbolized in the Christian tradition by “sensible intermediaries that serve as schemata for the duties” (Rel 6: 193) in question, namely, the rituals of prayer, church-going, baptism, and communion. (In various passages, Kant’s use of ‘schemata’ and ‘schematism’, includes symbolic representation of concepts of reason.29) The duties have as their aim promotion of the moral good, not just of the individual but also of the community and thus aim at “a disposition ordained to the kingdom of God within us and outside us” (Rel 6: 192). The duties, their “schema,” and associated ideals include:30 • Striving to approximate the ideal of a perfectly virtuous disposition (the duty) that can be enlivened through private prayer, symbolic of one’s commitment to virtue (the ideal). • Publicly propagating the faith of a moral religion (the duty) by church-going, whereby its doctrines can “be loudly proclaimed and thereby fully shared” (Rel 6: 193); symbolic of one’s commitment to the ideal of a universal community of all finite rational beings (the ideal). • The duty to “instruct” new generations in the faith, initiating them through the ritual of baptism that symbolizes “rebirth” as a member of the church “which imposes grave obligations” upon the initiate (or those who take it upon themselves to educate initiates who are too young to profess the faith). Baptism has “something holy for its end [or ideal, M. T.]” (Rel 6: 199), namely, the formation of a “citizen in a divine state” (ibid.). • Maintenance of the “fellowship” of church members under the principle of the mutual equality of the rights of members (the duty) serves to help stabilize “the union of its members into an ethical body” (Rel 6: 193) through various formalities including communion, this latter a symbol of “sharing in all the fruits of moral goodness” (ibid.). The ideal here is a community characterized by the “moral disposition of brotherly love” (Rel 6: 200) that the rituals in question represent. It is not coincidental that each of these rituals relates to one or more of the four provisions of an ideal church. For instance, the ritual of private prayer, symbolizing a commitment to virtue, corresponds (though only at the level of individuals) to purity – the guiding aim of an ethical community.31 The ritual of church-going, symbolizing a communal commitment to propagating the principles of moral faith, represents the universality of

80  Mark Timmons religion. The “grave obligations” undertaken by, or on behalf of, the initiate symbolized by baptism relates to the modality of the unchangeable moral laws that constitute the core of the religion’s constitution, commitment to which is central to pure moral religion. And finally, the various church rituals, including communion, which aim to stabilize membership through the principle of equality, correspond to relation “under the principle of freedom” which, in the ideal, is a community of rational persons, considered as equals, who fully realize their autonomous natures and thus their dignity. These various church rituals and their symbolic significance, then, are ways in which the visible church advances the basic provisions of true moral religion and thereby helps bring the kingdom of God closer to intuition.

3.7 … and thereby to feeling In bringing moral concepts closer to intuition by relating them to something that one can experience (or at least imagine experiencing), the hoped-for psychological effect is to affect one’s interest in the law of morality (respect for the moral law) and thus moral feeling. Included among the possible ways that this may occur is contemplation of the ideal of a universal kingdom of ends that Kant mentions in the penultimate paragraph of Groundwork III: [T]he idea of a pure world of understanding as a whole of all intelligences, to which we ourselves belong as rational beings (though on the other side we are also members of the world of sense), remains always a useful and permissible idea for the sake of rational faith, even if all knowledge ends at its boundary; so as to effect in us a lively interest in the moral law by means of the glorious ideal of a universal kingdom of ends in themselves (or rational beings) to which we can belong as members only if we carefully conduct ourselves according to maxims of freedom as if they were laws of nature. (4: 462–3) It isn’t clear how contemplating this “glorious ideal” is to “effect in us a lively interest in the moral law” given the abstract nature of the object of such contemplation. And how would such reflection guard against the kind of fleeting “enthusiasm” that Kant condemns in discussing methods of moral education? (See CPrR 5: 157.) In the first paragraph of the Doctrine of Method in the second Critique Kant explains that in practical philosophy method concerns “the way in which one can provide the laws of pure practical reason with access to the human mind and influence on its maxims” (5: 151) to bring about and strengthen pure moral interest that is constitutive of a virtuous disposition. But how “that presentation of pure virtue can have more power”

“Closer to intuition”  81 (ibid.) than non-moral motives is the chief task of a doctrine of methods for moral practice. Kant proceeds to sketch a method that includes judicious use of actual (not hypothetical) examples from biographies and history generally in which individuals are steadfast in their commitment to the moral law against all inclinations of self-love, including aversion to their own death. One such example Kant mentions is the case of “an honest man” (presumably Henry Norris) who is threatened with death unless he joins others in false accusations by Henry VIII against the innocent and powerless Anne Boleyn. Norris refuses to join the calumniators and is executed. Contemplation of such actual cases and the admiration and amazement it produces can lead one “to the greatest veneration and a lively wish that [one] could be such a man” (CPrR 5: 156), though, of course, not to be in such circumstances as Norris found himself. Norris’s example shows that we can overcome contrary-to-duty impulses and inclinations in doing what one recognizes as a duty and thus one’s power “to raise oneself altogether above the sensible world and this consciousness of the law as also an incentive is inseparably combined with consciousness of a power ruling over sensibility” (CPrR 5: 159). Kant continues by saying that the hope that comes from frequent attempts to put such ruling into practice – even minor attempts – can gradually produce a purely moral interest in us. Such contemplation reveals one’s inner freedom which “teaches the human being to feel his dignity” (CprR 5: 152), grounded in such freedom. To respond in this way is in effect to “feel” one’s capacity for moral self-legislation that finds expression in the principle that “all maxims are rejected that are not consistent with the will’s own universal legislation” (G 4: 431). As noted earlier, recognition that “every rational being must consider itself as universally legislating” leads to the “very fruitful concept” of a kingdom of ends. Reflection on this union of rational beings that this ideal represents, whereby its members are related as means and ends and in which members are, to quote Paton again, “greatly moved and uplifted by playing their part, without thought of self-interest, in a great common enterprise under a great leader” can affect moral feeling strengthening one’s moral resolve. The psychology here is that the thought of being in “union” with others in pursuit of a common cause – as brothers and sisters, to invoke the image of a household from Religion – has a special psychological pull which, according to Kant, can help “effect in us a lively interest in the moral law” (G 4: 462).

3.8 Conclusion According to the foregoing interpretation of Kant, bringing the noble concept of a kingdom of ends (or God) as close to intuition and moral feeling as possible involves conceiving of how one might realize a community whose end is the practice of virtue. To relate this goal to sensible

82  Mark Timmons intuition, Kant appeals to the concept of a “visible church” whose constitution both satisfies the marks of an ethical community and has for its content moral laws, together with norms governing church practices and its organization. This, then, is a way of making intuitive a sui generis communal duty to institute a church whose realization would make the human species worthy of happiness. Practicing virtue is here conceived as taking place within a community united for a moral purpose. Connecting the kingdom of ends with the visible church and its rituals (properly conceived) goes some way toward addressing the question about the social significance of the kingdom of ends we began with. At the level of individuals, reflecting on the noble idea of being a member of a kingdom of ends, which involves contemplation of one’s dignity as a being with an intelligible nature, can (and should) enhance moral feeling for the authority of the moral law and thus positively affect one’s moral resolve. Insofar as human beings long to be part of a larger whole – to be in unity with others devoted to a common cause – then, as Paton remarks, the concept of the kingdom of ends is or can be, “the most human and moving” of Kant’s formulae.32

Notes 1 Paton’s point is that the various formulae serve as a basis for deriving (or “demonstrating”) practical propositions (see, e.g., 1956: 138). I agree with Paton but would add that this formula (unlike the humanity formula from which Kant derives a system of ethical duties in the Doctrine of Virtue) is only meant to isolate (or at least point toward) the object or goal of morality, theorized in other works as highest good – the state of affairs realized in a kingdom of ends (as a kingdom of nature). 2 This explains the subtitle of this chapter and why I will sometimes refer to making the kingdom of ends intuitive, which (as I argue) is how this ideal may be partially realized in a community of human beings comprising a visible church in which various rituals (e.g. prayer, communion) symbolize moral ideas bringing them closer to intuition. (Thanks to Jan-Willem van der Rijt for prompting this clarification.) 3 I have used the following translations and abbreviations in referring to Kant’s texts: CPJ for Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. by W. S. Pluhar, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co.; 1987; CPrR for Critique of Practical Reason, trans. M. J. Gregor, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997; CPR for Critique of Pure Reason, trans. by P. Guyer & A. W. Wood, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998; DV for Doctrine of Virtue, trans., J. Timmermann and J. Grenberg, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming; G for Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, revised edition, trans. by M. J. Gregor and J. Timmermann, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012; Eth-C for the Collins lecture notes included in Lectures on Ethics, P. Heath and J. B. Schneewind, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997; Eth-V for the Vigilantius lecture notes included in Lectures on Ethics, P. Heath and J. B. Schneewind, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997; JL for Jäsche Logic, trans. J. M. Young, included in Lectures on Logic, M. J. Young, ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992; L-Th for

“Closer to intuition”  83 Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion, trans. by A. W. Wood, included in Religion and Rational Theology, A. W. Wood and G. di Giovanni, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; PM for “What Progress has Been Made in Metaphysics since Leibniz and Wolff?” trans. by H. Allison, included in Theoretical Philosophy after 1781, H. Allison & P. Heath, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002; Rel for Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and Other Writings, revised edition, trans. A. W. Wood and G. di Giovanni, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 4 In the second Critique, Kant writes that he understands by an “idea a perfection to which nothing adequate can be given in experience” and as “archetypes of practical perfection, [moral ideas, M. T.] serve as the indispensable rule of moral conduct and as the standard of comparison (CPrR 5: 127n). For Kant’s explanation of the notions of idea and ideal, see CPR A567–8/B595–6. 5 See L-Th, where there is discussion of a “twofold system of all ends” (28: 1099) comprising both moral perfection and “physical” perfection, the latter described as “the system of all ends in accordance with nature of things … attained along with the rational creature’s worthiness to be happy” (28: 1100). The combination of moral and physical perfection is a kingdom of ends as a kingdom of nature. 6 Here are two comments about this interpretation of the kingdom of ends as a kingdom of nature as a realization of the highest good. First, the interpretation is not uncontroversial. One might hold that the kingdom of ends as a kingdom of nature might be understood as only part of the highest good because the role of God is not specified – at least in the Groundwork. That is, as Jan-Willem van der Rijt pointed out to me, conceiving of a realm in which the happiness of finite rational beings is proportional to their level of virtue is, as such, compatible with holding that happiness is the causal product of virtue, a view that Kant rejects. Indeed, Klaus Reich (1939) held that Kant’s Groundwork conception of the kingdom of ends as a kingdom of nature involves an apparent “antinomy” that requires God’s involvement to be resolved, which, of course, Kant advances in the Dialectic of the second Critique. If Reich’s view is correct, then the interpretation of the kingdom of ends as a kingdom of nature I advance represents Kant’s considered understanding of how the two realms are related. Second, that Kant’s conception of the kingdom of ends underwent change is defended by Guyer 2011 [2016], who traces the evolution of Kant’s conception of the highest good from the first Critique to the Religion. He argues that Kant eventually settled on a collectivist, earthly view according to which the highest good is conceived as the realization of a kingdom of ends on earth in which a totality of human beings participates. Understood this way, the kingdom of ends is conceived as a kingdom of earthly nature with God ensuring the proper relationship between virtue and happiness. 7 See, e.g., Allison 2011: 249. Notably, however, Kant does employ a mechanical-causal analogy in symbolizing the relation between the “moral forces” of respect and love (DV 6: 449), explored in detail by Santiago Sanchez Borboa (in preparation). 8 Here, Kant mentions access, while in the Doctrine of Method (part II of CPrR), he explains that the method addresses ways in which “one can provide the laws of pure practical reason with access to the human mind and influence on its maxims” (5: 151). 9 In his book-length study of symbolism in Kant’s practical philosophy, Heiner Bielefeldt argues that we find at least four distinct uses of symbols in Kant’s writings: “1 giving guidelines for moral judgment, 2 expressing the apodictic force of the moral law, 3 strengthening a reasonable moral hope, and 4

84  Mark Timmons rendering societal institutions transparent toward their underlying normative functions” (2003: 179). In the next section, I am concerned with the first of these as Kant’s attempt to exhibit the concept of the moral law thus securing (or helping to secure) its objective reality. 10 In the Jäsche Logic, Kant explains that the logical use of analogy, along with enumerative induction, are “useful and indispensable for the sake of extending of our cognition by experience” (JL 9: 133). 11 As Kant remarks in “What Progress”: “In this way I can indeed have no theoretical [cognition, M. T.] of the supersensible, e.g., of God, but can yet have a [cognition, M. T.] by analogy, and such as it is necessary for reason to think; it is founded upon the categories, because they necessarily pertain to the form of thinking, whether it be directed to the sensible or the super-sensible, even though these categories constitute no cognition, and this precisely because they do not by themselves yet determine any object” PM 20: 280. (I’ve used ‘cognition’ to translate ‘Erkenntnis’, replacing Allison’s use of ‘knowledge’.) 12 Notably, in this example, there is both a “formal” analogy and one of content. It is formal in the sense that the form of judgment (or way of judging) when reflecting on the watch/watchmaker is the same as the form of judgment when reflecting on the watchmaker/God analogy. This kind of formal analogy is what Kant emphasizes when, in explaining exhibition by analogy, he remarks that such analogy is “merely in terms of the form of reflection rather than its content” (CPJ 5: 351). However, in the watchmaker/God example one also finds an analogy of content – a watchmaker symbolizes God via the similarity of relation featured in the form of reflecting judgment. Similarly, Chignell 2006 argues that Kant’s symbolization of the systematicity of nature by judgments of beauty should be viewed as involving both formal and contentful analogies. 13 Our employment of our concept of God includes various attributions we use in communicating thoughts about this being, including being creator, being perfectly benevolent, and so on. We thus gain some conception of God as creator in the way just described. We likewise gain some conception of God as perfectly benevolent by reflecting on the relation between a loving father and his children and transferring this relation in conceiving of God’s “love” for human beings. (See P 5: 358n.) We can proceed to treat other attributions to God in a similar way with the result that we end up with a determinate conception of God useful for practical purposes despite having no use in theoretical cognition. 14 In the second Critique’s “On the Deduction of the Principles of Pure Practical Reason,” Kant writes that the moral law “provides objective reality” to the concept of freedom (5: 47), suggesting that the task of providing objective reality to the concept of freedom has been completed. However, the full task of securing the objective reality for the moral law and thus of freedom is arguably not complete until Kant symbolizes the moral law in a later section on the “typic,” understanding the full task as one that includes securing the use of FUL in practical judgement for evaluating actions as events in the sensible world. How otherwise could one make sense of moral legislation governing choice and action in the sensible world? Up to the typic, then, Kant has defeasibly secured the objective reality of the concept of freedom via the fact of reason. 15 Paton 1947: Chap. XV interpreted Kant’s doctrine of the typic as appealing to teleological laws of nature. For criticism of Paton’s interpretation, see Potter 1973 and Allison 2011: 184n4. 16 Only ‘arguably’ because work by Tom Hill attempts to show how formula can be interpreted as free-standing. See Hill 1972, 1974, 1989, 1992.

“Closer to intuition”  85 17 The mere combination interpretation is found in Paton 1947: 138 and 1956: 140. 18 See Guyer 2011[2016: 277] and Flickshuh 2009 who defend this understanding of the kingdom of ends formula. 19 Regarding purposes in nature, Kant remarks: “For purposes of nature are not given to us by the object: we do not actually observe purposes in nature as intentional ones, but merely add this concept [to nature’s products] in our thought, as a guide for judgment in reflecting on these products. [And] an a priori justification for accepting such a concept, as having objective reality, is even impossible for us” (CPJ §75, 5: 399). 20 This multi-step method of exhibition is perhaps to be expected. Angela Breitenbach 2014, p. 142n notes that the example of beauty Kant employs to symbolize virtue for the purpose of symbolic exhibition is itself not given in experience, and hence the exhibition of the concept of virtue “is itself dependent on further indirect, and hence symbolic representation” and thus part of a “more complex … analogical reflection.” On her interpretation, the analogical exhibition of the concept of the objective purposiveness of nature is by the end-directed causality of our own rational activities, and because reason as a causality of ends cannot be straightforwardly cognized in nature, it, too, requires symbolic exhibition. 21 Some commentators suppose that by taking the concept of a kingdom of ends as (or analogous to) a kingdom of nature construed teleologically, Kant thereby provides a “sensible analogue for a pure kingdom of ends” (Aune 1979: 115). Allison, too, (2011: 250) seems to have this view. To accommodate these interpreters, I would distinguish between complete and an incomplete exhibitions of FUL (and of ideas of reason generally) and classify the Aune/Allison view as providing only the latter. See endnote 20 regarding a multi-step method of exhibition. 22 See, e.g., Rel 6: 5. 23 See Rel 6: 100, 104, 127, 132, 159, 161, 162, 179, 180, 187. 24 As Adam Cureton suggested to me, other communities, societies, and perhaps friendships may also serve to symbolize core parts of the kingdom of ends assuming they involve good people united by moral principles. Pursuing this suggestion is not possible here, although a good starting point is Kant’s remarks about moral friendship in the conclusion to the elements of ethics (“On the most intimate union of love with respect in friendship”) from The Doctrine of Virtue (6: 469–73). See also, Eth-C 27: 422–30 and Eth-V 27: 675–86. For an overview of Kant on friendship, see Timmons 2021, chap. 15. 25 See Kant’s remarks in the paragraph that straddles Rel 6: 100–1. For defense of this conception of the duty associated with the highest good as an interpretation of Kant, see Pasternack 2017. 26 In the first Critique, the pure category of quantity includes unity, plurality, and totality. Considering plurality, insofar as the visible church can be initiated, it will involve a plurality of congregations, each “only a representation or schema” of an ethical community with its “ideal of a totality of human beings” as members (Rel 6:96). 27 There is more to say about the specific ways in which churches may symbolize the dignity of its members. Their having rights, powers, and perhaps colegislating the provisions of its constitution are some of the ways. 28 Jan-Willem van der Rijt commented to me that since a typical household (in Kant’s day) included a husband and wife, who are presumably not bloodrelated, as well as non-blood-related dependents (e.g., servants), Kant’s reference to all members of a family being blood-related is somewhat puzzling.

86  Mark Timmons Perhaps with this use of the image of a family in the Religion Kant is thinking of human beings connected by bonds of brotherly and sisterly love. This reading is encouraged by Kant’s reference at Rel 6: 200 to the “moral disposition of brotherly love” discussed below in §6. 29 In the Religion, Kant refers to a “schematism of analogy” (6: 65n) as the process of relating a supersensible concept indirectly to sensible intuition, thus securing the objective reality of the concept. In the third Critique, as explained above in Section 3.2, the process of schematizing was related exclusively to giving sensible content to the pure categories of the understanding and contrasted with symbolization by analogy. 30 In discussing the following rituals, Kant is concerned to explain their true significance as part of a pure moral faith; he is critical any “delusory faith” (Rel 6: 194) that would suppose their use can influence God as means of obtaining his grace. 31 As Kant explains, the true spirit of prayer expresses a “sincere wish to please God in all our doings and non-doings” (Rel 6: 194–5), whereby “the human being only seeks to work upon himself (to give life to his dispositions by means of the idea of God)” (Rel 6: 195n), rather than petition God for favors. 32 In composing this chapter, I benefitted greatly from conversations with Santiago Sanchez Borboa and Houston Smit about symbolization in Kant, and from the written comments by Adam Cureton and Jan-Willem van der Rijt.

Works Cited Allison, H. 2011. Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary, Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof: oso/9780199691531.001.0001. Aune, B. 1979. Kant’s Theory of Morals, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400853175. Bielefeldt, H. 2003. Symbolic Representation in Kant’s Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511 98022. Breitenbach, A. 2014. “Biological Purposiveness and Analogical Reflection,” in I. Goy and E. Watkins, eds., Kant’s Theory of Biology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 131–47. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110225792. Chignell, A. 2006. “Beauty as a Symbol of Natural Systematicity,” British Journal of Aesthetics 46: 406–15. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayl023. Flickshuh, K. 2009. “Kant’s Kingdom of Ends: Metaphysical, Not Political,” in J. Timmermann, ed., Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A Critical Guide, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: Chap. 7: 119–39. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511770760. Guyer, P. 2011. “Kantian Communities: The Realm of Ends, the Ethical Community, and the Highest Good,” in C. Payne and L. Thorpe, eds., Kant and the Concept of Community. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 88– 120. Reprinted in Guyer, Virtues of Freedom, New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, Chap. 16: 275–302. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof: oso/9780198755647.001.0001. Hill, Thomas E., Jr. 1972. “The Kingdom of Ends,” in L. W. Beck, ed., Proceedings of the Third International Kant Congress, Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co.: 307–15. Reprinted in Hill 1992, Chap. 3: 58–66.

“Closer to intuition”  87 Hill, Thomas E. 1974. “Kant’s Utopianism,” in G. Funke, ed., Acten des 4 Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, Mainz, Part II, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter & Co.: 918–24. Reprinted in Hill 1992, Chap. 4: 67–75. Hill, Thomas E. 1989. “Kantian Constructivism in Ethics,” Ethics 99: 752–70. Reprinted in Hill 1992, Chap. 11: 226–50. Hill, Thomas E. 1992, Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant’s Moral Theory, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501735035. Pasternack, L. 2017. “Restoring Kant’s Conception of the Highest Good,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 55: 435–68. https://doi.org/10.1353/ hph.2017.0049. Paton, H. J. 1947. The Categorical Imperative: A Study of Kant’s Moral Philosophy, London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd. Paton, H. J. 1956. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: Annotated Translation and Analysis, New York: Harper & Row. Potter, N. 1973. “Paton on the Application of the Categorical Imperative,” KantStudien 64: 211–22. https://doi.org/10.1515/kant.1973.64.1-4.411. Reich, K. 1939. “Kant and Greek Ethics (II),” Mind 1939: 446–63. https://doi. org/10.1093/mind/XLVIII.192.446. Sanchez Borboa, S. In preparation. “Kant and the Balance of Moral Forces.” Timmons, M. 2021. Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue: A Guide, Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.

4 Kant’s Understanding of Human Dignity as Self-Determination in the Realm of Ends Dietmar von der Pfordten

4.1 Conditions of Kant’s Understanding of Human Dignity as Self-Legislation in the Realm of Ends1 Kant did not invent the concept of human dignity. But prior to Kant the concept was nearly abandoned by most modern Western political thinkers like Hobbes, Locke or Rousseau. It was mainly used in religious or theological, especially Catholic contexts, by more traditional naturallaw authors like Pufendorf and to confer the meaning of social rank or office. For Kant, as a modern, enlightened, non-theological writer with a protestant background, there seems to have been no necessity to integrate the concept in his moral theory. But he did. And this leads to the questions why did he do this and how did he do this? The answer given in this chapter, in a nutshell, is this: The concept of human dignity plays a constructive role in Kant’s system of practical philosophy only in the third realm-of-ends formula in the Groundwork, which links the human capacity of self-legislation to the totality of the justified and equal claims of all moral beings. Before starting the interpretation, it seems to be useful to name some of its basic conditions. At least four conditions of an interpretation seem to be fundamental in order to analyze Kant’s understanding and use of the concept of human dignity: (1) The concept appears only in low frequency in Kant’s works and plays a constructive role only at one point in his system of practical philosophy. This leads to the interpretative maxim to concentrate on this one main constructive use. (2) Kant as a systematic thinker has chosen this one main systematic use of the concept carefully and deliberately. (3) The concept has a limited, secondary constructive function in Kant’s system of practical philosophy. (4) In order to understand Kant’s understanding of the concept one has to consider the history of the concept before Kant. Let’s consider these four conditions. 1) Kant uses the German term “Würde” (“dignity”) not very frequently but occasionally in several of his published and unpublished writings. Some have counted 107, others 111 occasions.2 Moreover, he DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-6

Kant’s Understanding of Human Dignity  89 frequently combines “Würde” via the genitive with several other words, for example in “Würde der menschlichen Natur” (“dignity of human nature”, OFBS 2:221), “Würde der Menschheit” (“the dignity of humanity”, G 4:439, 440, MM 6:420, 429, 449, 459), or “Würde eines vernünftigen Wesens” (“the dignity of a rational being”, G 4:434). Some uses of the word “Würde” have a different, more limited, non-universal meaning and refer only to the old Roman understanding of dignitas, that is, a social rank or office such as the rank of a nobleman or the office of a bishop or president.3 For these reasons, neither the concept of dignity in general nor the (sub-)concept of human dignity are amongst Kant’s constructive fundamental concepts, such as pure reason (“reine Vernunft”), analytic-synthetic (“analytisch-synthetisch”) or category (“Kategorie”) in his theoretical philosophy, or will (“Wille”), law (“Gesetz”), maxim (“Maxime”) or categorical imperative (“kategorischer Imperativ”) in his practical philosophy. There is only one systematic location in Kant’s writings in which the concept of dignity in the clear sense of human dignity (and not the old social rank- or office-dignity) is used more frequently and plays a certain constructive role.4 Therefore, this and only this systematic location must be the starting point and kernel for the interpretation of the concept of human dignity in Kant. As a consequence, all other peripheral occasions in which the term “dignity” appears can play only a minor or additional role in understanding the concept. The better accessibility of Kant’s minor works in translations (e.g., the ones published in the “Berliner Monatsschrift”),5 including the opus postumum and even his lectures has led some scholars to employ a sort of “interpretative egalitarianism” or even “interpretative exotism”. An undated and unsystematic note in the opus postumum or a sentence in a lecture noted by a student seems for them to have as much or even more weight to sustain an interpretation than a use in one of Kant’s major published academic works, e.g. the three Critiques or the Groundwork. Egalitarianism might be a good strategy in politics and exotism a good strategy in art, but both are unsuitable methods for interpreting a philosopher’s considered views, in part because philosophers often test, revise, and sometimes reject ideas and theses in their notes and lectures. This is the normal way of academic research, the way of trial and error. So only the major, ripe, and published works of an author can count as her or his true opinion on a certain problem – at least, if she or he does not change this opinion from book to book, as for example Bertrand Russell did. But Kant was not like Russell. He worked on and polished his views extensively until he published his major works at what was, for the time, an advanced age, e. g. the Critique of Pure Reason at age 57, the Groundwork at age 61, the Critique of Practical Reason at age 64, and the Metaphysics of Morals at age 73/74. Therefore, especially

90  Dietmar von der Pfordten when interpreting Kant, we have to avoid “interpretative egalitarianism” and “interpretative exotism” and instead adopt “interpretative significationism” as the main principle of interpretation. Its main maxim is: Every interpretation of an author has to start and focus first and foremost on the most significant and constructive employment of a concept or thought in her or his major published works.6 Other passages can only help to clarify this employment, but they cannot be used to build up a different foundation to revise a published position in one of the major academic works.7 Therefore, in order to understand the concept of human dignity in Kant, we have to start with the use of this concept in the third realm-of-ends formula in the Groundwork. 2) Kant has always chosen and defined the important concepts he uses in his philosophy very carefully. His work is full of careful implicit and explicit definitions, e.g., the definition of the state in the Metaphysics of Morals.8 And he has been very deliberate – at least in his major critical works – in choosing the place in which to employ these philosophical concepts in his system. The position of a concept and/or topic is regularly no accident in Kant’s texts. Kant’s academic texts are all very systematic, which means that they form a system with respect to one or several points of systematization (e.g., analytic-dialectic in the CPR, private law-public law in the MM). In other words: they create an edifice of thought. This holds true not only for Kant’s later, fully systematic works like the Metaphysics of Morals and the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, but also for Kant’s critical works, that is, the three Critiques and the Groundwork. In this sort of edifice of thought, virtually no major thought and no decisive philosophical concept is introduced by accident. Nearly all have a function for the whole edifice, just like most pillars and stones do in a Gothic cathedral. Therefore, we have to assume that Kant has carefully chosen the place in which he employs the concept of human dignity for the first time and where it appears more frequently. This holds true for Kant’s most important and only constructive use of the concept of human dignity within the third formula of the categorical imperative, the realm-of-ends formula. ) Human dignity is a technical philosophical and at the same time sys3 tematically important concept for Kant. But it plays no fundamental role in Kant’s practical philosophy, like the concepts of will, law, maxim, freedom, categorical imperative, universalization do.9 These concepts form the pillars of the Kantian cathedral of practical philosophy. The function of the concept of human dignity is different and more restricted. It has a limited, secondary function. Significantly, it emerges in the Groundwork only in the third formula of the categorical imperative, the realm-of-ends formula. Therefore, it has only a function in this third formula of the realm-of-ends. Otherwise he

Kant’s Understanding of Human Dignity  91 would have introduced it with the basic formulation of the categorical imperative, like he did with will, law, maxim etc. One can – to continue with the previous metaphor of a cathedral – compare the function of human dignity for Kant’s practical philosophy with the function of a stone in the vault of the aisle of a Gothic cathedral. The function of the stone in this vault is limited to sustain the vault only in this aisle, but not the vault in the main nave. Kant’s concept of human dignity plays no explicit role for the basic formulation of the moral law and the categorical imperative (G 4:421) nor for the first natural-law and the second means-end formula. 4) Before Kant, the concept of dignity had a long, diverse and, in many respects, very problematic history. The Roman concept of dignitas meant the elevated social status or estimation of a magistrate, senator, nobleman or patrician (Pöschl 1989). Caesar, for instance, defended his crossing of the Rubicon by appealing to the need to preserve his dignity (Raaflaub 1974). Cicero very often used dignity in this sense, as well, but in one place in De officiis, he uses it in the sense of a quasi-natural equal property of all men (I, 105f.). For Christian thinkers, human dignity was also an equal property, the property of being created by God in his image and of being invested with an immortal soul, freedom, and rationality by God. This is likely why the modern Anglo-Saxon, French, and Dutch thinkers from the West, e.g., Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire, Grotius, and Spinoza, tried to abandon the concept of human dignity nearly completely in their writings. For the modern “Western” thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries it was important to avoid this heavily religiously-connotated concept. For example, we find only one very peripheral citation in the Leviathan, and here in this context Hobbes reverses the concept utterly.10 Additionally, the concept of human dignity seems to have had a Catholic flavor, which also helps to explain why we do not see any significant use of the concept by these mostly Protestant, non-Catholic, or even atheist thinkers. In the German Empire of the 17th and 18th centuries, the intellectual situation was quite different. German thinkers of this time lagged considerably behind in their modernity. They were old-fashioned and less secularized in comparison to the Western thinkers mentioned in the last section. The concept of dignity is indeed used in some of their philosophical texts. For example, we find the concept in a few places in Samuel von Pufendorf’s texts; e.g., in De officio hominis et civis iuxta legem naturalem libri duo from 1673, he linked it with social justice and equality (1994, Ch. 7, § 1, 4), while in De jure naturae et gentium libri octo from 1672, he used it in a rather religious way, expressing an understanding of human beings as invested with an immortal soul (1998, I, III, 1). One can see that, in spite of the less radical secularism, even Pufendorf seems to hide or even downplay the concept of dignity and does

92  Dietmar von der Pfordten not make it a cornerstone of his philosophy – probably because of the same three reasons that motivated the Western thinkers to abandon it: The concept had quite a religious meaning. It even had a Catholic flavor, which made it otiose for Protestant or non-Catholic thinkers like Pufendorf and Kant. And it was seen as outdated because the modern, Western thinkers had skipped it nearly completely. After Pufendorf, the next generation of protestant natural law philosophers had no use for the concept of dignity either. For example, the concept of human dignity plays no significant role in the writings of the natural law theorist Gottfried Achenwall from Goettingen, whose book on natural law Kant taught several times in his lectures.11 Therefore, it is somewhat surprising that Kant, who is an even more modern thinker than Achenwall and who tried to reformulate and even abandon natural law in some sense, has excavated this – at least in the West – dead and buried concept from its grave. One decisive question is: Why did he do this? Why did he feel the need to resurrect the concept? There must be something in his own system that made the excavation of this old concept possible and even justified – and this is – as we will see – the difficult and strange realm-of-ends-formula within the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. In any case, Kant had to be very cautious in integrating this difficult, religiously-laden, and fraught concept. He handled this obstacle by using the concept in the Groundwork only at the very specific place of the third imagination-formula of the basic universal law of the categorical imperative, the realm-of-ends formula. He did not use the concept in the Doctrine of Law as part of the Metaphysics of Morals, where he instead discusses the dignity of ranks and offices mentioned above. He reused it somewhat more frequently, but with constructive significance only in the Doctrine of Virtue, the second part of the Metaphysics of Morals.12 Because of its difficult history, Kant could employ the concept only by putting it in a specific place in his system – with the result that the concept received a different, rather new meaning. One can find this method of systematizing and revising the meaning of a concept in Hobbes’ work. In his Leviathan, Hobbes uses the traditional concepts of “natural law” and “natural rights”, but he stripped them of all idealistic, that is, nonmaterialistic meanings (1991, Ch. 14., 91ff.). These ideas are defined in terms of materialistic qualities of moving bodies. Only their names or denominations, along with some of their implicit positive connotations, remain, but the meaning, that is, the referent, is completely changed from previous and ordinary meanings of those terms. Charles Stevenson has analyzed and described this methodological strategy in his book Ethics and Language (1944) and named the results “persuasive definitions”. Nevertheless, Kant was not as radical as Hobbes in the ways he adjusted the meanings of traditional concepts, perhaps because he was not as radical in his basic philosophical convictions. Kant was not a materialist, but remained a rationalist and, in certain respects, an idealist. Therefore, a

Kant’s Understanding of Human Dignity  93 religious-idealistic concept like the concept of human dignity could be made to fit into his system without such a total reversion as Hobbes conducts with his method. But for Kant, the meaning of the concept of human dignity had to be transformed, especially with respect to a possible religious meaning. How did Kant manage this transformation?

4.2 The Use of the Concept Of Human Dignity in the Groundwork in the Third Imagination-Formula of the Categorical Imperative, the Realm-of-Ends-Formula In the Groundwork, Kant distinguishes very carefully between the general law of the categorical imperative as the principle of morality to act as if our maxim could become a universal law (G 4:421) and the three derivation- and imagination-formulas which, he says, are three different ways “to imagine the principle of morality” (G 4:436: “drei Arten, das Prinzip der Sittlichkeit vorzustellen”). Paton’s counting of the several formulas of the categorical imperative has not taken into account this clearly expressed intention of Kant’s exposition of the principle of morality into one fundamental law, that is, the categorical imperative and exactly three imagination-formulas; for this reason, Paton’s list of formulas obscured the understanding of the architecture of Kant’s argumentation (1971). But there are other interpretations which follow Kant’s self-description accurately and describe his systematization of one general law and three derivation- and imagination-formulas correctly (e.g., Kaulbach & Kants 1988, 94ff.). Kant proposes only one general law of morality which he himself describes as the “one and only” (“nur ein einziger”) categorical imperative (G 4:421): “Der kategorische Imperativ ist also nur ein einziger, und zwar dieser: handle nur nach derjenigen Maxime, durch die du zugleich wollen kannst, dass sie ein allgemeines Gesetz werde.” After describing this “one and only” categorical imperative, Kant goes on to develop three derivations to imagine this one and only principle of morality. In the beginning of their exposition, he characterizes these three formulas firstly as “imperatives of duty” (“Imperative der Pflicht”) which can be “derived” from this one and only fundamental categorical imperative as their principle (“Wenn nun aus diesem einzigen Imperativ alle Imperativen der Pflicht als aus ihrem Prinzip abgeleitet werden können”)13. And he concludes the presentation of these three ways to imagine the one and only principle of morality with a clear meta-reflection on this exposition (G 4:436): Die angeführten drei Arten, das Prinzip der Sittlichkeit vorzustellen, sind aber im Grund nur so viele Formeln eben desselben Gesetzes, deren die eine die anderen zwei von selbst in sich vereinigt. Indessen ist doch eine Verschiedenheit in ihnen, die zwar eher subjektiv als objektiv-praktisch ist, nämlich, um eine Idee der Vernunft der Anschauung

94  Dietmar von der Pfordten (nach einer gewissen Analogie) und dadurch dem Gefühle näher zu bringen. Gregor and Timmermann translate this passage as: The above three ways of representing the principle of morality are fundamentally only so many formulae of the selfsame law, one of which of itself unites the other two within it. However, there is yet a dissimilarity among them, which is indeed subjectively rather than objectively practical, namely to bring an idea of reason closer to intuition (according to a certain analogy) and thereby to feeling. (2019, 48) This translation is good, but in one decisive point not completely convincing. “vorzustellen” is the verb to “Vorstellung”, a noun which is necessarily restricted to a mental activity, while “representing”, the verb to “representation”, is clearly not – and the latter can also be understood linguistically or legally. This strictly mental character of the three formulas as derivations of the one and only categorical imperative is validated by the characterisations “intuition” (“Anschauung”) and “feeling” (“Gefühl”), which immediately follow in the next sentence. Therefore, one has to translate “vorzustellen” with “imagining” or “imagination” in order to preserve the more restricted mental understanding of “vorstellen”. And thus, the three derivation-formulas are only three ways to imagine the one and only principle of morality, which is expressed in the categorical imperative as the law of morality. With respect to the three formulas, Kant also speaks of the “manner of imagination” (“Vorstellungsart”) (G 4:431). Why does Kant propose exactly three derivation- and imagination-formulas? Kant derives the three imagination-formulas out of the one and only categorical imperative according to the three categories of quantity – namely unity, multiplicity, and totality – from the Critique of Pure Reason (G 4:436: Einheit, Vielheit, Allheit). The table of the twelve categories is one of the main positive results of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the group of quantity with these three categories of unity, multiplicity and totality is the first such group (CPR 3:87, 4:66). Therefore, this division into three ways to imagine the one and only principle of morality is not a peculiar systematization for this specific problem, created only for this thought or this text. And neither does it follow an external idea. Instead, it is a very fundamental method of systematization which Kant used at several points in his philosophy, e.g., also in the Critique of Practical Reason (CPrR 5:66). Besides the fundamental divisions into Analytik and Dialektik and into a priori and a posteriori, this method of ordering our thoughts according to the abstract categories of the table of categories in the Critique of Pure Reason is one of Kant’s main methods

Kant’s Understanding of Human Dignity  95 of systematization. Because we as human and rational beings think necessarily through the epistemological lens of the twelve categories, these categories are used in all the specific forms of our thinking. The concept of dignity is used neither in the one and only general principle of the categorical imperative, nor in the first natural-law-formula or the second means-end-formula, but exclusively in the third realm-ofends-formula, that is, the formula that is the self-legislating-imagination, the “Reich-der-Zwecke”-Vorstellung in order to explain the quality of human beings to be a self-legislating member in this realm of ends. Firstly, let us look at the translation of the German expression “Reich der Zwecke” because this seems to be a constant source of confusion and misunderstanding in the English-speaking world. As one has perhaps realized, I prefer the translation “realm of ends” instead of “kingdom of ends” – often chosen by english-speaking scholars,14 though not always15 – because in the German language, one distinguishes carefully between “Reich” and “Königreich”. Kant never uses “Königreich” in the Groundwork, which might be translated as “kingdom”, but always “Reich”. And he gives his own definition, which is very egalitarian (G 4:433): “I understand under a realm (Reich) the systematic connection of several rational beings by common laws” (“Ich verstehe aber unter einem Reiche die systematische Verbindung verschiedener vernünftiger Wesen durch gemeinschaftliche Gesetze”). In German, “Königreich” is quite precisely and exclusively used if a king or queen exists as sovereign and thus as head of a specific state. Therefore, at present, the United Kingdom is a “Königreich”, but not France or Italy. “Reich” is understood more specifically both in a political respect and in a more general respect. It has a more specific meaning than “state” and therefore also than “Königreich” in a political sense: A “Reich” is not only a state, but a more encompassing political community, which includes not only one, but many states and nations – or, in Europe after 800, with the Empire of Charlemagne even nearly all states and nations.16 In antiquity, the paradigm examples of “Reich” were the Empire of Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire, which both included many states and nations. A “Reich”, that is, an Empire, is normally ruled by an emperor, not by a monarch which bears only the title “king”. After the decline of the Roman Empire, there existed only one “Reich” in Europe, namely the Empire of Charlemagne, from which one part became the Holy Roman Empire (Sacrum Romanum Imperium), which emerged in the 10th century and ended in 1806 with the declaration of termination by Franz II of Habsburg-Lothringia, the archduke of Austria and King of Bohemia and Hungary. Subsequently, Franz II declared the Habsburgian territory as an Empire and himself as emperor, following the example of Napoleon, who had himself crowned as emperor in 1804. And Russia under the Tsar was also considered to be a sort of empire. But this multiplication of Empires in Europe at the beginning of the 19th century happened after Kant had written and published the Groundwork in 1785. Therefore, this

96  Dietmar von der Pfordten old, all-encompassing political meaning fits very well with Kant’s employment of the all-encompassing category of totality in the development of the realm-of-ends-formula. Besides this specific political meaning, there is also a much less specific and broader, in some sense derivative and transferred, meaning of “Reich” in the German language, that is, in the sense of “sphere”, “field”, “region”, “zone”, “district”, “area”, “realm”, “sector”. In biology, for example, one distinguishes, on a very high level, five or six classificatory “Reiche” of animals. Or a teenager furnishes his one and only sphere, that is his room in the apartment of his parents with things and thereby creates his own “Reich”. Or a salesman creates his “Reich” of marketing in a specific geographic region, that is he is the one and only representative of an enterprise in this region and thus can decide like an emperor on the marketing strategy of the enterprise in this region. This broader, derivative meaning, then, fits very well with Kant’s employment of the category of “totality”. In his “Reich der Zwecke”, Kant does not include a king or queen but only a head, an “Oberhaupt” (one can assume this to be God or some sort of ‘weaker’ transcendent being), who is law-giving, as all other members are, but who is not subject to the will of the other members and therefore not subject to the duty of the categorical imperative (G 4:433). However, the head is bound by the moral law and therefore not sovereign in a traditional political sense or in a religious sense, “almighty” in all its wishes, as God was traditionally understood (at least by voluntarists). Therefore, I do not think that it is justified to name this head a king because human beings are not only subjects of this head but self-legislating in this realm as equal parts of the collective as “sovereign”. This is an egalitarian understanding of the foundation and justification of morality, which resembles a politically egalitarian republic and even democratic understanding. When it comes to the translation into English, the use of “realm” instead of “kingdom” makes the two main ideas of this equality in law-giving and the category of totality clearer.17 However, one has to mention that in English, “kingdom” is used in a much broader sense and not only for a political community which has a royal constitution. For example, unlike the German “Königreich”, one finds “kingdom” in biological classifications, too (Cavalier-Smith 1998). Therefore, in this broader sense, “kingdom” might be a suitable translation for “Reich”. But “realm” makes the decisive category and idea of totality and the egalitarian foundation and justification of morality clearer, in my view.

4.3 The Peculiarity of the Realm of Ends and the Realm-of-Ends Formula This realm of ends and, a fortiori, the third realm-of-ends formula is, in some ways, very special in comparison to the other formulas of the categorical imperative. There are three main differences:18

Kant’s Understanding of Human Dignity  97 1) If one compares the basic principle of the categorical imperative and the three derivation-formulas, one comes to a decisive conclusion: Kant only speaks of an “idea” or an “ideal” in the third realm-ofends-formula (G 4:433, 434, 436, 439). The first mention of the dignity of man in this passage designates it explicitly as the “idea of the dignity of a rational being” (“Idee der Würde eines vernünftigen Wesens”, G 4:434). And in one of Kant’s very few footnotes, which always indicate an important point, the realm of ends is expressly characterized as a “practical idea” (G 4:436). Kant writes: “Die Teleologie erwägt die Natur als ein Reich der Zwecke, die Moral ein mögliches Reich der Zwecke als ein Reich der Natur. Dort ist das Reich der Zwecke eine theoretische Idee, zu Erklärung dessen, was da ist. Hier ist es eine praktische Idee, um das, was nicht da ist, aber durch unser Tun und Lassen wirklich werden kann, und zwar eben dieser Idee gemäß zu Stande zu bringen.” (“Teleology considers nature as a realm of ends, moral a possible realm of ends as realm of nature. There the realm of ends is a theoretical idea for explaining what exists. Here it is a practical idea for the sake of bringing about by acting and omitting – in conformity with precisely this idea – what does not exist but can become actual by means of our behavior.”) What does this dignity of man as an “idea” mean? For Kant, every “idea” is a “necessary conception of reason, to which no corresponding object can be discovered in the world of sense” (CPR 3:254). With the help of ideas, we regard all perception of experience as determined by an absolute totality of the specific conditions of this perception, e.g. for the idea of practical reason the concepts of will, law, categorical imperative etc. as conditions. What function do ideas have in practical usage? Kant elucidates this question in a passage in the Critique of Pure Reason, which could be considered as a commentary on the third derivation-formula in the Groundwork: On the other hand, as in the practical use of the understanding we have only to do with action and practice according to rules, an idea of pure reason can always be given in concreto, although only partially, nay, it is the indispensable condition of all practical employment of reason. The practice or execution of the idea is always limited and defective, but nevertheless within indeterminable boundaries, consequently always under the influence of the conception of an absolute perfection. And thus, the practical idea is always in the highest degree fruitful, and in relation to real actions indispensably necessary. In the idea, pure reason possesses even causality and the power of producing that which its conception contains. Hence, we cannot say of wisdom, in a disparaging way, ‘it is only an idea.’ For, for the very reason that it is the idea of the necessary unity of all possible aims,

98  Dietmar von der Pfordten it must be for all practical exertions and endeavours the primitive condition and rule. (CPR 3:254) The practical idea is one of totality and therefore one of completeness. But its realization in the real world by singular and intellectually limited human beings who are restricted in time and space is always limited and therefore defective, that is, incomplete. But these limits cannot be determined in advance. This fits very well with Kant’s own characterization of the realm of ends as an imagining of the categorical imperative through the lens of the category of totality mentioned above. And it also fits very well Kant’s assumption that the third formula unites the first and second imaginationformulas, which concern form and matter. Therefore, it is important to understand that this third formula is a sort of synthesis of the first and second formula, a synthesis in our mind, but it cannot be made a reality by limited human beings. With this step, Kant reaches religious and theological ground. It is a thought sub specie aeternitate, which can be compared to the last judgement as the total judgement of God and the total love of God. In order to make this last synthesis with the category of totality understandable, Kant introduces two elements of religious and theological thought, but, at the same time, significantly transforms them. The first religious and theological element is a head (Oberhaupt), that is, God or a transcendent being, who legislates and follows the moral law, but is not bound by the will of others and the categorical imperative. That means that God is not absolutely free, but limited by the legislation of all rational beings in the realm of ends. This understanding excludes an almighty God demanding e.g., from Abraham the senseless sacrifice of his son Isaac, and leads to the God of love and morality of the New Testament. The second religious and theological element within the exposition of the realm-of-ends-formula is human dignity. For an average reader in 18th-century Germany, the Christian and even Catholic concept of human dignity described a property of man, namely to be created by God in his image and to be invested with an immortal soul, freedom, and rationality by God (see above 4.1.4). Kant mentions none of these connotations and he endorses none of them. He instead takes up the concept in order to tell the reader that there is indeed a quality in human beings which ties them to the totality of the world. This is the quality of autonomy, that is, self-legislation, which includes the quality to understand autonomy. Every singular human being sees themselves as legislating with his or her own will in community with all other human and personal beings. Therefore, every singular human being understands himself or herself as part of the realm of all autonomous, that is, self-legislating persons. 2) As a first main consequence of this link of a human quality to the idea of totality, we find a difference in the formulation of the formulae in Kant’s text. While the first and second formulae of the practical

Kant’s Understanding of Human Dignity  99 law are clearly formulated grammatically as categorical imperatives and appear in spaced letters (“Act only according to this maxim…”; “Act in such a way that you…”), that is, they appeal directly to the human being and can be used to test an individual maxim,19 there is no such grammatically imperative formulation of the third formula. On page 439, however, Kant writes, “so bleibt doch jenes Gesetz: handle nach Maximen eines allgemein gesetzgebenden Gliedes zu einem bloß möglichen Reich der Zwecke, in seiner vollen Kraft, weil es kategorisch gebietend ist.” (“nevertheless that law: act according to the maxims of a member universally legislating for a merely possible realm of ends, remains in its full force because it commands categorically.”). But this repeats the imperative formulation of the general law, that is, the categorical imperative, as it just tells the reader that the idea of a realm of ends with its element of expectation to reach happiness – just mentioned before the cited passage – does not make the moral law invalid. Why does Kant not formulate the third formula of the realm of ends in a grammatically imperative form? The ideas of the will of every rational being as a universally legislating, that is, autonomous being and of the realm of ends of all rational beings cannot be made into an action-controlling maxim by a single acting human being, for this human being is only a single agent with limited mental capacities who virtually cannot reach a complete consideration of all end-determining beings (which God perhaps could, although Kant does not mention this thought). In particular, human beings cannot discern the intentions of God as the head (Oberhaupt) with certainty. She or he cannot make the contemplation of the all-embracing self-legislation and of the total realm of ends a real possibility for practical use because the totality of the end-determining beings and the existence of God as a head are mere ideas – from a theoretical as well as a practical point of view, as we saw in the previous paragraph. 3) A last peculiarity of the treatment of the third formula is this: It is striking that Kant indeed explains the first two imagination-formulae with his four well-known examples (suicide, fallacious promises, squandering of talent, emergency assistance), but he does not do so with the third formula. Kant gives a justification of this omission after the development of the third formula in a footnote (G 4:432): “Ich kann hier, Beispiele zur Erläuterung dieses Prinzips anzuführen, überhoben sein, den die, so zuerst den kategorischen Imperativ und seine Formel erläuterten, können hier alle zu eben dem Zwecke dienen.” (“I can be exempted from citing examples to illustrate this principle, since those that first illustrated the categorical imperative and its formula can all serve just this purpose here.”) This annotation is rather cryptic. It says that he can be considered to be free from

100  Dietmar von der Pfordten the effort to give examples because the ones he has already given can be used for the same purpose. But this reason would have been valid already for an omission of examples after the second formula, because he had given the examples after the first formula. Therefore, giving examples only after two of the three imagination-formulas is not consequent, because either it suffices to give the examples once to elucidate the categorical imperative and all three imaginationformulas or the application of the examples after each of the three imagination-formula can bring new insight. Therefore, one has to look for another reason. And one can name the same reason for this omission once again: The idea of the realm of ends of all legislative beings cannot be drawn on to control the act and the maxim in individual concrete cases because the complete consideration of all end-determining beings cannot be reached by the limited capacities of human beings. It cannot even be made into an action- and maxim-controlling possibility for practical usage. The third formula places the idea of autonomous purposes under the reasonable concept of the absolute completeness that is, “totality” of all autonomously end-determining beings. Human dignity is thus an expression of this “idea of completeness” or “totality”, as opposed to the mere introduction of the agent and others as ends in themselves in the second formula. The perspective of a complete realm of ends is not a perspective which can be realized by human beings, but only by a super-human, God-like, quasi-theological idea.20 We can now use the three specifics of the third formula just elucidated to explain the exclusive assignment of human dignity to the third realm-ofends-formula in the Groundwork. The second formula of the categorical imperative commands the recognition of others and of the agent himself as an end; therefore, it formulates the “end-in-themselves-ness” of the agent and others with respect to one’s own humanity and that of others. This occurs from the perspective of the individual agent, and it is indeed initially confined to humans, for humanity in one’s own and in other people it should never be used as mere means. Only in the framework of the consideration of self-legislation and of the thereby constituted realm of ends is the ideal perspective of a third observer, non-participating and equal to God, adopted. This is a super-human perspective. This perspective is the perspective of the idea totality of all end-determining beings. It enlightens the last metaphysical foundation and justification of the moral law – a task which is not already fulfilled by the other two imagination-formulas. Therefore, human dignity was not and cannot be mentioned in the other two imagination-formulas, the natural-law-formula and the means-ends-formula. I refer to the more extensive treatment of this important point in an earlier paper of mine.21 Dignity is not the final reason for ethical commitment. The final reason for ethical commitment lies rather in the human capacity for selflegislation, that is, autonomy, in the “fact of rationality” (CPrR 5:31), the

Kant’s Understanding of Human Dignity  101 “moral law in me” (CPrR 5:161) and in freedom as ratio essendi of the moral law (CPrR 5:4, FN). Human dignity as absolute “inner worth” is an idealistic-analytic substantiation of this final reason for ethical commitment, namely the idea of the positioning of the human as legislating with other humans and other persons in the realm of ends. Human dignity is, for Kant, an inner quality of every singular human being, of having a mind with reason, which furnishes her or him with the idea of autonomy as self-legislating in the community of a realm of ends of all personal beings. This is a special mental quality, which in Kant does not lead immediately and in isolation to claims and rights against other persons. But this restriction is abandoned subsequently and newer interpretations of human dignity in the Kantian tradition usually see such claims and rights as justified.22

4.4 Human Dignity in Kant as the Secularized Religious Idea of the Linkage to the Totality of the World United with the Moralized Rousseauian Concept of Autonomy This leads to the progressive interpretational question: what could have induced Kant to understand dignity in the Groundwork as self-legislation in the realm of ends? The interpretation of the dignity of humans as self-legislating in the realm of ends at least accommodates a social and political interpretation of human dignity on a secondary level, for the position of the person in the community of end-determining and thus self-legislating beings is designated as implying “dignity”. Kant also presumably took up the everyday German understanding of the concept of dignity and he didn’t want to completely abandon the Christian or humanistic definition of “dignitas” as a purely individual characteristic of personality with a transcendental basis. However, neither the depiction of the human as equal to God nor the comprehensiveness of his potential self-design, as in Pico della Mirandola, were central definitions of the human for Kant. For an average reader in 18th-century Germany, the religious and theological, even Catholic, connotation of human dignity was obvious. But Kant endorsed none of the mentioned religious connotations – which would have been the property of humans to be created by God in his image and to be invested with an immortal soul, freedom and rationality by God (see above 4.1.4). Instead, he uses the concept to show the reader that there is indeed one truth in religious thought about human dignity, but a truth which is beyond every religion and a truth which can and should be secularized: a rational quality in human beings, which ties them to the totality of the world by the faculty and actuality in every singular human mind to embrace the totality of the moral universe. But this is not the quality of being created by God or having an immortal soul. In contrast, this is the quality of autonomy, that is, self-legislation,

102  Dietmar von der Pfordten which includes the quality to understand autonomy. Human beings see themselves as legislating with their own will with all other humans and rational beings and they understand that they are part of the realm of all autonomous, that is, self-legislating beings. Therefore, the religious search for the linkage of the human being to the totality of the world is taken up and secularized. And it is linked by Kant tightly with an idea, which can, for example, be found in Rousseau but also in radical Christian, especially protestant thinking: the equal position of all human beings to be one among other equals in the realm of the moral world. Even God is equal in this respect. This secularization of the religious need to link the individual human being to the totality of the world is unified with the practical ideal of every singular individual human being as the last source of all secular moral normativity in its quality of autonomy, that is, selflegislation with and for all other persons in the world. This union and therefore this new, even revolutionary understanding of human dignity as autonomy, in contrast to heteronomy, was interesting and attractive for many readers after Kant. It was a main achievement of enlightenment. And it influenced and even sustained the rise of human dignity as an ultimate quality, understood as fundamental to morality and law. Therefore, Kant’s understanding of human dignity was new – both as a previously unseen conceptual construction and as a starting point for later intellectual deliberation.23

Notes 1 In this article one can find some recapitulations and extensions of my previous one von der Pfordten (2009). 2 The Kant-Konkordanz (1995, 306–8) counts 107 occasions, Sensen (2011, 177), counts 111 occasions. 3 For this utterly different meaning, see Meyer (1987). 4 The only other place in which Kant uses the word “dignity” a little more frequently is the second part of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Doctrine of Virtue. But the word has no significant constructive function there as it has in the Groundwork. 5 For example: Toward Perpetual Peace, On the Common Saying: This may be true in Theory, but does not apply in Practice. 6 However, at the beginning of the age of writing, this principle can be taken only cum grano salis. For example, Socrates, as far as we know, did not write and publish any works. And in the texts of Plato we find many doubts about writing and publishing. So, Socrates’ unwritten doctrine is a major factor in the interpretation of his philosophy. See Gaiser (1988). 7 In law there is a similar interpretative principle, originalism: Laws must be interpreted according to the text in its original meaning and/or the original intent of the law-giver. 8 MM 6:312: “Ein Staat (civitas) ist die Vereinigung einer Menge von Menschen unter Rechtsgesetzen.” (“A state (civitas) is the unification of a multitude of men under juridical laws.”) 9 For a quite similar assumption, see Hoffmann (2015, 2694).

Kant’s Understanding of Human Dignity  103 10 Hobbes (1991), Ch. 10, 63: “The publique worth of a man, which is the Value set on him by the Common-wealth, is that which men commonly call Dignity. And this Value of him by the Common-wealth, is understood, by offices of Command, Judicature, publike Employment; or by Names and Titles, introduced for distinction of such Value.” 11 Hoffmann (2015, 2694), mentions two minor, non-significant usages that do not undermine my interpretation. 12 For this use, see von der Pfordten (2009, 386ff.), where I tried to show that even a certain conceptual shift occurs. 13 The Akademie-Edition and the Weischedel-Edition (Suhrkamp) write “einiger”, but because the sentence follows immediately the quotation above, it would be much more natural to read “einziger” (“one and only”). Gregor and Timmermann translate according to the wording of the Akademie-Edition: “one”. 14 See Ross (1954, 60), Korsgaard (1996), Gregor & Timmermann (2019, 433). 15 Guyer (2011, 2014, 233–5), and Rawls (2000, 208), use “realm of ends” as well. 16 See Staatslexikon (2020), Art. “Reich”, Sp. 1303. 17 Guyer (2011, Fn 9) gives the following justification for his translation: “Like John Rawls, I prefer “realm” rather than “kingdom” as the translation for Reich because it does not so clearly imply the existence within the realm of a lawgiver who is not also subject of those laws, i.e. a king.” 18 For a historical explanation, how Kant may have acquired the realm-metaphor from Swedenborg, see Johnson (2009) and Thorpe (2010). 19 Nevertheless, one has to keep in mind, that Kant gives the advice to use in the moral estimation of a maxim the basic form of the categorical imperative, not the formulas: G 4:436. 20 For this qualification as quasi-theological, see also Hill (1992, 293). 21 Von der Pfordten (2009, 382ff.). For a similar thought, see Klemme (2017, 138). 22 Von der Pfordten (2013, 2016); Tiedemann (2012). 23 See for a qualification of Kant’s understanding of the concept of human dignity as new also Tiedemann (2012, 2014). Sensen (2011) has argued contrarily that Kant follows a traditional interpretation of human dignity. But he underestimates Kant’s new combination of a secularized link to an idea of totality and self-legislation/autonomy. He focusses on the relatively unimportant and controversial question of whether human dignity was for Kant a value. It is the case that Kant does not base his practical philosophy on values. But exactly for this reason the concept of value is constructively not important for Kant. Therefore, it is not important for the interpretation of human dignity in Kant, whether he characterizes human dignity by this secondary characteristic. Additionally, Sensen tries to systematize Kant’s understanding of human dignity with the help of a much too schematic and unconvincing “traditional” (Sensen’s words) concept of human dignity, which embraces such very different understandings of human dignity as that of Cicero, Leo the Great and Pico della Mirandola and omits for example Pufendorf, who was certainly more important for Kant than the other three. Sensen characterizes this traditional paradigm as follows (161): 1.) dignity is not conceived of as a distinct metaphysical conception (thus understands Sensen “value” contrary to a much narrower understanding of the tradition, Kant and the public today); 2.) there are two stages of dignity; 3.) dignity by itself is not the basis of rights, and 4.) dignity is primarily about duties to oneself. For a new paradigm, these four features should not hold for Sensen (which is also too schematic, because new conceptions are more pluralistic, too). For Kant, the quality of being an equal self-legislating, free being within the community of

104  Dietmar von der Pfordten other autonomous beings is certainly a metaphysical quality. Therefore, 1) in this very wide sense is not true for him. For Kant human dignity does not need to be used on a second stage. Therefore, 2) is not true for him. Kant leaves it open what the consequences of dignity are. Therefore, 3) is not true, either. And the same holds for 4.). But more decisively: All of these four features are rather unimportant for Kant’s understanding of human dignity. This leads to the conclusion: The thesis that Kant had a traditional understanding of human dignity is not convincing, because this schematic traditional paradigm does not exist. However, even if it does exist, it does not hold for Kant. But more importantly: The decisive nature of Kant’s concept of human dignity is not captured by these four features.

Bibliography Cavalier-Smith, Thomas. 1998. “A revised six-kingdom system of life”. Biological Reviews Vol. 73: 203–66. doi:10.1111/j.1469-185X.1998.tb00030.x Gaiser, Konrad. 1988. Platons ungeschriebene Lehre. Studien zur systematischen und geschichtlichen Begründung der Wissenschaften in der Platonischen Schule. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. Gregor, Mary, and Timmermann, Jens (Eds.). 2019. Kant. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Guyer, Paul. 2011. “Kantian Communities. The Realm of Ends, the Ethical Community, And the Highest Good”. In: Charlton Payne and Lukas Thorpe (Eds.), Kant and the Concept of Community. Cambridge: Cambridge UP: 88–120. Guyer, Paul. 2014. Kant. London: Routledge. Hill, Thomas E. 1992. “A Kantian Perspective on Moral Rules”. Philosophical Perspectives Vol. 6: 285–304. Hobbes, Thomas. 1991. Leviathan. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Hoffmann, Thomas Sören. 2015. “Würde“. In: Marcus Willascheck u. a. (Eds.), Kant-Lexikon Bd. III, Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter: 2693–6. Johnson, Gregory R. 2009. “From Swedenborg’s Spiritual World to Kant’s Kingdom of Ends” Aries Vol. 9 1: 85–99. Kaulbach, Friedrich and Kants, Immanuel. 1988. Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. Interpretation und Kommentar, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Klemme, Heiner F. 2017. Kants “Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten”. Ein systematischer Kommentar. Stuttgart: Reclam. Korsgaard, Christine. 1996. Creating the Kingdom Of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meyer, Michael J. 1987. “Kant’s Concept of Dignity and Modern Political Thought” History of European Ideas Vol. 8, No. 3: 319–32. Paton, Herbert James. 1971. The Categorical Imperative. A Study in Kant’s Moral Philosophy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pöschl, Viktor. 1989. Der Begriff der Würde im antiken Rom und später. Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Heidelberg: Winter. Raaflaub, Kurt. 1974. Dignitatis contentio. Studien zur Motivation und politischen Taktik im Bürgerkrieg zwischen Cäsar und Pompeius. München: Beck.

Kant’s Understanding of Human Dignity  105 Rawls, John. 2000. Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Roser, Andreas et al. (Eds.). 1995. Kant-Konkordanz. Zu den Werken Immanuel Kants. Vol. 9. Hildesheim: Olms. Ross, David. 1954. Kant’s Ethical Theory. A Commentary on the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sensen, Oliver. 2011. Kant on Human Dignity. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter. Staatslexikon. 2020. edited by Görres-Gesellschaft and the Verlag Herder, Volume 4, Freiburg-Basel-Wien, 8. Edition: Herder-Verlag Stevenson, Charles Leslie. 1944. Ethics and Language. New Haven: Yale UP. Thorpe, Lucas. 2010. “The Realm of Ends as a Community of Spirits: Kant and Swedenborg on the Kingdom of Heaven and the Cleansing of the Doors of Perception”. The Heythrop Journal Vol. LII: 52–75. Tiedemann, Paul. 2012. Menschenwürde als Rechtsbegriff. Eine philosophische Klärung. Berlin: Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag. Tiedemann, Paul. 2014. Was ist Menschenwürde? Darmstadt: WBG. von der Pfordten, Dietmar. 2009. “On the Dignity of Man in Kant”. Philosophy Vol. 84: 371–91. von der Pfordten, Deietmar. 2013. “Some Remarks on the Concept of Human Dignity, In: Human Dignity as a Foundation of Law, eds. Winfried Brugger und Stephan Kirste, Stuttgart: Steiner, 13–23. von der Pfordten, Dietmar. 2016. Menschenwürde, München: Beck. von Pufendorf, Samuel. 1994. Über die Pflicht des Menschen und des Bürgers nach dem Gesetz der Natur/De officio hominis et civis iuxta legem naturalem libri duo. Frankfurt: Insel. von Pufendorf, Samuel. 1998. Acht Bücher vom Natur- und Völkerrecht/De Jure Naturae et Gentium Libri Octo. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.

Part II

The Politics of Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends

5 Honeste Vive Dignity in Kant’s Theory of Juridical Obligation Alice Pinheiro Walla

5.1 Dignity in the Doctrine of Right Kant is considered one of the founders of the modern idea of moral dignity, as a rejection of the traditional notion of honor based on social hierarchy or status, and exemplified by the morality of nobility and guilds in 18th-century Germany.1 In Kant’s conception of dignity, respect is owed to all persons by virtue of their autonomy and consequently their unconditional worth as rational beings.2 While the traditional conception of honor as dignitas belonged to the social (in Kant’s terminology: phenomenal) realm and was purely external, dignity in Kant’s account becomes a property of all persons because it is based on their rational (noumenal) nature. One could thus assume that Kant rejected all forms of honor if not as barbaric practices (as illustrated by honor killings), then at least as conventional and morally worthless social codes. However, as some commentators pointed out, dignity as internal “worth beyond price” and honour as outwardly conduct are neither mutually exclusive nor always unrelated in Kant’s philosophy.3 In the Doctrine of Virtue, Kant identifies ethical duties to oneself to behave in such a way as to maintain one’s own dignity externally. He seemed aware of the “social bases of self-respect” and the way one’s self-esteem is affected by the way one is judged by others in society.4 In the Doctrine of Right, he regards the social stigma (Schmach) that leads unmarried mothers to commit infanticide and the damage to the reputation of soldiers who refrain from dueling to preserve their honor in war (Kriegsehre) as extenuating circumstances against capital punishment for such crimes (MS 6: 336). Kant also identifies a fundamental juridical duty not to let oneself be treated by others in ways that are incompatible with one’s worth as a human being. This duty, which Kant associates with the Ulpian formula honeste vive and with the concept of juridical honour (honestas iuridica /rechtliche Ehrbarkeit), can be regarded as the “juridical counterpart” of moral dignity. Honeste vive is interesting not only because it is a puzzling “internal juridical duty,” but also because it reconciles the idea of dignity as expressing the unconditional value of DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-8

110  Alice Pinheiro Walla human beings with the requirement to assert this worth in our external relations with other persons, thereby bridging the gap between intrinsic worth and outward conduct. Further, honeste vive also helps us better understand the overall project of the Doctrine of Right, namely, a theory of juridical obligation. In the Introduction of the Doctrine of Right,5 Kant provides a general division of duties of right (Rechtspflichten)6 and rights (Rechte). In his division of duties of right, Kant uses three maxims from the corpus iuris civilis, also known as the Code of Justinian, to refer to each of the three juridical duties he identifies. These principles are traditionally attributed to the Roman jurist Ulpian.7 Since these “Ulpian maxims” have played an important role in the history of jurisprudence, this is probably why Kant chose them to illustrate his division of legal duties: “one can follow Ulpian in making this division if a sense is ascribed to his formulae which he may not have thought distinctly in them but which can be explicated from them or put into them.” Be an honorable human being (honeste vive). Rightful honor (honestas iuridica) consists in asserting one’s worth (Werth) as a human being in relation to others, a duty expressed by the saying, “Do not make yourself a mere means for others but be at the same time an end for them.” This duty will be explained later as obligation from the right of humanity in our own person (Lex iusti).8 Kant renders the Ulpian maxim honeste vive as the imperative “be an honorable human being!” (sei ein rechtlicher Mensch!), whereas the duty is called rightful honour (honestas iuridica/rechtliche Ehrbarkeit) in affirming one’s dignity in relation to other persons. One should not make oneself a mere means for others but be at the same time an end for them. There is a striking similarity between honeste vive and the second formulation of the categorical imperative, the “Formula of Humanity” of Kant’s Groundwork: “so act that you use humanity, in your own person as well as in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” (GMS IV: 429). Several questions arise: why is honestas iuridica necessary if we already have a duty not to treat ourselves and others as a mere means, but always also as ends? When others already have an ethical duty to regard us as an end, having to make ourselves an end for others seems superfluous. Secondly, making ourselves an end for others seems impossible, since from an ethical perspective ends must always be freely adopted as a condition for genuine moral worth. I must voluntarily make your person into an end for myself, but it doesn’t make sense for you to force me to adopt that end. No one else cannot do “the willing” for me. Although I may very well try to make myself an end for someone, for example, by persuasion or reminding them of their duties, it’s ultimately their free choice to adopt this end. Thirdly, in the

Honeste Vive  111 Groundwork we have the reference to the end of humanity in our person, while in honeste vive, the ground of the obligation lies in the right of humanity in our person. What is the difference between the end of humanity and the right of humanity? Are these two notions interrelated? Finally, honestas iuridica also refers to the idea of the worth (Werth) of a human being, which is strongly reminiscent of the idea of dignity (Würde) of the Groundwork. Is Kant appealing to the same notion (the dignity of human beings) in both cases, and, if so, is there a difference between the two? Dignity is important for both ethics and right. It epitomizes the idea that persons have a special status that prohibits treatment that befits only things. However, Kant does not simply apply the notion of moral dignity of his ethical works to his legal writings. The way he uses the idea of dignity in the Doctrine of Right is evidence against what can be called “applied ethics” interpretations of that work, namely, the assumption that Kant’s legal-political thought is a mere extension of his ethical theory, as opposed to a related, and yet to a certain extent independent, area of his thought. Central for Kant’s theory of obligation in general is the idea that all obligation is ultimately self-imposed. We first encounter this idea in Kant’s moral theory. “Self-legislation” is the fundamental tenet of Kant’s theory of autonomy. The binding force of our moral duties stems from the fact that their underlying principle, the moral law, arises from our own law-giving reason. My argument is that Kant seeks for the domain of external laws something analogous to the structure of self-legislation in the moral domain in order to account for the possibility of juridical obligation. Juridical obligation must also qualify as self-imposed, albeit in a different way as ethical obligation. For juridical obligation to qualify as “self-imposed” we need public institutions and representative government that enable what I will call “omnilaterality.” Omnilaterality is the juridical analogue of universality in the ethical domain. As I will explain later, the role of omnilaterality is to enable the second-order legal relations that are absent in innate right and private rights in the state of nature. These second-order legal relations are the authority (power) to interpret rights and coerce in a binding manner and the corresponding duty (liability) to bear what is imposed by the authority. Only then we have full-fledged juridical obligation. The juridical domain adopts an external perspective on freedom; therefore, it also requires an external perspective on dignity, which leads us to the idea of the right of humanity in our person and of rightful honour. External freedom concerns the principles regulating our conduct in regard to others, more specifically, what we can rightfully impose on them (or not) and they have a duty to bear (or not). The agent’s motive is secondary in that case. As we will see, the right of humanity in our person expresses the idea that no one has the authority to impose a juridical

112  Alice Pinheiro Walla obligation on another unless a legally relevant deed has been performed that creates such an obligation. A positive juridical obligation creates an asymmetry between individuals that is only morally possible if they have voluntarily agreed to enter such legal relations with each other. The idea is thus that, as a starting position, we are free from positive juridical obligations towards others. In contrast, internal freedom additionally requires a specific attitude from the agent. This is why ethical duties refer to the end of humanity in our person. Only the agent can bring herself to adopt a principle internally. The formula of humanity of the Groundwork commands us not to treat humanity in ourselves and others as mere means but at all times also as ends in themselves. Honeste vive, in turn, requires not to make oneself a mere means to others but to make ourselves also an end for them. Because honeste vive is a duty of right and concerned with external actions, primarily relevant is not the quality of the maxims of those we interact with (which is always beyond our control), but their actions towards us.9 One could object that when I strive to make myself an end for someone, I expect not merely a certain external treatment, but also the attitude of someone who genuinely regards me as among her ends. This internal commitment would be reflected in the person’s overall external behavior towards me and seems therefore more desirable than merely aiming at external actions.10 Because the formula of humanity is a purely internal principle of willing,11 that is, it concerns the quality of our maxims and the voluntary adoption of morally required ends, it cannot be externally imposed on the agent without dissipating its ethical value. In contrast, one can very well demand respectful treatment from others, regardless of their motives for compliance. Although it is an internal principle, honeste vive has a clear reference to our external interactions with others: the subject must assert her own worth in relation to others and provide them with an incentive to treat her as an end in herself. There is no mention that the agent always must do this from an ethical motive; her exercise of self-assertion or boundary setting is sufficient for satisfying the duty. Compliance with a juridical duty from the awareness that it is a duty to do so would add an additional, ethical dimension to the performance, and moral worth from an ethical perspective. One could argue that when complying with honeste vive does not involve an ethical motive, the action has no moral worth.12 This is misleading. “No moral worth” is the moral valence Kant attributes to the failure to act from the correct motive in the case of ethical duties. However, a duty is juridical when the agent is permitted to act from a motive other than respect for the moral law without compromising her obligation. If so, the evaluative standard for successful compliance with juridical duties must be different from ethical ones. To interpret the lack of a moral motive as a “failure” only makes sense from a purely ethical

Honeste Vive  113 perspective, which rules out any motives other than the moral motive. I will call the worth characteristic of compliance with juridical duties “the dignity of rightful honour.” Our status as persons also requires that we uphold dignity externally, regardless of whether we do so from an ethical motivation. If so, there is a sense in which external conduct can be “dignified” and we can and indeed should externally signal our dignity to others. Later, I will explain the compliance with the duty of rightful honor as the affirmation of the content of the only innate right. Kant’s remarks on honeste vive are strongly reminiscent of his discussion of self-respect in the doctrine of virtue.13 There, he suggests that the consciousness of one’s moral personhood leads not only to the consciousness of a worth beyond our mere animal nature, but also of one’s equality with all other rational beings. The awareness of one’s equality with other persons insofar as we are all subject to moral-practical reason is also the source of the positive requirement to demand respect (Achtung) from others. It also gives rise to a duty of self-esteem, which prohibits servile, selfabasing behavior as a means of gaining favor in the eyes of others. Here the ethical motive of the agent (“the consciousness of one’s sublime moral predisposition”) is crucial for satisfying the moral requirement (MS 6: 434–5). The difference between self-esteem as an ethical duty and rightful honor as an internal juridical duty is what I will call their “direction of fit,” for lack of a better term. While the form of one’s maxims is the locus of ethical duties, juridical duties have to do with whether a certain external action can be rightfully imposed on the subject, who then has a juridical duty to bear it. In ethical duties the moral necessity of the action is located internally, in the form of one’s maxim (whether it qualifies for universal law-giving). In juridical duties, the moral necessity of the action arises from an interpersonal legal relation (someone or an institution with the power to bind and a person who has the corresponding duty to bear). The internal juridical duty honeste vive expresses a lack of an external authority to bind and consequently the absence of one’s juridical duty to bear. The maxim of a servile, self-abasing agent could be formulated as “I will minimize my own worth when necessary to please others.” A servile person has adopted a maxim of subordinating her dignity to a non-moral end; she is instrumentalizing herself. However, such a maxim cannot be universalized without contradiction; a rational agent cannot will to throw away her inner worth for the sake of some inclination. The agent is thus morally prohibited from making such use of her own person as a means to gain the favor of others. This entails the positive requirement to adopt a maxim that logically contradicts the impermissible maxim of servility, i.e., a maxim of self-esteem. Therefore, the ethical duty of selfesteem arises as a “response” to an impermissible maxim of action. The ethical requirement “fills in” the normative space of the immoral maxim we ought to reject.

114  Alice Pinheiro Walla In contrast, honeste vive is a juridical duty because it presupposes a conception of what one has the authority to impose on another. The duty of rightful honor requires the agent to resist treatment she has no juridical duty to accept. The “lack of obligation” is thus the basis of the agent’s demand for respectful treatment from others. The idea is that one’s dignity as a juridical person, one’s honestas iuridica, is a person’s deontological “default position.” All things equal, one has no juridical duty to endure treatment from others that negates one’s juridical dignity. This entails the requirement to adopt an external conduct that asserts one’s juridical personality, that is, to signal to others that one is neither a mere thing nor guilty of conduct that would warrant external impositions from others. Therefore, honestas iuridica is a condition of “juridical blamelessness.” In order to understand why, we must have a closer look at the correlate notion to rightful honor, namely, the only innate right (section 5.2). Honeste vive is an internal juridical duty because it is the correlate duty of the only innate right. Kant calls innate right the “internal mine,” because it belongs to me originally. Unlike all other external things I can call mine, innate right has not been acquired. We are born with it. My view is that Kant understood innate right negatively, not as a positive “right to freedom” but instead as a lack of juridical obligation, i.e., a liberty. This lack of obligation does not lead to a Hobbesean “right to everything,” because the limiting condition of my liberty-right is the equal libertyright of all other persons, whom in turn I also lack the power to bind.14 Although honeste vive is a duty of right, it only binds internally, that is, it obligates the person herself. But this is precisely the point. Imagine a scenario devoid of public authority in which all persons equally possess innate right and have not yet performed any legally relevant deeds (Fakta) that create further legal obligations. We are thus considering persons in that juridical default position, without any additional acquired rights. In such a scenario no one has the authority to bind, that is, to impose an external obligation on another (that they would be obliged to bear) just by virtue of one’s innate right. Since there is yet no external obligation proper (only liberty)15 juridical obligation can only be internal at this stage, binding only the innate right-holder herself. Therefore, there are very good methodological reasons for starting with an internal juridical duty as a normative starting point. The interpersonal juridical obligation vacuum of this original rights scenario, which Kant associates with lex iusti, only allows persons to appeal to their innate right to demand independence from the constraints of others when they overstep their authority. To appeal to this innate right amounts to demanding treatment in accordance with the worth of a human being from a juridical perspective, that is, to satisfy the duty of rightful honor.16 The internal duty to oneself expressed by innate right is none other than what is already included in the only original right. “To live honorably” in a juridical sense is thus to affirm one’s own status

Honeste Vive  115 as a subject of rights in regard to others. As it will become clear in the course of my discussion, honeste vive plays a crucial methodological role for understanding juridical obligation in general, the specific normative problems arising from acquired rights, and ultimately the need for a condition of public justice. In the next section, I will analyse the relationship between honeste vive and the only innate right in more detail. Understanding why Kant associates innate right with juridical blamelessness (Unbescholtenheit) will make clear why innate right should be understood as a liberty-right, and not as a claim-right against others. Consequently, it will also help us understand why rightful honour should be understood as the affirmation of the content of innate right.

5.2 The Only Innate Right as Juridical Blamelessness (Unbescholtenheit) Kant defines the only innate right as follows: Freedom (independence from the necessitating choice (nötigender Willkür) of another) in so far as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a general law (allgemeines Gesetz), is this sole original right which every one has by virtue of their humanity. (…) Innate equality, that is, the independence not to be bound by others to more than they can mutually bind each other; hence the quality to be one’s own master (sui iuris), similarly to that of a blameless person (eines unbescholtenen Menschen, iusti), because he, before any legal act, has done no one wrong (weil er, vor allem rechtlichen Akt, keinem Unrecht getan hat). (MS 6: 237–8, my translation) Why does Kant compare the only original right with the quality of a blameless person (eines unbescholtenen Menschen, iusti)? Unbescholten is someone who has committed no wrong from a juridical perspective. It presupposes the idea that one must be assumed innocent until proven guilty.17 Innate right is therefore connected with the idea of “the right to a good name,” as the quality of being beyond reproach from a legal perspective. We are all born blameless: no one’s mere existence in this world constitutes in itself a wrong. Therefore, one must be considered blameless until it can be proven that one has done something that warrants losing one’s default blamelessness. For this reason, the burden of proof (onus probandi) lies not with the accused, but with her accuser, and in this matter the accused can appeal to her innate right (MS VI: 238). That every person has an innate right to be deemed honorable until the contrary has been proven was not generally accepted in Kant’s time. One could be considered “infamous” due to one’s birth, for instance, if one was born

116  Alice Pinheiro Walla “out of wedlock” or was an illegitimate child.18 The concept of infamy itself goes back to Roman Law.19 Gottfried Achenwall, a leading jurist in Kant’s lifetime whose textbook Kant used in his lectures on natural law theory,20 considered infamy already in the state of nature (which he calls the “absolute condition”) as resulting from actions that violate perfect duties. According to Achenwall, a person can be made infamous through the contempt of another,21 although he rejected the view that one’s birth can be a violation of perfect duties independently from one’s deeds.22 There is an important link between the original right to be considered juridically blameless and independence from the constraining choice of others. This connection consists in the idea that in the state of nature only a legally relevant deed of the agent can create a positive legal obligation (Verbindlichkeit).23 Kant associates honeste vive with lex iusti, that is, the modality of right that corresponds to the category of possibility (Möglichkeit).24 In the Critique of Pure Reason, the three categories of modality (possibility, reality and necessity) “add nothing to the concept to which they are attached as predicates to specify the object, but instead express only the relation to the capacity of cognition” (KrV III:186/B 266), in other words, they refer to the mode of cognition. In the doctrine of Right, the categories of modality correspond to the three leges or conditions of right (lex iusti, lex iuridica and lex iustitiae distributivae). Kant’s use of the categories of modality in the Doctrine of Right expresses the way a right is able to impose a corresponding juridical obligation on other persons.25 My view is that the only innate right is best understood as a liberty right. In the lack of legally relevant deeds it is not possible to impose a juridical obligation on another, since no one can positively bind another person on the basis of innate right alone. All we have is independence from the arbitrary choice of another in the sense of “no duty” to defer to their judgment about what one should do (the limiting constraint is that one’s choice does not violate others’ equal “no duty” to abide). Lex iusti is thus a condition of right characterized by radical liberty, that is, the mutual lack of authority to impose a positive obligation on one another. As a default position, I have no duty of right not to act as I see fit, as long as my action is externally compatible with the equal innate right of others, in accordance with a general law. “Compatible with the equal innate right of others” is any action that does not diminish or take away what is theirs (whether they like the action or not). This is a purely negative criterion. For instance, Kant stresses that on the basis of innate right, one is allowed as a matter of right (but not always as a matter of ethics) to communicate one’s thoughts to others, to tell them something or even promise something to them regardless of whether it is false or insincere, since it is up to them whether to believe one or not (MS 6: 238). Kant’s deliberate choice of ethically contentious actions as examples of authorizations implicit in innate right highlights that the relevant criterion of

Honeste Vive  117 juridical permissibility is purely external: these actions do not deprive others of what is theirs. This side constraint itself is an implication of radical equal liberty: if you cannot bind me, neither can I bind you. The reciprocity is purely negative and expresses no more than the equal lack of authority to asymmetrically obligate another person juridically. A voluntary deed is like moving the first piece on the chessboard. It initiates the juridical obligation game. This is why no one can bind me (i.e., impose a positive duty of right on me) independently of any legally relevant deeds on my part, for instance, until I voluntarily enter an agreement with another person that creates a duty towards that specific person. A legally relevant deed is an external action that creates a claim against another person or that puts me under obligation towards another person. This legal relation introduces an asymmetry that did not exist in a purely innate right scenario: I now owe you something you can rightfully claim from me. Your right and my corresponding obligation must be thus acquired and are not things we are born with. We have thus left behind the domain of “mere” innate right, in which acquired rights were merely possible, and have entered the domain of acquired rights,26 where a concrete constellation of subjective rights will emerge from individuals’ voluntary interactions with each other.27 5.2.1 Innate Right and Honeste Vive In this section, I will explain how innate right relates to honeste vive, the internal juridical duty of rightful honor. How can a right that entails a mere liberty in regard to others bind the subject who has the right of humanity in her person to live honorably, that is, not to let herself become a mere means to others but also an end to them? As the table of the “division of the objective relation between law and duty” (MS 6: 240) shows, the right of humanity in our own person corresponds to a perfect duty and a duty against oneself; this means that it primarily binds the right-holder herself. This sounds at first like an unnecessary complication. Why not say that the right of humanity in my person binds all others to treat me not as a mere means but also as an end for them? Why do we need to posit an internal juridical duty to oneself in order to demand a certain behavior from others, while all other juridical duties are external? There are good reasons for postulating an internal duty of right. Honeste vive is a duty arising from the right of humanity in our person. This right is none other than the only innate right. Let us thus go back to innate right for a moment. Consider the normative implications of overstepping the boundaries of another person’s liberty. For the sake of the argument, let us assume that there are no acquired rights involved. All we have is the original liberty right not to be bound by the necessitating choice of others. Imagine that you are going on a walk and that I block your way and refuse to let you pass. I am acting in a way that is incompatible with your innate right

118  Alice Pinheiro Walla since I am imposing a constraint on your external freedom that I have no authority to impose and you have no juridical duty to accept. However, is it the case that your innate right binds me not to infringe on your liberty to move as it pleases you? Not quite. All it provides us is the idea that I have no authority to impose that constraint on you.28 One could object that if I impose an action on you I have no authority to impose, you are entitled to coerce me to protect your rights. After all, rightful coercion can be logically understood as “a hindrance to a hindrance to freedom” (MS 6: 231) or the negation of a negation of freedom. If so, one would always be authorized to coerce anyone who oversteps their authority or violates rights. However, innate right only authorizes doing to others what does not diminish or take away what is theirs. I may prevent you from curtailing the scope of my original liberty, but just because you did not have that right in the first place, not because I have the authority to coerce you. This is the main difference between Kant’s and Locke’s accounts of the right to coerce in the state of nature. For Locke, whoever has the law of nature on their side (is “in the right”) is entitled to coerce whoever violates the law of nature. Private persons are entitled to do justice with their own hands in the Lockean account. In contrast, for Kant “being in the right” does not give one the authority to coerce another. Genuine authority entails that those liable to it have a duty of right to subject themselves to the verdicts of that authority. Authority is thus a second-order ‘power’ or special moral capacity to impose legal obligations. No individual can unilaterally bind another in this way given our radical equality as persons, even though individuals can have legitimate claims against each other already in the state of nature. Although claim-rights in the state of nature can also be understood as a “power” of right-holders, as individuals they still lack the second-order power to coerce and interpret rights in a binding way for other persons. They have a first order power, but lack the second-order moral power I called authority. My argument is that in a purely innate right scenario there is no positive interpersonal juridical obligation. There is only a mutual lack of authority to bind, as an implication of the radical innate equality of all persons. You overstep the boundary of your original innate right when you encroach on my liberty because imposing such an asymmetric constraint on me requires a moral power to obligate that is inconsistent with our equal juridical status. The authority to bind and constrain another person cannot be derived from innate right. Full-fledged legal obligation, that is, legal obligation that is determined by an omnilateral public authority, is only possible in a condition of public law. Kant conceived honeste vive as a juridical duty against oneself, that is, an internal juridical duty because the conditions for a first-order power to impose a duty of right on others (interpersonally) do not yet obtain in a purely innate right scenario. External freedom in the context of the only original right is only negative external freedom: it is mere liberty (“no duty

Honeste Vive  119 of right not to x”). However, precisely because honeste vive is internal it can bind the subject who has the right of humanity in her person to insist upon her innate right, i.e., on her liberty from necessitation by another person. This also explains why innate right belongs in the prolegomena of the Doctrine of Right.29 Juridical obligation proper and the question of the authority to coerce only arise within the context of acquired rights in the state of nature. Only once the “external Mine and Thine” enters the picture do positive juridical duties emerge (albeit with no second-order power to coerce and interpret rights). Although the problem of authority becomes acutely pressing in a condition in which we have acquired rights but are still in the state of nature, it can only be solved through a different modality of right. Honeste vive is a juridical duty that arises from the right of humanity in my person, i.e., it is the juridical duty that corresponds to the only innate right. One could interpret this internal duty as a requirement to resist the instrumentalization of one’s own person. At the same time, the agent must affirm her own worth externally in regard to others. Although the juridical duty itself is internal (it binds the person who has the right of humanity in her own person), it is directed at other persons externally,30 in the form of resistance to their behaviour. Because it is a juridical duty, the motive of the duty bearer for resisting instrumentalization is secondary. Motivation by an ethical motive is not required from a juridical perspective; motives such as pride, prudence, or fear equally satisfy honeste vive. One’s external compliance is crucial for satisfying the duty.31 Therefore, even though honeste vive is an internal duty, its internal character refers to whom is bound by the duty. Compliance with the duty is nevertheless external, like all juridical duties. The requirement does not concern the quality of one’s maxims, but only one’s external actions in regard to others.32 Honeste vive is thus an internal juridical duty not because it lacks a reference or relation to other persons, but because as the correlate duty of innate right, it is also original (i.e., not acquired). Since nothing external is originally mine (MS 6: 258), only the internal mine is original. Honeste vive is therefore the duty to live up to innate right (the right of humanity in our person) and the only juridical obligation possible prior to the introduction of acquired rights (before the legal deeds of persons).

5.3 How Is External Juridical Obligation Possible? The role of honeste vive in Kant’s legal theory becomes clearer once we bear in mind which legal relations are absent from it and from the next modality of right, which is expressed by the second Ulpian formula neminem laede (“wrong no one!”). In this section, I will provide an interpretation of the Doctrine of Right as spelling out the conditions under which the normative incompleteness of lex iusti and lex iuridica can be resolved.33 By “normative incompleteness” I mean the moral impossibility

120  Alice Pinheiro Walla of binding others unilaterally, as private persons. The different modalities of right we find in the Doctrine of Right illustrate the transition from the abstract idea of an initial state of mutual liberty from external duty (the possibility of legal obligation), through a condition of provisional acquired rights (the reality of first-order claim-rights with identifiable, but non-coercible corresponding juridical duties), and finally towards a condition in which fully-fledged external juridical obligation is morally possible (the necessity of legal obligation). The second Ulpian principle of Kant’s division of legal duties is neminem laede: “do not wrong anyone even if, to avoid doing so, you should have to stop associating with others and shun all society” (MS 6: 236). A wrong (Läsion, MS 6: 249) is a violation of the right of another. Not all kinds of immoral behavior towards another person amount to a wrong. To wrong someone is to take away what is theirs (without the entitlement or authority to do so).34 What we are taking away from someone does not need to be a material object. It could be some other entitlement such as access to an opportunity that is arbitrarily denied to her while granted to others, but it must be something that is external and consequently acquired. Our first external juridical duty is thus not to deprive others of what is externally theirs, i.e., their acquired rights. I do not include the “internal Mine” of others under neminem laede, since it is already implicit in honeste vive as something one lacks the authority to infringe upon. In contrast, a distinctive modality of legal relations arise when acquired rights come into play. Kant’s elucidation of the second principle involves a disjunction: either do no one wrong (when interacting with them) or avoid associating with them altogether. This disjunction plays an important role for the next Ulpian principle of the division, suum cuique tribue (“give each what is theirs”). Assuming that we cannot avoid interaction with others altogether,35 merely continuing in a state of nature constitutes in itself a wrong in a formal sense (MS 6: 307fn). But what is a formal wrong? Given the intention to be and to remain in this state of externally lawless freedom, men do one another no wrong at all when they feud among themselves; for what holds for one holds also in turn for the other, as if by mutual consent (uti partes de iure suo disponunt, ita ius est). But in general they do wrong in the highest degree by willing to be and to remain in a condition that is not rightful, that is, in which no one is assured of what is his against violence. (MS 6: 307-8) Because there is no authority of interpretation in the state of nature, there is no unified, binding standard for determining what constitutes a material wrong (materialiter). A material wrong is the violation of a subjective right, that is, the right of a particular person. The only wrong one can identify that is not subject to disagreement in interpretation is a formal wrong, that is, it is a wrong in general (überhaupt) and in the highest degree to remain

Honeste Vive  121 in the state of nature. No particular person is thereby wronged, but we do wrong in general by not entering a state in which material wrongs can be determined for everyone. Our duty is thus to “enter a condition in which what belongs to each can be secured to him against everyone else.”36 This distinction between what is merely formally wrong and what is also materially wrong has many applications in the doctrine of right. An enemy who, instead of honorably carrying out his surrender agreement with the garrison of a besieged fortress, mistreats them as they march out or otherwise breaks the agreement, cannot complain of being wronged if his opponent plays the same trick on him when he can. But in general they do wrong in the highest degree, because they take away any validity from the concept of right itself and hand everything over to savage violence, as if by law, and so subvert the right of human beings as such. (6: 308n) It is significant that the wrong one can unequivocally identify in the state of nature is a formal wrong while material wrongs (violations of subjective rights) remain undetermined. The problem is not that it is not possible to recognize when someone violates my acquired right or when I violate someone else’s right. We can recognize rights and their violations through reason. Although it may be objective (that is in accordance with reason), the problem is that this is nevertheless a private judgment.37 This explains the normative shortcoming of private rights in the state of nature: the fact that, as a private person, no one has the authority to bind others to accept her interpretation of material wrongs, even if her judgment about rights is correct. The problem is therefore not epistemic, but about the possibility of imposing a duty of right on another to follow my private judgment.38 Legal certainty, which becomes possible only in a condition of public justice, that is, in the next modality of right, is not primarily about “getting rights right” but about making rights public and consequently omnilaterally binding. Legal certainty thus solves primarily the problem of authority and juridical obligation, and not an epistemic problem about the correct interpretation of rights and of rights violations. Indeed, Kant gives several examples where the verdict of a public court of justice departs from what we would deem objectively just, by following our reason.39 It is significant that Kant does not regard this discrepancy as a reason not to obey the law or as undermining the legitimacy of the legal system. The third Ulpian formula commands to give each what is theirs. It should not be confused with “distributive justice” as understood in contemporary political philosophy. Distributive justice in Kant’s legal theory is a condition under which it is possible to determine what belongs to each in case of rights disputes as juridically binding for all parties. For this we must subject ourselves to common public laws under a public authority that

122  Alice Pinheiro Walla represents each one of us, since only public institutions have authority of interpretation and of enforcement.40 Representation is thus crucial for the possibility of juridical obligation. The idea of representation presupposes equality before the law, which “replicates” the radical equality of the original innate right in the public condition. The law binds us all equally when we are all symmetrically subject to the law and no one is above the law (see TP 8:290, MS 6:314). This is why Kant has been identified as one of the pioneers of the idea of rule of law or Rechtsstaatlichkeit.41 While the civil condition should indeed “secure” the rights of everyone, Kant’s argument for the duty to enter a condition of public right is not primarily the protection or the provision of rights. Although some of Kant’s formulations support the security argument, my view is that the primary function of the civil condition is the fact that it provides the omnilaterality required for the authority to determine what is lawful and to enforce that interpretation. This omnilaterality is achieved through political representation and publicity. 5.3.1 A Modal Theory of Juridical Obligation So the above three classical formulae serve also as principles for dividing the system of duties of right into internal duties, external duties, and duties that contain (enthalten) the derivation of the latter from the principle of the former by subsumption. (MS VI: 237) The above passage seems to indicate that “to give each what is theirs” follows as a conclusion from the former two Ulpian principles. This passage has led to much confusion, accentuated by the view that honeste vive is an ethical principle.42 By internal duties, Kant clearly refers to honeste vive; by external duties, to neminem laede. The question is: what are “duties that involve the derivation of the latter from the principle of the former by subsumption”? From the order of Kant’s enumeration, it is clear that the duties in question are the ones of lex iustitiae distributivae (suum cuique tribue). A condition of public justice contains the duties of lex iuridica (external duties), which are derived from the principle of the former (internal duty). However, these external duties are brought under a condition of public justice by subsumption. In the interpretation I am proposing, “by subsumption” refers to the “inclusion” of external duties under the third category of duties, and not to their derivation (Ableitung) from the principle of internal duties. “Ableitung” and “Subsumption” are two distinctive moments concerning external duties: first they are derived and then subsumed. How are external duties derived from the principle of internal duties? And how are external duties then subsumed under public right (lex iustitiae distributivae / suum cuique tribue)? “Subsumption” means bringing a particular under a more general concept or rule. This leads to a greater degree of unity and systematicity in

Honeste Vive  123 knowledge (KrV A 304/B 360 f). “By subsumption” the external duties of private right (which are possible already before a condition of public justice is implemented) are brought under public right, that is, they are “imported” or taken over from the pre-civil condition into the civil condition. Private right is not created through public right; private rights are prior to a condition of public justice.43 When subsumed under public right, private rights are determined by the statutes of a given historical (empirical) legal order. Unlike what one may assume, it is not reason itself that determines rights; although we can know through reason already in state of nature what is objectively right, the problem is that what is objectively right is not yet externally or interpersonally binding; this can only be achieved by an empirically given system of public laws (which is from the perspective of reason merely subjective).44 Paradoxically, only a positive system of laws, as long as it is public and representative, can bind all those subject to it. Its omnilateral character (the fact that only the law rules and no one is above the law) functions as a proxy for the consent of all (the legal order can be regarded as genuinely arising from “the united will of all”). My “modal” interpretation of the transition to public right is an alternative to “instrumentalist” positions which regard public right as a means to avoid domination, disagreements or conflict concerning rights. My argument is that a public condition is required for altering the modality of rights we already have in the state of nature (although new rights may be created and only exist in a public condition). This modality of rights (necessity as opposed to mere reality) is achieved through omnilaterality, which is the necessary condition for full-fledged juridical obligation. Julius Ebbinghaus interpreted subjection to a common authority with the power to impose laws as a condition for reconciling two aspects implicit in external freedom, which he formulates as a two-fold precept: “do not reduce yourself to an object of another men’s arbitrary power, nor other men to objects of your own.” However, Ebbinghaus notes that someone who restricts her own liberty and does not make others mere objects of her arbitrary power may easily become vulnerable to the arbitrary power of others, which would contradict the very principle she is acting on.45 Therefore, subjection to state power is necessary to ensure that someone who respects the rights of others will not have her own rights disrespected as a consequence. Ebbinghaus’ argument for public justice is that state power provides assurance that it is not irrational to respect rights and that no one is unreasonably sacrificing herself for doing so. This “assurance argument” is strongly evocative of Hobbes, for whom the Leviathan ensured that laying down one’s natural right to everything was not incompatible with self-preservation. Arthur Ripstein argued that Kant’s version of the assurance argument is different from Hobbes’: The Hobbesian argument focuses on a strategic problem: nobody wants to be played for a sucker; absent assurance, nobody will ever perform and contracts will be factually impossible. The Kantian argument

124  Alice Pinheiro Walla focuses on a moral one: nobody can rightfully be compelled to serve the purposes of another unilaterally. Absent assurance, first performance of contracts is an instance of a much more general moral problem: any act done on the basis of another person’s claim to an external object is an instance of serving the purposes of another. It is permissible to serve the purposes of another, but each person is entitled to decide whom to cooperate with, so there can be no obligation to do so.46 Assurance arguments for political obligation presuppose the idea that discharging one’s duty is conditional on the conduct of others. Reciprocity is required to avoid a contradiction of the principle with itself. For Hobbes, compliance without guarantee of reciprocity violates prudential rationality and enlightened self-interest. In contrast, Ripstein argues that for Kant the problem of assurance has a moral dimension. Assurance is necessary because “all obligations of right must be within a system of right ‘in accordance with universal law’”. This means that the only obligation of right you can owe to another person must be part of the system of reciprocal limits; they have no right to compel you to do what you would have had an obligation to do had such a system been in place.47 Without equal assurance, one’s respect for the acquired rights of another would be none other than an instance of instrumentalization. Unless we all respect rights, we open the door to the possibility of domination and exploitation of one’s rightful conduct. Genuine obligation is only morally possible in a system in which everyone is reciprocally bound. Ripstein is correct to stress that the problem for Kant is a moral, not prudential one. However, is the source or the problem indeed a lack of mutual assurance? In the interpretation I am proposing here, the problem lies instead in the mutual lack of authority to impose an obligation on each other. This is what gives rise to the moral problem Ripstein describes. The problem is not that we need a guarantee that others will reciprocate in respecting rights; the problem is that none of us has the authority to bind each other in the way described by Ripstein. Our very equality as private persons morally precludes such legal relations. The secondorder power to determine rights in an omnilaterally binding fashion can only be achieved through a public legal order, which provides a binding standard for adjudication, albeit an imperfect one in existing legal orders. This is why only a condition of public justice can change the modality of the rights already existing in the state of nature by turning the “reality of rights” (provisional rights) into the “necessity of rights” (peremptory rights, although only relative to that specific legal order).48

5.4 Conclusion An obligation cannot arise for anybody, however, except what he himself incurs (omnis obligatio est contracta). Thus nobody can acquire through unilateral will.49

Honeste Vive  125 All obligation, whether ethical or juridical, must be understood as self-imposed in order to be genuinely binding (omnis obligatio est contracta). However, the way in which external juridical obligation can be regarded as self-imposed is different from the way ethical obligation is self-imposed, although transcendental freedom and moral personhood, i.e., the possibility of being under an obligation, is the common basis of ethical and juridical duties alike. The juridical domain concerns freedom from an external perspective, as opposed to the internal freedom which is the concern of ethics and the domain of individual moral autonomy. Although Kant himself does not establish this analogy explicitly, I argued that the rule of law in the juridical domain can be understood as the correlate of individual autonomy in the ethical domain. In other words, the rule of law is the “external version” of moral self-legislation. Some commentators have suggested that the idea of a Kingdom of Ends should be understood as a form of political association or as involving political aspects.50 This suggests that the legal and political domain is a different application of the moral law as presented in Kant’s Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals. I think this is misleading. The Kingdom of Ends formula illustrates the idea of the will of every rational being as a universally legislating will (GMS IV: 431). Because the moral law is objective and universal for all rational wills, when I give myself the moral law (when I “self-legislate”), I can be regarded as ipso facto legislating for everyone else and with all others. The idea of determining one’s own will according to a universally rational principle allows us to imagine all possible rational wills as systematically united with each other in a system of rational ends that is analogous to a system of nature (GMS IV:433f). Despite the image of a commonwealth, the Kingdom of Ends is neither a prototype nor meant to regulate a legal-political association. The Kingdom of Ends is instead an attempt to bring an abstract moral idea closer to our senses and also to show that Kant’s theory of autonomy can accommodate the intuitions from the moral theories before him, in this case, Leibniz’s “kingdom of grace.”51 The problem of right and the question of politics only arises for a plurality of embodied rational beings in space and time; they do not arise for rational beings regarded as mere noumena, as in the Kingdom of Ends. The Kingdom of Ends generates the idea of a community by multiplying the same rational being and realizing that if their wills are determined by the moral law, their subjective ends will be co-possible, as in a system of natural ends; the difference between these rational beings is only numerical. Their systematic union is possible because intrapersonal autonomous law-giving is also valid interpersonally, provided only autonomous beings are involved. Mutual legislation in this sense requires neither external laws nor politics. To legislate for myself is already to legislate for and with all other rational beings. Despite the image of a systematic union with other rational beings, one is not legislating with others but always on one’s own.

126  Alice Pinheiro Walla Public laws in a civil condition are the necessary conditions for the moral possibility of imposing positive external juridical duties on others, just as subordinating our wills to the moral law is the necessary condition for moral autonomy. But the question of bindingness requires different solutions in the internal and external scenarios, respectively. The task of Kant’s legal theory is to spell out the conditions under which one can impose duties on others externally. One may think that there is something intrinsic about rights that justify the duties of others to respect them. Although this is correct both from a juridical and from an ethical perspective, the question of my unilateral authority to bind you is not exhausted by the content of my right or by my correct judgment about rights. It is not a mere epistemic question. Ethical obligation is only possible if we determine our wills by the moral law (our maxims must satisfy certain formal constraints to qualify as universalizable). We must be able to will such maxims of our own accord, through “self-necessitation.” In contrast, imposing obligations externally on others must be possible independently of the quality of their volition and yet not be mere violence. If duties of right are to be genuine obligations they must somehow also qualify as “self-imposed.” The argument I developed in this chapter was an attempt to explain how Kant’s theory of legal obligation “replicates” the structure of his theory of autonomy in the juridical domain, in order to account for the possibility of external juridical duties. Honeste vive tells us that our first juridical duty is to live up to the requirements of the right of humanity in our persons. At the same time, it contains in nuce the monumental task of the Doctrine of Right.

Notes 1 Kuehn (2004, 324). 2 There are debates in the literature whether being worthy of dignity must be “earned” by living up to the standards set by the moral law or if already the mere moral capacity to determine one’s will in accordance with the moral law suffices to establish one’s status as a bearer of dignity. In my discussion, I will assume the second interpretation, in the sense of a minimal respect owed to every person, even a morally evil one, although I will not be able to develop this view here. For a proponent of the “enactment view” of dignity see Sensen (2009). For the “moral capacity view,” see Wood (1999, 118), and the discussion in Bayefsky (2013, 821). 3 Bayefsky (2013). 4 As Bayefsky (2013) notes, stigmatization can severely impact one’s sense of self-respect and consequently one’s moral practice. For instance, permanently stigmatizing criminal offenders can encourage them “to turn to sub-groups in which breaking the law is not considered shameful in order to derive various goods, including esteem” (830). Kant’s concern about individuals’ place in the social world denotes a sensitivity to the social conditions required for living with dignity, which also takes into account the way we are perceived and valued by others. Bayefsky (2013, 823).

Honeste Vive  127 5 References to Kant’s writings give the volume and page number(s) of the Royal Prussian Academy edition (Kants gesammelte Schriften). I use the following abbreviations: GMS = Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten/ Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals; KpV = Kritik der praktischen Vernunft/Critique of Practical Reason; KrV = Kritik der reinen Vernunft/ Critique of Pure Reason; MS = Die Metaphysik der Sitten/The Metaphysics of Morals (which includes the Doctrine of Right and the Doctrine of Virtue); TP = Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis/‘On the Common Saying: That May Be Correct in Theory, But it is of No Use in Practice’; ZeF = Zum ewigen Frieden/Towards Perpetual Peace. Unless stated otherwise, I use the Mary Gregor and Jens Timmermann German–English edition and translation of the Groundwork (Kant 2011), and follow Bernd Ludwig’s edition of the Doctrine of Right (Kant 2018). Unless stated otherwise, all other English translations are from the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. 6 I will use “duties of right”, “juridical duties” and “legal duties” interchangeably. 7 Pinzani (2005). 8 This “later moment” in which honeste vive is explained as obligation from the right of humanity in our own person is Kant’s discussion of the only innate right (MS VI: 237) immediately after his taxonomy of juridical duties and rights. 9 “Externally” refers to actions regarded as phenomena or facta in the world (cf. MS 6: 230). Kant differentiates between the outward conformity of an action with the moral law (legality), from its morality, which also involves the motives of the agent. KpV 5: 71, 81, 118, 151–2. See also MS 6: 214, 225). 10 I would like to thank Adam Cureton for pressing me to elucidate this point. 11 An internal principle of willing is one that must be adopted freely by the agent herself. It cannot be imposed from outside without undermining its own rationale. Lawgiving that requires motivation from duty as the determining ground of the agent’s choice is thus always internal (MS 6: 219). 12 I would like to thank Jan-Willem van der Rijt for pressing me to clarify my argument on this point. 13 Thanks again, Jan-Willem. 14 Another difference is that Hobbes’ conception of rights is based on the natural law notion of self-preservation. Since each person has a right to preserve herself and there is no guarantee in the state of nature that others will not attack her, Hobbesian subjects have a right to do whatever they believe is necessary for their self-preservation. In contrast, for Kant self-preservation cannot be the basis of obligations, since no necessity can be derived from human nature, only from reason. 15 External obligation “proper” amounts to the capacity of person A to impose an obligation on person B on the basis of a right that A has. I will argue that this presupposes legal deeds from at least one of the involved parties. 16 Anything originally acquired must also be internal in Kant’s theory of acquisition. Since honeste vive is the duty associated with innate right, as the only original right, it also makes sense that honeste vive should be an internal juridical duty. 17 This is the idea of the “Unschuldsvermutung”. See Hruschka (2000). 18 Being an illegitimate child usually meant that one was born in a state of ‘lawlessness,’ although one was not considered a criminal or outlaw for that matter. It constituted a social stigma associated with legal disabilities. Kant thus seems to contradict innate honestas iuridica in his discussion of infanticide in MS 6:336 when he affirms that children born out of wedlock find themselves ‘in the state of nature’ and are thus outside state protection upon the occasion

128  Alice Pinheiro Walla of their birth, at least. However, Kant does not deny wrongdoing in the case of infanticide. He only denies the state right to inflict the death penalty on an unmarried mother who kills her newborn infant to preserve her honor in 18th-century Prussian society, given the ‘barbaric’ state of public opinion concerning women’s reputation, and the status of the child. The argument is thus about legal punishment, and not about whether infanticide is a crime. 19 von Poten (2018). 20 Kant used Achenwall’s ius naturae (in the 1763 edition) in his lectures on natural law. The surviving student notes from these lectures are the so-called “Naturrecht Feyerabend,” after the student’s name, who took the notes. For a translation, see Achenwall (2020). 21 §255, 2. Datur contemtus, quo alter infamatus. 22 Cf. Achenwall (2020): “Hinc quilibet nascitur iustus, nemo infamis” (Therefore, everyone is born just, and no one infamous). Elementa Iuris Naturae, §258. Note that Achenwall also uses the latin “iustus” for someone who hasn’t committed a wrong. 23 One could object that there are some positive legal obligations that do not arise from our deeds. For instance, monarchs might have certain duties even if their ascent to the throne was not a deed of theirs; citizens must pay their taxes even if they did not participate in an original contract, etc. However, the first duty has to do with a public rule (being a monarch) and the second with being a citizen (or subject) of a certain political society. Both examples presuppose a condition of public justice, with the authority to impose these obligations. The juridical duties which exclusively presuppose deeds of the agent are thus juridical duties in the state of nature. 24 I owe this reading of the three leges as expressing the modalities of right to Boyd and Hruschka (2010, 58–62). The idea of different modalities of right is expressed in the three leges: lex iusti, lex iuridica and lex iustitiae. The content of a law or of a right may remain the same across different leges. But they acquire a different modality. The modality of law accounts for the specific way it is binding (or fails to be binding) and the source of its normativity. 25 Different modalities of right should not be confused with different stages in legal history (some ‘immemorial time’ in which human beings had only innate right and no acquired rights yet, or before people began appropriating land). The different modalities of right refer to the capacity of right-holders to bind others. The bindingness of legal obligation in the Doctrine of Right can be compared to the modality of the different imperatives in the Groundwork (GMS IV: 412–20). 26 Kant’s separation between innate right and acquired rights is only methodological. His account of rights in the state of nature (prior to the implementation of a civil condition) corresponds to the private right section of the Doctrine of Right, while innate right is discussed in the “prolegomena” of the Doctrine of Right. 27 For the sake of simplicity, I am setting aside those status relations that do not fit this pattern of voluntary agreements such as parental rights. Here the idea is rather that of a fiduciary duty and its corresponding rights. For Kant’s account of the rights of parents and children see Kersting (2007) Kersting, Wohlgeordnete Freiheit, Teil B chap. III (Das auf dingliche Art persönliche Recht), p. 248, and Ripstein (2009), Private Right I: Acquired Rights, pp. 72–3. 28 “No authority” is ambiguous and can mean two things: 1) I am not permitted to x (I would be overstepping my authority if I x; and 2) I am permitted to x, but my x-ing does not generate any obligation on your part. “No authority” actually means 1. For instance, I have no authority to kidnap you and keep your life under my control, because I think I am better at decision-making

Honeste Vive  129 than you are. The authorizations implicit in innate right (see MS 6: 238) correspond to 2. For instance, I am permitted to tell you some fake story, but it is up to you to believe me or not. I would like to thank Jan-Willem van der Rijt for making me aware of that ambiguity. 29 In contrast to my interpretation, Ludwig (1988, 101) argues that the internal “Mine and Thine” actually belongs in the Private Right section of the DoR since it counts as “natural right” in the sense described in MS 6: 241. Kant’s reason for including it in the prolegomena would be to avoid the asymmetry of a higher division of the doctrine of right (MS 6: 238). However, placing it in the prolegomena also obscures the systematic role of innate right. 30 See Davies (2020). 31 Kant recognizes an indirect ethical duty to satisfy one’s duties of right from duty (MS 6: 220–1). However, this obligation arises from an ethical perspective and is not required by right. 32 She can of course choose to satisfy this duty (as any juridical duty) also from an ethical motive. In this case the moral merit comes from her ethical motivation and is a “moral plus” which is however not required from the perspective of right. 33 The problem is actually only comparatively solved in a condition of public justice, since all peoples on the surface of the earth must be brought under public laws. 34 Do we wrong ourselves by violating honeste vive? One could argue that volenti non fit iniuria (those acting of their own accord do themselves no wrong). If I want to dispose of the internal mine in such a way that others treat me disrespectfully, I would also have the authority to do so. However, if one has a duty of rightful honor, it seems that we cannot dispose of the internal mine as one could choose to dispose of what is externally mine (which are things and not persons). The internal mine coincides with my legal personality. Therefore, to throw away my innate right would amount to negating my status as a subject of rights, which is a presupposition of my exercise of external freedom. 35 Since we cannot scatter ourselves indefinitely in the spherical surface of the planet and will impact each other externally at some point in time. 36 This formulation has been used to support the “assurance” interpretation of the duty to enter the civil condition, which I will reject in the following. 37 In contrast, the verdict of a court of justice is public and yet subjective, in the sense that it is bound by empirical principles (the positive laws of a given public order, procedural rules, etc.) 38 Pinheiro Walla (2014). 39 See, for instance, the “four cases” in RL 6: 297–308, “On Acquisition that is dependent subjectively upon the decision of a public court of justice”: “So the question is here not merely what is right in itself, that is, how every human being has to judge about it on his own, but what is right before a court, that is, what is laid down as right. And here there are four cases in which two different and opposing judgments can result and persist side by side, both of which are true: one in accordance with private right, the other in accordance with public right.” 40 A republican constitution follows the principle of separation of powers, so that the plenary power of the state is constituted in such a way as to serve the public will, and not the private will of privileged individuals. The form of a state is thus either republican (representative) or despotic. Tertium non datur: “Any form of government that is not representative is, strictly speaking, without form, because the legislator cannot be in one and the same person also executor of its will” (ZeF 8: 352).

130  Alice Pinheiro Walla 1 Hruschka (2015, 13–14). 4 42 See Davies (2020). 43 The source of this misunderstanding is possibly Kant’s claim that rights are provisional in the state of nature. See for instance Waldron (1996): “At its most general, the phrase “provisional acquisition” connotes the idea of some individual’s best effort to figure out – unilaterally – what he is entitled to. But what people need is a system of property rights that reflects a single community determination of what each is entitled to.” I would like to thank Ruhi Demiray for a discussion on this problem. 44 For an account of the distinction between objective and subjective judgments about rights and the conditions for juridical obligation see Pinheiro Walla (2020). 45 Ebbinghaus (1953). 46 Ripstein (2009, 165). 47 Ripstein (2009, 160). 48 Although “peremptory” is relative to the public system of laws in question, multiple public orders require international coordination and bilateral agreements for domestic rights to be valid transnationally. 49 Preparatory works to the Doctrine of Right, 23:219. 50 See for instance Jeremy Waldron, “All Kings in the Kingdom of Ends.” NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 13-39, July 3, 2018; Andrews Reath, ‘Legislating for a Realm of Ends: the Social Dimension of Autonomy,’ in Andrews Reath, Agency and Autonomy, Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 173–96, and Monique Hulshof, “Political Aspects of Kant’s Concept of ‘Kingdom of Ends’.” Natur und Freiheit, edited by Violetta L. Waibel, Margit Ruffing and David Wagner, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2018, pp. 1877–84. For a criticism of semi-political interpretations of the Kingdom of Ends, see Katrin Flikschuh, ‘Kant’s Kingdom of Ends, metaphysical, not political,” in Jens Timmermann (ed.), Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. A Critical Guide, CUP 2009, pp. 119–39. 51 See Jens Timmermann’s commentary in Kant (2004, 132, note 62).

Works Cited Achenwall, Gottfried. 2020. Natural Law: A Translation of the Textbook for Kant’s Lectures on Legal and Political Philosophy. Translated by Corinna Vermeulen. Edited by Pauline Kleingeld. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Bayefsky, Rachel. 2013. “Dignity, Honour, and Human Rights: Kant’s Perspective.” Political Theory 41 (6):809–37. Boyd, B. Sharon, and Joachim Hruschka. 2010. Kant’s Doctrine of Right: A Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davies, Luke J. 2020. “Whence ‘Honeste Vive’?” European Journal of Philosophy 1–16. Ebbinghaus, Julius. 1953. “The Law of Humanity and the Limits of State Power.” The Philosophical Quarterly 3 (10):14–22. Hruschka, Joachim. 2000. “Existimatio: Unbescholtenheit Und Achtung Vor Dem Nebenmenschen Bei Kant Und in Der Kant Vorangehenden Naturrechtslehre.” Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik / Annual Review of Law and Ethics 8:181–95. Hruschka, Joachim. 2015. Kant Und Der Rechtsstaat Und Andere Essays Zu Kant’s Rechtslehre Und Ethik. Freiburg: Verlag Karl Alber.

Honeste Vive  131 Kant, Immanuel. 2004. Grundlegung Zur Metaphysik Der Sitten. Edited by Jens Timmermann. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Kant, Immanuel. 2011. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A GermanEnglish Edition. edited and translated by Mary J. Gregor and Jens Timmermann. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2018. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe Der Rechtslehre, Metaphysik Der Sitten Erster Teil. Edited by Bernd Ludwig. 4th ed: Hamburg: Meiner Verlag. Kersting, Wolfgang. 2007. Wohlgeordnete Freiheit: Immanuel Kants Rechts Und Staatsphilosophie. Mentis. Kuehn, Manfred. 2004. Kant. Eine Biographie. München: C.H. Beck. Ludwig, Bernd. 1988. Kants Rechtslehre. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag Hamburg. Pinheiro Walla, Alice. 2014. “Human Nature and the Right to Coerce in Kant’s Doctrine of Right.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 96 (1):126–39. Pinheiro Walla, Alice. 2020. “A Kantian Foundation for Welfare Rights.” Jurisprudence 11 (1):76–91. Pinzani, Alessandro. 2005. “Der Systematische Stellenwert Der PseudoUlpianischen Regeln in Kants Rechtslehre.” Zeitschrift Für Philosophische Forschung 59 (1):71–94. Ripstein, Arthur. 2009. Force and Freedom: Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sensen, Oliver. 2009. “Kant’s Conception of Human Dignity.” Kant-Studien 100:309–331. von Poten, Bernhard 2018. “Ehrlosigkeit.” In Handwörterbuch Der Gesamten Militärwissenschaften: Band 3. Döffingen bis Friedrich I. Europäischer Geschichtsverlag. Waldron, Jeremy. 1996. “Kant’s Legal Positivism.” Harvard Law Review 109 (7):1565–66. Wood, Allen W. 1999. Kant’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

6 All Kings in the Kingdom of Ends? Jeremy Waldron

It is commonly thought that Kantian political philosophy is the application of ideas derived from Kantian moral philosophy. Kant is one of a number of philosophers renowned for their moralistic approach to politics.1 In this chapter, however, I would like to explore the application in Kant’s moral philosophy of a model that in my view has to be made sense of, in the first instance, in his political philosophy.2 I have in mind Kant’s third formulation (in some enumerations, formula IIIa) of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. In H.J. Paton’s paraphrase, that formulation is: So act as if you were through your maxims a law-making member of a kingdom of ends.3 The model that Kant invites us to entertain here consists of three political ideas:4 (i) the idea of a social order or legal system meeting certain specifications so far as the pursuit of its members’ ends is concerned; (ii) the idea of law-making in such an order or system; and (iii) the idea of a law-making role for a “member” of (i.e., for someone subject to) such an order or system. It looks like we first have to understand these three political ideas (and, of course, the connections between them) in order to understand, for the purposes of moral philosophy, the above formulation of the categorical imperative. We have to have a grip on politics in order to work with this model, so we can understand the moral point of view in light of it. Now, if we like, we can approach the three ideas I mentioned in a quick and impressionistic way assuming that their meaning is straightforward and that we need not dwell on them. Or we can pause to explore the politics that are presupposed by this formulation of the categorical imperative. In the first part of this chapter, I intend to do the latter, looking at the model which Kant deploys in the third formulation through the eyes of a political philosopher. I want to consider the idea of a kingdom, the politics of Kant’s kingdom of ends, and the idea of law-making in such a kingdom by a member or the members thereof.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-9

All Kings in the Kingdom of Ends?  133 Whether this perspective is strictly necessary in order to understand the moral import of the passages in the Groundwork where the third formulation is elaborated is, I guess, an open question. (I make this concession out of respect for the generations of Kant scholars who have declined to engage in such exploration or who have engaged in it with next to no knowledge of political or constitutional theory.) The organizers of the conference in Bayreuth at which this chapter was first presented said in their preliminary notes that the kingdom-of-ends formulation has been less explored by philosophers than other formulations of the categorical imperative. This, they said, is because the formulation is seen especially by some non-philosophers as “rather esoteric and metaphysically fishy.” I think this is because too few scholars have approached the kingdom-ofends formulation with Kant’s political philosophy in mind. I hope that my exploration of it will help our understanding of the Groundwork, of the relation between Kant’s moral and political philosophy, and of the idea of human dignity, which is introduced by Kant in the Groundwork in close connection with the third formulation of the categorical imperative. There is one preliminary point to get out of the way. In The Categorical Imperative, Paton observes that the phrase “the kingdom of ends” is “manifestly reminiscent” of the idea of the Kingdom of God:5 I guess he means that the cadence of the one phrase reminds him of the other. Kant’s formula of the kingdom of ends, he says, “is quite explicitly his rational form of recognizing a church invisible and visible, the Kingdom of God which has to be made manifest on earth.”6 According to Paton, the notion of sovereignty in such a kingdom is identical with or suggestive of the position of God Himself.7 Thomas Hill seems to follow him in this: the sovereign, he says, “is presumably God or the holy will.”8 I don’t think this can possibly be right.9 Despite Paton’s use of terms like “manifestly reminiscent,” there is no textual warrant for it in the Groundwork passages in which the idea of the kingdom of ends is introduced. Something like it crops up later, but even then only elliptically and indirectly in Kant’s account of what would be necessary for a pure kingdom of ends to be realized in fact.10 That passage introduces the idea of the kingdom of ends being looked at from a God’s-eye point of view. But that should not distract us from the idea of humans as its law-makers. The only other passage I know that offers any support for this is a passage in the Critique of Practical Reason where Kant writes that Christian morality represents “the world in which rational beings devote themselves with their whole soul to the moral law as a kingdom of God.”11 But again he makes it very clear that this theological conception presupposes a working out of moral ideas prior to the introduction of the idea of God, and the kingdom of ends idea is part of that working-out.12

I So what does the kingdom of ends involve from a political point of view? It is conceived as a certain sort of order with human persons cast in the

134  Jeremy Waldron various roles that the model comprises. Some of those roles amount simply to lives being led under that order—subject to it, ordered by it, coordinated, governed, and regulated by it, and with potential conflicts resolved by it. And some of the roles are those of the agents of the ordering in question—persons who ordain or lay down the rules that constitute the order. To put it crudely, the concept of a kingdom of ends comprises the concept of subject-roles and the concept of law-making roles. As I said at the beginning: Kant’s kingdom-of-ends formulation seems to implicate three political ideas: (i) the idea of a particular sort of social system; (ii) the idea of law-making in such a system; and (iii) the idea of a lawmaking role for all or some of the members of such a system. Ideas (ii) and (iii) have to do with what we may call the dynamic aspect of the order that Kant is asking us to envisage: how it is made, and how it changes (if it does).13 The static aspect consists in the way the laws apply to particular cases; that comprises (i) above. Let us begin with the static aspect of the kingdom of ends. Kant invites us to consider, as “a very fruitful concept,” what he calls a “systematic union of various rational beings through common laws.”14 We are to imagine a plurality of individuals, who are diverse—that is, different from one another—in the ends to which they are devoted15 and, of course, also in the individuals’ sheer plurality as ends in themselves.16 We must imagine moreover a large plurality of such persons: as Hill observes, the point of view being set up here requires us to presuppose not just an isolated pair of individuals who have (for instance) made promises to each other, but a state-sized array of persons living side by side in their millions, who “need to join together into communities with common laws that assign to each other rights and responsibilities.”17 Now, as they negotiate their way through life, people pursue different goods and happiness under different conceptions.18 These pursuits pose a problem of social order, which consists in the possibility (likelihood, inevitability) that the activities inspired by various people’s aims will come into conflict with one another. Conflicts arise when the activity of one agent cuts across or collides with the activity of another, in such a way that the actions in question cannot both take place. The legal rules of the order that Kant envisages may be viewed as a way of dealing with that possibility of conflict. For example, it is the job of traffic law to ensure that people moving around the territory can get to their destinations reasonably quickly and in an orderly fashion without risk of collision. And it is the job of property law to address the possibility of conflict between different persons’ attempts to make use of the same material resources. In general, the kingdom of ends as a legal order comprises rules governing the time and manner in which activities of all sorts may be undertaken, to ensure what Hillel Steiner called the compossibility of all the various ends whose pursuit is supposed to be governed and coordinated in this order.19 The kingdom of ends is exactly an order governed by what Kant

All Kings in the Kingdom of Ends?  135 calls in The Metaphysics of Morals, the universal principle of right: “Any action is right if it can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law.”20 We imagine a set of laws solving the problem of the compossibility of individual ends in a kingdom of ends,21 and we use this solution as the touchstone of the rightness of our actions. Of course, actually existing polities may have laws that are less permissive than this: maybe they restrict actions in despotic ways that are not necessary in order to secure a universal compossibility of choices and pursuits in a kingdom of ends. Or they may permit too much, thus allowing unnecessary conflicts or collisions. So positive legality is not a good test for the purposes of moral philosophy. We have to imagine instead an ideal legal order and that is what Kant is inviting us to do in the third formulation of the categorical imperative.22 (Remember that an ideal legal order is not to be equated with a moral order; instead Kant is inviting us to use the former to cast light on the latter.) Interesting though all this is, it is the dynamic aspect of the kingdom of ends that is of greater concern in this chapter. In this regard, Kant invites us to consider the norms or constraints of the ideal order we have been describing not, in the first instance as natural or as given, but as something made or ordained.23 How are the rules of the kingdom of ends made? We are to consider (ii) the idea of law-making. And in connection with that, there is (iii) the question of agency: Who occupies the law-making roles? And how is the occupancy of those roles related to membership of the order—that is, being one of the persons whose ends are ordered and reconciled with those of all others in that order? Reference to the political order as a kingdom of ends suggests to the unwary that the legislative function is vested in just one person: a king. But the word “kingdom” in “kingdom of ends” is just an artefact of an English tradition of translating the Groundwork. The German term is actually “Reich” (not “Königreich”) and, as Mary Gregor notes in her translation, “Reich” might as easily be translated as “Commonwealth.”24 H.J. Paton offers these observations on what he calls a “point of terminology”: For a time I was persuaded by an Oxford colleague to abandon the phrase “kingdom of ends”. This was on the ground that the German word “Reich” does not strictly mean a “kingdom” but a “realm”. A “Reich” may be a kingdom (Königreich) or an empire (Kaiserreich) or a mere tyranny like the so-called “Third Reich”, now fortunately deceased. These are strong arguments, and in some ways the word “realm” is a more exact translation. On the other hand, it is not always possible to get precise equivalents in different languages. The word “realm”, when taken strictly, is a trifle pompous and archaic, whereas the word “Reich” is neither. What is worse, the word “realm”, like the word “sphere”, is apt to be taken colourlessly, as when we speak of “the realm of fancy” or “the sphere of

136  Jeremy Waldron industry.” The conclusive consideration is, however, this—that the word “Reich” is manifestly reminiscent of “Das Reich Gottes” (The Kingdom of God).25 We have dealt with Paton’s “conclusive consideration” already.26 As for his points about archaism and colorlessness, he doesn’t explain why the alternative translation that he suggests in a footnote—“Commonwealth”—might not be used instead.27 For reasons I will now explain, the translation of “Reich” as “kingdom” is a stunningly bad translation, which has led over the years to massive indirection among English-speaking students of the Groundwork. Why is “kingdom” such a bad translation? Well, first we must acknowledge that the dynamic logic of Kant’s idea of the kingdom of ends in the Groundwork is thoroughly republican, not monarchical. Put briefly, we are asked to entertain the possibility that every person whose life is governed by a given social order might be an exerciser of sovereignty relative to that order, at least so far as law-making is concerned. How else can we read the following passage? A rational being belongs as a member to the kingdom of ends when he gives universal laws in it, but is also himself subject to these laws. He belongs to it as sovereign when, as lawgiving, he is not subject to the will of any other. … Morality consists, then, in the reference of all action to the legislation by which alone a kingdom of ends is possible. This lawgiving must, however, be found in every rational being and be able to arise from his will. (GW 4:433–4) This is explicitly republican. There is nothing about kingship here. And it is impossible to read Kant in this and similar passages as suggesting—as Paton maintains—that authorship of the law in the realm or commonwealth of ends belongs to the holy will of God.28 Kant’s whole point—the insistent focus of his moral theory—is that we can conceive of the authorship of the law as in ourselves. We are to imagine ourselves as legislators in the realm or commonwealth of ends. So, if the realm or commonwealth that Kant imagines were to be regarded as a kingdom, then each of us should have to think of himself as king. We would be, in the silly terms of my title for this chapter, “all kings in the kingdom of ends.” Or, forget the idea of a multiplicity of kings: in Paul Guyer’s more thoughtful formulation, the will of each person is to regard itself as legislating “for a realm of equally qualified co-legislators.”29 Kant’s position is almost exactly the one envisaged in The Social Contract of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: [T]he act of association consists of a reciprocal commitment between society and the individual, so that each person … finds himself

All Kings in the Kingdom of Ends?  137 doubly committed, first as a member of the sovereign body in relation to individuals, and secondly as a member of the state in relation to the sovereign.30 This similarity should not surprise us. In moral and political philosophy, no-one’s work was more important to Kant than that of Rousseau. The idea of a person being bound only by laws he has given to himself is obviously Rousseauian,31 as is the idea that each person is both subject and law-giver. By the way: that the combination in each person is a combination of subjecthood and sovereignty is clear in Rousseau. And I believe Kant adopts this too: certainly he talks freely of the subject belonging to the kingdom of ends as sovereign and as having a share in sovereignty.32 Here again I have to disagree with Thomas Hill. Hill says that “Kant’s political metaphors suggest an ideal legislature in which all citizens are free and rational legislators and (except for the sovereign) bound by the laws that they make.”33 This suggests a dichotomy between the sovereign and the legislator(s). But that makes no sense in Kant’s Rousseauian logic. True, Kant talks of the sovereign not being bound by the laws that are made, in contrast with the subject-law-givers who obviously are: A rational being belongs as a member to the kingdom of ends when he gives universal laws in it but is also himself subject to those laws. He belongs to it as sovereign when, as lawgiving, he is not subject to the will of any other.34 But instead of steering this towards a dichotomy of the kind Hill suggests, Kant is evidently toying instead with the idea that insofar as each of us has a share of sovereignty, so far (considered in that role alone) we are not to think of ourselves as bound. “This lawgiving must … be found in every rational being himself and be able to arise from his will.”35 That’s the logic of Kant’s account of the dynamics of the “kingdom” of ends. Now, as to Kantian politics: we know that for all his own crusty authoritarianism,36 Kant was deep down a republican in his political philosophy. He criticized the idea of “born rulers”; he said it made no more sense than the idea of a born professor.37 He rejected “the hereditary privilege of ruling rank.”38 His position in Toward Perpetual Peace is well-known: what he called the “First Definitive Article for Perpetual Peace” was that “The civil constitution in every state should be republican.”39 His reason for saying this was not just pragmatic, for the purpose of avoiding war. Towards the end of his life, in Conflict of Faculties, Kant said several times of the republican form that it is “the eternal norm for all civil constitutions.”40 There is nothing particularly fancy or esoteric about Kant’s republicanism.41 It is not distinctively “Roman republicanism” or anything like that.42 It comprised a typical late-eighteenth-century commitment to

138  Jeremy Waldron separation of powers,43 representation,44 fundamental equality,45 a commitment to ordered liberty,46 and government for the sake of the common pursuit of the common good.47 Like James Madison,48 Kant distinguishes for practical purposes between a republic and a direct democracy (TPP 8:351–2). But still, as a matter of principle, he thinks like Rousseau that the fundamental logic of a republic is the law-making consent of every citizen: “The legislative authority can belong only to the united will of the people.”49 All this is deeply embedded in Kant’s philosophical politics, pervasive in his political writings, and it would be quite wrong not to bring it to bear on our understanding of the political model he is using in the Groundwork. Does this mean there is really no possible role for a king in Kant’s “kingdom” of ends? The matter is complicated by three things. First, like Rousseau, Kant distinguished structurally between sovereignty and government. Even if sovereignty in a republic is vested in principle in the united body of citizens, the government, which is the entity charged with the administration and enforcement of the laws laid down by the sovereign and the administration of the state generally, may be democratic, or aristocratic, or monarchical in character.50 That is to say, executive authority may be in the hands of a single ruler, even though it offends republican principle for the chief of the executive to be also the maker of the laws.51 So there is certainly a role within a fundamentally republican structure that might be occupied by a king-like figure; only, it is not a law-making role. Secondly, Kant himself lived—and not all that restively52—under a monarchy in Prussia—a monarch whose powers went beyond mere administration, and he believed that submission on his part to the monarch was (more or less) required. Republican as he was, Kant was also still an authoritarian. He was not in favor of people rising up to change their government to a republican form. If somehow a republic suddenly came into existence—even wrongfully—where a monarchy had existed before, Kant might celebrate the fact and his authoritarianism would call for that republic now to be supported and obeyed against the forces of reaction.53 But he denied that people were entitled to agitate for the overthrow of a non-republican system of government.54 But thirdly—and this is really interesting—Kant ventured the suggestion that a monarchy might act like a republic. A republic, he said, might be defined either in structural terms or in terms of the spirit in which it is ruled.55 Just as Montesquieu talked of “a nation [perhaps Great Britain] that may be justly called a republic, disguised under the form of monarchy,”56 so Kant mooted the idea of a king ruling in a more or less completely republican spirit.57 Although in ideal theory we should organize our polity on the structural principles of republicanism, in the real world it is the duty of monarchs to govern in a republican spirit,58 i.e., “in analogy to the laws that a people would give itself according to

All Kings in the Kingdom of Ends?  139 universal principles of right.”59 In this regard, Kant may be considered a theorist of constitutional monarchy. And he says that one can legitimately work slowly for this in an actually-existing monarchy, to “change the kind of government gradually and continually so that it harmonizes in its effect with the only constitution that accords with right, that of a pure republic…”60 In light of all this, we can see how odd it would be for Kant to use the idea of a literal kingdom as his political model in the third formulation of the categorical imperative. His fundamental ideas are republican; even such monarchies as he is prepared to acknowledge tend—if they are any good—toward republicanism in the spirit of their operation. And anyway, even without this wholesome diversion into Kant’s own constitutional theory, the logic of what is said in the Groundwork about the “kingdom” of ends is utterly republican. We are given the image of a commonwealth in which those who are subject to the laws have a role in making the laws. And not a trivial role, either: each is imagined to play a part in the making of the laws constrained only by the accommodation of an equal law-giving role for all others who are subject to them. The “kingdom” is a republic and its law-givers are its citizens.

II Being a law-maker is a position of high dignity in any political community, just like being a judge or a high member of the executive.61 Though Kant is famous for his account of (what we would call) human dignity in the Groundwork,62 he also makes ample use in his later work of the older idea of dignity in the sense of Roman dignitas—the status attaching to a specific role or rank in an system of nobility and office. In The Metaphysics of Morals (written ten years later than the Groundwork), he talks of legislative, executive, and judicial offices as dignities; in a slightly different sense, he speaks of “the distribution of dignities, which are eminent estates without pay, based on honour alone.”63 Human dignity and dignity as rank or office: are these two independent notions, or are they connected? In my own work, I have presented human dignity as a sort of transvaluation and upward levelling of the older more hierarchical notion: we are all nobles, we all belong to the highest caste, and we possess and are capable of discharging high responsibilities.64 Kant does not explicitly address the question of the relation between these understandings of dignity. But one line at least seems to be thrown across whatever chasm separates the two. Having spoken of various hierarchical dignities in The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant says this: “Certainly no human being can be without any dignity, since he at least has the dignity of a citizen.”65 In context, the dignity of a citizen is presented as one dignitas among others. But it is said to be a dignitas to which, in principle, everyone is entitled. I think there is an intriguing

140  Jeremy Waldron connection between dignity as used in the Groundwork (where its association with moral personality is supposed to be illuminated by a notional link with lawmaking in the kingdom of ends) and dignitas as characteristic of the role of the citizen in Kant’s political philosophy.66 But the connection is not straightforward. One difficulty is that Kant in his constitutional theory distinguishes between active and passive citizenship, with the lower grade assigned to those who cannot present themselves in social, economic, and political life as fully independent of others. This includes women, many servants or employees, and possibly paupers as well.67 In politics, the dignity of law-giving citizenship is withheld from those who are dependent. Only independent citizens—those who are not dependent directly on others for their livelihood—have “the right to manage the state as active members of it,” as voters or as jurors, for example.68 How (if at all) might this be related to the dignity of the person in the moral theory? It helps to see that, in his theory of politics, there is a certain unease in Kant’s comments about passive citizenship: “[T]he concept of a passive citizen,” he says, “seems to contradict the concept of a citizen as such.”69 And in The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant observes that the passive citizens’ “dependence upon the will of others and this inequality is … in no way opposed to their freedom and equality as human beings.”70 As a person, each such individual has “a human being’s quality of being his own master.”71 They are entitled to be treated “in accordance with the laws of natural freedom of equality,” and treated indeed as persons who make up the people of the state, for whose sake and for whose moral co-existence as ends civil society is established.72 On the other side, there is one brief mention in the Groundwork account of the dignity of the independence that is supposed to distinguish active citizenship: A rational being must always regard himself as lawgiving in a kingdom of ends possible through freedom of the will, whether as a member or as sovereign. He cannot, however, hold the position of sovereign merely by the maxims of his will but only in case he is a completely independent being, without needs and with unlimited resources adequate to his will.73 This is not the most lucid passage in the Groundwork. The contrast between sovereign and member is one we have already grappled with.74 It is a Rousseauian contrast between the two sides of a citizen’s role: as maker and subject of the law. Even in the Metaphysics of Morals, sovereignty is in principle an attribute of “the united will of the people … the concurring and united will of all”; and Kant insists that “the members of such a society who are united for giving law … are called the citizens of the state.”75 In real-world polities, the class of active citizens has to

All Kings in the Kingdom of Ends?  141 be confined to those who can act independently. But the gist of the passage we are considering from the Groundwork seems to be that each of us—even those who in real-world politics might be relegated to passive citizenship—can (for purposes of morality) think of himself or herself as a possible legislator independent of the will of others. We can think of ourselves as not being dominated by need or fear or favor (even if in real life we are). We can think of ourselves as making laws in that independent spirit, laws that permit or prohibit actions not because of the relation of such actions to our needs or to the desires of those who have some hold over us, but purely because of their relation to the kind of order of ends that we imagine ourselves setting up. The capacity to think of ourselves in this way affords each of us the dignity of a “share … in the giving of universal laws.”76 And that is what we use as a heuristic for moral thinking. We think of ourselves in the kingdom of ends, when we deploy this idea for the purposes of moral philosophy, as active citizens. Only, now it is really really important that the “kingdom” be acknowledged as in principle a republic—one in which all the citizens participate actively in law-making. That’s the image we are supposed to have in mind. Without that acknowledgement, the connection between human dignity and the dignity of the citizen will seem mysterious. Given the way that it is introduced, it is tempting to understand dignity in the Groundwork simply as a certain sort of value—value beyond price— inhering in the rational capacity for morality: “morality, and humanity insofar as it is capable of morality, is that which alone has dignity.”77 That is how the concept is introduced. But Kant goes on immediately to associate dignity in the Groundwork with law-making in the kingdom of ends; in fact, dignity is almost always associated with the image of the law-maker. (Dignity is not used in relation to any of the other formulations of the categorical imperative, not even the formula of the end in itself.) In a way, the dignity of having an equal share in law-making is an integral part of the political model that Kant is inviting us to use in his third formulation of the categorical imperative. In some moods, I am inclined to think of dignity as nothing but a status we imagine for ourselves as part of the kingdom-of-ends heuristic. Just as we imagine ourselves as law-givers or just as we imagine ourselves as sharing in sovereignty, so (and on the same basis) we imagine ourselves as having this dignity: the dignity of an active citizen if the realm of ends is a republic or the dignity of a king (but one of thousands of kings) if the realm of ends were really a kingdom.78 What we are imagining is a sublime political status to which we might be entitled. But that will not quite do, because Kant also seems to want to extrapolate dignity from the model, drawing it out and applying it to us directly in virtue of our capacity to use the model. We have dignity;79 we are not just required to think of ourselves as having dignity. Our real dignity is made intelligible in terms of the dignity associated in the model

142  Jeremy Waldron with law-giving: “the worthiness of every rational subject to be a lawgiving member in the kingdom of ends” is the basis of our dignity and of what distinguishes each of us from “all merely natural beings.”80 In other words, we who are actually not law-givers have dignity too. Our entertaining and use of the model of the kingdom of ends vouches for the sort of self-mastery that is the basis of our real-life dignity. We are worthy of dignity in virtue of this self-mastery—a form of self-mastery (both laying down law for oneself and obeying it) that has its counterpart and thus its illumination within the model of the kingdom of ends.81 I don’t think we should short-circuit this extrapolation. Hill comes close to that when he says that Kant asks us to think of ourselves as engaged in “moral legislation in the kingdom of ends.”82 On this formulation, what we think of ourselves as doing in the political model is exactly what we are trying to get help with in reality: we need help thinking about moral rules, so we conjure up a model of ourselves making moral rules. That will not do. Kant’s model in the Groundwork asks us to think of ourselves as engaged in regular political legislation, as though in any polity. Coming up with moral rules is what that political model is trying to illuminate: it is not what is being used as illumination. We think of ourselves as bearing the dignity of active citizenship in a true republic. Imagining what that would be like involves imagining a certain form of self-mastery—both in the legislating and in the obeying— that is important for political purposes. Being a legislator in a republic— sharing in its sovereignty—is associated with a very high dignity. That’s the model, and the moral philosopher’s observation is that, in many ways, self-mastery in ordinary moral life is just like that. Anyone is capable of it.83 As such, it deserves to be credited with a high dignity of its own that commands respect both in one’s own eyes and “from all other rational beings in the world.”84

Notes 1 Kant’s late essay “On a supposed right to lie from philanthropy,” is about the use of uncompromising moral standards in politics: “Right must never be accommodated to politics, but politics must always be accommodated to right” (8:429). See also Appendix I of Immanuel Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace, p. 338 (8:370). In this chapter, Kant’s works are mostly quoted from Mary Gregor’s translation in Immanuel Kant: Practical Reason (Cambridge University Press, 1996). Citations are by page number in Gregor’s volume and (in parentheses) by volume and page-number of the Prussian Academy edition of Kant’s works. 2 I realize this is controversial. Among others, Rawls maintains that Kant’s moral philosophy is not constructed using elements from any realm other than that of practical reason (by which he seems to mean moral reason): see John Rawls (1993, 301). But that can’t quite be right: after all, Kant makes use of the idea of a system of nature in one formulation of the categorical imperative. Rawls makes it sound as though the various formulations of the

All Kings in the Kingdom of Ends?  143 categorical imperative involve nothing more than rearranging ideas which moral philosophy is already in possession of. I think this impoverishes Kant’s account. At any rate, see also the issues referenced below in footnote 82 and accompanying text. 3 H.J. Paton (1948, 185), paraphrasing Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, p. 87 (4:438). 4 Thomas Hill (2012, 190) says that “[t]he idea of a kingdom of ends is constructed from elements in the previous formulations of the Categorical Imperative.” I disagree: it is constructed from specifically political elements that are not foreshadowed in the earlier formulations. 5 Paton (1948, 188). 6 Paton (1948, 196). 7 Paton (1948, 181). 8 Hill (1992, 59). To be fair, having subscribed to this interpretation, Hill puts it aside as mostly uninteresting: “For the purposes of this paper, he [God] can be ignored” (ibid.). See also Hill, Virtue, Rules, and Justice, p. 261n21, for a helpful discussion. 9 Nor do I accept Onora O’Neill’s (1989, 143) suggestion that “kingdom of ends” is a “potent symbol” of “the communion of saints.” 10 See Kant, Groundwork, p. 88 (4:439). 11 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, p. 243 (5:128). 12 Ibid., p. 243 (5:129). 13 I have in mind Hans Kelsen’s (2004, 108, 193) distinction between static and dynamic aspects of our understanding of a legal system. 14 Kant, Groundwork, p. 83 (4:433). 15 For Kant’s quite liberal position on the diversity of individual conceptions of happiness, see Immanuel Kant, “On the common saying: ‘That may be correct in theory but it is of no use in practice’” (“Theory and Practice”), pp. 290–1 (8:290). 16 For the importance of both these sets of ends, see Paul Guyer (2000, 340) and Hill (2012, 29). 17 Hill (1992, 208). For a perverse alternative view, see Robinson and Harré (1994, 9): “There appears to be no need for a population numbering more than one.” 18 What follows is adapted from Waldron (2013b). 19 See Hillel Steiner (1977, 767). 20 Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, p. 387 (6:230–1). 21 Formally speaking, the task is to specify a set of constraints on conduct (call it set C), satisfying three conditions: (1) no two actions permitted by C conflict with one another; (2) for each individual who is subject to C, the range of actions permitted by C is adequate for the pursuit of his ends; and (3) the laws are general and equal for all. Although, in order to avoid conflict, each person has to accept some constraints, the idea is that all are equally constrained and no one is required to labor under such extensive or burdensome constraints as to make the pursuit of his or her chosen ends impossible. 22 For Kant’s helpful discussion of the difference between actual positive law and the principles that inform the ideal of legality, see Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, pp. 386–7 (6:229-30). 23 I do not accept Christine Korsgaard’s suggestion (1996, 140) that, under the auspices of the third formulation, “[t]he Kingdom of Ends is represented by the kingdom of nature; we determine moral laws by considering their viability as natural laws.” 24 See Immanuel Kant, Practical Reason, ed. Gregor, p. 83, note j. Also John Rawls (1993, 298) makes short work of the traditional translation in his

144  Jeremy Waldron essay “Themes in Kant’s Moral Philosophy”: “This community Kant calls a realm of ends—a commonwealth and not a kingdom…” 25 Paton (1948, 187-188). 26 See text accompanying notes 5–12 above. 27 Paton (1948, 187, note 4). 28 Paton (1948, 188). 29 Guyer (2000, 142). Later Guyer observes: “[C]onceiving of not only oneself but of all the others who may be affected by one’s actions as universal legislators, that is, as agents who have not only particular empirical interests but also the same overriding interest in universal legislation as one has oneself— that is, postulating that those whom one’s actions affect can be members of a kingdom of ends—is a necessary condition of acting on [the categorical imperative], for only the postulation that all who are affected by one’s actions are capable of universal legislation can make it reasonable to suppose that a universal law can be accepted by a manifold of agents in spite of their diverse empirical interests” (Guyer 2000, 202). 30 Rousseau (1968, 62 (Bk. I, Ch. 7)). 31 See Hill (1992, 81). 32 Kant, Groundwork, p. 83 (GW 4:433–4). 33 Hill (2012, 61). But see also the very helpful discussion at Hill (2012, 261n21). 34 Kant, Groundwork, p. 83 (4:433). 35 Ibid., p. 84 (4:434). 36 For Kant’s authoritarianism, see Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, pp. 461–6 (6:318–23). 37 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, p. 471 (6:329). 38 Kant, “Theory and Practice,” pp. 296–7 (8:297). 39 Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace, pp. 322–3 (8:349–50). 40 Kant (1992, 165 (7:91)). 41 There is a good level-headed discussion in Kersting (2009). 42 For Kant’s observation on the republics of antiquity, see Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace, p. 325 (8:353). 43 Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace, p. 324 (8:352). 44 Ibid., p. 324 (8:352). See also Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, p. 481 (6:341). 45 Kant, “Theory and Practice,” p. 291–4 (8:291–4). See also Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace, pp. 322–3 (8:350). 46 Kant, “Theory and Practice,” p. 291 (8: 290–1). 47 In a long footnote to The Conflict of the Faculties, p. 157 (7:86), Kant expresses contempt for the philosophical fantasy that the common good might be secured through despotic political mechanisms: “[T]he enjoyment of life’s comforts is not sufficient for beings endowed with freedom, since these could also be had from others (in this case from the government). What matters to a being endowed with freedom is the principle by which it attains such comforts for itself.” 48 Hamilton, Madison, and Jay (2008, p. 52 (Number 10: Madison)). 49 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, pp. 456–7 (6:313). There’s an excellent discussion of this in Kersting (2009). 50 See generally (Rousseau 1968), Social Contract, Bk. III; look especially at the first few lines of Bk. III, Ch. 6: “So far, we have considered the prince as a moral and collective person, unified by the force of the laws, and the depositary in the State of the executive power. We have now to consider this power when it is gathered together into the hands of a natural person, a real man, who alone has the right to dispose of it in accordance with the laws. Such a person is called a monarch or king.”

All Kings in the Kingdom of Ends?  145 1 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, pp. 459–61 (6:316–18). 5 52 Kant had a run-in with the Prussian authorities in 1794 concerning his publications on religion. He promised King Frederick William II that he would not write any more on this topic. But in 1798 Kant denied he was bound by this promise after Frederick William II died. See Kant, Conflict of the Faculties, p. xxiv (Translator’s Introduction). 53 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, p. 465 (6:323). This indeed was his attitude towards the declaration of the French Republic in 1792, though he also expressed great enthusiasm for it. On hearing of the declaration, Kant gave voice to a Nunc Dimittis: “Now let your servant go in peace to his grave, for I have seen the glory of the world,” quoted in Kuehn (2002, 342). 54 Kant, “Theory and Practice,” pp. 298–303 (8:299–305). 55 Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace, p. 324 (8:352). 56 Montesquieu 1989, 70 (V.19). But cf. Kant’s own acerbic comments on British monarchy and politics in “Theory and Practice, p. 301 (8:303). 57 Might Kant be invoking this idea in his use of the kingdom of ends model in the Groundwork? I suppose that is possible. But to me it makes no sense to use as a model something (constitutional monarchy) which already uses a model of something else (republican decision-making). Why not deal direct and use republican decision-making as the model for moral thought. 58 Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace, p. 340 (8:372). 59 Kant, Conflict of the Faculties, p. 159 (7:88). 60 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, p. 480 (6:340). 61 Ibid., p. 459 (6:315) 62 Kant, Groundwork, p. 84 (4:435). 63 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, pp. 459 (6:315) and 470 6:328). 64 See Waldron (2007, 201) and also my Tanner Lectures (Waldron 2012). 65 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, p. 471 (6:329). 66 For a similar intimation, see Habermas (2010, 475). See also Waldron (2013a, 327–32). 67 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, p. 458 (6:315). 68 Idem. 69 Ibid., p. 458 (6:314). 70 Ibid., p. 458 (6:315). 71 Ibid., p. 394 (6:238). 72 Ibid., pp. 457–8 (6:314). 73 Kant, Groundwork, p. 83 (4:434). 74 See text accompanying notes 33-5 above. 75 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, p. 457 (6:313–14). 76 Kant, Groundwork, pp. 84-5 (4:435). 77 Ibid., p. 84 (4:435). 78 It therefore has something in common with the “universal nobility” account of human dignity that I have developed in some of my other work (Waldron 2007, 2012). Though it would be wrong to identify the two (certainly without further discussion), there is some congruence with my use of “universal nobility” as a heuristic for thinking about dignity and the idea that Kantian dignity might be an artifact of the political model he is using to illuminate moral life. 79 This is clear in his discussion of dignity in the Metaphysics of Morals, p. 357 (6:434–5) in the great passage that distinguishes a human being regarded as a person with dignity from a human animal considered only as such in the order of nature. 80 Kant, Groundwork, p. 88 (4:439). 81 Ibid., pp. 88–9 (4:440).

146  Jeremy Waldron 82 Hill (2012, 239 (my emphasis)). I think something similar might be involved in Rawls’s presentation of the realm of ends as a moral community: see Rawls (1993, 298). 83 For Kant on equality in this regard, see Waldron (2017, 124–6). 84 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, p. 557 (6:434–5).

Works Cited Guyer, Paul. 2000. Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Habermas, Jürgen. 2010. “The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights.” Metaphilosophy 41 (4):464–80. Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay. 2008. The Federalist Papers. Edited by Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill, Thomas E., Jr. 1992. Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant’s Moral Theory. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hill, Thomas E. 2012. Virtue, Rules, and Justice: Kantian Aspirations. Oxford: Oxford Unievrsity Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1992. The Conflict of the Faculties. Translated by Mary J. Gregor. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Kelsen, Hans. 2004. Pure Theory of Law. Translated by Max Knight. 2nd ed: Law Book Exchange. Kersting, Wolfgang. 2009. “The Civil Constitution in Every State Shall Be a Republican One.” In Kant’s Moral and Legal Philosophy, edited by Karl Ameriks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Korsgaard, Christine M. 1996. Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kuehn, Manfred. 2002. Kant: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Montesquieu. 1989. The Spirit of the Laws. Edited by Anne Cohler, Basia Miller and Harold Stone. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Neill, Onora. 1989. Constructions of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paton, H.J. 1948. The Categorical Imperative: A Study in Kant’s Moral Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rawls, John. 1993. “Themes in Kant’s Moral Philosophy.” In Kant and Political Philosophy: The Contemporary Legacy, edited by Ronald Beiner and William Booth, 291–319. New Haven: Yale University Press. Robinson, Daniel, and Rom Harré. 1994. “The Demography of the Kingdom of Ends.” Philosophy 69 (267):5–19. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1968. The Social Contract. Translated by Maurice Cranston. New York: Penguin. Steiner, Hillel. 1977. “The Structure of a Set of Compossible Rights.” The Journal of Philosophy 74 (12):767–75. doi: 10.2307/2025928. Waldron, Jeremy. 2007. “Dignity and Rank.” Archives Européennes de Sociologie 48: 201–37. Waldron, Jeremy. 2012. Dignity, Rank and Rights. Edited by Meir Dan Cohen. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

All Kings in the Kingdom of Ends?  147 Waldron, Jeremy. 2013a. “Citizenship and Dignity.” In Understanding Human Dignity, edited by Christopher McCrudden. London: British Academy. Waldron, Jeremy. 2013b. “Toleration and Reasonableness.” In Culture of Toleration in Diverse Societies: Reasonable Toleration, edited by Catriona McKinnon and Dario Castiglione. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Waldron, Jeremy. 2017. One Another’s Equals: The Basis of Human Equality. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

7 The Transmutation of Dignity Kant, Neo-Roman Republicanism, and the Commonwealth of Ends Jan-Willem van der Rijt

7.1 Introduction Within dignity scholarship, Kant is widely regarded as a pivotal figure.1 Four different historical sources are typically distinguished as being of particular relevance to our contemporary understanding of the notion of dignity: (1) ancient Roman thought concerning the notion of dignitas (especially as present in the works of Cicero), (2) the Christian tradition, (3) Kant, and (4) the human rights literature as it developed after WWII (cf. Stoecker 2011, p. 8). The reason Kant is deemed pivotal is that he is taken to be the first to ascribe to each and every human being an equal and absolute dignity and to place that dignity at the heart of his moral theory. Prior to Kant, dignity was a largely political, hierarchical concept that attached to, and emphasized the importance of, class and station. Thus understood, dignity is an important social/political notion because of the functional role it played in structuring and stabilizing rigidly stratified societies. In such societies, everyone was expected to know, and accept, their place and position.2 With Kant, dignity becomes an essentially egalitarian notion that can play a much more fundamental role in moral theory, potentially serving as a corner- or keystone for both ethics and politics. Contemporary human rights literature takes from Kant the idea that, because of their dignity, human beings may never be treated as mere means and have to be regarded as pricelessly important beings.3 This idea is operationalized in a variety of ways, often driven by particular practical concerns (and at times in ways that stray quite far from Kantianism). The so-called ‘prohibition on instrumentalization’ (cf. Schaber 2012, p. 32, von der Pfordten 2009, pp. 375–6) can serve as an example. Modern constitutions (roughly, those written after WWII) often invoke dignity in an attempt to prevent repetitions of the atrocities committed by various totalitarian regimes in the 20th century, as do a number of important international human rights treaties. Similarly, dignity is used to analyze a variety of problematic developments that (may) arise in contemporary societies due to social and economic developments and/or technological progress that are seen to threaten the preeminent worth of human beings. DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-10

Transmutation of Dignity  149 Bioethical questions provide examples, as do data collection practices by governments or companies, or the use of new surveillance methods and other crime-fighting techniques. Viewed from the perspective of the conceptual evolution of the notion of dignity, the most important development brought about by Kant is, in my view, the transition from a hierarchical, political notion, meant to distinguish between people of different rank, to a largely egalitarian, moral one that emphasizes the specialness and inviolability of each and every individual moral being. In this chapter I explore how Kant brings about this transmutation. I argue that the answer to this question is to be found in the third formulation of the Categorical Imperative,4 according to which we are to regard ourselves as lawgivers to a Commonwealth of Ends.5 Kant introduces the notions of dignity and that of a Commonwealth of Ends more or less in tandem, and this is no coincidence: notwithstanding the fact that, as its most complete formulation, the third formulation of the Categorical Imperative underlies his entire moral theory, both dignity and the Commonwealth of Ends are, so I argue, at bottom political in nature and would be understood as such by readers of his time. Moreover, I contend that in order to fully understand how Kant brings about the transition from dignity as a political, hierarchical notion to an egalitarian moral one, we need to focus on elements of Kant’s thinking that he takes from (or at least shares with) a tradition in political thought that he is not usually closely associated with: neo-Roman republicanism.6 In particular, I argue that we need to take seriously the role the neo-Roman republican ideal of being sui iuris plays within the Commonwealth of Ends.

7.2 Dignity Prior to Kant 7.2.1 Roman dignitas To the ancient Romans, a person’s dignitas was a function of his political role. Thus, senators had a very high dignity, knights a high but lower one, ordinary citizens a moderate dignity, freedmen a low one, and slaves none at all.7 Special offices, such as consul, augur, censor, aedile, or any other magisterial position of significance, too, conferred a special dignity on the person holding that office. Thus conceived, dignity is clearly tied to rank, and we still use dignity in this sense when we speak of the dignity of holders of high office such as that of a king, president, pope, judge, senator, member of parliament, bishop, or professor.8 When we look at such dignified positions, one of the things that immediately stand out is that they tend to come with special rights attached (and oftentimes other perks, such as a substantial salary). If you hold such an office, you are entitled to do or decide certain things that others who do not have that dignity cannot and to expect certain responses from those others as well. Dignity comes with authority, and if you hold a dignified office, you may

150  Jan-Willem van der Rijt expect a certain deference from others to that office and to you as the holder of that office. This deference may take the form of obedience to your lawful commands but also a certain measure of especially respectful treatment; an often-used contemporary example is the way judges are to be addressed in, but in some countries also outside of, the courtroom. Moreover, some of this dignity may remain even after leaving office. 9 Dignity (or rather dignities) thus conceived are typically defined by law, where the rights attached to an office are clearly defined, but also in part by custom. Such a view of dignity may seem somewhat outmoded to us and the present-day examples of it little more than curious leftovers from bygone times, but we should note that citizenship too can be thought of as a dignity in this way (cf. Waldron 2013): a citizen has a specific role to play within a political system (e.g. to vote),10 and a citizen typically has a variety of rights and duties that non-citizens lack. Though special rights and entitlements were part of the Roman notion of dignitas, it is important to stress that, especially for the higher dignities, the rights and entitlements that may have come with a dignity were only part of the story, and arguably not the most important part. To the ancient Romans, a person’s dignitas was not only something others had to take note of and pay deference to, but it was first and foremost something the holder of that dignity himself had to live up to. Roman dignitas typically came with a whole set of duties attached; it was something that had to be carefully maintained and upheld. These duties were not, as one might perhaps expect, limited to the duties that directly constitute the exercise of the office – attending senate meetings well-prepared for senators, efficiently administrating the colonies for governors, properly performing religious ceremonies for augurs, etc. – but also covered a host of expectations that governed one’s general behavior. Roman dignitas came with a strict code of conduct, and what was considered appropriately dignified behavior varied with the dignity in question. Thus, what was considered acceptable for certain classes was considered out of bounds for others, and in some regards, the restraints were more severe the higher the dignity. The thought of a senator singing and dancing in the streets was nothing short of scandalous, for instance, but presumably such behaviors were quite acceptable for members of the lower classes (cf. Cicero 2000, pp. xxi, 51, 116, 198). To sum up the, for present purposes, most important aspects of the Roman notion of dignitas: dignitas has a political nature (as dignities are statuses defined by law and custom, there is no dignity outside of society); its nature is expressly hierarchical; and it is intimately connected to duties. Though there is a connection between dignitas and rights too, this seems secondary in that these rights should not primarily be regarded as personal privileges that the individual in question could exercise at his leisure to his own benefit, as they were first and foremost attached to the office or social position in question in order to enable the officeholder to perform his role effectively.

Transmutation of Dignity  151 7.2.2 Christian Dignity In present-day ethical discussions, conservative Christian ethicists sometimes use dignity as, more or less, the secular equivalent of the sanctity of human life (cf. Schaber 2012, p. 58), but this is a relatively recent development. Most early (i.e. late-Roman and Dark Age) Christians probably understood dignity along the lines of Roman dignitas, perhaps with the difference that not just political rank and office gave rise to special dignities, but ecclesiastical ranks and offices did so too. Given the rather negative view the early Church had of human beings as fallen and inherently sinful creatures, anything like the present-day idea that each and every human being has a special, elevated status because of their human dignity would likely have seemed quite curious to them. This changed, however, as later Christianity developed a more positive view of humanity. Putting more emphasis on the unique position human beings hold in the cosmos as stewards of God’s creation and, especially, their being created in God’s image, opened up perspectives that are more hospitable to the idea of regarding human beings as possessed with a dignity that highlights their elevated worth. Pico della Mirandola’s passionate exaltation of mankind’s ability to self-create is probably the most famous example of this (1956), but there are many other possible ways to explicate the idea of the Imago Dei as well; and similarly there are a variety of different Christian (and other religious [e.g. Jewish]) conceptualizations of the dignity of mankind derivable from it. As the Roman notion of dignitas is more important to my analysis than the various Christian understandings of dignity, I will not pursue Christian notions of dignity any further here. I should note, though, that Kant’s notion of dignity, as I see it, fits in this tradition at least to some degree. Kant links dignity to moral law-giving, and to Christians, God is the supreme law-giver (cf. CPrR 5:131).11

7.3 Neo-Roman Republicanism and Dignity Despite the widespread recognition of the significance of the ancient Roman notion of dignitas to our current understanding of dignity, the influential tradition in political thought known as ‘neo-Roman republicanism’ has not received much attention in contemporary dignity debates. From one perspective, this is somewhat curious, as the neoRoman republican tradition, like the dignity literature, counts Cicero as one of its main early historical sources. From another point of view, it is perhaps less surprising because the neo-Roman republican tradition tends to frame its main points in the language of freedom rather than that of dignity. Nonetheless, I believe neo-Roman republicanism represents an important development when it comes to understanding the dignity of the individual.

152  Jan-Willem van der Rijt According to leading present-day neo-Roman republican scholars such as Quentin Skinner (1998) and Philip Pettit (1997, 2012, 2014), the central value of the neo-Roman republican tradition is ‘freedom as non-domination’, the idea that being free is a matter of being one’s own master – or sui iuris: ‘under one’s own laws’. The tradition, as the name suggests, traces itself back to the ancient Roman republic, but its heyday is much later, lying in the 17th and 18th centuries. The tradition is called neo-Roman republican because it is based on the way Roman republican and legal ideas were interpreted, developed, and used by an array of thinkers in opposition to absolutist monarchy (prominent thinkers in the tradition include Machiavelli, Harrington, Montesquieu, and Hamilton and Madison).12 Especially for the more politically active amongst the neo-Roman republican thinkers, hearkening back to ancient Roman republican thought was particularly useful because Roman ideas were relatively well-known in their day. Cicero, for example, was standard reading for any educated person at the time, as was Livy. Moreover, because of the direct influence of Roman law on later European legal systems, Roman legal principles could also be expected to be familiar to many in the intelligentsia. At the same time, neo-Roman republicans tended to see a parallel between the situation they found themselves in, facing a Crown that (as they saw it) illegitimately sought to expand its power, and the struggles of the republican partisans during the fall of the Roman republic. It is easy to see how a figure like Cicero, with his heroic speeches against Anthony and subsequent martyrdom, could provide an attractive focal point for Dutch, English, and American revolutionaries. His insistence on the legitimacy of tyrannicide must have been congenial to many of them as well. Though neo-Roman republicans consciously based themselves on Roman ideas, it is important not to overstate the congruence in their thinking with actual ancient Roman thought. For instance, although it is true that neo-Roman republicans rallied around the Roman notion of libertas and were happy to use ideas from authors such as Cicero, Livy and Sallust, they did so very selectively. To some degree, neo-Roman republicans took Roman ideas and ran with them, reinterpreting them to suit their own purposes. Kennedy (2014) points out, for instance, that though Cicero may occasionally have used the term libertas in the sense of freedom from domination, the notion was hardly central to his thought. Cicero’s political theory is centered around the notion of cum dignitate otium (tranquility/peace with dignity) rather than the libertas of the individual.13 To Cicero, the state was primary. His theory seeks to show how the state can be made to run smoothly. Dignity (as described above) can be largely understood as a (in his eyes) necessary means to that end rather than purely an end in itself. Cicero was quite aware of the fact that a state cannot be made to run effectively by means of fear alone and hence that successful management of the state requires a more intricate engagement with human psychology. As long as ordinary people

Transmutation of Dignity  153 saw that dignitaries took their position seriously, behaved with according gravitas, and exercised their offices in the service of the state, then they would be by and large willing to follow their instructions. If, however, a dignitary squanders his dignity by behaving lewdly, meretriciously, or corruptly, then they will lose respect for office holders and regard them as, at best, “just like the rest of us’’ – and why would you follow the instructions of someone who is no better than you are? 14 Fail to uphold dignity, and you destroy the authority that is supposed to come with it. 15 As self-serving as Cicero’s obsession with securing both the dignity of the members of the senatorial class and the sanctity of private property may seem to some (e.g. Wood 1988), at bottom his political theory is quite collectivist in orientation, aiming at the organic harmony of the state. The later neo-Roman republicans were much more individualistic in outlook. Regarding the state as a man-made arrangement meant to serve the individuals that make up the state in securing their (natural) rights, they jealously guarded against the concentration of power. If a person (or group of persons) were to acquire too much power, then it would be effectively impossible to press one’s rights against that person. This meant that that person could do with others as he wished, reducing them, for all intents and purposes, to the position of a slave (i.e., someone who has no rights, who is not sui iuris but in the dominion of someone else). Unlike Ciceronian theory, with its many differentiated dignified offices and ranks, neo-Roman republicans seemed to have worked with a simpler, largely binary, scheme of thought. Either no-one has dominating power over you, and you are free, or you find yourself under someone’s dominating power and you are no better off than a slave. To use an example from Harrington (cited by Pettit 1997, p. 32): in an absolute monarchy like the Ottoman empire, even the richest pasha is but a tenant of his own head. This leads to the question: what precisely is the reason that makes being in a slave-like position so objectionable, according to neo-Roman republicans? As the example of the rich pasha makes clear, it is not that a dominated person cannot live a comfortable or even luxurious life (cf. Skinner 1997, p. 91). Indeed, if you happen to be particularly good at ingratiating yourself to the powers that be, you may well be able to live a much more comfortable life under an absolutist system than you otherwise would be able to secure. Pettit proffers a consequentialist take on the evils of domination, emphasizing three main problems that dominated persons face (1997, pp. 85–9). First, dominated persons face a large degree of uncertainty about their future options, as these options heavily depend on the whims of their master. Second, dominated persons are driven to engage in self-censorship, as they cannot afford to upset their master. And third, being dominated provides them a strong incentive to engage in sycophancy in order to secure the good graces of their master. As a result of this, dominating power distorts the relationship between persons in multiple ways, as they cannot be frank and upright

154  Jan-Willem van der Rijt with one another. As many of the most valuable things in human life depend, in various ways, on our relationships with others, these distortions will inevitably corrupt much of what is most worthwhile in the lives of individuals. Whether the effects described by Pettit will necessarily occur whenever there is domination or are only likely to occur in such situations, is debated (cf. Carter 1999, pp. 243–4), but either way I do not believe that they constitute the main issue for the neo-Roman republicans of the 17th and 18th century. When they decry the evil of domination, they denounce it in terms of it ‘demeaning’ and ‘degrading’ the dominated person, dehumanizing him to the point that he is ‘like cattle inured to the yoke’ and reducing him to a status that is ‘obnoxious’, ‘brutish’, ‘despicable’ and ‘wretched’ (Pettit 1997, pp. 33–4; Skinner 1998, pp. 37, 84). In short, the neo-Roman republicans find having to live under a dominating power insulting, degrading, and humiliating in and of itself. This shows, I believe, that the real issue to them is one of dignity, as these are the types of terms we typically use to describe the violation of dignity (cf. Kaufmann et al. 2011).16 The 17th- and 18th-century Roman republicans may have rallied around the term liberty, but they were not just worried about domination for instrumental reasons: they believed there is something inherently objectionable about living under a dominating power.17 Either you are not dominated, and then you are sui iuris, enjoying the dignity of a freeman, or you are dominated, and then, like the slave, you lack dignity.18 The neo-Roman understanding of dignity is similar to the Roman notion of dignitas in that both are based on social position. But the neoRoman republicans recognize only two relevant classes: free (sui iuris) and not free (dominated; slave). Moreover, the neo-Roman understanding of dignity emphasizes the role of de facto power – especially the power to make and impose laws – in making this distinction, rather than any formal ranks or offices.19 If Henry VIII can arbitrarily have Anne Boleyn (or any other noble) beheaded then Queen Anne (and any other noble) is as much under King Henry’s dominating power as the lowliest commoner is. Though one could, theoretically, build a larger and more complex hierarchy of who holds dominating power over whom (e.g. a local lord has dominating power over the commoners in his domain, whilst the king holds dominating power over the local lord), only holding the top position in such a hierarchy suffices, according to the neoRoman republicans, to have dignity.20 The neo-Roman understanding of dignity is fundamentally upward-looking in orientation: to have dignity is to have no one above you who can exercise arbitrary power over you.21 In sum, the neo-Roman republicans establish a direct connection between dignity and lawgiving: it is when you are sui iuris that you have dignity, and it is by effectively finding yourself in someone else’s dominion that you are degraded, demeaned, or diminished.

Transmutation of Dignity  155

7.4 Sui iuris in the Commonwealth of Ends When we turn to Kant, we thus have two possible sources for his use of the term dignity (setting aside Christianity): the Roman notion of dignitas, and the neo-Roman idea linking dignity to being sui iuris. I believe both are important to understand Kant’s conception of dignity. Kant was clearly influenced by Cicero (Stoecker & Neuhäuser 2013, p. 46). Like Cicero, Kant takes dignity to be something that has to be lived up to, which accounts for the link between dignity and duty, and in terms of the practical content of these duties there is a notable similarity between many of the duties Kant discusses in (especially) the Doctrine of Virtue and Cicero’s On Obligations. At times Kant also used the term dignity to refer to various special positions and noble ranks in society (e.g. MM 6:328–9), but he does not seem to have been much enamored by the idea of an overly stratified social hierarchy (Anth 7:319), and he insists that a hereditary nobility may be temporarily tolerable but must ultimately be abolished (MM 6:329, 6:369–70, TPP 8:351). Dignified offices must be merited, and such dignities only attach to a person as long as he holds office. So, let us focus on the neo-Roman republican conceptualization of dignity, namely the binary model that awards dignity to those who are not dominated, who give law rather than being ruled over, who are sui iuris and not mere subjects to the will of others, and see what role it plays in Kant’s argumentation. First of all, it should be noted that the neo-Roman republican catchphrase sui iuris appears at several places in Kant’s published works (e.g. TP 8:295, MM 6:238, 6:270, 6:282). When Kant uses that phrase, he seems to do so primarily as a technical juridical term: someone who is sui iuris possesses the independence necessary to run his own household and to qualify for citizenship. Moreover, Kant explicitly calls citizenship a dignity (MM 6:329) and what distinguishes a citizen is his full membership of the commonwealth: a citizen is someone who gets to share in the giving of the laws under which he subsequently lives. In this light, it is also worth noting that Kant sees the relationship between those who give laws and those who have to obey them as one of superior to inferior. This view leads to some serious predicaments when it comes to those who lack this independence, such as children, and, in Kant’s day, women, servants and hired workers (MM 6:314-5, TP 8:296). The obvious implication of Kant’s assertions seems to be that such persons would lack dignity and hence do not count as human beings of full standing. Kant attempts to solve this conundrum by introducing the notorious category of ‘passive citizens’. Kant stresses that the inferiority of passive citizens does not rob them of ‘their freedom and equality as human beings’ (MM 6:315, italics in original), and that we should understand this to mean that everyone is entitled to ‘work his way up from this passive condition to an active one’ (ibid.). Kant is rightly concerned to show that those who

156  Jan-Willem van der Rijt are not sui iuris should not be considered as de facto slaves, but, with the possible exception of children, the solution through passive citizenship is far from convincing. Not only is Kant willing to deny full citizenship to men who – possibly through no fault of their own – fail to achieve full independence, but the solution is patently contradictory in the case of women, whose minority Kant considers ‘natural’ (TP 8:295) and therefore, presumably, irremediable. This is not the place for an extensive discussion of the details of Kant’s views on citizenship, but it is conspicuous that though Kant insists on a certain equality and freedom for passive citizens, he does not use the term dignity in relation to them. Dignity, so it seems, remains reserved to those who are sui iuris and take an active part in law-giving. The theme of someone having to be under his own laws in order to have dignity is not limited to the passages where Kant uses the Latin phrase sui iuris.22 In particular, the theme features prominently in Kant’s discussion of the third formulation of the Categorical Imperative, which demands we regard ourselves as law-givers in a Commonwealth of Ends (G 4:434). To unpack this demand, we need to clarify several issues. First, what is a Commonwealth of Ends? Second, if we regard ourselves as law-givers to it, what laws should we give? Third, to whom are we to give these laws? Kant defines the Commonwealth of Ends as ‘a systematic union of various rational beings through common laws’ (G 4:433). He makes clear that the laws of the Commonwealth of Ends are to ensure that everyone is treated as ends-in-themselves and never merely as means (ibid.). Thus, the third formulation of the Categorical Imperative encompasses, and builds on, the second formulation. Whereas the second formulation exhorts us to always make sure that we treat those who are directly affected by our actions in morally appropriate ways, the third formulation asks us to imagine a realm wherein everyone treats everyone in those ways. The main difference (or one of the main differences) with the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative is that the second formulation is focused exclusively on the person about to act, whereas the third formulation prescribes laws for all rational beings simultaneously. The citizens of the Commonwealth of Ends are free to pursue whatever subjective ends they choose, but only if this can be done in a manner that respects everyone’s status as ends-in-themselves. Thus, what the law in the Commonwealth of Ends does is ensure that everyone is treated in a morally appropriate manner by everyone, in every situation that might occur. To regard oneself as a law-giver to a Commonwealth of Ends is thus to ask oneself what laws would do that. Even with the commonly made simplifying assumption that everyone in the Commonwealth of Ends abides by the laws given, trying to picture such a complete mapping of all of morality will, for most of us, seem a rather gargantuan task. In fact, Kant seems to agree with this insofar as he counsels against applying the third formulation of the Categorical

Transmutation of Dignity  157 Imperative when we are contemplating what we are to do (as he does with regard to the second formulation; G 4:436–7). For Kant this is no reason to despair, however, as he believes he has already answered the question of what laws are to be given to a Commonwealth of Ends when he derived the first formulation of the Categorical Imperative: the laws that are to govern the Commonwealth of Ends are the laws that result from maxims passing the universalization test. If Kant’s claims regarding the different formulae of the Categorical Imperative and their equivalence are correct, then we may assume that everyone who places himself in the position of a law-giver to a Commonwealth of Ends should come to the same conclusion when asking himself what laws to give. The only possible source of moral disagreement would then be one of human error: someone misapplying the universalization test.23 Given the persistent problems regarding the first formulation of the Categorical Imperative, we have reason to believe Kant was too optimistic in this regard, but that need not concern us here. The model of moral agency outlined by the third formulation of the Categorical Imperative can, to a large extent, stand on its own: it only means that we have to regard the what-laws-to-give question as an open, rather than an answered question.24 As far as the conceptualization of dignity is concerned, this will have no immediate implications, as will be shown below. The model sketched by the third formulation of the Categorical Imperative is distinctly political in nature. In effect, the Commonwealth of Ends is (or is analogous to) a state of which all rational beings are part.25 In the case of holy beings, the laws that govern them will not be burdensome or constraining, as they are unable to act otherwise than the way morality prescribes. But for all imperfect rational beings, who like us are not holy, the laws are burdensome, and we experience them as duties to which we are subject. Significantly, however, Kant insists that in their role as law-givers, all rational beings, holy and not holy, are completely equal in standing. This is crucial as far as dignity is concerned. Kant believes that the very idea of a state is unthinkable without the idea of dignity, and he makes clear that this dignity attaches to the practice of law-giving (MM 6:313–15).26 Kant also insists that we have dignity only in our law-giving capacity and that if we were only subjects to the moral law, we would have no dignity at all (G 4:440; cf. also G 4:434–6).27 In modelling moral agency in this way, Kant rejects a standard Christian picture of morality according to which God is the sole law-giver who issues moral commands, which human beings then simply have to accept as His meek loyal subjects. This indicates that Kant is indeed working with the binary model of dignity described in the above discussion of the neo-Roman republicans. If the relation between God and human beings were one of sovereign to subjects, then we would evidently not be sui iuris, not our own master, and hence we would have no dignity either. Whether human beings are stewards of God’s creation, or in some sense

158  Jan-Willem van der Rijt (other than as co-law-givers) made in the image of God Himself, would make no difference. At best, we would stand in relation to God in the way the aforementioned pasha stands to the sultan. To secure the dignity of human beings, Kant has to put us, in our capacity as moral law-givers, at the same level as God, as only in that way can the laws given to the Commonwealth of Ends be regarded as fully our own, and only in that way can we be regarded as sui iuris when we abide by them. By conceptualizing God as an idea of reason (CPrR 5:134) and insisting on His perfect rationality,28 Kant can still afford God a special place within the Commonwealth of Ends, reserving for Him the honorific title of ‘supreme head’.29 Unlike us human beings, God does not experience the laws of morality as limiting, but as far as His role as law-giver is concerned, He is at most a primus inter pares figure in regard to all other rational beings.30 Kant describes the position of non-holy rational beings, being both law-giver and subject to the laws that are given, as one of membership in the Commonwealth of Ends. This brings us full-circle: if the idea of a Commonwealth of Ends is (analogous to) a state, then the position of a member in a Commonwealth of Ends is essentially that of a citizen, and we have already seen that Kant thought of citizenship as a dignity because of citizens’ participation in giving the laws that bind them. In sum, by linking dignity exclusively to law-giving, Kant is relying on the same understanding of dignity as the neo-Roman republicans. Dignity is compatible with being subject to laws, but only if these laws are self-given, i.e., only if one remains sui iuris. As soon as you find yourself under the rule of someone else, someone who can unilaterally impose their law-giving will on you, then you are diminished and degraded. The idea of a Commonwealth of Ends is indeed, as Kant claims, a ‘very fruitful’ one, as it is carefully crafted to ensure the dignity of all its members. The awareness of this dignity can make the burden of placing oneself under the moral law much more palatable – or, as Kant put it, ‘bring it closer to intuition’ (G 4:434; cf. also G 4:462–3).31

7.5 The Transmutation of Hierarchical into Egalitarian Dignity So far, I have argued that Kant relies on the neo-Roman understanding of dignity. Dignity is tied to the idea of only being subject to your own laws, i.e., being sui iuris. In our everyday political life, the primary threat to dignity comes either from ourselves or from others who may acquire dominating power over us (cf. Appendix), but in the Commonwealth of Ends, the main threat to our dignity is God (if He is understood in a traditional Christian fashion). Kant avoids this problem by conceptualizing both the Commonwealth of Ends and God as ideas of reason. The model of moral agency provided by the third formulation of the Categorical Imperative tells us to picture ourselves as law-givers to the Commonwealth of Ends. In doing so, we are aware that we are not the only beings who can (and

Transmutation of Dignity  159 must) do so, which prevents us from giving just any law we might happen to fancy for personal reasons. In a certain sense, the fundamental moral question "what must I do?" does not quite translate to "what laws would I personally give?" (that is the question of the would-be tyrant), but to "what laws should I give?". This can in turn be reformulated to "what laws do I believe a (fully) rational being would give?" and because of the way the Commonwealth of Ends is set up, that question is identical to “what laws do I believe God would give?"32 or "what laws do I believe others would give, insofar as they are fully rational?" No matter which law-giver’s perspective we choose to adopt, our own, that of others, or that of God, the question is to be answered identically.33 As far as understanding Kant’s notion of dignity is concerned, what is crucial about this question is, however, not its answer (as I said, we can leave that open for present purposes), but the fact that when we ask ourselves what laws to give, we cannot but regard ourselves as beings with dignity, as dignity is inherent to the role of any undominated law-giver. Thus, assuming the third formulation is indeed an accurate representation of the Categorical Imperative, then regarding ourselves as moral beings commits us to recognizing our own dignity. As far as moral agency and dignity are concerned, you cannot have one without the other. And if moral agency and dignity cannot be separated from each other, then so too are we committed to recognizing that every other moral being has dignity as well. Thus, adopting what is sometimes called ‘the practical point of view’ is not possible without acknowledging the dignity of each and every moral being. With this, the way Kant brings about the transmutation of the hierarchical notion of dignity into an egalitarian one becomes transparent. Conceptually, Kant’s understanding of dignity remains essentially the older hierarchical notion of dignity, though more the neo-Roman than the ancient Roman one: it relies on the distinction between someone who is sui iuris and someone who is a slave.34 However, since, if the above analysis is correct, the very idea of a moral agent without dignity is literally unthinkable, we end up with the unavoidable conclusion that everyone must have the same dignity nonetheless.

Appendix: Kantianism Versus Neo-Roman Republicanism I have argued that Kant and the neo-Roman republicans have at bottom the same understanding of dignity, and that they both consider dignity to be of central importance. However, as also mentioned, Kant’s political theory and that of the neo-Roman republicans do not at all mesh. This is not the place for a detailed analysis of either Kant’s or the neo-Roman republicans’ political theories, but a brief overview of some of the differences and agreements between the two approaches is perhaps worthwhile. If their goal is essentially the same, namely securing individual dignity, whence such differing political positions?

160  Jan-Willem van der Rijt To address this issue, we should first make a distinction between three potential threats to the dignity of individuals: the state (or those in power), other individuals, and the person him- or herself. The first two of these constitute social and political issues; the third is a matter of individual ethics. As far as individual ethics is concerned, Kant offers a significant analysis of this threat in his discussion of selfrespect (MM 6:417–47, see also MM 6:461). Unfortunately, there is, to my knowledge, no complete and representative ethical theory from the neo-Roman republican side to contrast this with, because, as a tradition, neo-Roman republicanism is more or less exclusively concerned with politics. However, in at least one respect neo-Roman republicanism and Kant do agree: they both emphasize the importance of standing up for oneself. The issue of standing up for oneself straddles the line between individual ethics and politics, as it is something people have to do on their own accord (which is why Kant discusses it in the context of the Doctrine of Virtue) but standing up for oneself is only an issue when there is someone to stand up to. Moreover, insofar as it is to be more than a purely symbolic (and potentially self-destructive) act, standing up for yourself can only be done effectively when the power distribution between you and the person you want to stand up to is not too lopsided. Thus, in his advocacy of non-domination Pettit makes clear that one of the most important things that nondomination secures is the ability of people to stand up for themselves when they believe they are wronged – what he calls having ‘discursive control’ (Pettit 2001). As stated, Pettit chooses to defend the ideal of non-domination primarily on consequentialist grounds, and as a result he does not offer too much in terms of argumentation when it comes to the intrinsic importance of standing up for oneself. Instead, he relies on disdainful sarcasm: ‘[e]mbrace the life of a sect who abase themselves before some self-appointed guru and you will see little in the ideal of freedom as non-domination’ (Pettit 1997, p. 97). This is strikingly similar to Kant’s famously scornful ‘[…] one who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him’ (MM 6:437). Equally noteworthy is the way Pettit defines someone having dominating power over another: […] someone dominates or subjugates another, to the extent that (1) they have the capacity to interfere (2) with impunity and at will (3) in certain choices that the other is in a position to make. (Pettit 1996, p. 578, emphasis added) Whereas Kant explicates the duty to stand up for oneself as: Do not let others tread on your rights with impunity. (MM 6:436, emphasis added)

Transmutation of Dignity  161 Clearly Kant’s demand that one ensure that those who trample one’s rights will pay a price for having done so presupposes the non-domination that Pettit believes the state must provide. As far as non-domination vis-à-vis others is concerned, Kant and the neo-Roman republicans largely agree (see also Pettit 2013). The key difference between Kant and the neo-Roman republicans concerns the relation between the individual and those in power. The question of how political power is to be made compatible with the dignity of individuals is one of the perennial questions of political theory. On the one hand, society is not possible without political power; on the other hand, as soon as we give political power to someone (or some group), then that person will be able to exercise that power over us according to his or her judgment, with the potential result that we are no longer sui iuris. One possible way out of this predicament is to take the Rousseauian route and try and argue for a notion of a general will in which we are all thought to share in some way. If we share in the general will that decides on the laws that are given to us, then we might continue to see ourselves as living under laws we have given ourselves. Rousseau’s remarks regarding the general will are famously nebulous, however, and modern social choice theory has shown that this is no coincidence (e.g. Riker 1982): the Rousseauian idea of a general will is by all accounts demonstrably inconsistent and disregarding that fact remains a potent recipe for facilitating a slide into populist totalitarianism. Kant seems to have been aware of at least some of the problems with the Rousseauian approach, but he clearly never managed to free himself completely from its spell. Kant develops his own version of the idea of a general will35 and this allows him to avoid some of the most blatant shortcomings of Rousseau’s, but only up to a point. This is most clearly evidenced by the fact that Kant is forced to conclude that any dictatorial oppression is to be suffered patiently (MM 6:372, cf. TP 8:302–5), trusting to hope that things will gradually improve over time. As much as Kant believed individuals must stand up to one another to assert their dignity in the here and now, the removal of any affront to dignity that comes from state actors is something that he was willing to see postponed to the indefinite future. This aspect of Kant’s political theory has been a source of embarrassment for many Kantians. A particularly influential response is to turn to the distinction between a dictatorial state – seriously flawed, but still recognizable as a functioning state – and outright barbarism (Ripstein 2009, p. 336ff.). The key difference between the two is that the dictatorial state would still offer hope for improvement: a seriously flawed state is still better (or closer to a ‘rightful condition’) than no state at all, and so remains entitled to our obedience. A fully oppressive system, however, is not to be classed as a flawed state, but as the de facto absence of a state.

162  Jan-Willem van der Rijt If those in power behave cynically enough, then their exercise of power is nothing more than the unilateral imposition of their own will over that of others. In effect, a complete tyranny is not a state at all, but a particularly nasty instance of the state of nature, and in the state of nature there is no duty of obedience. Thus, the distinction between dictatorship and barbarism allows Kant’s apologists to argue that enormities like the Third Reich forfeit any claim to allegiance and therefore do not need to be obeyed. Whether this strategy works remains open to debate,36 but even if it succeeds on its own terms, it only applies to the very worst case of a fully established and total tyranny. It still means that “merely” dictatorial oppression is to be born patiently. To neo-Roman republicans, this appears not just objectionable, but also nonsensical. One of the key neoRoman republican political tenets is that tyrannies do not appear ready made out of no-where, but that the corruption of the state is a gradual process. Indeed, they famously maintain that even the best functioning states have a tendency to corrupt if its citizens are not watchful.37 To claim that decisive action is only allowed once things have deteriorated to a complete and total tyranny is tantamount to claiming that decisive action may only be undertaken when it is no longer possible to do so. The key difference between Kant and the neo-Roman republicans lies in what they consider the natural direction in which imperfect states are likely to develop. Kant, partly due to his views on history, seems to think that the natural direction is (by and large) one of gradual improvement, so that injustices must be patiently born so as to not prevent this improvement from coming to pass. Neo-Roman republicans believe the natural direction is one of accelerating deterioration, so that a more engaged, wary stance by the citizenry towards those in power is called for. In the early stages of the corruption of the state, it is still possible to stand up and demand that wrongs be corrected, but as corruption progresses and state actors accrue ever more dominating power, standing up becomes an ever more detrimental thing to do. Hence, neo-Roman republicans do not believe that domination from the direction of the state can be patiently born: it must be addressed before things get worse and it is too late to do anything about it.

Notes 1 For helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper I thank Marcel Quarfood and Adam Cureton. 2 Further justifications for this stratification could vary: it could be seen as God-given, preordained by Nature, or determined by Reason, for instance. 3 This is, of course, not to suggest that all of human rights discourse is Kantian, nor that all of human rights literature is centered around the value of dignity. 4 Kant gives three formulations of the Categorical Imperative (see also the introduction to this volume p. 05): the first (the Formula of Universal Law)

Transmutation of Dignity  163 states ‘act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law’ (G 4:421; emphasis in original); the second (known as the Formula of Humanity or the Formula of the End in Itself) reads “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” (G 4:429; emphasis in original); and the third (the Formula of the Kingdom/Commonwealth of Ends) is commonly phrased as ‘So act as if you were always through your maxims a law-giving member in a universal kingdom [commonwealth] of ends.’ (Paton 1947/1971, 185; emphasis in original). 5 As mentioned in the introduction to this volume, the translation of Reich der Zwecke is a matter of debate (cf. p. 09). Though I do not wish to deny that there is a possible analogy to the Kingdom of God, I believe the standard translation ‘Kingdom of Ends’ is importantly misleading in other regards, mischaracterizing both the political (essentially republican) nature of the Reich der Zwecke and God’s role in it. I therefore prefer the translation ‘Commonwealth of Ends’. 6 I do not mean to suggest that Kant himself was a closet neo-Roman republican. In fact, partly due to his Rousseauianism, Kant rejects many of the typical practical political positions neo-Roman republicans are most famous for. These include their generally sympathetic view towards (if need be armed) resistance to tyrannical government – up to and including, in extremis, revolution and tyrannicide – or their obsession with curbing political power through a variety of power-distributing strategies like the doctrine of the mixed constitution or the idea of checks and balances (cf. Pettit 2013). Nonetheless, I argue that as far as his understanding of dignity is concerned, Kant relies on a notion of dignity that is in its essence the same as that that underlies neo-Roman republicanism. (For more on the similarities and differences between Kant’s and neo-Roman republican theory, see Appendix). 7 Cicero is often regarded as a particularly important historical figure in the dignity literature. This is partially because his writings form one of the major sources on the Roman notion of dignitas, but also because he seems to have been the first to argue that even slaves must be regarded as having at least some dignity (be it a very low one). As human beings, slaves, too, are possessed of reason and speech. Hence they form part of the community of humanity, and should therefore also be treated with a minimum of respect and consideration. 8 For an analysis that highlights the importance of such a rank-based understanding of dignity to present-day contexts and practices, see Waldron (2012). 9 This was especially important for the ancient Romans, as Roman magistrates had very short tenures. While in office Roman magistrates held virtually unrestrained power, but they could be held to account after leaving office. The main point of a political career for individual Roman aristocrats was to hold a string of different offices in succession so as to build up their personal dignity. To the ancient Romans dignity had much to do with reputation and renown. Moreover, in Roman times this dignity was to a degree inheritable, which is why Roman aristocrats were so obsessed with their family ancestry (cf. Wirszubski 1950, pp. 36–8). 10 To illustrate the dignified nature of citizenship, the active role of a citizen in a republic is oftentimes contrasted with the passive role of a subject in an absolute (though perhaps enlightened) monarchy. 11 References to Kant’s works refer to the standard Akademie-Ausgabe (cf. the list of abbreviations on p. xv). Literal quotes are taken from the Cambridge translations of his works (Kant 1996) unless otherwise indicated.

164  Jan-Willem van der Rijt 12 The debate surrounding the drafting of the American constitution is often regarded as the zenith of the neo-Roman republican thought, after which it was gradually replaced by liberal thought. In Kant’s day, neo-Roman republican ideas were still ubiquitous, however. The notion of freedom as nondomination features prominently, for instance, in Achenwall’s Natural Law (2020), the textbook from which Kant taught political philosophy. Indeed, even as late as 1869, neo-Roman republican ideas were still conspicuously influential in shaping the views of a quintessential liberal author like John Stuart Mill (2015). 13 For a detailed discussion of the intricately intertwined roles dignitas and libertas played in ancient Roman political thought, see Wirszubski (1950). 14 In this regard it is worth keeping in mind that the Roman senate was, officially at least, a purely advisory body without any coercive powers (Wood 1988, p. 23). Senatorial authority relied to a significant extent on the recognition of senators’ dignity. 15 For this reason, Cicero was especially appalled and worried about the misbehavior of his fellow nobles. 16 Granted, ‘obnoxious’ is probably a bit archaic in this context, but it expresses the same idea nonetheless. 17 The famous call to arms ‘Give me liberty or give me death!’, for instance, appears to make little sense under a purely instrumental reading of the value of liberty, but becomes much more plausible if freedom from domination is seen as constitutive of dignity. 18 Occasionally Pettit’s formulations also suggest that he believes there is an inherent problem with domination, and at times he even puts this in terms of dignity. However, due to his avowed consequentialism this plays at best a secondary role in his advocacy of freedom as non-domination. On the role of dignity in present-day neo-Roman republicanism see Van der Rijt (2009, 2012, ch. 7) 19 This may also explain why many of the early neo-Roman republicans do not appear overly preoccupied with the disestablishment of noble ranks and titles. As long as the King and other nobility are suitably constrained in their power, their fancy titles are not a serious threat to everyone else’s dignity as free persons. 20 The neo-Roman republican understanding of dignity is thus in line with Sensen’s well-known analysis of Kant’s understanding of dignity. Sensen argues that for Kant dignity is a matter of holding the top position in a hierarchy (2011); here the relevant hierarchy is one based on ‘holds dominating power over’. In this context it is also useful to note, that, technically speaking, the ‘holds dominating power over’-hierarchy gives rise to an incomplete ranking. Though it has become commonplace to claim that two undominated persons are equal, or have equal dignity, it is strictly speaking more accurate to say that they are incomparable in terms of the ‘holds dominating power over’ ranking than that they hold an equal amount of dominating power. (From this perspective it is also noteworthy that Kant characterizes the dignity of lawgiving as an ‘unconditional, incomparable worth’ G 4:436; emphasis added). 21 Note also that this means that the neo-Roman republican understanding of dignity does not lead to a zero-sum game. For you to have dignity only means no-one may have dominating power over you; it does not require that you have people below you over whom you have such arbitrary power. Conceptually, this relies on a two-class system: freemen (dignity) and slaves (no dignity). But as a matter of fact this second class may – indeed should – be empty. There is no inherent contradiction in everyone having the dignity of a freeman.

Transmutation of Dignity  165 22 Though the standard translation of sui iuris is ‘being one’s own master’, an alternative translation would be simply ‘autonomous’. However, given the controversies regarding Kant’s notion(s) of autonomy, I will not press that issue here. 23 I disregard here the theoretical possibility that there might be multiple internally consistent but mutually conflicting realizations of the idea of the required systematic union of rational beings. On the possibility of human error when adopting the perspective of a lawgiver to a Commonwealth of Ends, see Van der Rijt (2012, pp. 79–80). 24 For a discussion of some of the implications of the sincere moral disagreement that can arise when people answer this question differently, see Van der Rijt (2012, Part II; 2017). 25 Kant defines a state as “a union of a multitude of human beings under laws of right” (MM 6:313). The main differences between a Commonwealth of Ends and states as we know them seem to be that a Commonwealth of Ends encompasses all rational beings, not just humans, and that the laws that are given to it cover not just juridical right, but also ethics. 26 The connection between dignity and lawgiving authority can also be found in Achenwall (2020). 27 This also explains why Kant only starts discussing dignity in connection to the third formulation of the Categorical Imperative, rather than the second. 28 In doing so, Kant also strips God of any ability to engage in capricious behavior of the type described in the Book of Job, which would clearly be detrimental to the dignity of human beings. God may have Wille, but as a perfectly rational being, He does not possess Willkür. 29 The German text reads ‘Oberhaupt’, which is standardly translated as ‘sovereign’, but that is in some regards misleading. It should also be mentioned that, though it is common to infer that Kant has God in mind (as well as, possibly, other holy beings) when he defines the position of a supreme head of the Commonwealth of Ends, Kant does not explicitly attribute the position to God. Hence, there is room for alternative interpretations (see e.g. Waldron Ch.6 in this volume). One can only speculate about Kant’s reasons for not being more explicit about this, but I suspect that Kant’s vagueness here is likely a deliberate effort to avoid attracting the attention of the censors. Moreover, the fact that Kant was immediately pounced upon by the censors when he later started openly publishing his views on religion (cf. Waldron ibid.), suggests he had good reason to be circumspect about such issues earlier in his career. 30 Which is also why Kant believes it is unseemly for human beings to grovel in the face of God during religious practices (MM 6:436). 31 The fact that consciousness of one’s own dignity is thus an ineliminable part of Kant’s view on moral agency also explains the ever-present hue of noblesse oblige of the Kantian account of moral motivation (cf. the already mentioned Ciceronian connection between dignity and duty). Acting immorally is not just wrong, but also shameful, because doing so is beneath the dignity of a moral agent. 32 This also explains why Kant can maintain that all duties are to be fulfilled as if they were divine commands (MM 6:441). 33 On the importance of perspective-taking in order to arrive at correct answers, see also CPJ 5:294-5. 34 Note, too, that the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative lends itself quite easily to a neo-Roman republican reading. It exhorts us never to treat persons as mere means but always as ends-in-themselves. "A person

166  Jan-Willem van der Rijt who may be treated as a mere means" is pretty much the Roman definition of a slave, and to Kant an end-in-itself is nothing else than a lawgiver (G 4:434): someone who is sui iuris. 35 For a discussion of Kant’s general will see Ripstein (2009, ch. 7). 36 Is it really plausible to claim that entities like the Third Reich are not states? And if it is, what implications does that have with regard to, for instance, the responsibilities of successor states with regard to e.g. reparations to neighboring states invaded by the barbaric regime? 37 The price of freedom is, as the saying goes, eternal vigilance – and, so we may add, so too is it the price of dignity.

References Achenwall, G. (2020) Natural Law. London: Bloomsbury. Carter, I. (1999) A Measure of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cicero, M. (2000) On Obligations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kant, I. (1996) Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kaufmann, P., H. Kuch, C. Neuhäuser & E. Webster (eds.) (2011). Humiliation, Degradation, Dehumanization: Human Dignity Violated.. Dordrecht: Springer Kennedy, G. (2014) ‘Cicero, Roman Republicanism and the Contested Meaning of Libertas’. Political Studies 62, 488–501. Mill, J.S. (2015) ‘The Subjection of Women’ In: On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 409–505. Paton, H. (1947/1971). The Categorical Imperative: A Study in Kant’s Moral Philosophy. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pettit, P. (1996) ‘Freedom as antipower’. Ethics 106: 576–604. Pettit, P. (1997) Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pettit, P. (2001) A Theory of Freedom: From the Psychology to the Politics of Agency. Cambridge: Polity. Pettit, P. (2012) On the People’s Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pettit, P. (2013) ‘Two Republican Traditions’ in: A. Niederberger & P. Schink (eds.) Republican Democracy: Liberty, Law and Politics: Liberty, Law and Politics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 169–204 Pettit, P. (2014) Just Freedom: A Moral Compass for a Complex World. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Pico della Mirandola, G. (1956) Oration on the Dignity of Man. Washington: Regnery Publishing. Riker, W. (1982) Liberalism against Populism. Long Grove: Waveland Press. Ripstein, A. (2009). Force and Freedom: Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Schaber, P. (2012) Menschenwürde. Stuttgart: Reclam. Sensen, O. (2011) Kant on Human Dignity. Berlin: De Gruyter. Skinner, Q. (1997) Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Skinner, Q. (1998) Liberty before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stoecker, R. (2011). ‘Three Crucial Turns on the Road to an Adequate Understanding of Human Dignity’ in: P. Kaufmann et al. (eds.) Humiliation,

Transmutation of Dignity  167 Degradation, Dehumanization: Human Dignity Violated.. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 7–17. Stoecker, R. & Neuhäuser, C. (2013): Erläuterungen der Menschenwürde aus ihrem Würdecharakter, in: J. Joerden, E. Hilgendorf & F. Thiele (eds.), Menschenwürde und Medizin. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch. Duncker & Humblot, pp. 37–72. Van der Rijt, J. (2009) ‘Republican Dignity: The Importance of Taking Offence.’ Law and Philosophy 28(5), pp. 465–92. Van der Rijt, J. (2012) The Importance of Assent. A Theory of Coercion and Dignity. Dordrecht: Springer. Van der Rijt, J. (2017) ‘Inherent Dignity, Contingent Dignity and Human Rights: Solving the Puzzle of the Protection of Dignity.’ Erkenntnis 182, pp. 1321–33. von der Pfordten, D. (2009) “On the dignity of man in Kant” Philosophy 84, pp. 371–91. Waldron, J. (2012) Dignity, Rank, and Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Waldron, J. (2013) ‘Citizenship and Dignity’ in: McCrudden, C. (ed.). Understanding Human Dignity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 327–44. Wirszubski, C. (1950) Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic and Early Principate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood, N. (1988) Cicero’s Social and Political Thought. Berkeley: University of California Press.

8 Respect and Retribution in the Kingdom of Ends David Sussman

It was in this sphere then, the sphere of legal obligations, that the moral conceptual world of “guilt,” “conscience,” “duty,” “sacredness of duty” had its origin: its beginnings were, like the beginnings of everything great on earth, soaked in blood thoroughly and for a long time. And might one not add that, fundamentally, this world has never since lost a certain odor of blood and torture? (Not even in good old Kant: the categorical imperative smells of cruelty.) –Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals II, §6

Kant’s supporters often distance themselves from his claims that the wicked deserve to suffer for their wickedness, even if no further good will come of it.1 In the opening pages of the Groundwork, Kant argues that happiness cannot be good without qualification in part because: an impartial rational spectator can take no delight in seeing the uninterrupted prosperity of a being graced with no feature of a pure and good will, so that a good will seems to constitute the indispensable condition even of worthiness to be happy. (G 4:393) In the Critique of Practical Reason Kant more clearly tells us that not merely is the happiness of the wicked without value, but that their suffering is in fact positively desirable: But if someone who likes to disturb peace-loving people finally gets a sound thrashing … everyone would approve of it and take it as good in itself even if nothing further resulted from it; indeed, even the one who received it must in his reason recognize that justice was done to him, because he sees the proportion between well-being and acting well, which reason unavoidably holds before him, here put into practice exactly. (CPrR 5:61)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-11

Respect and Retribution in the Kingdom of Ends  169 The traditional view of Kant as a pure retributivist about state punishment of lawbreakers is much less much popular now than it once was. But although Kant’s overall justification of criminal punishment is complex, he still seems to think that there is a basic moral need for criminals to suffer for their transgressions that plays a distinct role in legal punishment. Even if the point of punishment is not simply to give wrongdoers their just deserts, moral desert nevertheless serves as a necessary condition for the proper infliction of punishment. Even before Kant considers questions of punishment at law, he tells us that “there is in the idea of our practical reason something further that accompanies the transgression of a moral law, namely its deserving punishment” (CPrR 5:37, my emphasis). The situation only gets worse when we turn to Kant’s philosophy of religion. In Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Kant declares that: [M]oral evil … brings with it an infinity of violations of the law, and hence an infinity of guilt … consequently, every human being has to expect infinite punishment and exclusion from the Kingdom of God. (Rel 6:72, Kant’s emphasis) These dramatic claims are not merely rhetorical flourishes. For Kant, retributive suffering is part of the unavoidable “debt of sins” that we incur simply from having “started from evil” in our lives. Supposedly, this infinite debt cannot be wiped out by our efforts at moral improvement by themselves, but also requires God’s grace. Throughout his religious writings, Kant takes the strict proportioning of happiness and suffering to the moral desert of people to be the defining feature of not temporal but “divine” justice (Rel 6:73, MM 6:489). Supposedly, this moral need that everyone ultimately receive her just deserts is part of what grounds our “rational faith” in the existence of a judging God and an indefinite life after death. Yet despite the evident importance of retributive notions throughout his practical philosophy, Kant never offers any explicit defense of the position that wrongdoers should suffer in strict proportion to the moral gravity of their offenses, let alone the stronger claim that the wicked should suffer in proportion to the viciousness of their moral character as a whole. Instead, Kant seems to think that such retributive demands are obvious features of the very idea of morality and culpability simply as such, so that a justification of anything recognizable as a moral principle would immediately apply to such retributive considerations as well. His confidence has not been shared by subsequent commentators, even ones who are otherwise committed Kantians. The problem is not just that moral retributivism seems to spring from a well of vengeful and moralistic sentiments that have become increasingly suspect the more we

170  David Sussman learn about their psychological and historical origins. Rather, the main objections are coming from inside the philosophy. Kant’s retributivism appears to be in deep tension with his fundamental insistence that all rational agents have dignity, and so are “ends-in-themselves” of absolute and unconditioned worth. Regardless of the ways in which we might differ as individuals, we are supposedly first and foremost fellow citizenlegislators of a universal “Kingdom of Ends,” with an equal say in the basic terms of our shared ethical life and so an equal claim to respect from one another. In this chapter, I argue that Kant’s claims about retributive suffering (or “negative desert”) are not only consistent with his broader understanding of the unconditional dignity of all persons but are in fact a proper consequence of that conception. I contend that Kant’s belief that the wicked morally deserve to suffer is not merely an unfortunate vestige of his Pietist upbringing or other purely personal factors. For Kant, moral desert needs to be approached through his conception of legal culpability. I argue that the fundamental Kantian idea of dignity can be more than an “empty formalism” only if that idea is fleshed out in terms of some more concrete conception of persons and their basic “external” relations to one another. Although Kant first interprets these relations in terms of a system of natural causation, the ultimate inadequacy of this model leads to its replacement by a fundamentally political conception of the person, a conception defined in part by retributive notions of culpability and deserved suffering. I realize that this approach might appear completely wrong-headed, given that Kant presents his moral philosophy as being prior to his political and legal theory. On most readings of Kant, moral considerations about rights and retribution are part of the basic justification of the practice of criminal punishment itself. It certainly seems as if we are supposed to understand justice and law through morality, not the reverse. If so, then any ethical considerations that might follow from punishment could not themselves be invoked as grounds for such moral claims without circularity. Kant does indeed believe that the Moral Law would require us to leave any state-of-nature to enter a “civil condition,” and so recognize some “public authority” constituted by coercively enforced laws. Within such a political order, there is of course a trivial sense in which any criminal deserves to suffer just because they have committed a crime. Morality may indeed require that we live under legal systems, systems that define such a merely legal sense of deserved punishment. Even so, there can be a well-defined legal sense of desert without there being any direct connection between moral wrongdoing and morally deserved punishment that might be projected beyond a particular system of legal institutions. Regardless of whatever else Kant has to say about punishment, legal and political considerations would seem always to arrive too late to support his more basic claims about distinctively moral demands for retribution.

Respect and Retribution in the Kingdom of Ends  171 I argue that the relation of the moral to the political in Kant’s thought is not as simple as this familiar picture would have it. Although Kant does indeed believe that we need to first make some sense of distinctively moral obligations before we can approach political questions, the relation of the moral to political considerations is not so straightforward as that of base to superstructure, premise to conclusion. Instead, a more complicated dialectic emerges between the moral and the political in the course of Kant’s practical thought.2 Kant’s initial largely formal claims about morality do indeed serve to ground a more concrete political vision. However, further consideration of the resulting political institutions on their own terms goes on to give still more determinate content to his initially vague ideas of dignity, personhood, and moral responsibility. It is through this “feedback loop” from moral to political considerations and then back again into the moral that what began as largely indeterminate concepts of responsibility and culpability receive a more concrete interpretation in terms of retribution and deserved suffering. This dialectic is not all that far from Nietzsche’s account of the emergence of our moral conscience in the second essay of the Genealogy. However, what Nietzsche presents as a sequence of psychological transitions in human history is, for Kant, an arc of conceptual development in the constitution of the modern autonomous subject.

1 Kant’s views about moral desert have not aged particularly well. Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault et al. have made strong cases that our retributive sentiments cannot be taken on face value but are the result of social and psychological dynamics that we systematically misunderstand (perhaps not all that innocently).3 Evolutionary psychology, speculative as it still is, has shown that it would not be surprising for something like the retributive sentiments to emerge in the development of a species as intensely cooperative and competitive as our own. If Kant cannot supply a more substantive justification of our notions of negative desert, many naturalistic philosophers and psychologists stand ready with promising theories of error to explain away our retributive intuitions.4 Nor are such feelings as prevalent as they were in Kant’s Prussia. As any internet discussion of capital punishment readily shows, the thought that people might deserve to suffer simply because of the enormity of their crimes is often glibly dismissed as a barbaric lust for vengeance that has no place in a civilized society. The challenges here are not merely external. Kant’s retributivism seems to be deeply at odds with his fundamental conception of human dignity and moral personhood, perhaps the central concepts of his entire moral theory. Kant famously argues that as rational, reflective agents who can hold one another (and themselves) morally accountable, each of us possesses a kind

172  David Sussman of “absolute” value as an “end-in-itself.” This value, dignity, is what constitutes us as “persons” rather than as mere “things.” The value of things is wholly determined by how they figure in the wholly adventitious plans, attitudes, and attachments of particular people. Things do not have dignity, but only “price.” When valued in terms of “market price” (i.e., merely instrumentally), things are of worth as resources and means to various ends. From this perspective, a rational agent should be indifferent between one thing and any other with the same causal properties. In the Groundwork, Kant does allow that things may also have a kind of sentimental value (Affectionspreis). Unlike the market price of merely instrumentally valued goods, objects of sentimental value do not admit of being traded off for equivalents without significant loss. Although it might make perfect sense for me to sell the watch my grandfather gave me to pay for needed medical care, the money I so gain cannot fully make up for what has been sacrificed. Even if I’m confident that selling the watch was the all-things-considered right thing to do, a kind of persistent regret about having to make this exchange still makes perfect sense (unlike, say, a sale of stock). But although objects of sentimental value are not fully commensurable with other goods, their value nevertheless still depends on our particular emotional engagement and attachment to them, attitudes that are themselves merely optional from the standpoint of reason. For Kant, dignity is a type of value unlike that of price altogether, different not just in degree but in its very logic (i.e., the basic forms of practical reasoning in which it functions). To possess dignity is not merely to be of infinite price, so that trade-offs with anything that lacks such dignity could never be fully justified. Rather, if a being possesses dignity that being cannot be assigned any kind of exchange-value at all, not even an infinite one. To have dignity is to be important in a way that is nothing like how price functions. To think of trading off persons and their interests in the way one might consider trading off property is to allow that the question of finite vs. infinite valuation here at least makes sense. For Kant, to accept the applicability of that question is already to make a profound category mistake. Dignity is not a value that applies to something as a passive object of concern, bearing immediately on questions of what objects or states to create, preserve, or destroy. In contrast, dignity is the sort of importance that applies to a fellow agent, not as a passive thing, but only as something more like an active power, a locus of claims, demands, challenges, appeals, suggestions, etc. (Dignity does, of course, ultimately bear on questions of helping and hurting others, but only because of the importance of happiness to a person who has the standing to make demands on us, rather than happiness being just an immediately good state of affairs.) Fundamentally, dignity is a kind of status or authority: defined in terms of other beings who we confront not just causally in a spatio-temporal order, but rationally in a space of responsibility. Such persons are taken

Respect and Retribution in the Kingdom of Ends  173 first as fellow agents who have the authority to make claims on us to demand, assess, and offer justifications (and in turn to have such justifications demanded from them). Persons are essentially other rational selves in action as rational beings. What these other selves can potentially be for me sets the bounds of what I can intelligibly be for myself, when I take a reflective stance upon my own life. Persons are constituted by normative relations of authority and accountability that determine the limits of what I really am and could become. These relations form the horizon of my identity not as a physical organism, but as a potential co-participant in such meaning-laden activities as asserting and denying, asking and answering, commanding and obeying, challenging and justifying, etc. To have dignity is to possess a very basic normative power, to have a voice or a say with the respect to the fundamental terms in which we relate to each other (and so to ourselves) as self-conscious, rational agents.

2 When Kant introduces the notion of dignity, he does not invoke any robust notion of moral desert. Instead, he tells us that the worth of persons is “absolute” in the sense of being the “unconditioned condition” of the value of their state as individuals (that is, how their lives are going for them, their degree of prosperity or misery). If something promotes a person’s happiness, then it is presumptively worth pursuing (by both that person and others). However, the unconditional importance of dignity entails that this presumption can be defeated when a component of someone’s happiness (or the means necessary to attain it) is immoral. Morally speaking, the wicked should indeed suffer if only in the sense that they should be denied the satisfaction of their inherently evil ends and frustrated in any immoral attempts to attain otherwise permissible goals. However, this modest kind of desert falls well short of the idea that wrongdoers deserve not merely to be denied immoral means to or parts of happiness, but that they should suffer in strict proportion to the turpitude of their acts or their character. Janice might attempt to commit a horrific act for the sake of a relatively trivial end: say, kill another driver because he cut her off in traffic. Morally speaking, Janice should forego any of the immediate satisfactions of road rage, and just swallow this annoyance. Her homicidal efforts are terribly wrong, and these attempts may well be the product of a deeply depraved character, yet their frustration would compromise Janice’s happiness only to a very small degree (assuming she could succeed without getting caught). Even so, Kant seems to think that Janice should be made even more miserable by hurting her in respects that have nothing to do with her particular immoral ends and efforts. Kant repeatedly claims that morality is the criterion of “worthiness to be happy.” There is indeed some plausibility to this claim if read in the weak sense that immoral forms of happiness, or the happiness of

174  David Sussman wicked people, are not something we have any reason to promote (as we otherwise would). But then Kant seems to simply conflate 1) it not being the case that the wicked deserve to be happy (in some respect) with 2) it being the case that the wicked deserve to be unhappy (in all respects). In the dialectic of the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant comes as close as he ever does to justifying this apparent slide from “not (deserving to be happy)” to “deserving (not to be happy).” Kant observes that, if morality is the condition of the worthiness to be happy in even the weak sense, then virtue and happiness, although “extremely heterogenous” concepts, nevertheless stand in some sort of necessary connection.5 Yet for Kant, any two distinct concepts necessarily connected this way constitute an instance of a particular logical form of judgment: that of ground to consequent. But Kant holds that the ground-to-consequent relation is just that of causation, and so he concludes that either virtue is the causal power that produces happiness, or that being happy (or desiring happiness) is what generates virtue (or virtuous action) in us. Kant believes that he has already shown this latter disjunct to be false (CPrR 5:21–3). Supposedly, the distinctive moral motivation, the sense of obligation or duty, must be prior to and independent of any concerns of self-love. Yet obviously virtue does not necessarily generate happiness, at least not in the world as we know it, where happiness always depends in part on natural laws that can be at best only accidentally connected to morality. For Kant, moral considerations, as matters of freedom, cannot even be represented in the context of the phenomenal world. Kant concludes that, insofar as we are approaching the world as free agents (and not theoretical observers), we must take for granted that nature itself is fundamentally, if incomprehensibly, organized by a morally-conscious power. Such a power is needed to guarantee that, despite all appearances, each person’s happiness in life will ultimately correspond exactly to their overall degree of virtue by a kind of causal necessity. In other words, moral agents must act with “rational faith” in the existence of a judging God and in at least enough of an afterlife to allow for the needed overall calibration of prosperity to merit.6 Unfortunately, Kant’s argument here rests on an equivocation about causation. Kant begins with the claim that, if morality is indeed the necessary condition of the worth of an agent’s state, then virtue stands to happiness as ground to consequent, a relationship that counts as a kind of causation. So far, so good. But then Kant goes on to assert that this relationship must be one of efficient causation, of virtue being what produces happiness, so that we end up having to posit God to actively mete out everyone’s just deserts in space and time. Here Kant surreptitiously slides from a merely logical sense of “because” in general to the particular interpretation of that formal relation in terms only appropriate to thingsas-they-appear (that is, objects that are constituted and individuated in terms of spatio-temporal properties and relations).

Respect and Retribution in the Kingdom of Ends  175 Yet questions of virtue and vice cannot be coherently raised about any such natural object qua natural object, insofar as ethical qualities only apply to the will as a free and autonomous power, something that can be understood only as an intelligible rather than a sensible being. Although the will has empirical manifestations (in the movements of our bodies, say), the will is not itself any kind of spatio-temporal object, and so cannot be one of the relata of relations of natural (efficient) causation. If the relation of virtue to happiness is an instance of the general logical form of ground-to-consequent, there must indeed be some further way of fillingin or “schematizing” that relation. Such a schema is needed to provide a model for how the relevant “because” is supposed to work, and so transform a merely formal or logical relation into a material or real one. More simply, we need to make sense of the relevant sense of “because” by specifying just what kinds of “why” questions it would answer, what would properly count as such answers, and how we might then properly proceed in light of such responses (i.e., the relevant “language-games” here). Kant is completely correct that we need to give some real specification of the practical “because” that has so far served only as a logical placeholder. Unfortunately, the interpretation or “typic” he initially proposes doesn’t make much sense given the sorts of things in question. At this early point in the story, the only model Kant has available for fleshing out these basic practical relations is that provided by scientific explanation, suited to confronting and making sense of the world in terms of objective knowledge rather than as an area of ethically significant action. If Kant cannot give a more concrete interpretation of the logical forms of judgment, then his ethics will indeed be an empty formalism. His moral thought will be little more than hand-waving toward the kinds of ideas and thinking to which any real understanding of free action would have to give substance, but which we cannot fill out in any more concrete way. Kant seems to have painted himself into a corner. To understand what the basic concepts of morality really mean, these concepts must be made sense of with respect to some intelligible activities or language-games available to us. Yet the only such games that he has at hand at this point in the second Critique are theoretical ones: that is, activities of observing, reporting, questioning, speculating, testing, explaining (etc.) in a broadly scientific manner. Such doings are too distant from the practical, too theoretical, to provide anything more than a very weak analogy. We might then conclude, with Schopenhauer, that the ethical will must be beyond what can be made sense of in any way whatsoever.

3 Fortunately, as Kant moves into the political realm with the Doctrine of Right, another way to schematize the basic moral concepts becomes available. Rather than trying to fill in the relevant sense of “because”

176  David Sussman (etc.) by appeal to models drawn from theoretical reasoning, practical thought has now reached a point where it can supply its own appropriate typic through a kind of metaphysical bootstrapping. In the second Critique, Kant need not have been looking back to the Critique of Pure Reason for the right model to give substance to the basic practical categories. Instead, he should have looked ahead to the ways things work in political contexts (even though the political was itself initially derived from the moral). To see how this might work, we need to take a detour through Kant’s account of how retributive ideas of deserved suffering first emerge in his theory of legal punishment. Kant is often taken to be a simple retributivist about legal punishment, holding that we properly punish criminals as a way of giving them what they morally deserve. However, on closer examination Kant’s account of criminal punishment turns out to be surprisingly complex, mixing concerns of moral retribution and deterrence in a way that may not be entirely coherent.7 Kant holds that we must stand under some “public” authority, or political order, because otherwise morality’s demands on us would become deeply inconsistent, requiring us to defend our rights even though every way of doing so would have to be morally wrong.8 Although Kantian ethics begins only with considerations of “inner freedom” supposedly made possible only by an individual’s implicit recognition of the moral law, such freedom requires that we establish determinate relations of “outer freedom” that require us to have equal, enforceable rights against each other. The connection between inner freedom (virtue) and outer freedom (right) is murky. Kant tells us only that the “Universal Law of Right” (“so act externally that the free use of your choice can coexist with the freedom of everyone in accordance with a universal law”), although in some sense given by reason, is nevertheless “a postulate that is incapable of further proof” (MM 6:232). To understand why morality requires that we constitute and recognize such relations of right would require figuring out just what Kant means by rational “postulation,” a vexing issue at the heart of both his philosophy of religion and of politics. Supposedly, the practical postulates are grounded in prior moral principles, even though these postulates are not inferences from those principles. I suggest that such postulates are ways of filling-in or giving “reality” to formal concepts that morality presupposes but cannot give adequate sense to by itself. We cannot immediately derive the idea of an externally enforceable right from the moral law, but once such rights are posited we can construct an interpretation of that law determinate enough to govern practical deliberation in the conditions of human life. When Kant initially introduces the idea of dignity, he claims that this value entails a fundamental duty to treat humanity, “whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” (G 4:429). Kant explains that properly

Respect and Retribution in the Kingdom of Ends  177 treating a person this way turns on whether that person “could possibly agree to my way of behaving toward him … able to contain in [himself] the end of the very same action” (G 4:430, my emphasis). The trick, then, is to specify just what sort of possible agreement is required here, what would it mean to be able to contain the end of someone else’s action in this way. Although Kant gives no very clear account of what he has in mind here, he does tell us that This conflict with the principle of other human beings is seen more distinctly if examples of assaults on the freedom and property of others are brought forward. For then it is obvious that he who transgresses the rights of human beings intends to make use of the person of others merely as means, without taking in consideration that they are always to be valued at the same time as ends… (G 4:430, my emphasis) Kant may have realized that the idea of possible agreement or the ability to share ends is largely indeterminate without some background understanding of who presumably gets to have a say in what matters (a problem that comes up in attempts to make sense of the “Formula of Humanity” as a free-standing principle, independent of any broader political context). Indeed, in distinguishing the Formula of Humanity from the “trite” Golden Rule, Kant explicitly invokes the example of legal punishment, observing that on the Golden Rule “a criminal would argue on this ground against the judge punishing him, and so forth” (G 4:430n). On my reading, the moral law does not just establish certain political obligations. In addition, our moral duties are themselves set forth in terms that, in order to be more than mere placeholders, presuppose a background of real, political relations and norms that conform to certain standards. As a result, it turns out to be a “transcendental condition” of moral obligations that we occupy and recognize some real regime of rights, so long as that regime meets the minimal conditions for any coherent conception of equal external freedom under law. Yet although morality requires that we stand in determinate relations of right, relations that are enforced by state punishment, the justification such punishment involves no distinctively retributive ideas of deserved suffering. In the Doctrine of Right, a right defines a publicly defended sphere of individual discretion in one’s practical choices, a sphere that marks the boundary between those actions that I do not need anyone else’s consent or approval to perform, and those of my acts that do require such agreement (and from whom). Kant thinks that rights need to be enforced by punishment, not to give malefactors their just deserts, but to provide each rights-holder a certain degree of independence from the “arbitrary will of others.” A reliable public regime of punishment allows me to rest secure in my rights, knowing that the practical substance of those limitations does

178  David Sussman not depend on my staying in anyone’s good graces. Instead, I can trust in the practical reality of my rights just because of our common knowledge of a prudentially irresistible set of threats (assuming that the members of my community are more-or-less prudentially rational). Since some such scheme of disincentives is needed for us all to stand in public relations of right, and rights are themselves preconditions of determinate conceptions of the basic moral ideas of personhood and dignity, no one can have a reasonable objection to legal punishment as such (although, of course, there can be such objections to particular instances and systems of punishment). Kant holds that this understanding of political obligations places constraints on what can properly count as criminal punishment. All enforceable laws must be such that they could issue from the “general will” of the body politic: a will in which citizens would approach each other not as self-interested individuals negotiating the best deal for herself, but as equal participants in a joint enterprise directed toward their common (and not just coincident or aggregate) good. As a result, any system of punishment must be consistent with the “civil personality” of the criminal: that is, her position as not just a problem to be managed, but a free person and fellow participant in the sovereign authority of the general will. Even though a system of criminal punishment must serve to assure citizens that their rights will be respected, such punishment is not merely a matter of efficiency, of getting the most deterrent bang for each buck of pain. Kant insists that punishment must also be fundamentally constrained by a principle in which the criminal is represented, not just as a threat to public order, but as a fellow active citizen.9 The criminal must be regarded as not just an object or a problem to be dealt with, but instead recognized as essentially a fellow subject who shares in the basic authority on which the law fundamentally rests. Kant believes (perhaps too readily) that only the “ius talionis” (eye-for-an-eye, etc.) can satisfy this condition: But what kind and what amount of punishment is it that public justice makes its principle and measure? None other than the principle of equality … to incline no more to one side than to the other. Accordingly, whatever undeserved evil you inflict upon another within the people, that you inflict upon yourself; if you strike him, you strike yourself; if you kill him, you kill yourself … all other principles are fluctuating and unsuited for a sentence of pure and strict justice because extraneous considerations are mixed into them. (MM 6:332) Kant’s point seems to be that only the ius talionis represents the wrongdoer only as a free public legislator, in abstraction from any of the ways in which she may differ from other citizens (personal interests, preferences, resources, social status, etc.). Here the wrongdoer is considered simultaneously as the agent of the crime and as co-legislator, where the exercise

Respect and Retribution in the Kingdom of Ends  179 of her freedom in the crime is also the setting of the standard of her punishment for it. For Kant, such punishment is only the criminal’s own will reflected back upon itself in a legislative form, as applied to the particular individual she is from the general role she occupies. Retributive punishment thus shares the same basic form as the a priori relation of general will of the people (as sovereign) to all of them taken as individuals (as subjects). Kant concludes that “the ius talionis is by its form always the principle for the right to punish since it alone is the principle determining this idea a priori (not derived from experience of which measure would be most effective for eradicating crime)” (MM 6:363). For Kant, the law of retribution supplies only the essential forms of punishment: the boundaries past which no use of force by the state could count as justified. Punishment cannot exceed this standard, because such treatment would then fail to respect the criminal’s civic personality, her fundamental identity as a fellow legislator in the general will. For Kant, the ius talionis sets the upper bounds of punishment even for crimes in which strict retaliation is not even conceivable (Kant’s examples are pederasty and bestiality). Although we could not commit sexual assault of a child against an adult who has sexually assaulted a child, we can still take the general gravity of this crime to set an upper limit of how harsh the penalty can be, as a matter of severity if not manner. Similarly, because punishment must respect the fundamental active personhood of the criminal, we cannot countenance punishments such as rape or torture, even for rapists and torturers (MM 6:363). (Kant perhaps should have included capital punishment in this category as well, even though he insists that death is the only proper punishment for murder: no more (say, death by slow torture), but also no less.)10 However, since the point of punishment is not to give people their just deserts (in any prior moral sense), but to constitute relations of right, legal penalties may take milder forms if they better serve this goal. The criminal must be regarded first and foremost as a free, equal participant in the public authority, but that is not the only way she may be considered. Although the ius talionis has the first word in the proper determination of punishment, it need not have the last. Within the constraints of proper talion, we may take into consideration such merely psychological considerations of what would most reliably deter the criminal or others like her from similar crimes, and so “argue down” from what the law of retribution allows to some milder penalty. For Kant, retribution only provides the default position from which reasoning about punishment should proceed. Insofar as the general will has some concern for avoiding unnecessary suffering, the standard punishment for a type of offense should not go beyond what is needed to provide adequate deterrence overall.11 However, no specific act of punishing may go beyond what that particular criminal merits in virtue of his particular offense, as determined by the law of retribution (i.e., as determined by the criminal’s own will as it is expressed and embodied in his crime).

180  David Sussman

4 So far, Kant has developed a coherent account of morally necessary punishment under law that does not depend on any prior notions of moral desert. The formal requirements of morality presuppose that we stand in relations of right, and such relations in turn presuppose that we inhabit some minimally decent political order, an order where our rights are defined and enforced by punishment. Although the ius talionis does set limits on punishment, such conditions depend on considerations specific to a legal system, not more general moral concerns that would apply a state of nature. Although conditioned by desert as defined by the ius talionis, the fundamental point of criminal punishment as an institution is to constitute and sustain basic relations of right and so of external freedom. Admittedly, Kant does sometimes sound like a pure moral retributivist about punishment. In the Doctrine of Right Kant tells us that: Punishment … can never be inflicted merely as a means to promote some other good … [but] only because he [the criminal] has committed a crime … The law of punishment is a categorical imperative, and woe to him who crawls through the windings of eudaimonism in order to discover something that releases the criminal from punishment or even reduces its amount by the advantages is promises… (MM 6:331–2, Kant’s emphasis) However, in context these claims seem to apply only to the punishment of particular offenders within an already constituted legal system, rather than why and how that system should be set up in the first place. Kant’s example of such woefully eudaimonistic crawling is not any piece of legislation or general schedule of penalties, but a proposal to commute a particular criminal’s death sentence if he allows himself to be used for medical experimentation (MM 6:332). However, Kant goes on to make a claim in his discussion of criminal punishment that has flummoxed legions of his more high-minded defenders. After arguing that capital punishment is the only appropriate punishment for murder, Kant explains that: Even if a civil society were to be dissolved by the consent of all its members (e.g., if a people inhabiting an island decided to separate and disperse throughout the world), the last murderer remaining in prison would have to be executed, so that each has done to him what his deeds deserve and blood guilt [Blutschuld] does not cling to the people for not having insisted upon this punishment; for otherwise the people can be regarded as collaborators in this public violations of justice. (MM 6:333)

Respect and Retribution in the Kingdom of Ends  181 In the imagined case, punishment could not serve to maintain any regime of rights, because everyone knows that the island polity is about to permanently dissolve. Each individual will go their own way, presumably to join some other community with its own legal institutions (otherwise, this dissolution would itself be immoral for Kant). It is hard to believe that the reliability of these new legal systems could be called into question by anything that happens at the very end of the island nation’s existence.12 Here, Kant does indeed seem to invoke a notion of moral desert and collective guilt that has nothing to do with the institutional specification and defense of anyone’s rights. Recently, Krista Thomason (2021) has argued that Kant understands “bloodguilt” only symbolically, as a particularly perspicuous way of representing the importance and unconditionality of the demands of justice. In the case of the dissolving island society, morally decent people should indeed be very reluctant to release any murderer on death row, since in normal circumstances this sort of reasoning (that an individual should be spared punishment because of its lack of good consequences) would indeed be a profound failure of the state to take the rights of victims seriously. However, it is not really the case that any sort of leniency is being shown to the convicted murderers by the state; the state is simply ceasing to exist, and so is neither punishing nor refusing to punish. However, Thomason observes that our moral intuitions are calibrated with respect to normal political contexts, not the very unusual transitional case that Kant here envisions. The former citizens of the island nation might indeed still feel as if they were collectively guilty for failing to do their duty as a people. However, such feelings only show that these people have not yet fully internalized the fact that they have ceased to exist as a people, having become merely a collection of individuals. Thomason’s interpretation may indeed work for the other reference to “bloodguilt” in the Metaphysics of Morals where Kant is not so much speaking in propria persona as recounting (with some sympathy) the views of Horace and some anonymous “wise ruler” (MM 6:489–90). Unfortunately, there is nothing in the dissolving island society passage to suggest the Kant is not speaking literally or in his own voice. Kant quite explicitly asserts that the murders must be executed lest bloodguilt “cling to the people,” and not merely that this is how decent people can be expected to feel about themselves should they encounter some strange circumstances such as the complete dissolution of their society. Yet although bloodguilt cannot here be dismissed as merely a symbol, Thomason’s focus on the broader significance that punishment takes on in civil society points in the right direction. For Kant, the basic justification for political authority lies in the realization of relations of right; it is for the sake of “external freedom” (and, indirectly, “internal” freedom) that we constitute ourselves as one body politic under one general will. The initial role of the state has nothing to do with any such expressive functions as

182  David Sussman denouncing moral wrongs or publicly affirming the moral dignity of its citizens. After all, for punishment to have such a moral meaning, it would have to already be the case that punishment was recognizable as the proper response to wrongdoing independent of such reprobative considerations. A purely expressive account of punishment would thus be viciously circular. Punishment would be the correct response to violations of rights because punishment is the proper way to publicly and emphatically censure such violations, but punishment could only have such reprobative significance if it was already the appropriate response to such wrongdoing. The basic justification of punishment cannot be as a form of moral condemnation. However, once some legal system is up and running for other reasons, punishment can take on new meanings that allows it to serve other crucial moral and political functions. For Kant, the original freestanding justification of punishment involved only the actualization of fundamental relations of right. The need to stand in such relations is what impels us to form ourselves into a unified polity, an artificial person with a determinate will (the general will) and a determinate body (its various legal institutions and government organs). Punishment is thus the normal response of a well-functioning polity to the violation of the rights of any of its members, especially if those rights are important. As such, punishing emerges as the characteristic way of showing that, as a people, we recognize that someone’s right was violated, where the ius talionis makes it the case that the harsher punishments will more-or-less correspond to the more grievous crimes.13 For Kant, punishment is justified first and foremost as a way of bringing relations of right into being. However, once legal systems have been established, punishment also becomes a kind of gesture or language through which the condemnation or acceptance of an act can now be expressed by a people acting as a people, speaking with one voice. With the emergence of this language (and so of new collective “speech-acts,”) comes new political obligations. Before punishment acquired reprobative significance, the knowing failure of the state to punish an offence was merely an omission that risked undermining confidence that our rights would be respected by others. However, once punishment has taken on a public meaning as the principal way in which we collectively acknowledge someone’s rights, the knowing failure to punish is no longer just a failure to affirm, but rather a positive denial or dismissal of the rights of victims. For Kant, it is morally wrong in general to insult or disrespect another person in this way. Here, the failure to punish would be not just an insult but a betrayal by the body politic as a whole. Even worse, such a betrayal perversely forces the victim (insofar as he is a co-legislator in the general will) to be a participant in that very public humiliation that is being inflicted on him. Admittedly, a state can also acknowledge the rights of its members by taking efforts to prevent crime in general, whether this be through improvements of living conditions, education campaigns, or effective

Respect and Retribution in the Kingdom of Ends  183 policing. However, none of these approaches serves to clearly censure wrongdoers and affirm a particular person’s rights. Preventative and educative measures do show that we value people’s rights generally, but such measures are only directed to the populace as a whole, not to a particular crime, criminal, or victim. Police action to frustrate some criminal attempt has clearer reprobative significance, but such action must have already failed if a crime has, in fact, been committed against someone. Punishment alone seems to be directed to a particular violation of rights that has already occurred. Moreover, education, prevention, and policing also serve more general “forward-looking” goals – we would still have reason to engage in them even if no one had any rights, just for purposes of social stability and good order. In contrast, punishment is more clearly “backward-looking,” connected loosely to any such consequentialist concerns. As Kant sees it, considerations of utility have little or no role in particular instances of punishment, which is precisely why punishment is a uniquely apt way to simultaneously censure wrongdoers and reassert the rights of those wronged.14 Once punishment becomes a central way in which a polity affirms (or denies) the rights of its members, the moral obligation to punish wrongdoers becomes independent of not just the consequences of any individual act of punishment, but also of the task of maintaining rights in general. The dissolution of the island community makes it readily apparent that executing the convicted murderers cannot serve to assure anybody that their rights will be respected. However, letting these murderers go unpunished would also serve to dismiss or repudiate the rights of their victims, who would then be betrayed by their own people in one of its last acts as a people. Insofar as the islanders still consider themselves as members of that community, they would indeed be right to see themselves as collaborators in a betrayal of one of their own (regardless of their attitudes and actions as individuals). Their feelings of complicity would not just be understandable, but clear-sighted.15 Retributive desert thus emerges through a kind of ethical bootstrapping. Although morality does not originally involve any interesting notion of deserved suffering, the Moral Law does demand that we form ourselves into a political community that defines some sense of legally deserved punishment. Since this body politic itself also counts as a moral person who stands in ethical relations to each of its members, such punishment takes on a further, distinctively moral, meaning. Punishment becomes more than just the way we establish and protect our rights. In addition, punishment assumes the almost equally important role as the way in which we collectively acknowledge or repudiate the moral status of each one of us in its most important respects. Such expressive activity can come to detach itself from the conditions that were initially needed to make it possible, as the bloodguilt passage suggests. We are correct to see a moral wrong as something that

184  David Sussman immediately calls for punishment, even outside of any political context, because failure to punish denies the significance of those wrongs. But the failure to punish has this moral significance only because of prior distinctively political and legal relations, which are in their turn grounded in the original demands of the Moral Law, demands in which the idea of deserved suffering played no role. Our retributive sentiments are not the basis of our understanding of just legal institutions. Rather, such sentiments are the products of these institutions, institutions that serve to give a particular shape to the more indeterminate concepts of our basic moral self-understanding. At this point, our retributive sentiments have been cantilevered far beyond their initial foundations. In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant argued that as distinct but necessarily connected concepts, virtue and happiness stand in some kind of ground-to-consequent relation. At that point, the only way available to render this relation was in terms of efficient causation under natural law. The laws of nature were all that Kant had on hand to serve as the typic for making sense of morality, even though this model was fundamentally unsuited for representing the relations of essentially free agents to one another as free agents. However, Kant thought that in the absence of anything better, the common understanding at least … has the law of nature always at hand, only that in cases where causality from freedom is to be appraised it makes that law of nature merely the type of a law of freedom, because without having at hand something which it could make an example in the case of experience, it could not provide use in application for the law of a pure practical reason. (CPrR 5:70) Because in the second Critique Kant had not yet fully developed his political philosophy, the only way he could exhibit the basic moral laws in concreto was by analogy to natural law. As a result, Kant could only construe the necessary relation of virtue to happiness as one in which virtue necessarily generates human happiness, as lightning produces thunder. Not surprisingly, this strange picture required the introduction of supernatural agencies to connect the seemingly unconnectable, freedom and nature, as if God were some cosmic pineal gland. Yet in retrospect, we can see that once Kant mapped out the political dimensions of morality, such ad hoc expedients as God and immortality are no longer needed. What emerges as the story progresses is that we have a moral need for certain kinds of public institutions, institutions that then generate their own dynamics that go beyond their initial moral function, as a kind of ethical exaptation. As such, these concrete legal practices can supply a new and better typic for morality, one in which free and autonomous agency can be modelled (instead of just being

Respect and Retribution in the Kingdom of Ends  185 abstracted away from). As a result, when we return to consider whether a maxim is willable as universal law, we need not resort to the clunky device of imagining it as some kind of mechanistic (or even teleological) law of nature (which raises questions about publicity, since a natural law can hold without being generally known). Instead, we can understand the universalizability test much more naturally in terms of something like positive law, insofar as such law could issue from the legislature of a kind of autonomous republic (i.e., a Kingdom of Ends, in which publicity would be an essential feature of law-giving right from the start, not something to be conjured through some epistemic sleight-of-hand). Once the political realm has emerged as a concrete alternative to the scientific, the necessary relation of virtue to happiness need not be conceived of as a kind of moral magic. Instead, the sense in which virtue serves as the ground of happiness is simply that wicked acts call for suffering proportional to their moral gravity, as criminal acts call for proportional punishment at the hands of the state. Because this model of desert is political in spirit, such moral retribution is never something for any individual to exact. Yet if moral retribution is something like legal punishment but unrestricted to any particular community (as a moral idea), then the only power that could properly give anyone their just deserts would have to be something like the general will of humanity as such under its guise as unitary law-giver and judge. For Kant, this idea of humanity as such serving as its own judge and punisher is best represented by the idea of God: Every deed that violates a human being’s right deserves punishment, the function of which is to avenge a crime on the one who committed it (not merely to make good the harm that was done). But punishment is not an act that the injured party can undertake on his private authority but rather an act of a court distinct from him, which gives effect to the law of a supreme authority overall all those subject to it … no one is authorized to inflict punishment and avenge the wrong sustained by them except him who is also the supreme moral lawgiver: and he alone (namely God) can say “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” (MM 6:460, Kant’s emphasis, see also MM 6:490)

5 Commentators have been understandably perplexed by the appearance of a strong sense of retributive desert in Kant’s moral thought, seemingly asserted without argument. I have argued, however, that such desert does not represent just Kant’s uncritical acceptance of the mores of his day. Instead, moral desert emerges through a more indirect, dialectical process. Although desert is not something that has any place at the

186  David Sussman beginning of Kant’s moral theorizing, desert becomes available as the moral translates itself into the political. This translation provides a new and better way to give determinate sense to moral concepts, such as dignity and responsibility, that were at first largely formal. At this point, we can understand the moral law not through the clumsy metaphor of a universal laws of nature, but in terms of something like an idealized and unrestricted political order that includes anyone who is or would be capable of participating in any such practice of collective self-legislation, the ideal of a universal Kingdom of Ends that is given both its form and matter by practical reason alone. Once we reach this essentially political reschematization of the basic moral concepts, we can better make sense of ideas of personhood, dignity, and responsibility. To be a person with dignity is, in the first instance, to be something that can be held responsible for its actions, where part of what such responsibility involves is to potentially deserve to suffer for wrongdoing. We might still wonder why I might deserve to suffer not just for my particular sins, but for my moral character as a whole. But in the Religion, Kant makes it clear that, considered ethically, a person’s fundamental moral cast of thinking (or Gesinnung) should be regarded not as any psychological disposition or process, but as one long free act, with a unity that transcends the conditions of time.16 As a result, if I can deserve to suffer for my particular acts, how much more I might deserve for the underlying intelligible deed that grounds all these ordinary actions and gives them their moral character. Of course, there are people who cannot deserve to suffer for their conduct: e.g., infants and people with severe cognitive or emotional disabilities. But even in these cases the concept of moral desert can be discerned in the background. Infants et al. are still fundamentally the kind of being that can be held responsible this way, even though this presumption is defeated by consideration of their particular circumstances. In contrast, to see an animal as even potentially responsible is to commit a category-mistake. A cognitively-disabled individual could, in principle, overcome their disability, and so become a responsible, deserving subject. Despite their impairment, desert is a real metaphysical possibility for such people, even if not a nomological one. In contrast, it is not even metaphysically possible for an animal to deserve such retribution. Human beings are essentially rational: animals not.17 As a result, an innocent frog could not be changed into a rational, culpable prince. At most, the frog could be replaced by the prince, composed of the same matter perhaps, but no longer the same individual. Kant seems to think that this is where the story comes to an end, with the emergence of a fundamentally political/juridical conception of the self. However, there seems to be no reason why such a dialectic could not go on indefinitely. Just as the concrete institutions of law serve to give a more specific sense to the initially formal categories of pure practical reason, these more determinate moral categories may, in turn, call for

Respect and Retribution in the Kingdom of Ends  187 further changes to our political and social practices. Indeed, something like this may be what Kant has in mind when he introduces the idea of the “Ethical Commonwealth” in Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. Kant tells us that such a commonwealth would be a kind of association that is neither clearly private nor political, but a “union of hearts” modelled on something like a family or religious congregation. Such new configurations of our ethical life might then engender corresponding reinterpretations in the way dignity and moral responsibility can be understood – a process that might take us who knows how far from our original retributive notions: The justice which began with “everything is dischargeable, everything must be discharged,” ends by winking and letting those incapable of discharging their debt go free: it ends, as does everything good on earth, by overcoming itself. This self-overcoming of justice: one knows the beautiful name it has given itself – mercy; it goes without saying that mercy remains the privilege of the most powerful man, or better, his – beyond the law.18

Notes 1 See, e.g., Ripstein (2009, 300–25), Kelly (2018), Scheid (1982), Hill (2002). 2 I should emphasize that I do not mean “dialectic” in Kant’s own technical sense, but in something more like that of Hegel. 3 “Many a man would be astonished if he saw how his conscience, which seems to him such an imposing affair, is really made up. It probably consists of one-fifth fear of men, one-fifth fear of the gods, one-fifth prejudice, one-fifth vanity, and one-fifth habit …” (Schopenhauer 1995, 127). 4 See Mackie (1982). 5 Kant never explains how we’re here entitled to move from morality (in the basic sense of an act’s conformity to the Moral Law) to virtue (which concerns an agent’s character as a whole). At this point in the second Critique, Kant has only discussed morality in terms of the motive of duty, the immediate determination of the will by recognition of the authority of the moral law. Kant has yet to introduce the broader features of virtue that address the distinctive liabilities of human nature (i.e., our need for both moral resolve in the face of temptation, as well a peculiar kind of “apathy” before the blandishments of self-love). 6 Kant also thinks that we must trust that this afterlife is endless. However, his for reason of this goes beyond the basic need for happiness to be properly apportioned to virtue but draws on further considerations about what we need to be able to attain full virtue in the first place. 7 See, e.g., Murphy (1987), Hill (2000). 8 For a fuller version of this argument, see Sussman (2008). 9 Kant complicates the picture by introducing the category of the passive citizen, who politically cannot speak in her own voice but must be spoken for (represented) by others. Some passive citizens, such as children and the cognitively disabled, are not liable to criminal punishment for the very reasons that exclude them from active citizenship. But Kant also considers all women and laborers

188  David Sussman to be passive citizens, although he never suggests that they are similarly exempt from criminal punishment. Kant’s account of passive citizenship is deeply puzzling, but beyond the scope of this chapter to make any real headway with (my thanks to Adam Cureton for bringing this problem to my attention). 10 Although Kant holds that we may not rape rapists, he tells us that the proper default punishment for rape is castration (MM 6:363), even though he elsewhere forbids such mutilative punishments as cutting off ears and noses because they offend against humanity in the person of the offender. 11 Kant counts murder as the one exception to this general requirement. For Kant, death is not merely the most severe punishment for murder, it is the only appropriate punishment. Kant’s reasoning here turns on the supposed incommensurability between the loss of one’s life and the loss of anything within that life. (Kant also makes an exception to this exception, claiming that some murderers motivated by honor (i.e., cases of infanticide and dueling) at least sometimes should not suffer capital punishment (see Sussman (2008)). 12 Indeed, this is just how Kant argues when he considers whether one shipwreck survivor can seize a floating plank from another, saving himself at the cost of the other’s life. Kant claims that although the first survivor has indeed culpably violated the rights of the latter, he is nevertheless “unpunishable” because “a threat of an ill that is uncertain (death by judicial verdict) cannot outweigh the fear of an ill that is certain (drowning)” (MM 6:236). Since no threat of even capital punishment could be expected to deter someone from killing another to save himself, there is no point in making such killings punishable by law, even though morally speaking they are still murder. 13 My position here is similar to that developed by Jan-Willem van der Rijt (2012). We both see punishment as a reaffirmation of the basic dignity of crime victims. However, Van der Rijt takes this expressive function to be part of the basic justification of punishment as making relations of right possible, where these relations are understood in terms of non-domination. In contrast, I see the reprobative significance of punishment as a secondary function that can come into play only after punitive institutions have been established on other, prior grounds. 14 Recent approaches to “restorative justice” may complicate this picture. However, it’s unclear whether such programs can really serve as a replacement for systems of criminal punishment, or rather as something to be added to such systems. See e.g., Robinson (2003). My thanks to Adam Cureton for pressing me on these issues. 15 Kant never says whether these retributive considerations apply only to murderers, or whether the dissolving island polity must also, say, exact all the fines that have been imposed on people who have been convicted of misdemeanors. Murder may be special here not just due to its gravity, but because it is the only crime that supposedly has an a priori penalty. Failing to exact the fullest measure of permissible punishment of a crime is normally permissible, and so leniency does not clearly suggest that the victim’s rights haven’t been taken seriously. However, for Kant no such mercy can be shown in the case of murder: the connection between crime and punishment is supposedly much tighter in this case than in any other. To decline to execute a murderer dismisses the significance of his crime in a way that failing to make someone complete community service for vandalism need not. 16 See Korsgaard (1989) as well as Sussman (2005b, 2005a). 17 This is no doubt an oversimplification; there are animals and there are animals, and such social creatures as apes and whales might be much closer to humanity than they are, say, to frogs and snakes. 18 Nietzsche (1989, II, §10, 72–3), Nietzsche’s emphasis.

Respect and Retribution in the Kingdom of Ends  189

Works Cited Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2000. “Kant on Punishment: A Coherent Mix of Deterrence and Retribution?” In Respect, Pluralism and Justice: Kantian Perspectives, 173–99. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2002. “Wrongdoing, Desert, and Punishment.” In Human Welfare and Moral Worth: Kantian Perspectives, 310–39. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kelly, Erin I. 2018. The Limits of Blame: Rethinking Punishment and Responsibility. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Korsgaard, Christine M. 1989. “Morality as Freedom.” In Kant’s Practical Philosophy Reconsidered: Papers Presented at the Seventh Jerusalem Philosophical Encounter, December 1986, edited by Yirmiyahu Yovel, 23–48. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. Mackie, J. L. 1982. “Morality and the Retributive Emotions.” Criminal Justice Ethics 1 (1):3–10. Murphy, Jeffrie G. 1987. “Does Kant Have a Theory of Punishment?” Columbia Law Review 87 (3):509–32. Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1989. On the Genealogy of Morals. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage. van der Rijt, Jan-Willem. 2012. The Importance of Assent: A Theory of Coercion and Dignity. Dordrecht: Springer. Ripstein, Arthur. 2009. Force and Freedom: Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Robinson, Paul H. 2003. “The Virtues of Restorative Processes, the Vices of “Restorative Justice”.” Utah Law Review:375–88. Scheid, Don E. 1982. “Kant’s Retributivism.” Ethics 93 (2):262–82. Schopenhauer, Arthur. 1995. On the Basis of Morality. Translated by E. F. J. Payne. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Sussman, David. 2005a. “Kantian Forgiveness.” Kant-Studien 96 (1):85–107. Sussman, David. 2005b. “Perversity of the Heart.” Philosophical Review 114 (2):153–77. Sussman, David. 2008. “Shame and Punishment in Kant’s ‘Doctrine of Right’.” The Philosophical Quarterly 58 (231):299–317. Thomason, Krista K. 2021. “The Symbol of Justice: Bloodguilt in Kant.” Kantian Review 26 (1):79–97.

9 Kantian Human Dignity and a “Community of Rights” Marcus Düwell

The ‘Kingdom of Ends’ seems to create a necessary conceptual relationship between the idea of a duty, respect for humanity, and the creation of respective political associations. Human dignity is seen as the foundational concept within a normative order that is built on respect for human rights. The chapter makes the case that we can only understand this ‘modern’ concept of human dignity appropriately if we get this conceptual relationship right. The chapter will discuss this question primarily with regard to the contemporary use of human dignity, but I assume that the Kantian moral philosophy gives us the tools to develop such an appropriate understanding of human dignity. On this view, one should see human dignity not only as a specific status from which specific rights can be justified or derived. Rather, seeing ourselves under moral authority, and in that sense as beings that deserve respect, is at the same time the basis for the creation of a political association of right-holders. Human dignity is the foundation of a ‘Community of Rights’ (Gewirth 1996), which has implications for the way we should understand human rights in general as well as the current human rights regime. In the literature it is fundamentally contested whether the Kantian use of the term ‘human dignity’ is identical to, or even compatible with, the way in which the concept of human dignity is used in contemporary national and international law – particularly within the human rights regime (see e.g., Steigleder 2002, Sensen 2011). It is likewise contested to what extent a Kantian concept of human rights is possible at all (Sangiovanni 2017). Moreover, these debates are widely experienced as confusing because they relate different highly contested concepts to each other: the appropriate conceptualization of ‘human rights’ and the respective relationship of these different conceptualizations to ‘human dignity’ are both contested. Likewise, there is a significant dispute about which views Kant himself held with regard to those concepts and their mutual relationships. This latter question is further complicated by ongoing disputes about matters of interpretation regarding possible changes of Kant’s views on DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-12

Kantian Human Dignity  191 those topics in different periods of his writings. In this controversy the question of how the different versions of the Categorical Imperative relate to each other is of central importance, as is the relationship between Kant’s views in the ‘Groundwork’, the ‘second Critique’ and the later ‘Metaphysics of Morals’ (e.g. Horn 2014). As already mentioned, it is not the aim of this chapter to answer the intricate interpretative questions within Kant scholarship (the chapter relies, however, on some interpretative steps that have been undertaken in Beyleveld, Düwell 2020). The chapter will rather proceed in the following way: in a first step it will canvass what a philosophical concept of human dignity would have to achieve in order to be compatible with the contemporary use of the concept of human dignity. In a second step the chapter will relate these considerations to methodological starting points of a Kantian philosophy. In a third step I will propose how we can reconstruct the concept of human dignity in line with this methodology. I will emphasize that human dignity should be understood not as a value, but rather as a normative status that is grounded in the consistent self-understanding of all human beings. The fourth and final part will draw some consequences from this approach. It will be emphasized that this understanding of human dignity will open perspectives for functions of human dignity that have up to now not been of central interest – in particular, human dignity’s function as a guideline for the further development of the human rights regimes in times of political transformations. Human dignity in terms of practical self-understanding should be the guideline for the transformations in digitalization, sustainability, and intercultural understanding. One could be surprised that I choose such a broad focus, which does not allow me to discuss all kinds of detailed questions. There are reasons for this choice. Human dignity is a topic that can hardly be understood by focussing on human dignity alone; it is always interwoven with broad systematic perspectives. In this case, it is interwoven with two different systematic contexts: the contemporary human rights regime and Kant’s philosophy. We can understand human dignity in Kant only within the architectonic of his writing. Since Kant is a systematic author without a fully developed system, it is unavoidable that some systematic reconstructions are necessary. At the same time we cannot transfer his approach directly into our time, but we have to relate it to the way human dignity functions within the current normative order. But the latter context raises at least as many questions as Kant scholarship does. All of these complications should not be ignored.

9.1 What a Concept of Human Dignity Would Have to Achieve? Based on the legal history of the concept, it seems at first natural to see human dignity as a normative concept that aims to protect human beings against extreme atrocities – that is the way human dignity entered the stage of international politics and international law after World War II.

192  Marcus Düwell Moreover, such an understanding of the concept of human dignity seems to fit very well with the Kantian prohibition against treating human beings as ‘means only’. At the same time, however, human dignity was in international law conceptualized as the foundation of the entire system of human rights, and consequentially as the foundation of the legal systems and legal institutions that understand themselves as committed to the human rights-regime (Rothaar 2015; Riley 2018). Obviously, such legal systems concern themselves with much more than only extreme atrocities. If human dignity is the basis of the entire system of rights it would also have to function as justification of the right to health care, education, and the other human rights provisions. This raises at least two questions: first, in which way does this respect for human dignity ground the respect for human rights; second, how is the type of respect for human beings that rules out such extreme forms of instrumentalization connected to the much broader type of respect that grounds the wide scope of entitlements that the human rights regime provides. Thus, are both even based on the same concept? An additional level of complication follows from the fact that the contexts in which the notion ‘human dignity’ were used were permanently extended over the last decades. These later contexts include, for instance, the discussion to what extent, if any, embryos and animals have dignity, or the debate to what extent human dignity forbids voluntary involvement in activities like dwarf-tossing (Beyleveld, Brownsword 2001, 1). Furthermore, in discussions about identity politics and micro-aggression even subtle forms of communication that others could perceive as misrecognition are described as dignity violations (see regarding the relationship between so-called ‘dignity’ and ‘victimhood’ cultures Campbell, Manning 2018). Lastly, aside from all these usages that refer to regulations of human actions, there is a broad tradition in which human dignity is connected to the self-perception of agents, their (feeling of) self-worth and esteem, their virtuous life and (related to this) respectful recognition in social contexts (Dillon 1995). This list of relevant contexts is far from exhaustive, but it already shows that it is at the very least highly unclear if a singular concept of dignity can cover all these diverse discussions. This question about the possible reach of a single concept cannot be answered by looking into the history of the use of the word ‘human dignity’. Conceptual clarification is required. Thus, let us briefly try to develop a rational reconstruction of this concept.1 First, in order to be able to provide a justification or a ground for human rights the concept has to be a normative concept on a basic level in the sense that more concrete normative requirements can be shown to follow from it. These normative requirements entail certain material rights: rights to be protected against certain violations, rights to get basic support, and rights to live under a political government that has to be legitimized by the will of the subjects. In that sense one could say that the

Kantian Human Dignity  193 protection against the aforementioned atrocities concern only an extreme case of dignity violations. Thus, a prohibition against instrumentalizing or objectifying human beings must be seen within a broader scheme of normative duties. It is essential that we understand human dignity as a complex and fundamental normative concept: not only as one specific element of a normative order, but as the integrating basis of the order itself. Various legal scholars have claimed that in normal legislative procedures there should not be an explicit reference to human dignity at all, since it is implicitly present in the normal functioning of the state. Only in extraordinary circumstances should we refer to human dignity, circumstances where aspects of the basic functioning or the fundamental structure of the state itself are at stake (Geddert-Steinacher 1990). Second, these normative requirements are not static, because the entire idea of human rights is conceptualized as a regime in development: different societal and political conditions require different human-rights responses. Human rights typically legitimate political power and determine the form of its exercise. That entails that political power has to be exercised in accordance with the rule of law. Human rights are therefore not a moral utopia (Moyn 2010) but a normative requirement that elaborates the normative preconditions of the form of governance that we in modern times call the state. Emphasizing the importance of the rule of law is not to say that the current form of realization of the enforcement of the rule of law is the only possible way, however – things may develop further in the future. Third, we have to take account of the topic debated in the literature under the heading ‘human rights – moral or political?’ Although human dignity cannot be understood as a moral ideal, it claims a certain normative authority that precedes the actual existence of the state. If it did not it would not be plausible that human rights are used to critique states that fail to shape political power in accordance with those requirements. But at the same time, the fact that the authority of human dignity precedes the existence of the state does not mean that the concept belongs only to the moral domain. Thus, human dignity must, in some sense, have a central function in our understanding of morality, but at the same time it must have a justificatory function in the political and legal domain as well. Giving moral authority to the legal system as such is, however, distinct from the idea that all kind of moral convictions can be smuggled into the basic concept of a constitution. Scholars have warned for decades against such a process where ‘human dignity’ is introduced in a constitution as an empty notion “with no fixed content of its own, lending itself to merely rhetorical and opportunistic application” (Birnbacher 1996, 107) and so blocking open discourses about controversial topics (see as well: Beyleveld, Brownsword 2001). If human dignity in this sense functions as a discussion-stopper, it runs the risk of undermining the functioning of the legal system and effective human rights protection.2

194  Marcus Düwell Fourth, the centre of this normative requirement is respect for the human person. This should, however, as already mentioned, not be understood as only a particular aspect of the normative order but as its integrative foundation. Respect for the human person should be seen as further specified in the protection of those conditions that human beings need in order to live an autonomous life, a life in accordance with their status of beings with dignity. Liberty rights, rights that enable them to further develop their capacities (education), rights to support in cases of need and vulnerability, political rights: all of these are rights that protect conditions that human beings jointly need as conditions to exercise their agency. They need those conditions not all to the same extent and there is a significant level of cultural variation, but they are generic conditions of agency insofar as they follow from general aspects of the human condition. Fifth, human rights cannot only be understood as entitlements that give us only rights as individuals. Human rights are always rights of individuals, but human rights is not an individualistic concept. Human rights are not just entitlements, but at the same time a commitment to a specific normative order. Since we all have the equal status of right-holders, since there is a correspondence between rights and duties, and since joint efforts are required to realize rights protection, there must be a communal dimension to the concept. If human dignity functions as the justification of the human rights regime, an appropriate understanding of human dignity would have to be able to articulate this communal dimension. This list of elements that the concept of human dignity has to cover is not complete. But what we have established thus far is that human dignity is a concept that would have to provide a justification for the existence of a governance that is based on respect for the rights of all human beings, that the normative authority of this concept precedes the existence of concrete political bodies, that respect articulates itself in the protection of the enabling-conditions for an autonomous life, and that human dignity has to give us reasons to understand ourselves as associated in our humanity and to create, accordingly, political associations appropriate for human rights protection.

9.2 A Kantian Line to Human Dignity Various authors (e.g., Scheler 1973) fear that a Kantian ethics will fail to justify moral duties because of its formality or emptiness and argue that inserting a concept of ‘value’ could serve as a remedy. Accordingly, they tried to conceptualize human dignity as a basic value (most influentially perhaps in Dürig 1956). These attempts have, however, attracted a lot of strong critiques (e.g., Waldron 2012, Göbel 2019). An alternative is to see human dignity as the ascription of a status (e.g., Neuhäuser, Stoecker 2014, Waldron 2012), which reconstructs the origin of human dignity in a contingent and distinct status of nobility (dignity of the judge, king,

Kantian Human Dignity  195 priest, etc.), which, in the course of history, is extended to all human beings. The respective normative duty that we have towards beings with dignity is – in this perspective – to not humiliate them with regard to this status. But why should we extend this contingent dignity to every human being? We could assume that it is a shared but contingent conviction to value a lifestyle, a world, a society in which people treat each other as noble beings in the sense that this would be a world we want to live in. But we can wonder whether such an idea of a status that grounds the ascription of rights would come with a form of necessity to do so. And we can also wonder whether this status is just a universal extension of the status of nobility, or whether this status is something more intrinsically intertwined with the ideas of morality and respect. I assume that the Kantian pathway to dignity goes along such a line. Now, I have to explain what the attribute ‘Kantian’ means in this context. Without further exegetical justification, I assume the following features to be central to any Kantian approach to truly deserve the name.3 Kantian philosophy starts from the perspective of the judging being (Düring, Düwell 2015; see also Bell 1987, Longuenesse 1998, Steigleder 2002, Makkreel 2015, Waxman 2014). I assume that it is distinctive of a Kantian approach that it develops the philosophy from the first-person perspective. This by itself does not entail a commitment to some form of idealistic metaphysics: the emphasis on judgment is prior to any discussion about different possible metaphysical accounts. Kantian transcendental philosophy is, in this sense, an attempt to make sense of “the human standpoint” (Longuenesse 2005); understanding ourselves consistently from the perspective of a being whose primary activity is to form judgments about the world and about himself. And whatever the contents of those judgments may be, they have to be at least consistent with the perspective of the being that forms judgments. Thus, methodologically, Kant’s critical project is an investigation into the kind of presuppositions that someone forming judgments necessarily has to embrace. This means that the kind of necessity such an approach can identify is a necessity within judgments. If human dignity brings with it a form of necessity, this is a necessity from the perspective of judging beings. This may seem to be a limitation for such an approach, but I assume that it is not a problematic one. Human understanding in all its varieties4 is bound to judgments: we only understand something by forming judgments, and therefore we can say that the necessity would have to be found in the self-understanding of judging beings (Beyleveld, Düwell 2020). This means that even when pure conceptual questions are addressed, they are never only addressed in the sense of the coherence between concepts, but always also with regard to the possibility that they can be concepts of a judging being in the first place. The judging being is always implicitly present in understanding, and this assumption distinguishes a Kantian approach from mainstream approaches in contemporary analytic philosophy.

196  Marcus Düwell As such, I contend that Kant is, in a very specific sense, bound to a form of philosophical anthropology: he outlines basic conditions of the possibility of forming judgments, which – as we could say – is the basic condition of the human form of life. In the words of Sebastian Rödl: “The power of judgment is not a power to this or that; it is the power überhaupt” (Rödl 2018, 14). However, Rödl develops the power of judgment for the theoretical perspective only, and I would stress that for a Kantian approach, the differences and the interrelationships between the various forms of exercising the power of judgment (theoretical, practical, aesthetic) are of crucial importance. Where theoretical judgments are about knowledge, moral judgments are judgments that agents form about themselves, and thus they have a self-reflexive structure of a different kind. Practical judgments are, in some sense, judgments about dimensions of action that agents form by reflecting on relevant aspects of themselves in their capacity as beings that are able to act. If there is a form of necessity, it is a necessity that is based on the insight that there are certain judgments that agents cannot avoid forming about themselves if they are to understand themselves consistently as agents. In this sense, Kantian practical philosophy deals with our practical self-understanding as agents. The question that arises from here is whether we can find an appropriate approach to human dignity by considering whether, within the judgments agents have necessarily to form about themselves, there is also the ascription of this fundamental status that requires respect for ourselves and all other human beings. In that sense the question becomes whether we can find an appropriate understanding of human dignity in our self-understanding as practical beings. This is the topic of the next section.

9.3 Human Dignity and Practical Self-Understanding The perspective of the agent is always presupposed in a Kantian practical philosophy. Not just as a factual background, but rather as the perspective from which the entire practical philosophy is developed. That means that normative commitments are explained as commitments that the agent cannot consistently deny whilst taking up the judging perspective. I emphasized the importance of different forms of judgments (theoretical, practical, and aesthetic judgments) but, in some sense, these differences are also bridged by the perspective of the agent. From the practical perspective, I always have to start with understanding myself at the very least as an agent, that is: as someone who is able to intervene in the external world, who is able to strive for goals, and who experiences the world as providing opportunities for successful action. I have to understand myself as someone for whom it is relevant to reach specific goals rather than other goals. It is clear that in some sense the theoretical and aesthetic perspective is presupposed here, since I have to make judgments about

Kantian Human Dignity  197 things that are the case and I need some form of understanding that the world is not fixed as it is, but that there is room for different futures (i.e., the future is in some sense open and a space of possibilities). Practical reason is primary here in the sense that the other judgments are integrated in the practical perspectives of the agent. The agent must see his actions under the authority of the instrumental imperative, according to which he has to see the means to realize his goals as obligatory for him, at least as long as his goals are really his goals of action (and not just wishes).5 He cannot consistently understand himself as an agent when denying this. And likewise, the agent has to see himself as bound by the eudaimonistic imperative, which is not something to which reason commands him, but something he discovers as his nature. By preferring specific goals instead of others, the agent is implicitly committed to striving for happiness. The agent can be mistaken whether the chosen goals really support this happiness, but there must be at least a commitment to the authority of happiness. Were he not to see his striving as oriented towards goals that he sees as worthwhile to achieve, the agent would not understand in general terms why he should strive for something specific at all. This eudaimonistic orientation is not the final commitment but has to be overruled in cases in which the agent understands that there are moral duties. That is, the agent must see himself under the moral imperative that obliges him to evaluate his maxims from the perspective of whether or not they are acceptable for all other agents as well. Thus, the general structure of the moral imperative is that the agent has to evaluate his striving for happiness under the perspective of universal acceptability. It is possible for the agent to develop the idea of an end that he is categorically obliged to adopt; an end that is obligatory in all his actions, independent of whatever goal he wants to achieve.6 Here it is important to note that the commitment to the Categorical Imperative as a moral law is justified by the consistency of the practical self-understanding of the agent: the acting agent cannot make sense of his own perspective as an agent if he is not also assuming himself to be acting under the authority of the Categorical Imperative (which is not saying that he cannot fail to follow this authority). It is also relevant here that we have to see the three imperatives as imperatives agents necessarily have to adopt in order to develop a consistent form of practical self-understanding at all. This also means that it is impossible to justify the Categorical Imperative independent of a broader perspective of agency in general. The Categorical Imperative is embedded, and must be embedded, in a set of normative commitments that agents have to embrace, which necessarily entails the ability to form maxims and regularities in the realization of goals and intentions, to understand how the realization of these goals is connected to the commitments to means that are prerequisites for their realization, to interpret the importance of these goals of action within broader goals in life, and

198  Marcus Düwell to judge them in light of a fundamental moral commitment. But the normativity in this entire enterprise is not based on specific goals or values that the agent wants to achieve, and it is also not based on the absolute, independent, or objective value of human beings. Rather, it is based on the necessity to embrace those commitments in order to understand ourselves consistently as agents in a practical perspective. If that is correct, we cannot develop the concept of human dignity independently from the perspective of agents but must understand it as part of the unfolding of the consistent view on the “human standpoint”. This agent is, however, never accessible as agent ‘an sich’. Practical selfunderstanding is necessarily related to the understanding of an agent that is not an abstract one, but a corporeally, psychologically, culturally, and socially embedded being. I assume that this is the agent Kant is usually talking about in his moral philosophy. Kant also develops the idea of a pure rational being, a ‘holy will’, the idea of a being for whom the Moral Law would not be an imperative but the maxim he would naturally act upon. But this pure rational being is an idea that the finite agent is able to develop. The finite human being has to develop such an idea in order to be able to understand the nature of the moral law as something that is produced by our rational nature. But that does not mean that we could develop the self-understanding as morally committed beings in abstraction from the broader context of our practical self-understanding as finite beings and our further capacities. The idea of ourselves as bound by the Categorical Imperative is rather an idea that presupposes the ability to develop such an idea of a pure rational being, and it likewise presupposes that we are agents who do not by nature follow the moral law; otherwise it would not be an imperative for us. This overview shows in a nutshell that understanding ourselves as bound to moral commitments is something that is implicitly present in the consistent self-understanding of agent, and that this does not require more than consistent reflection on oneself. If this insight follows from a consistent reflection on our own status as judging beings, it necessarily is a reflection on the finite and embedded being that the agent is as well. As finite and embedded being the agent is also a living being, and part of a contingent cultural and social setting. If that is the case, then my practical self-understanding is never only an understanding of myself as an individual but also an understanding of myself as member of a cultural and social community, and likewise as a human being as such. And as a human being I also have to see myself as someone who has normative commitments. It is only if my perspective on myself is already a normatively committed perspective that I have reasons to see the other as someone to whom I owe respect as well. Kant articulates this most clearly when he elaborates, in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, the three maxims that are required for the possibility of the sensus communis (CPJ 5:294), which are ‘to think for

Kantian Human Dignity  199 oneself’, ‘to think in the position of everyone else’ and ‘always to think in accord with oneself’ (see more in detail Beyleveld, Düwell 2020). Consistent practical self-understanding entails the moral idea to see my maxims from the perspective of their acceptability for all other agents, and this also forms a necessary element of the possibility to develop a joint outlook on the world in moral terms. And, at the same time, this joint outlook on the world does not eliminate differences between agents and their goals. It entails an awareness of the fact that the other is embodied in a different body, gender, cultural and social setting. The joint outlook on the world consists of respect for legitimate differences. If human dignity in that sense is a status to which we owe respect, and if this status is based in the possibility of embodied human beings to form a consistent form of practical self-understanding, then the necessary conditions for the ability to understand ourselves consistently deserve respect and safeguarding. What these conditions concretely are depends on contingent elements of the human condition: the biological and psychological elements of our existence as human beings and contingent elements of our social and political world. And many of those elements are open to contestation. If we respect each other as beings to which we owe respect, this entails a commitment to the conditions under which contingent and vulnerable human beings can live in accordance with this status. Some of these conditions are only necessary for specific individuals; some conditions are necessary only in specific cultures; and some conditions we share as human beings in general, some more some less. We all are dependent on the biological, social, and psychological conditions that enable us to live at all, and we are as well dependent on more specific means to be able to realize goals. Here is the conceptual link to (human) rights as a claim on those conditions that enable us to live according to the status of a being with dignity. But if consistent self-understanding urges me to see myself and everybody else as someone who deserves to enjoy those rights, this view shapes a normative community. Thus, even if the particular way these rights are to be instantiated can be disputed, we cannot avoid seeing each other as right-holders in a ‘Community of Rights’ (Gewirth 1996) where human beings have to respect the necessary conditions of the very possibility to live a life as beings who are able to understand themselves consistently. So far, I have not discussed explicitly the Kantian formula of the ‘Kingdom of Ends’ but this part elucidates the relevant internal conceptual relationships. Developing a consistent practical self-understanding forms the basis of the normative view on others in general. Understanding myself as bound by the moral imperative is at the same time the basis for the creation of a communal perspective. Such a communal perspective is inclusive in the sense that it is, in principle, open to humanity as such. But since this perspective is developed, and can only be developed, from the perspective of the embodied and finite judging being, it is also an

200  Marcus Düwell affirmation of the socially and culturally embedded being. This implies that those conditions deserve respect and safeguarding, which is achieved through an effective rights protection. To the extent that concrete political bodies and cultural practices, with all their contingencies, are required for this protection, the commitment to a universal ‘Community of Rights’ entails a commitment to those contingent institutions. It is important to stress that from a moral perspective they only deserve this respect in and so far as they are necessary to bring about such a protection of rights; but, of course, this opens an entire field for further considerations.

9.4 Human Dignity and the Hermeneutics of Human Rights In this last section, I will outline some implications of this view on human dignity. Over the last years, I have published various articles in which I articulated implications of this understanding of human dignity for the regulation of technology, intergenerational ethics, and various bioethical issues (Düwell 2014a, 2014b, 2016). Here, I only want to emphasize four elements: 1

Human rights in development. To a large extent, many discussions about human dignity are discussions about the most extreme forms of human rights violations. Protecting human dignity as the normative core of human rights is assumed to involve the task of protecting human beings against those extreme atrocities. Of course, I agree that respect for human dignity excludes genocides and brainwashing. But in line with the argumentation above one can wonder whether this is the most relevant point about human dignity – partially because it is so obvious that genocides are human rights violations (though, even these presumed arguments need to be rehearsed regularly). But a perhaps even more relevant function of human dignity is to provide us with normative orientation in times when the human right regime is under pressure (Douzinas 2000; Hopgood 2013), when its authority is eroding and when it is contested whether or not this regime can provide normative answers to questions concerning disruptive technologies, climate change, and global poverty. If the human rights regime is not capable of providing us with such orientation, it will be of limited relevance for the future. Significant parts of the current scepsis in the liberal normative order seem to be related to the question of whether or not such an open society will really be able to develop solutions for ecological challenges, or whether it is perhaps the liberties of the liberal societies (the assumed right to unlimited reproduction, travel, and consumption) that are the sources of those challenges. And one can furthermore ask whether the increasing replacement by human agency through technology will result in a situation where the regime of regulation by laws and right will increasingly loose its importance,

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2

3

since algorithms, nudges, and technologies will replace regulation altogether (Brownsword 2019). Regarding all those developments it seems clear that the content of human rights and their institutional embedding has to undergo significant changes, and, in that situation, we would need a normative criterion to judge whether or not those changes are in line with the basic intentions of this regime or are a form of erosion. I would propose that we should see human dignity as a normative criterion for the further development of the human rights regime and for the necessary changes of its institutions that come with it.7 Political agency. If human dignity urges us to protect those goods that are necessary to enable human beings to live a life according to a consistent form of practical self-understanding, then this implies that we should not conceptualize human dignity primarily in terms of protection of the individual against the state, but as the obligation to form a political agency that is capable of realizing such a protection (I say this e.g., with an eye on the creation of the European Union and its current contestation in times of refugee-discussions since 2015). Doing so would be a substantial revision of the traditional understanding of human rights as being primarily directed against the state, i.e., as limiting political power. The approach proposed here would rather be a positive one, in the sense that we would be obliged to create political agency in the first place. That, in turn, implies that we have a duty to create political powers that are effectively able to realize the protection needed. In times of global challenges, those powers will, to some extent, have to be supranational. But human dignity should not be transformed into a utopia (even so, there may be nothing wrong with striving for the impossible). As a normative concept it sets limits on the exercise of power, and it likewise commits us to the creation of institutions that are effectively able to realize this rights protection. Intercultural dimension. In the argument above, human dignity was introduced on a quite fundamental level, being related to human agency in general. At the same time, I maintained that the concretization depends partly on quite contingent social and political aspects. This leads to the question of the cultural embedding of the entire discussion on human rights. In this line of thought, human dignity seems to be the foundation of central normative commitments of modernity, such as the rule of law, the protection of individual rights, and democracy. Gesa Lindemann (2014) has argued that we should see human dignity as the protection of a specific openness of human beings that is a characteristic of modernity, namely the idea of social differentiation. In this view, which is informed by Durkheim and Luhmann, the central aspect of modernity is that human beings are living in differentiated life-worlds, and different human rights

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regulate access to these differentiated domains. The normative core of human dignity, however, is to ensure that human beings are not reduced to only one of those spheres, but have a specific humane openness with regard to the differentiated spheres. This is a plausible account of human dignity in sociological terms, but it raises the question to what extent human dignity is bound exclusively to the normative assumptions of Western modernity. I think that this issue is open to dispute. During 2018, we are aware that Western modernity is shaped by quite contingent conditions, such as emancipation from monotheistic religion, specific views of the individual and private property, specific concepts of history and the like. All those views must be open to contestation and revision. But this is no objection if we understand human dignity as the commitment to consistent practical self-understanding, because it implies that any specific historical contingencies merely provide a hermeneutic starting point for those discussions. In line with the ‘Kingdom of Ends’ one should see the general openness for respect for humanity in general. This respect should not be limited to one contingent tradition. At the same time this insight does not entail a duty to respect all cultures equally, but just to the degree that they are able to realize rights-protection. Worldviews, religion, and aesthetics (Joas 2011). This directly leads to my last point. The observation that the human rights regime is embedded in specific worldviews seems to be particularly challenging for an approach that aims to justify human dignity in practical selfunderstanding in general. Georg Jellinek (1919) emphasized that the entire human rights discussion found its starting point in discussions about freedom of religion. In that view the development of human rights in early modernity is seen as an important mechanism to solve the political conflicts of the religious wars through the protection of religious liberties. This is, of course, in the first instance a quite contingent historical perspective. At the same time, religious liberties may be of more fundamental importance. If it is important for human beings to be able to understand themselves as practical beings, then they have to be able to form beliefs that go beyond the scope of what they can empirically know about the world. Practical beings must be able to develop worldviews that enable them to act with an eye to long-term perspectives; they must be able to act towards the context of a future they cannot predict. They must be able to assume that the future is open for changes by means of their action. They cannot know that the future is open; they can only hope for it. Hope is a fundamental aspect of our practical existence and therefore the question “what may I hope?” is rightly the third of Kant’s big questions. That human beings have the freedom to form beliefs with regard to an overall outline of the world, that they have the freedom to live according to religious beliefs, is a central requirement for the ability

Kantian Human Dignity  203 of human beings to understand themselves consistently. But in my view, this element has in its core an aesthetic element: it is about our ability to create aesthetic perspectives on the world, our ability to see the world in the light of possibilities. It belongs to the core of human rights to protect this possibility to see the future as open. To have the liberty to transcend the scope of the world as it is now is certainly a necessary requirement for a humane world. This perspective on hope may be of particular importance in a situation where it is fundamentally contested how we can safeguard the future in light of ecological challenges. If the ‘Kingdom of Ends’ is in principle open to humanity in general, it must be open to humanity in the future. The ‘Community of Rights’ is not only a community of contemporaries but must be open to the future generations.

Notes 1 This reconstruction relies on earlier publications, see in particular: Düwell (2010, 2014, 2014a, 2014b), Göbel and Düwell (2017). 2 This problem has shown to be particularly problematic in the case of the Swiss Constitution, where the concept of “dignity of the creature“ has been introduced. Not only is the meaning of dignity open but likewise the concept of the “creature”, which was intended to refer to animals but which in its theological origin refers to everything that is created by God, is open as well (Schaber 2014). 3 Some underlying assumptions of my understanding of Kant are further explained in Beyleveld & Düwell (2020). 4 I use the term “understanding” here as a generic term that can be further differentiated into reason and understanding in a narrow sense as well as perhaps a more specific aesthetic understanding, etc. 5 For the following, see Steigleder (2002). 6 I will not justify this last step here. For a detailed defense of it see Beyleveld & Düwell (2020). 7 In this, my position is similar to that of Christopher McCrudden (2008), who sees human dignity as the interpretative core of the human rights regimes and who like me emphasizes its hermeneutic role.

Bibliography Bell, David (1987), The Art of Judgement. In: Mind 96 (382) 221–44. Beyleveld, Deryck, Brownsword, Roger (2001), Human Dignity in Bioethics and Biolaw. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beyleveld, Deryck, Düwell, Marcus (2020), The Sole Fact of Pure Reason. Kant’s Quasi-Ontological Argument for the Categorical Imperative. KantstudienErgänzungshefte. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Publishers. Birnbacher, Dieter (1996), Ambiguities in the Concept of Menschenwürde. In: Kurt Bayertz (ed), Sanctity of Life and Human Dignity. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Brownsword, Roger (2019), Law, Technology and Society. Reimagining the Regulatory Environment. London/New York: Routledge.

204  Marcus Düwell Campbell, Bradley, Manning, Jason (2018), The Rise of Victimhood Culture. Microaggression, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Dillon, Robin S. (1995), Dignity, Character, and Self-Respect. New York/London: Routledge. Douzinas, Costas (2000), The End of Human Rights. Oxford: Hart. Dürig, Günter (1956), Der Grundrechtssatz von der Menschenwürde. In: Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts 81: 117–56. Düring, Dascha (2018), Of Dragons and Owls. Rethinking Chinese and Western narratives of modernity. Utrecht: Utrecht PhD-thesis. Düring, Dascha/Düwell, Marcus (2015), Towards a Kantian Theory of Judgment: the Power of Judgment in its Practical and Aesthetic Employment. In: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18: 943–56. Düwell, Marcus (2010), Human Dignity and Human Rights. In: Paulus Kaufmann, Hannes Kuch, Christian Neuhäuser, Elaine Webster (eds.), Humiliation, Degradation, Dehumanization – Human Dignity Violated. Dordrecht: Springer, 215–30. Düwell, Marcus (2014), Human Dignity: Concept, Discussions, Philosophical Perspectives. In: Marcus Düwell, Jens Braarvig, Roger Brownsword, Dietmar Mieth (Eds.) Cambridge Handbook on Human Dignity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 23–29. Düwell, Marcus (2014a) On the Border of Life and Death: Human Dignity and Bioethics. In: Marcus Düwell, Jens Braarvig, Roger Brownsword, Dietmar Mieth (Eds.) Cambridge Handbook on Human Dignity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 526–34. Düwell, Marcus (2014b) Human Dignity and Future Generations. In: Marcus Düwell, Jens Braarvig, Roger Brownsword, Dietmar Mieth (Eds.): Cambridge Handbook on Human Dignity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 551–58. Düwell, Marcus (2016), Human dignity and intergenerational human rights. In: Gerhard Bos, Marcus Düwell (Eds.): Human Rights and Sustainability. Moral responsibilities for the future. London/New York: Routledge, 69–81. Düwell, Marcus (2017a) Transcendental Arguments and Practical SelfUnderstanding – Gewirthian Perspectives. In: Brune, Jens-Peter, Stern, Robert, Werner, Micha H. (eds.): Transcendental Arguments in Moral Theory. Berlin: De Gruyter, 161–77. Düwell, Marcus (2017b) Human Dignity and the Ethics and Regulation of Technology. In: Roger Brownsword, Eloise, Scotford, Young, Karen (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Law and Regulation of Technology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 177–96. Geddert-Steinacher, Tatjana (1990), Menschenwürde als Verfassungsbegriff: Aspekte der Rechtsprechung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts zu Art. 1 Abs. 1. Grundgesetz, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Gewirth, Alan (1996), The Community of Rights. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Göbel, Marie, Düwell, Marcus (2017), Die ‘Notwendigkeit’ der Menschenwürde. In: Mario Brandhorst, Eva Weber-Guskar (Hg.): Menschenwürde. Eine philosophische Debatte über Dimensionen ihrer Kontingenz. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 60–90. Göbel, Marie (2019), Human Dignity as the Ground of Human Rights. A Study in Moral Philosophy and Legal Practice. Utrecht: Quaestiones Infinitae.

Kantian Human Dignity  205 Hopgood, Stephen (2013), The Endtimes of Human Rights. Ithaca/New York: Cornell University Press Horn, Christoph (2014), Nichtideale Normativität. Eine neue Perspektive auf Kant’s politische Philosophie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Jellinek, Georg (1919), Die Erklärung der Menschen- und Bürgerrechte. München/ Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. Joas, Hans (2011), Die Sakralität der Person. Eine neue Genealogie der Menschenrechte. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Lindemann, Gesa (2014), Social and Cultural Presuppositions for the Use of the Concept of Human Dignity. In: Düwell, M., Braarvig, J., Brownsword, R. and Mieth, D.(eds.), Cambridge Handbook on Human Dignity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 191–99. Longuenesse, Beatrice (1998), Kant and the Capacity to Judge. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Longuenesse, Beatrice (2005), Kant on the Human Standpoint. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Makkreel, Rudolf (2015), Orientation and Judgment in Hermeneutics. Chicago: Chicago University Press. McCrudden, Christopher (2008), Human Dignity and Judicial Interpretation of Human Rights. In: The European Journal of International Law Vol. 19, no 4, 655–724. Moyn, Samuel (2010), The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Neuhäuser, Christian, Stoecker, Ralf (2014), Human dignity as universal nobility, In: Düwell, M., Braarvig, J., Brownsword, R. and Mieth, D.(eds.): Cambridge Handbook on Human Dignity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 298–309. Riley, Stephen (2018), Human Dignity and the Law. Legal and Philosophical Investigations. London/New York: Routledge. Rödl, Sebastian (2018), Self-Consciousness and Objectivity. An Introduction to Absolute Idealism. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press. Rothaar, Markus (2015), Die Menschenwürde als Prinzip des Rechts. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck. Sangiovanni, Andrea (2017), Humanity Without Dignity. Moral Equality, Respect, And Human Rights. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press. Schaber, Peter (2014), Dignity only For Humans? On the Dignity and Inherent Value of Non-Human Beings. In: Düwell, M., Braarvig, J., Brownsword, R. and Mieth, D. (eds.): Cambridge Handbook on Human Dignity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 298–309, 546–50. Scheler, Max (1973), Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values: A New Attempt toward the Foundation of an Ethical Personalism. Translated by Manfred S. Frings & Roger L. Funk. Evanston/Illinois: Northwestern University Press. Sensen, Oliver (2011), Kant on Human Dignity. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. Steigleder, Klaus (2002), Kants Moralphilosophie. Die Selbstbezüglichkeit reiner praktischer Vernunft. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler Verlag. Waldron, Jeremy (2012), Dignity, Rand, and Rights, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Waxman, Wayne (2014), Kant’s Anatomy of the Intelligent Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

10 Poverty, Dignity, and the Kingdom of Ends Corinna Mieth and Garrath Williams

For all rational beings stand under the law that each of them is to treat itself and all others never merely as a means but always at the same time as an end in itself. But by this there arises a systematic union of rational beings through common objective laws, i.e. a kingdom, which – because what these laws have as their purpose is precisely the relation of these beings to one another, as ends and means – can be called a kingdom of ends (of course only an ideal). (G 4: 433)1

In this chapter we argue that poverty should be seen as a violation of dignity, drawing on two of Kant’s formulations of the Categorical Imperative – the formula of humanity and the formula of the kingdom of ends. In our view, poverty should not be seen primarily in terms of exploitation, nor of failures to help people in need. A Kantian perspective should give proper weight to the actual and potential agency of those who suffer poverty. This is a question about power, not just the distribution of material resources. Theoretically, we will place particular emphasis on the rarely remarked reference to “ends and means” in the formula of the kingdom of ends. People are sometimes treated merely as means, which is one sort of disrespect for their equal moral status. Another form of disrespect, deeper and more general in form, is the denial of decent opportunities to act as means for others. The resulting powerlessness, we suggest, should be central to an adequate understanding of poverty and its violations of dignity. We will not, here, try to develop a Kantian account of duties to address poverty. This would require a venture into Kant’s political theory, including questions of property, public goods and international right (see e.g. Gilabert 2017, Holtman 2004, 2018, Loriaux 2020). We will suggest, however, that no Kantian agent who has some effective say in social, economic, and political relations can treat severe or even relative poverty as a matter of indifference. However imperfect, the resulting duties are not well-expressed in terms of beneficence. Instead, they should be seen in terms of the imperative of “systematic union” that frames Kant’s ideal of a kingdom of ends. DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-13

Poverty, Dignity, and the Kingdom of Ends  207 Both in academic debates and in institutional declarations, poverty is often regarded as a violation of human dignity (e.g. Schaber 2010, Mieth 2008, 2012, Sedmak 2013, Singh 2017).2 Kant’s influence on discussions of human dignity is immense. But this is mainly in terms of his prohibition of instrumentalization (cf. recently Kleingeld 2020, Kerstein 2013, Papadaki 2016). It is hard to make sense of the wrong of poverty in these terms. Some poor people are exploited (as emphasized by e.g. MeckledGarcia 2013 or Wenar 2008). But many are not. If one frames poverty as a failure to assist (e.g. Singer 1972, 2009), it is also hard to see it as a violation of dignity. With the possible exception of easy rescue cases, beneficence is an imperfect duty. It leaves wide latitude with regard to whom to help and how to do so. Moreover, as we will stress, assistance may itself humiliate or demean. The failure to help some or many persons in need does not suggest a direct violation of dignity, let alone some sort of instrumentalization. Our main aim, then, is to show how poverty represents a violation of dignity within Kant’s ethical framework. We proceed in four steps. First, we spell out Kant’s notion of human dignity for “rational beings with needs” (DV 6: 453). Second, we ask what it means not to respect the equal moral status of persons. Here we distinguish two theses: a. the vulnerability to instrumentalization thesis and b. the humiliation thesis. Third, we show what it means to respect the equal moral status of persons in terms of the formula of the kingdom of ends, introducing two further theses: c. the respect-for-ends-in-themselves thesis and d. the treating-others-as-ends-and-means thesis. Fourth, we argue that poverty should be understood as a matter of powerlessness and exclusion. This represents its primary insult in Kantian terms: disrespect for the equal moral worth and inherent dignity of persons.

10.1 Kant’s Conception of Human Dignity Kant’s conception of human dignity emphasizes two different aspects of human nature. These relate to our double nature as “rational beings with needs” (DV 6: 453) and, more specifically, to the problems we face in realizing moral demands when some are needy and others are powerful. As persons or rational beings, we have an inviolable dignity. This represents a first and fundamental notion of dignity as an inalienable equality of moral standing, “an absolute inner worth” (DV 6: 435), “the supreme limiting condition in the use of all means” (G 4: 438). Elizabeth Anderson (2008), Oliver Sensen (2011), and Jeremy Waldron (2013) have emphasized how Kant transforms an older notion of dignity. His conception universalizes the honour and self-esteem traditionally claimed by the nobility: a notion that locates dignity in a privileged social status. On Kant’s account, dignity becomes the birthright of every human being. It implies duties to respect the standing of every other person. It implies

208  Corinna Mieth and Garrath Williams duties of self-assertion – no one should allow herself to be a mere means for others. Not least, as we shall stress, it implies duties to be useful to others – that is, to act as means for them. At the same time, Kant is well aware that human beings continue to stand in relations of inferiority and superiority. This gives rise to a second aspect of dignity, as something that can be diminished or upheld. Kant states, for example, that we are able to “forfeit” or “violate the dignity of humanity” in our own person (DV 6: 435, 429). Dignity in terms of social status refers to people’s relation to others and their sense of themselves. Moral dignity is inviolable and absolute, whereas social dignity is violable and gradable. Someone who acts as if she had lower worth than others does not uphold her own moral dignity. Kant refers to this as “false humility (servility)” (DV 6: 420). Someone who assumes he has higher value than others falls into arrogance (DV 6: 435, 465). Similarly, you may be wrongly treated by others: exploited or demeaned, as if you had a lower standing, which is arrogance on their part, or as if you had a higher standing, which is servility on their part. This framing has close connection to approaches to dignity developed by Avishai Margalit (1998) and Peter Schaber (2010), which stress the ability to live a life based on self- and mutual respect. Their emphasis is not so much on individual failures to live up to one’s own moral status, but rather on what it does to others if we fail to respect their dignity or equal moral standing. Margalit, for example, defines humiliation in a “normative sense” in terms of “any sort of behaviour or condition that constitutes a sound reason for a person to consider his or her self-respect injured” (Margalit 1998, 9). A life in dignity is endangered when unequal social status gives rise to treatment that disrespects someone’s equal moral status and infringes upon their self-respect. Kant divides our duties to others into duties of respect and duties of love. “The duty of respect for my neighbour is contained in the maxim not to degrade any other to a mere means to my ends (not to demand that another throw himself away in order to slave for my end)” (DV 6: 450). This appears quite different from a duty of love: “to make others’ ends my own (provided only that these are not immoral)” (DV 6: 450). “By carrying out the duty of love to someone I put another under obligation; I make myself deserving from him. But in observing a duty of respect I put only myself under obligation; I keep myself within my own bounds…” (DV 6: 450). While it seems clear that violations of the duty of respect can be interpreted as failures to recognise people’s dignity, this is less obvious when it comes to duties of love. Failures to help someone in need may not instrumentalize that person; only in some cases, we suggest, do they disrespect her status as an end in herself (see Section 10.3.1 below). At the same time, some forms of help, which might seem to correspond to duties of love, can pose risks to dignified social relations. Assistance may disrespect the beneficiary’s equal moral standing by

Poverty, Dignity, and the Kingdom of Ends  209 emphasizing her unequal social status or dependency. In terms of moral standing, giver and receiver obviously stand on a fundamental footing of equality. Beneficence, however, creates a sort of asymmetry. The receiver contracts a duty of gratitude.3 Moreover, this duty often supervenes on a social inequality, even if (in more modern societies) this no longer takes the form of distinct ranks. Beneficence is most easily practiced when one person has “means in excess of his own needs”; it is most badly needed when another person suffers a deficit (DV 6: 453). Alongside a relative lack of social power, the recipient now stands in the giver’s debt. Kant advises, then, that the giver should make deliberate efforts to compensate for his one-sided power to help and to minimize the “binding” connected with duties of gratitude: Someone who is rich (has abundant means for the happiness of others, i.e., means in excess of his own needs) should hardly even regard beneficence as a meritorious duty on his part … He must also carefully avoid any appearance of intending to bind the other by it; for if he showed that he wanted to put the other under an obligation (which always humbles the other in his own eyes), it would not be a true benefit that he rendered him. Instead he must show that he is himself put under obligation by the other’s acceptance or honoured by it, hence that the duty is merely something that he owes; unless (as is better) he can practice his beneficence in complete secrecy. (DV 6: 453, our emphasis) The giver honours the beneficiary’s equal moral standing by taking on a debt of his own and – so far as he can – releasing the other from the bond that would otherwise be created. Someone who enjoys excess wealth, for example, should refuse the temptation to convert this social power into phony moral superiority or credit. As noted, Kant refers to this as the vice of arrogance (DV 6: 465). Duties of love must be carried out so as not to infringe on dignity: they must demonstrate respect and remain compatible with self-respect, although the social standing or power positions of donor and recipient may be quite asymmetrical. These injunctions do not cancel the duty of gratitude, but they do aim to remove its sting: the painful sense of diminished dignity. As Kant notes, this represents a major temptation to ingratitude: “we fear that by showing gratitude we take the inferior position of a dependent in relation to his protector, which is contrary to real self-esteem (pride in the dignity of humanity in one’s own person)” (DV 6: 459, our emphasis). The same fear may serve a more constructive role, however, if it motivates prudence and self-responsibility. Just as we should avoid the indignity of servility or of making ourselves mere means for others, we should – Kant holds – avoid dependency and indebtedness:

210  Corinna Mieth and Garrath Williams Contract no debt for which you cannot give full security. – Do not accept favours you could do without, and do not be a parasite or a flatterer or (what really differs from these only in degree) a beggar. Be thrifty, so that you will not become destitute. (DV 6: 436) Nonetheless, however prudently we conduct ourselves, there are bound to be situations in which we are vulnerable and depend on others. As “beings with needs,” we must will beneficence as a maxim, on pain of a contradiction in the will (G 4: 423). And, of course, large disparities in social power imply that some enjoy “abundant means … in excess of [their] own needs,” while many others are left wanting through no fault of their own. Thus Kant’s well-known claim: Having the resources to practice such beneficence as depends on the goods of fortune is, for the most part, a result of certain human beings being favoured through the injustice of the government, which introduces an inequality of wealth that makes others need their beneficence. (DV 6: 454) In sum, there are clear tensions between our equal moral dignity and (often unequal) social status, including powers to act and needs for help. Kant lessens these by emphasizing how beneficence and gratitude, rightly practiced, recognise that social power and abundant means are merely affordances in doing well by others: there is no dignity in possessing them and hardly even merit in using them well. Unnecessary dependence is to be avoided, but there is no indignity in accepting help that one needs. But the fact remains that we readily make mistakes in both directions. We may find honour in social privilege and bind or oblige others even as we assist them; we may feel indignity in neediness and, if helped, experience a sense of humiliation rather than gratitude.

10.2 What Does It Mean Not to Respect the Moral Status of Persons in the Context of Poverty? In this section, we discuss two ways in which poverty may be thought to violate people’s equal moral standing and diminish their social dignity: the vulnerability-to-instrumentalization thesis and the humiliation thesis. Kant describes “the poor” as those “who lack the most basic necessities” (DV 6: 457). Such neediness, of course, presents terrible problems of health and survival. On our account, however, it is not necessarily a problem of dignity. Poverty represents a violation of dignity insofar as a person’s ability to live a life in self-respect is infringed upon by others or institutional arrangements – or, as Peter Schaber puts it, “insofar as poor people are dependent on others in a degrading way” (2011, 151).4

Poverty, Dignity, and the Kingdom of Ends  211 10.2.1 The Vulnerability-to-Instrumentalization Thesis Many philosophers hold that, on a Kantian framing, instrumentalization is the paradigm denial of dignity. For example, Samuel Kerstein holds that the decisive feature of a “Kant-Inspired Account of Dignity” is the prohibition of instrumentalization: “an agent’s treatment of another fails to respect his dignity if the treats the other merely as a means” (2013, 139, cf. 127ff.). Assuming that using someone as a mere means is generally more severe than other forms of wrongdoing, a natural way to frame poverty as a violation of dignity is to see it as a social condition involving vulnerability to systematic instrumentalization. As Elizabeth Ashford writes, exploitation often accompanies circumstances of severe poverty: the reason the workers accept very long hours in poor safety conditions is because they face the choice between accepting these working conditions or destitution. The “option” of destitution is unsustainable relative to an objective conception of well-being, given that it is liable to lead to their children’s starvation, for example … Thus their options are restricted to the point that they have no acceptable choice but to accept the working conditions … Sweatshop labor is associated with ruthless infliction of harm on especially vulnerable individuals in order to extract as much money from them as possible, which is an extreme case of using as mere means. (2013, 148f.) Such instrumentalization may have the further effect of cementing poverty, both for the persons directly affected and in terms of economic systems that rely on such exploitation. While these problems are urgent and undeniable, the broader problem of extreme poverty is not well captured in such terms. In many cases, whole groups of people are marginalized by economic systems, such that no actors are exploiting them or even consider doing so. In this case, it seems a stretch to describe their problem in terms of vulnerability to instrumentalization. “Vulnerability” only makes sense in terms of a foreseeable threat. As already noted, failures to help or to challenge such situations, on the part of those who are more fortunate, do not seem to contradict the prohibition of instrumentalization. If there is still a violation of dignity, we will need to capture it in other terms. 10.2.2 The Humiliation Thesis Lucy Allais considers the poverty of non-exploited persons in terms of the reliance on charity that it involves. If a person does not even have the option of exploitative work, then seeking private charity may be his only way to survive. In this case, as Allais puts it, his basic needs are “met in the wrong way.”

212  Corinna Mieth and Garrath Williams The person whose basic needs are met through someone else’s giving is having their fundamental needs met as a result of a choice of another person. Being a subject of a state means having an entitlement to the defense of your basic freedoms, including absolute poverty relief. In the absence of this, the person in absolute poverty is forced into a situation in which their innate freedom is not respected. The only way in which they can meet their basic needs is by subjecting themselves to the discretionary choices of others. Since, on this account, being a free agent is a matter of not being subject in this way to the discretionary choices of others, this means that they are forced into a position in which the only way they can survive is by acting in a way that is not compatible with respecting their freedom. This is why it is demeaning. (2015, 766) Like Avishai Margalit, Allais points out that it is humiliating to depend on others for one’s very existence: “forcing people into situations in which they have no option but to compromise their autonomy or self-respect wrongs them in more ways than simply the harm done” (2015, 767). The problem of dignity then lies not in severe need, simply as such. Rather, it arises in a context of differential wealth, where some people have no option but to beg or plead before others who are in a more fortunate situation. Kant can certainly be understood in this way. We already referred to the passage in the Doctrine of Virtue where he describes our duties “with reference to the dignity of humanity within us”: “Do not accept favours you could do without, and do not be a parasite or a flatterer or (what really differs from these only in degree) a beggar. Be thrifty, then, so that you will not become destitute” (DV 6: 436). Allais sees the problem as primarily institutional. In general, individuals cannot remedy poverty by giving alms. But even if an exceptionally wealthy person could do this for some poor persons, it would also represent the wrong way to address the problem: people would still depend on the goodwill of others for their very survival. As Allais points out, following Ripstein (2009), Kant contends that the state should impose taxes in order to grant poverty relief and not rely on voluntary forms of assistance (DR 6: 326). Remediable severe poverty is a problem of unjust institutions that foster and even enforce relations of private dependency. In Ripstein’s terms, such dependency is a fundamental denial of freedom and equality. We would also stress, with Allais, that they are inimical to our dignity as a social status. The beggar can survive only by begging or scavenging, with all the humiliations this involves. At this point, the argument structurally resembles the vulnerability-toinstrumentalization thesis.5 Poor people are vulnerable to a deep wrong. The difference is just that, in the cases pictured by Allais, richer people do not exploit the poor, but rather give help at their private discretion. A loss

Poverty, Dignity, and the Kingdom of Ends  213 of social dignity is imposed upon poor persons, such that it is difficult for others to perceive them as equal moral agents. In Peter Schaber’s terms, they are unable to live a decent life, where this is understood as a life of self-respect which includes choices between several acceptable alternatives. Obviously, neither starving nor begging nor stealing can count as such (Schaber 2010, 111ff.). Allais stresses the humiliating inadequacy of private charity: poverty needs to be addressed on an institutional level, not just on pragmatic grounds but also to avoid problems of personal dependency and unfreedom. We would add that institutional solutions, such as welfare bureaucracies or charities, may not eliminate feelings of humiliation and dependency either. However firmly anchored institutional aid or statutory poverty relief may be in ideas of solidarity or each citizen’s right to adequate shelter and subsistence, the fact of dependency remains. As Margalit notes, a welfare state still “deprives the needy of the ability and authority to decide their own affairs, and hands over decisions that should express the individual’s autonomy to paternalistic officials” (1998, 238). Institutional hand-outs carry their own problems, even if they address material want and do their best to mitigate problems of humiliation, supplication, and gratitude. They do not enable people’s full participation in society and hardly touch wider problems posed by sharp inequalities, widespread unemployment, or the pervasiveness of badly paid, exploitative work.

10.3 What Would It Mean to Respect the Moral Status of Persons? – Two More Theses 10.3.1 Respect-for-Ends-in-Themselves Thesis Let us now turn to two ways in which we might positively respect others as ends-in-themselves, taking our cue from Kant’s famous formula of humanity. As we know, this tells us to make sure we “use humanity … always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” (G 4: 429). And Kant adds that we must look for a “positive agreement [positive Übereinstimmung] with humanity, as an end in itself” – and doing so requires us “to advance [befördern] the ends of others” (G 4: 430). As a first thought – and following Kant’s own emphasis of duties of beneficence – one might observe that an important way to respect someone is to give him or her help, where the need is clear and the help is within one’s power. To deny help, by contrast, is to commit a clear moral wrong. This is the structure of Singer’s drowning child example (1972), where the sheer urgency of someone’s need coincides with a ready opportunity to help, thus generating an uncontroversial positive duty. To ignore someone in dire need would disregard her status as an end in herself, “the supreme limiting condition in the use of all means, that is, always at the

214  Corinna Mieth and Garrath Williams same time as an end” (G 4: 438). It would rather be to treat her as a mere thing – an object of no consequence that might discarded. Allow us to underline the last point, since it is often omitted in discussions of Kant. When he introduces the person–thing distinction (G 4:428), Kant tends to emphasize the potential usefulness of both. We will be emphasizing how well-founded this is in the case of persons: as Kant says, each of us has a fundamental duty to be “useful members of the world” (DV 6: 446). In the case of things, it is misleading: many physical entities are useless to us. Kant may downplay this insofar as he pictures nature, at some higher level, as forming a systematic, purposive whole; perhaps also because he never witnessed the sheer wastefulness of modern consumer societies. However this may be, to speak of things having “conditional worth” is to imply that they may prove worthless; likewise, the corollary of potential useability is possible uselessness or even harmfulness. (Cf Kant’s use of “ohne Wert” and “disponieren” at G 4:428, 429.) To fail in duties of easy rescue is to treat a person as an object of mere indifference: a useless thing, not even a means, never mind an end-in-herself.6 In any event, framing matters in terms of duties to rescue misses the mark so far as systematic poverty is concerned. It runs up against all the familiar problems of imperfect duties – not least, problems of knowledge and opportunity and coordination. At a deeper level, it runs up against the problems of systematic dependency on other people’s willingness to help. As Allais argues, such dependency points to systematic faults in social structures and practices: individual actions can at best ameliorate the effects of these structures; only collective action can address them. A single act may save a drowning child. But the child must then be returned to parents or other persons who will take care of him or her. Parenting, in turn, enables a person to take his place in the world as an active participant: someone who can contribute to our lives together and obtain the means to support himself. The hidden background of Singer’s example reminds us that no single act or donation is likely to rescue someone from poverty, never mind rescue countless millions of people who more fortunate persons rarely encounter face-to-face. In other words, giving aid represents an appropriate way of recognising a person as an end-in-herself only in quite specific circumstances. More often, as Kant recognised in his remarks on gratitude and ingratitude, it has a condescending aspect that threatens people’s perceptions of their own and others’ equal moral status. No doubt, giving aid is usually better than denying it; we do not mean to denigrate the value of organized charity and welfare systems. Nonetheless, charity and welfare take for granted the fact of widespread poverty; and one aspect of this is that they address it primarily as a problem of material need. In what follows, we suggest that lack of material goods – and, more broadly, lack of personal security – is just the most obvious face of a deeper wrong: that large

Poverty, Dignity, and the Kingdom of Ends  215 numbers of people are closed out of forms of participation that might enable them to gain the means of subsistence and live securely. Failing to treat those persons as ends-in-themselves is not necessarily a matter of instrumentalization or withholding aid. It is, rather, a denial of their “systematic union” with other rational beings. As we will now contend, it fails to admit those persons “as ends and means”; it denies their equal moral dignity as members of the kingdom of ends. 10.3.2 Treating Others as Ends and Means We are so used to thinking of denials of dignity in terms of instrumentalization that it has become counter-intuitive to say: there can be dignity in acting as a means for others. And we have become so wary of the idea that there is indignity in relying on others that we hesitate to criticize the wrongs of needless dependency. But neither idea is implausible and both have solid Kantian pedigrees – for example, when Kant claims that each of us “has a duty to himself to be a useful member of the world, since this also belongs to the worth of humanity in his own person, which he ought not to degrade” (DV 6: 446). As noted above, the prohibition on mere instrumentalization too often takes centre stage in Kant’s ethics, although it is strictly secondary to his basic principles. New readers of Kant’s ethics may over-emphasize it – worrying, for example, whether Kantian ethics prohibits my treating the baker as a means to obtain a loaf of bread. A related, more subtle problem often infects sophisticated treatments of Kant’s ethics. Too focussed on the dangers of instrumentalization, commentators ignore the moral importance of people’s being means for one another.7 One sign of this is the silence which has greeted some central words in Kant’s often-quoted Formula of the Kingdom of Ends: a systematic union of rational beings through common objective laws, i.e. a kingdom, which – because what these laws have as their purpose is precisely the reference of these beings to one another, as ends and means – can be called a kingdom of ends (of course [or ‘admittedly’] only an ideal). / eine systematische Verbindung vernünftiger Wesen durch gemeinschaftliche objective Gesetze, … [die] die Beziehung dieser Wesen auf einander, als Zwecke und Mittel, zur Absicht haben, ein Reich der Zwecke (freilich nur ein Ideal) heißen kann. (G 4: 433) We will return to Kant’s emphasis on systematic union or interconnection. What we want to underline, immediately, is the phrase: people’s relation to one another as ends and means, als Zweck und Mittel. These words suggest a possibility that no commentator has raised. Treating others (strictly: the humanity in their persons) as ends-in-themselves might,

216  Corinna Mieth and Garrath Williams we believe, also entail treating them as means – that is, as persons who have rights and even duties to contribute to our shared lives. The example of beggary indicates that we should at least consider this possibility. One of the things that makes beggary so problematic, from both sides, is that the beggar is usually in no position to return help or render any service to the donor. In other words, she has no way to act as a means for the giver. This creates a systematic tension. Respect for equal moral worth and inalienable dignity is meant to motivate assistance. But the fact of non-reciprocation may suggest that someone is not playing her part in “a systematic union of rational beings.” It may be hypocritical, self-serving, or dishonest to denigrate such persons, insofar as such dependency is so often forcibly imposed on people. However, as Kant well knows, such tendencies are deeply rooted in “the dear self” (G 4: 407), to the point that one may read his practical philosophy as an extended plea to root out our deep-seated confusions between social status and moral standing.8 To develop the point, we consider some cases in which people show respect for one another as ends-in-themselves just in virtue of reciprocity in acting as means. In passing, Allais notes an example which has the same stark material inequality as the begging example. However, its normative structure is quite distinct. Buddhist ascetics may choose to live without property and hence to depend on donations. However, the ascetic renders a spiritual service to his donors. He acts as a means for them, by making his very survival depend on their choices. The point is made more vivid when the ascetic refuses to serve. Allais notes the case of monks “in Myanmar marching with their begging bowls upside down, thereby demonstrating that they refused alms from the military rulers and their families, and, in effect, denying them spiritual merit” (2015, 756n4). Or consider how we may provide help to friends and family in relatively informal ways. Kant is very sensitive, even over-sensitive, to the risks of humiliation, imposition and indebtedness that can arise. We already noted his discussion of the benefactor’s duty: he should “show that he is himself put under obligation by the other’s acceptance or honoured by it, hence that the duty is merely something that he owes” (DV 6: 453). In other words, the ethics of giving includes a duty, not simply to bestow benefits, but also to grant the recipient a way of acting as a means for the donor. In this way, the recipient does not merely, passively receive. He also does something in his own right (“accepts” and thereby “honours”), even if this deed comes close to being a wholly noumenal matter.9 If we think in systematic terms – beyond personal relationships – then economic, civic, and institutional interconnections come to the fore. Consider, first, ordinary commercial exchange – for example, between me and a shopkeeper. The shopkeeper is a means for me; as a customer, I am a means for him. We treat each other as means, while respecting one

Poverty, Dignity, and the Kingdom of Ends  217 another as ends-in-ourselves – at least subject to some provisos. Neither of us must silently entertain possibilities of cheating the other, or exploit the other by virtue of (say) severe inequality in bargaining power. Employment offers a more complex example. Obviously, employees are means for employers. We know too many examples of exploitative and unsafe employment that treat people as mere means – from sweatshop labour to the gig economy. The same problem can be captured the other way round. By deliberately minimizing the extent to which she respects the interests of employees, the exploitative employer fails to act as a means for them. The employer who pays starvation wages barely acts as a means, denying a person what she needs in order to live any sort of decent life. By contrast, the employer who pays fair wages and ensures decent working conditions represents a means for her employee. At the same time, a responsible employee recognises the employer’s agency and authority, and thereby respects her as an end. (We set aside the complication that most employers are institutions: however we think about such collective agents, it would not be right to see them as ends-in-themselves.) The same principle also applies at a more abstract level. The employer who offers a socially worthwhile job acts as a means in a further sense: she opens an opportunity that might otherwise not be available to the employee. In part, this may be about access to the machinery or raw materials needed if someone’s effort is to be productive. Beyond the (questionable) dynamics of capitalist employment, however, there is also a more fundamental, organizational point. Especially under modern conditions, many worthwhile contributions require complex forms of collective action. In this case, the person or institution who organizes those efforts acts as a means for their employees. Those organizational efforts enable, in turn, someone to act as means for others in (we may hope) a fair scheme of cooperation. All of these cases underline the reciprocity central to Kant’s ethics. Every Kantian can agree that to respect others as ends-in-themselves is to recognise their capacity to set their own ends. Mere instrumentalization and outright exploitation clearly violate this. Nonetheless, it is fundamental to Kant’s ethics that we have duties to act for others. Each of us is a moral agent who adopts ends, not just on the basis of our individual needs and inclinations, but also on the basis of obligations to others. In doing so, we act as means to their ends. But we must do so in a way that is compatible with our own and others’ dignity. Examples of emergency aid divert attention from the central issues. In the instant of urgent need, we must often defer questions of reciprocity and social dignity. Amid ongoing social relations, by contrast, powerlessness and dire need foster paternalism and humiliation, dependency and exploitation. The better-off are tempted to ignore or exploit. Those who do help may be tempted by Pharisaical thoughts of their greater merit, perhaps even that they are exploited. The needy become, so to speak, mere means

218  Corinna Mieth and Garrath Williams to their moral credit; assistance that cannot be reciprocated becomes paternalistic. Intuitively, such assistance may even deserve ingratitude, as a way of resisting the imposition of “the inferior position of a dependent in relation to his protector” (DV 6: 459). If those in need do act for others, it must be on terms that others lay down. Their vulnerability and insecurity expose them to “offers they can’t refuse” (O’Neill 1991); they become mere means for their exploiters. This is not to deny that someone in dire poverty might willingly make sacrifices for others – as very poor parents so often do for their children, for example. But such help could hardly be accepted by someone who was better off. By contrast, when someone has a range of opportunities to act for others, and where those opportunities involve meaningful reciprocity – in that case, acting as a means can be a dignified exercise of agency and a token of meaningful inclusion.

10.4 Poverty as Exclusion From Humanity Let us bring these ideas together, to sketch an understanding of poverty as a violation of dignity in terms of the kingdom of ends. Such a kingdom, Kant says, involves people’s “systematic union … through common objective laws … [that] have as their purpose [people’s] relation … to one another as ends and means” (G 4: 433). We suggest that severe poverty can be seen as involving two interlinked violations of people’s dignity, understood as equal moral standing and social status. First, life-threatening poverty treats persons as disposable – it casts them away. The lives of countless millions of people are cut short by stunting, malnutrition, constant insecurity and fear, sheer neglect and lack of opportunity to secure subsistence, and the diseases and injuries that accompany all of these. Images of the world’s poorest people scavenging on rubbish tips dramatically illustrate this terrible point. We already noted Kant’s person–thing distinction (Section 10.3.1 above): we may legitimately hold things to be useless, while such a judgment would be utterly out of order as regards a person. Recall his parallel distinction between dignity and price: a price may be put on something that is replaceable (G 4: 434) and, by implication, disposable. The humanity of those in such life-threatening poverty is thrown away as if it were a mere thing: less than a mere means, not even a useful thing.10 As Kant notes, “Judging something to be worthless is contempt” (DV 6: 462). Second, we can say that remediable poverty casts people out – it treats some persons as non-members. Severe poverty casts people out from meaningful participation in social life; it deprives them of social power and denies them systematic union. This is obviously true for those who are not even exploited – just as they are not ends for others, they are denied the opportunity to act as a means for others. Severely exploited people may not be cast away, insofar as their lives are not immediately imperilled. But they are surely cast out. They have no choice regarding

Poverty, Dignity, and the Kingdom of Ends  219 the terms on which they act: they must work inhuman hours in appalling conditions, gaining only the barest means of subsistence. Scrabbling to survive on the margins, they are denied means and opportunities to act on their own account, to pursue ends beyond mere survival and that of their children, never mind to shape institutions and society. They must often be frantically active and ingenious. Yet they are deprived of fair and decent ways of interacting with the larger society. The resulting social status, marginal and set apart, betrays their status as equal moral agents. The injuries of poverty, then, do not arise just at the level of needs. They go directly to the core of our status as moral agents, because they effectively deny a person’s “systematic union” with other persons on shared terms (“common objective laws”). A person is treated as a mere means or as even less than that. A person is disregarded as an end-in-herself, robbed of the power to co-decide in which ways and on what terms she will act on behalf of others’ ends – or, as we have put it, act as a means for them. These are direct insults to a person’s dignity, denials of social recognition and respect. These points apply most clearly to absolute poverty, where a person’s “most necessary natural needs” (DR 6: 326) are denied or barely met, where social structures deny her meaningful opportunities to act on her own account. We can also think of degrees of disposability and exclusion, in a way that enables us to get a grip on relative as well as absolute poverty. For example, in wealthier societies, those who suffer long-term unemployment may have their basic needs met by welfare benefits. But they remain poor relative to the economic and social opportunities that many others take for granted. Those on benefits will often testify to feeling “thrown on the scrap heap” and the difficulty of maintaining self-respect when robbed of opportunities to participate in economic and social life. Similarly, low wages, precarious employment, and long working hours represent substantial obstacles to civic involvement and social participation. They also demean people directly – as Gilabert puts it, “When [working people] are dominated, and exploited, their capacities for selfdirection and for cooperating as equals with others are insufficiently respected” (2017, 569). Humiliations pile upon such exclusions and disempowerments (see also Anderson 2017, Hasan 2018). By analogy with the previous two points, we may say that relative poverty reduces someone’s status – it casts them down; it places them in a lower caste or class. Social, economic, and civic relations uphold dignity when they recognise people’s right to participate as “useful members” of society, and recognise and reward them for this. They deny our dignity as equal moral agents when they push people to the margins of social, economic, civic, and political life. Too many of those people perish, denied their right to “a place on the Earth” (DR 6: 262), excluded from any sort of “systematic union” with the human beings who should be their fellows. Others survive, perhaps by scavenging or charity or scanty welfare systems, or reduced to the status of mere means for others. In none of these cases are people participants on

220  Corinna Mieth and Garrath Williams their own terms. Though we have only gestured at such a view here, we believe that it is a matter of justice as well as dignity, that people have the opportunity to contribute to society in return for fair rewards that enable them to satisfy their needs and participate as full citizens.

10.5 Conclusion Don’t Think of an Elephant was George Lakoff’s memorable title for a book about the framing of political ideas (2004). His basic thought was simple: if you want to reframe issues, then don’t spend your time telling people not to think in the old terms. Telling people not to think about elephants only reminds them of elephants. At the risk of making the same mistake, we have been saying: To think about poverty, do not think of a drowning child. Apart from the element of urgent need, poverty has nothing in common with emergencies that can be solved by easy rescue. If people are drowning in poverty, it is not because they are helpless children who stupidly stumble into occasional ponds. It is because they are treated as disposable (cast away), denied admission (cast out), pushed to the margins of economic, social, and civic life (cast down). These continual, active exclusions deprive people of social status, denying them decent opportunities to act as persons in their own right, who may act as means for others on their own terms: as equal bearers of a moral dignity that should be recognised as a social dignity, too. Twentieth-century political philosophy has been preoccupied with redistributing resources. Kantian theorists largely reject the idea that we should frame matters this way. We have, here, bracketed Kant’s philosophy of right and the juridical aspects of property and civic participation. We have urged, however, that a Kantian framing must attend to agency and power. Poverty is not just about unmet needs. More fundamentally, it is about deprivation of meaningful opportunities, denial of effective say, absence of tenable options – in short, powerlessness over the terms on which one will act with and for others. Poverty violates dignity and is incompatible with our equal moral standing. Its positive contrast is a kingdom of ends: where people act as means to others’ ends while being respected by others who act as means to theirs. And one of the key ways we act as means to others’ ends is by collaborating to open up worthwhile opportunities to act as “useful members of the world” – as means who have nothing mere about them.

Acknowledgments Many thanks to Jan-Willem van der Rijt for organizing the initial conference on this topic in Bayreuth, and to him and Adam Cureton for their editorial input. We would also like to thank Robinson dos Santos for organizing a conference in Bonn where we presented another version,

Poverty, Dignity, and the Kingdom of Ends  221 and participants there as well as at two workshops in Bochum and at the Colloquium in Practical and Political Philosophy, Free University Berlin. We would particularly like to thank Jens Gillessen for a very helpful commentary on our chapter. Many thanks, too, to Christel Fricke, Kyoko Ishida, Thorben Knobloch, Alice Pinheiro Walla, Jacob Rosenthal, Martin Sticker and Ge Wang for their help and discussion, as well as to Anja Brockmann from the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study library for her assistance. Garrath adds special thanks to Pauline Kleingeld for drawing the “ends and means” wording to his attention and for her encouragement with this topic.

Notes 1 We use the following abbreviations for Kant’s works: DR – Doctrine of Right (Gregor 1996); DV – Doctrine of Virtue (Gregor 1996); G – Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Gregor and Timmermann 2011). 2 “[E]xtreme poverty is a violation of human dignity and might, in some situations, constitute a threat to the right to life” (UN General Assembly Resolution 134, 18 December 1992). 3 Another sort of inferiority arises when someone does wrong, and thereby incurs duties to repent and restore. Readers of Nietzsche’s Genealogy will hardly miss the parallels between these. 4 It is awkward to speak of “poverty” where everyone lacks basic material goods, owing to a harsh environment or lack of appropriate technologies to secure decent subsistence from it, although we might well describe such societies as very poor. However, our point is conceptual rather than linguistic. 5 In DV Kant even describes asking for favours as a kind of self-instrumentalization: “But belittling one’s own moral worth merely as a means to acquiring the favor of another, whoever it may be (hypocrisy and flattery) … is false (lying) humility, which is contrary to one’s duty to oneself since it degrades one’s personality” (DR 6: 435f.). 6 On the complexity of these duties when it comes to Kant’s philosophy of right, see Ripstein 2000. 7 Allen Wood is the only exception we know (1999, 143, 2008, 87). 8 Albeit a plea not wholly consistent, when we think of the place of women and different races in his writings. 9 Barbara Herman stresses the same point from the recipient’s side: We should see recipience as a deed: “in accepting your benefit I assume a debt of gratitude.” In this way, “I make it the case that we are doing something together, as moral equals … I thereby assert that I am not your dependent, that your agency does not stand in for mine, but that as equal persons who may at times have needs we cannot meet, we stand together” (2012, 401). 10 Compare Kant’s comment: “As the word ‘Tugend’ [virtue] comes from ‘taugen’ [to be suitable or good for some purpose] so ‘Untugend’ [vice] comes from ‘zu nichts taugen’” (DR 6: 390).

References Allais, Lucy. 2015. “What Properly Belongs to Me: Kant on Giving to Beggars.” Journal of Moral Philosophy 12 (6): 754–771. doi:10.1163/17455243-4681042.

222  Corinna Mieth and Garrath Williams Anderson, Elizabeth. 2008. “Emotions in Kant’s Later Moral Philosophy: Honor and the Phenomenology of Moral Value.” In Kant’s Virtue Ethics, edited by Monika Betzler, 123–45. New York, Berlin: De Gruyter. Anderson, Elizabeth. 2017. Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk About It). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ashford, Elizabeth. 2013. “Severe Poverty as a Systemic Human Rights Violation.” In Cosmopolitanism versus Non-Cosmopolitanism, edited by Gillian Brock, 129–55. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gilabert, Pablo. 2017. “Kantian Dignity and Marxian Socialism.” Kantian Review, 22 (4): 553–77. doi:10.1017/S1369415417000279. Gregor, Mary J., ed. 1996. Practical Philosophy. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gregor, Mary J. & Timmermann, Jens, eds. 2011. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A German-English Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hasan, Rafeeq. 2018. “Freedom and Poverty in the Kantian State.” European Journal of Philosophy 26 (3): 911–31. doi:10.1111/ejop.12331. Herman, Barbara. 2012. “Being Helped and Being Grateful: Imperfect Duties, the Ethics of Possession, and the Unity of Morality.” The Journal of Philosophy 109 (5/6): 391–411. doi:10.5840/jphil20121095/616. Holtman, Sarah Williams. 2004. “Kantian Justice and Poverty Relief.” KantStudien 95 (1): 86–106. doi:10.1515/kant.2004.008. Holtman, Sarah Williams. 2018. Kant on Civil Society and Welfare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781108529747. Kerstein, Samuel. 2013. How to Treat Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kleingeld, Pauline. 2020. “How to Use Someone ‘Merely as a Means’.” Kantian Review 25 (3): 389–414. doi:10.1017/S1369415420000229. Lakoff, George. 2004. Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. White River Junction VT: Chelsea Green. Loriaux, Sylvie. 2020. Kant and Global Distributive Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781108678834. Margalit, Avishai. 1998. The Decent Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Meckled-Garcia, Saladin. 2013. “Is There Really a ‘Global Human Rights Deficit?’” In Cosmopolitanism versus Non-Cosmopolitanism, edited by Gillian Brock, 111–28. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mieth, Corinna. 2008. “World Poverty as a Problem of Justice. A Critical Comparison of Three Approaches.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 11 (1): 15–36. doi:10.1007/s10677-007-9088-0. Mieth, Corinna. 2012. “The Double Foundation of Human Rights in Human Nature.” In Human Rights and Human Nature, edited by Marion Albers, Thomas Hofmann and Jörn Reinhardt, 11–22. Dordrecht: Springer. O’Neill, Onora. 1991. “Which Are the Offers You Can’t Refuse?” In Violence, Terrorism, and Justice, edited by Raymond Gillespie Frey and Christopher W. Morris, 170–95. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Papadaki, Lina. 2016. “Treating Others Merely as Means: A Reply to Kerstein.” Utilitas 28 (1): 73–100. Ripstein, Arthur. 2000. “Three Duties to Rescue: Moral, Civil, and Criminal.” Law and Philosophy 19 (6): 751–79. doi:10.2307/3505073.

Poverty, Dignity, and the Kingdom of Ends  223 Ripstein, Arthur. 2009. Force and Freedom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schaber, Peter. 2010. Instrumentalisierung und Würde. Paderborn: Mentis. Schaber, Peter. 2011. “Absolute Poverty. Human Dignity, Self-Respect, and Dependency.” In Humiliation, Degradation, Dehumanization. Human Dignity Violated, edited by Paulus Kaufmann, Hannes Kuch, Christian Neuhäuser, Elaine Webster, 151–72. Dordrecht: Springer. Sedmak, Clemens. 2013. “Human Dignity, Interiority and Poverty.” In Understanding Human Dignity, edited by Christopher McCrudden, 559–71. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sensen, Oliver. 2011. Kant on Human Dignity. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. Singer, Peter. 1972. “Famine, Affluence and Morality.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1: 229–43. Singer, Peter. 2009. The Life You Can Save: How to Play Your Part in Ending World Poverty. London: Macmillan. Singh, Dharmendra Kumar. 2017. “Poverty and Human Dignity: A Human Rights Approach.” Journal of Humanities and Social Science 22 (6): 48–55. doi:10.9790/0837-2206114855. Waldron, Jeremy. 2013. “Citizenship and Dignity.” In Understanding Human Dignity, edited by Christopher McCrudden, 327–43. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wenar, Leif. 2008. “Property Rights and the Resource Curse.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 36: 2–32. doi:10.1111/j.1088-4963.2008.00122.x. Wood, Allen W. 1999. Kant’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood, Allen W. 2008. Kantian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Part III

The Ethics of Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends

11 Legislating in the Fray Lillian Hellman and the Kingdom of Ends1 Sarah Holtman

11.1 Introduction While probabilities vary, there is no gainsaying that we live in a world where natural catastrophe (flood, fire or plague) and manmade injustice (including the physical brutality and oppressive policies born of racial, cultural and ideological hostility) are hardly rare. When we face such events (or extended episodes), moreover, we often find that the capacities on which we regularly rely for sound moral decision are now confused, silenced, or overwhelmed. These are deeply troubling, but mundane, truths about human agents, human collaborations, human capacities, and the world that we humans inhabit. They do not bear equally on our moral decisions in all times and places. They are likewise far from the only considerations relevant to decisions about what we should do, as individuals or societies, morally speaking. Nevertheless, good (or even merely adequate) moral decision-makers must be able to do the hard work of taking these truths, and the real-world phenomena on which they depend, appropriately into account. Whether we assume the role of individual moral agent, morally committed policy-maker, theologian, or moral philosopher, we thus must consider what commitments, policies or character traits are vital (or at least highly important) aids to sound moral decision when natural or human disaster strikes. We must also foster or develop these features in ourselves, our practices and our institutions and hone our capacities to identify and give them effect where already established. These conclusions, evidently relevant in developing, interpreting, and assessing theoretical work in practical philosophy, may seem to raise a special worry for Kantianism. Central to this concern are the Kantian moral decision-maker and the model or framework that captures this individual’s perspective. Its force is evident if we ask what human character traits likely will be critical to such a decision-maker’s moral success when operating in the kinds of straitened conditions I noted above. For there are good reasons to worry that Kant, and thus good Kantians, will question, as morally suspect or unreliable, some aspects DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-15

228  Sarah Holtman of individual character that are at least substantially and dependably supportive of good moral judgment in such circumstances, and perhaps essential to it. Kant might acknowledge such features as morally useful when kept under the strict guidance of a good will (see, e.g., G 4:394).2 Nevertheless, these are not, it may well seem, features that we could respect as morally valuable in their own right from a Kantian standpoint or that we should seek, as good Kantians, to foster in ourselves and others as a consequence of their intimate connection to our status as moral decision-makers. Yet living, as we do, in a world that may suddenly throw moral challenge and complexity our way, Kantianism’s hesitancy in this regard would surely be so much the worse for the theory. It would lend potent support to the popular criticism that Kantianism is wedded to an unduly restrictive ideal of moral decision-making, one that not only fails to appreciate the moral circumstances of human beings but is poorly suited to them.3 I think this worry is unfounded. As is often true, moreover, a defense of Kant on this score provides us important insight into both his moral theory and our circumstances as moral agents. On the side of Kant’s theory, this defense reveals underappreciated connections among Kantian conceptions of dignity, enlightenment, character, and the “very fruitful concept” of a kingdom of ends. Such a defense also allows us to realize both the moral value of human features that we sometimes belittle, underrate, or ignore and Kantian theory’s surprising capacity to countenance this value. In what follows, then, I propose to defend Kantianism, uncovering important insights into that theory and our moral natures in the process. I will argue, in particular, that Kantian moral theory is far more attuned to features of ourselves and our world that, on the one hand, require moral caution and, on the other, promise crucial moral support, than theory basics like the kingdom of ends and the conception of dignity initially seem to suggest. It is also far more sensitive to the nature and significance of human moral progress than we often suppose. First, though, we need an example of the kind of moral decision-maker who seems to raise a problem for the theory.

11.2 Lillian Hellman I have long admired Lillian Hellman, 20th-century playwright, memoirist, and McCarthy-era critic.4 I like her gritty and tenacious moral commitment, her resistance to popular norms, her fascination with the exploratory and fluctuating nature of human memory. Hellman was a controversial figure, though, and for some good reasons. She could cling with that gritty tenacity to ground-level commitments ultimately shown to be at best morally questionable. Her norm skepticism (or outright defiance) was surely sometimes exercised for uncertain, and even selfish, motives rather than a clear moral end. In certain cases, what one might

Legislating in the Fray  229 describe as her exploration of the nature of memory arguably seems as well characterized as the embrace of a bold-faced lie. Importantly for our purposes, though, these traits also entered her moral decision-making to very good effect and under the kind of difficult conditions that helpfully illustrate the worries I want to investigate. The straitened conditions in which Hellman most famously found herself were those that characterized the so-called “McCarthy era” in the United States.5 Called to testify before the notorious House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), she wrote to then-Chairman John S. Wood, indicating her refusal to discuss others’ commitments and actions but her willingness to describe her own. If the committee would not agree to these conditions, however, she would maintain silence, invoking Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination. The virtues and benefits of Hellman’s proposal were several. With its provisions in place, she could have avoided bringing ill consequences to bear on those she believed innocent of wrongdoing. She could also have spoken honestly of her own actions and commitments, ones she believed to be neither morally nor legally suspect. Finally, and importantly for very practical reasons, the proposal, if accepted, would have preserved Hellman’s ability to earn her living as a writer rather than falling prey to the blacklist (as those pleading the Fifth inevitably did).6 The letter, which I will quote here to aid coming analysis, offers reasons in support of this proposal that Kant would endorse. For they give voice to central elements of his characterizations of moral agency and moral commitment. As Hellman writes: I am most willing to answer all questions about myself. I have nothing to hide from your committee and there is nothing in my life of which I am ashamed […] But […] I am not willing, now or in the future, to bring bad trouble to people who, in my past association with them, were completely innocent of any talk or any action that was disloyal or subversive […] [T]o hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions. As she adds by way of support: I was raised in an old-fashioned American tradition and there were certain homely things that were taught to me: To try to tell the truth, not to bear false witness, not to harm my neighbor, to be loyal to my country. In general, I respected these ideals of Christian honor and did as well with them as I knew how. It is my belief that you will agree with these simple rules of human decency and will not expect me to violate the good American tradition from which they spring.7

230  Sarah Holtman

11.3 Hellman and Kant There are many aspects of this reasoning that would find favor with Kant. Because my initial aim is simply to establish a general moral rapport between these thinkers, I will note just three. These are Hellman’s commitment to telling the truth and her refusals either to harm her neighbor or to shape her conscience to conform to popular views. In invoking a moral obligation regarding truth telling, Hellman at least has in mind an injunction against lying.8 Of Kant’s many and famous analyses of the moral prohibition on lying, the most apt for our purposes addresses duties to oneself as a moral being. For her part, after all, Hellman clearly distinguishes concerns about untruthfulness from wrongs that implicate social institutions or one’s fellow human beings. To speak falsely in one’s communications with others, Kant argues, is “directly opposed to the natural purposiveness of the speaker’s capacity to communicate his thoughts” (MM 6:429). The individual who so acts renounces personality, becoming a “mere deceptive appearance of a human being” (MM 6:429). One who also, or instead, tells an “inner lie” likewise uses the natural self as a mere means “as if his natural being were not bound to the inner end (of communicating thoughts)” (MM 6:430). Unjustified harms to one’s neighbor typically are injustices that violate the Rechtslehre demand: “so act externally that the free use of your choice can co-exist with the freedom of everyone in accordance with a universal law” (MM 6:231).9 As such, they likewise transgress ethical obligations on Kant’s account. In the realm of the purely moral, moreover, when we harm innocent others to save ourselves without justification this is contrary to the requirement that we treat others as ends, not mere means – contrary, that is, to duties of respect.10 Such harms, whether done with an evidently selfish motive or not, are likewise contrary to the happiness of others to which moral virtue requires that we commit ourselves. Again, in these respects, Kant and Hellman are on the same moral page, and for several reasons. As to Hellman’s refusal to cut conscience to fit current fashion, Kant is perhaps most clear of all. One’s duty to oneself as a moral being, he says, prohibits depriving oneself of “the prerogative of a moral being, that of acting in accordance with principles, that is, inner freedom, and so making himself a plaything of mere inclinations and hence a thing” (MM 6:420). The virtue that supports us in successfully shouldering this duty (and opposes the vices contrary to it) is “love of honor” (MM 6:420). In a more detailed treatment of the love of honor, now as a claim to others’ respect that we cannot renounce and that is intimately tied both to the demand that we respect others as moral beings and to consciousness of moral duty generally, Kant emphasizes: [T]o take scandal at what is merely unconventional but otherwise in itself good is a delusion (since one holds what is unusual to be

Legislating in the Fray  231 impermissible as well), an error dangerous and destructive to virtue. For a human being cannot carry his giving an example of the respect due others so far as to degenerate into blind imitation (in which custom, mos, is raised to the dignity of law), since such a tyranny of popular mores would be contrary to his duty to himself. (MM 6:464) The duty Kant has in mind here is, again, that of respect for oneself as a moral being. This respect goes hand-in-hand with understanding oneself as a being charged with committing to and acting to the best of one’s ability in accord with moral principles and one’s best judgment of what these require. It demands, in particular, that one avoid the temptation to give rules of custom, tradition, or fashion the force of moral standards. It would seem to be the very duty that Hellman enunciates in refusing to take social norms rather than conscience as her guide. While necessary for a telling examination, though, what is most important for my purposes at this stage is not the fact that Kant and Hellman share general conclusions about moral obligation. I am interested in the elements of Hellman’s character that led her to reach, interpret, and act on these conclusions in circumstances that made good moral judgment and action unusually difficult. More particularly, I am concerned with how well these character traits square with Kant’s account of a moral legislator. Central among these features of character are the tenacity of moral commitment, the willingness to challenge social norms, and the wise curiosity about memory that I noted earlier. Tenacious moral commitment arguably supported Hellman’s unapologetic adherence to basic standards of humanity, decency, and honor and, among others, to the principles of honesty and respect for human vulnerability that she understands to give voice to these moral basics. It distinguished her from contemporaries who had been similarly taught, steeling her, it seems, to keep to the moral road even in the face of public condemnation and long-term threats to her reputation and her livelihood. Hellman’s willingness to buck widely held social norms (e.g., the popular equation of so-called communist views with subversion), one suspects, further fortified her moral resolve. For the commitment that she and Kant share to refusing to remake conscience in the form of popular mores is intimately connected to, and realized importantly in virtue of, Hellman’s active skepticism regarding popular norms in general (as distinct from basic moral standards shared in virtue of their objective rightness). Hellman’s fascination with the fluctuating nature of human memory is less obviously evident here. I think we can reasonably conclude, though, that it is at work in the background. In cases less morally critical, one might explore the nature, extent, and changeability of one’s memories by entertaining a variety of possibilities or taking up alternative perspectives. In such an exploration, one could ruminate on the diversity of motives

232  Sarah Holtman that might have been at work in this friend or that acquaintance. One could likewise reflect on what questions or courses of action these people might, in those long-ago times, have entertained. In the realms of motivation and of contemplation of future action, after all, we human beings are not purely one thing or another, but instead a many-layered and shifting collage. Grasping this, and guided by those tenaciously held moral principles, an imaginative thinker like Hellman could further see, with clarity, when one can rightly consider the possibilities that such an exploration of memory uncovers (the chance, e.g., that an old friend once flirted with political revolution). Importantly, such a thinker could equally perceive when it would be wrong to voice the outcomes of those ruminations, much less to use them to one’s advantage. Yet once we understand the significance of these features to Hellman’s capacities as a moral decision-maker, we can also appreciate the potential problem she raises for Kant. Because the very features that arguably played an essential role in her response to HUAC, appear at other times to have encouraged Hellman to stray quite far from the path of Kantian moral agency. Her own unapologetic commitment to the Soviet Union as the realization of socialist ideals extended well beyond the point at which Stalin’s crimes had become evident.11 It thus seems to represent a stubborn failure to re-assess the connections between our ground-level commitments (among them those we deem morally appropriate commitments of social justice) and upper-level moral principles, a type of failure Kant repeatedly urges us to avoid.12 Perhaps relatedly, Hellman had, from her early years, a strong propensity to resist the going trend or expectation without always fully assessing, or even enunciating, her reasons for doing so. We can take her story about a maternal uncle who “[broke] the spirit of people for the pleasure of the exercise” as a case in point. As Hellman tells it, at fifteen she hocked the ring this wealthy and domineering man had given her as a graduation gift, bought books with the proceeds and tracked him down to announce what she’d done. As explanation for her decision to challenge this unrepentant bully (rather than honoring popular norms of respect for elders and gratitude for gifts), she offers only that she had “decid[ed], I think, that day that the break had to come.” She also recalls and does not question his response, “So you’ve got spirit after all. Most of the rest of them are made of sugar water.”13 Here and elsewhere, Hellman acknowledges, at least implicitly, that “spirit” is indeed one of her most noteworthy features, and not one that always awaits the counsel of careful moral judgment. This again, of course, is a characteristic about which Kant would express concern. To challenge first and ask questions later is hardly to be guided by moral principle as he holds human moral agents must be. Finally, and perhaps of particular consequence, Lillian Hellman had, and seemingly deserved, a reputation for being far less than scrupulously honest. Most famously, or infamously, Mary McCarthy (a well-known

Legislating in the Fray  233 Hellman literary contemporary and critic who also rejected her Stalinism) claimed that “[e]very word [Hellman] writes is a lie – including ‘and’ and ‘the’.”14 Less boldly and without the political rivalry as backdrop, a variety of readers have condemned Hellman’s memoirs (all four of them) as “distorted” or “untrue” and even as portraying the life events of others as her own.15 This is still more problematic from a Kantian standpoint given that the play that first brought Hellman fame (The Children’s Hour), as well as her critiques of HUAC and McCarthy-era tactics generally, all focused on the moral wrongfulness of dishonesty as well as the harms it brings to those about whom the liar spreads untruths. As we know already, and knew before I started, Kant’s moral theory has little place for falsehoods, self-deception or hypocrisy.

11.4 Kant on Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends There thus are good reasons to believe that the traits that made it possible for Hellman to choose well, morally speaking, despite significant decision-making burdens are ones that will give Kant pause. For in other circumstances, Hellman’s moral tenacity, her skepticism regarding social norms and her imaginative exploration of memory played very differently. We cannot fully appreciate either reasons for thinking that Kant would refuse to acknowledge Hellman’s features as morally vital, or my argument to the contrary, though, without a closer look at central elements of his theory. I will start with Kant’s accounts of the kingdom of ends and the notion of dignity, since the first is central to his characterization of the perspective from which we make sound moral decisions and the second to his account of moral value. Having offered some further, or better supported, reasons to think that Kant must reject Hellman’s features as among those central to the make-up of a moral legislator, I will move on to consider his conceptions of enlightenment and character. Discussion of these moral and developmental aspects of human endeavor and maturation, I will argue, offer us a fuller and more nuanced picture both of Kant’s theory and of our condition as moral agents who are also human beings. 11.4.1 The Kingdom of Ends There is some disagreement about how best to interpret Kant’s account, in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, of the so-called kingdom of ends formulation (FKE) of his moral theory’s “supreme principle,” the Categorical Imperative (CI).16 Our worry that the Kantian moral legislator may be ill-equipped for difficult real-world conditions, though, arises on any reading that takes FKE to offer a model for moral decisionmaking. To put this model in the larger context of Kant’s practical philosophy and further motivate the worry, here I will understand FKE as

234  Sarah Holtman one of several ways of framing another formulation of the CI, that of autonomy of the will (FA).17 Although Kant expresses FA in several ways, perhaps the most straightforward tells us that: if there is a categorical imperative (i.e., a law for every will of a rational being) it can only command that everything be done from the maxim of one’s will as a will that could at the same time have as its object itself as giving universal law (G 4:432) In describing the relationship between this formulation and the kingdom of ends, Kant further offers: The concept of every rational being as one who must regard himself as giving universal law through all the maxims of his will, so as to appraise himself and his actions from this point of view, leads to a very fruitful concept dependent upon it, namely that of a kingdom of ends. (G 4:433) The idea of a kingdom, ‘a systematic union of different rational beings under common laws’ (G 4:433) to use Kant’s description, apparently grounds a new way of grasping what it is to take up the decision-making standpoint that FA requires. When he thus introduces the kingdom of ends in the Groundwork’s second chapter, Kant has already explained that the particular focus of FA is the will of the rational agent who adopts principles (or maxims) that characterize and guide his actions. This distinguishes FA from the alternative renderings of the CI that Kant has already discussed at some length by this point in the Groundwork, the formula of universal law (FUL) and the formula of humanity (FH). Familiarly, the first of these commands “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law” (G 4:421) and the second “[s]o act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” (G 4:429). While FUL emphasizes the form that principles of action must take if they are to satisfy moral demands, and FH addresses the ends of such principles, FA highlights the way an agent must conceive of himself in adopting these principles. Of course, as Kant understands them, the several formulations of the CI are equivalent. They are, as he puts it, “only so many formulae of the very same law, and any one of them of itself unites the other two in it” (G 4:436). So in offering FA as one formulation of morality’s first principle, Kant’s aim is to set forth and explicate this further formulation, to distinguish it from FUL and FH, and also to explain its connection

Legislating in the Fray  235 to each. Understood as reframing or amplifying on FA, FKE is part of Kant’s attempt to accomplish this difficult task. Because the capacity that is their focus is the ability to legislate or commit to non-contingent standards that can serve as laws for all, both FA and FKE bear an intimate connection to FUL. Likewise, Kant emphasizes, we properly conceive of members of the community that is the kingdom of ends as united in their commitment to FH and its demand that each “treat himself and all others never merely as means but always at the same time as ends in themselves” (G 4:433). Because FH is the kingdom’s foundational principle, examination of proposed actions from the standpoint of the kingdom of ends presumably also requires that a moral decision-maker view every member of the community of rational agents as an objective end with absolute worth. That is, he must understand each agent as valuable in a way that is independent of that individual’s needs, tastes and pursuits. For this is central to treating each as FH requires (see G 4:428). As Kant emphasizes, though, in taking up the legislative perspective of the kingdom of ends, decision-makers must further “abstract from personal differences between rational beings, and also from all the content of their private ends” (G 4:433, emphasis added). Treating each as a self-standing end, it thus seems, means acknowledging that rational agents (themselves objective ends) are also able and disposed to set and pursue the kinds of subjective ends that vary from person to person. Because this capacity and disposition are central to each individual’s agency, they are also central to decisions about what is required in practice to acknowledge each as an objective end, or end in itself, rather than merely a means. Once we set aside both features that distinguish rational agents from one another and differences among the subjective ends that they set, it is evident what distinguishes FH from this new way of framing the CI. For now, we can “conceive of a whole of all ends systematically united […] that is […] of a kingdom of ends which is possible in accordance with the aforesaid principles” (G 4:433). From this new perspective, that of FKE, we view rational agents not as discreet individuals, but as a community of related members. These members share a set of general capacities and dispositions. Each is also possessed of particular ends that are central to the good of the person whose ends they are and valuable in virtue of that fact. Importantly, though, what unites members is not this set of common characteristics. It is, instead, the shared legislative perspective that characterizes FKE and the system of universal standards that members legislate from that viewpoint for themselves and their compatriots. Of these varied and interrelated standards, the most fundamental is FH. Members of a kingdom of ends, then, are end-setting agents with absolute worth. They are united in one community by a legislative perspective that joins three crucial elements and by the action-guiding standards that they do or could enact from this viewpoint. First among the features that

236  Sarah Holtman distinguish this perspective is a shared recognition that any appropriate standard of action must be one that could serve as a universal law for all rational agents in keeping with their status as such. The second is a mutual commitment to the fundamental principle of respect for humanity as an end. The third is a stance or attitude that each takes up in understanding, assessing and effecting his own choice of maxims in pursuit of his particular ends. This last acknowledges his capacity and responsibility, as a member of the kingdom of ends, to develop, internalize, and follow such universal standards of respect, to embrace those standards as deep commitments rather than demands backed by external force and to shape each choice and action to satisfy their requirements. In sum, we might say, in light of the above analysis, members of a kingdom of ends are united by legislative commitments regarding the form or bearing of shared standards, the content of these standards and the appropriate attitude from which to make, interpret, and give them effect. Although Kant offers a brief statement of FKE separate from FA, the below seems more fully to capture his discussion: Act only on those maxims that you could legislate as universal laws for all members of a possible kingdom of ends, that is for a community of rational agents viewed as ends in themselves who are possessed of particular ends of their own, and who live under a system of laws that they have legislated together and for their mutual governance. 11.4.2 Dignity Likewise central to our analysis is Kant’s notion of dignity, which he initially explains by distinguishing it from price. In the kingdom of ends, as we are to envision it, we can characterize the value of ends in one of two ways. Ends that have a price are ones whose values we can compare, determining fair exchanges of some for others on that basis. Any matter that is ‘exalted beyond all price and so admits of no equivalent,’ by contrast, has ‘a dignity’ (G 4:434). ‘Morality, and humanity so far as it is capable of morality’ (G 4:435) are the only such matters Kant countenances. His examples of the former are ‘fidelity to promises and kindness based on principle’ (G 4:435) rather than instinct. The value of these, he claims, lies not in their positive effects (for example in the profit they bring), but ‘in the attitudes of mind – that is, in the maxims of the will – which are ready in this way to manifest themselves in action even if they are not favored by success’ (G 4:435). Especially significant here is the way this discussion clarifies the attitude or stance that characterizes legislation for a kingdom of ends. For, as Kant further explains, the ‘morally good attitude of mind’ (G 4:435) possessed of dignity is one that reveres the will that chooses on moral

Legislating in the Fray  237 grounds as well as the commitments it makes. This attitude, he adds, affords each rational agent a ‘share […] in the making of universal law’ and ‘fits him to be a member of a possible kingdom of ends’ (G 4:435). To assume the lawmaking attitude of FKE, it thus seems, is to look with reverence upon one’s own capacity and that of others to make contentladen, non-contingent commitments that honor rational agents as endsetting ends in themselves. It is actively to value, together with others, both this decision-making capacity and the principles to which it commits as possessed of intrinsic and incomparable worth.

11.5 Hellman as Kantian Moral Legislator 11.5.1 The Problem Deepened We have already noted reasons for thinking that central features of Lillian Hellman’s make-up as a moral decision-maker crucially aided and informed her moral success in strained conditions, but elsewhere led her morally astray. We have also noted grounds for concluding that Kant and his followers would at best underrate the place of such features in good moral decision-making and the importance of furthering their development in moral agents. A more detailed characterization of the perspective of the moral legislator as Kant conceives it seems to provide additional and fuller reasons to believe that Kantians will be at best hesitant to count the characteristics that I have ascribed to Hellman as morally central. Assuming I am right that traits like these often play a critical role in supporting individual efforts to reach and effect sound moral decision in difficult times, I fear this is an unhappy outcome for Kantian theory and its proponents. We can best appreciate the difficulty, now troublingly illuminated by fundamental elements of Kant’s theory, if we focus on the conclusions of our textual analysis. Again, what joins members of the kingdom of ends in one community, and so characterizes each member’s decision-making perspective, is first a recognition that standards of action for the community of moral agents must be ones that could serve as such for each of its members. It is further that any such standard must respect humanity as an end in itself. Finally, each member must choose ends and corresponding actions with reverence for the capacity to develop and commit to content-laden and non-contingent laws that satisfy these requirements, as well as for the laws themselves. Certainly, the tenacity of commitment, inclination to resist popular norms and capacity for imaginative investigation that I have attributed to Hellman may often serve as critical supports for human beings who hope to render judgments from the perspective of the kingdom of ends in difficult times. Our earlier analysis of the ways in which these aided Hellman in evaluating and honoring moral obligation, despite social pressures and the

238  Sarah Holtman understandable pull of self-interest, nicely illustrates this. With Hellman’s salient traits in mind, though, now consider the moral legislator who holds fast to standards that earlier appeared, in her best judgment, to be morally appropriate norms for all (e.g., a support for Stalinist communism). As tenacious in this commitment as in her refusal to betray the innocent to save herself, she may eschew opportunities to take up the moral perspective and re-examine these norms when conditions call for it. Alternatively, in attempting to carry out her duties as a moral legislator she may give too little attention to obviously relevant detail or carelessly (even obstinately) maintain an unexamined bias in favor of her earlier judgment. As a consequence, she may fail to grasp a clear instance in which, contrary to what earlier seemed true, demands to respect humanity are not met. Misled or distracted by the tenacity of her commitments, we might say by way of summary, on this occasion she may stumble (at best) in realizing and expressing her reverence for moral capacity and moral law. For one inclined, like Hellman, at least sometimes to reject popular norms without adequate examination and grounds, comparable moral hazards are in play. Inconstant in her threefold commitments of form, content and stance, or overhasty or biased in her legislative analysis, she easily may mistake a morally sound norm for a failed one or may overlook the moral inadequacies of the maxim she chooses in its stead. Similarly, one whose imaginative explorations have led her into suspect moral territory seems to have deviated (or drifted away) from the perspective of moral legislator (perhaps instead assuming that of innovative memoirist). In such a case, she has acknowledged and revered neither the legislative dictates of the moral community nor the moral status of herself and her fellow members. To sum up, the difficulty with Hellman is not simply that she possesses features that lead her sometimes to contravene Kantian moral requirements in her everyday activities. It is that the very strengths that specially suit her for successful moral decision-making in strained circumstances encourage her, at other times, to forgo the position of Kantian moral legislator or to fail significantly in the attempt to assume that perspective. Surely, then, these traits are not ones that Kant, or we as good Kantians, could endorse or seek to foster in ourselves or others as moral essentials vital to our success as prospective decision-makers for a kingdom of ends. Before we accept this conclusion, though, let’s consider Kant’s discussion of enlightenment and its potential relationship to some of his reflections on character. 11.5.2 Enlightenment Because it offers the politically significant distinction between public and private uses of reason, I think, we are sometimes inclined to see Kant’s brief essay “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment” as an element of his political philosophy. As important as it may be to that part

Legislating in the Fray  239 of Kant’s practical work, though, the essay also develops components of his broader moral theory, ones that infuse that theory with a nuance it otherwise might seem to lack. Enlightenment, Kant tells us at the start, “is the human being’s emergence from his self-incurred minority” from the “inability to make use of [his] own understanding without direction from another” (WIE 8:35, emphasis in original). To be enlightened, he indicates, is to possess the developed capacity to think for and govern oneself and to participate appropriately in mutual governance (each a variety of freedom). It is likewise the basis for freedom of action. Finally, standards (e.g., those of a social organization or a state) that recognize persons as free in these ways “treat the human being […] in keeping with his dignity” (WIE 8:40). At least in the ideal, it thus seems, a moral legislator for the kingdom of ends will be enlightened, and the laws appropriate to that community will acknowledge and support the freedom of thought and action that characterize enlightened legislators. In so doing, these laws also will respect community members’ dignity or status as moral agents. Beyond illuminating these connections among enlightenment, dignity and the kingdom of ends, in characterizing and considering enlightenment Kant offers four insights telling for our purposes. First, the road to becoming an enlightened human being will surely be punctuated by “a few falls” (WIE 8:35). Second, “mechanical” precepts are “the ball and chain of an everlasting minority” (WIE 8:36). Third, Kant argues, the use of one’s reason “as a scholar before the entire public of the world of readers” must always be free (WIE 8:37). Finally, he reminds us, enlightenment is a process. Whether our focus is on individuals or societies, human progress toward a realized capacity to make good use of our understanding will be gradual (WIE 8:40–1). Kant’s discussion of enlightenment, in other words, not only puts flesh on the bones of the ideal of the moral legislator. It fortifies the tendons and ligaments that connect moral legislation and the beings with dignity who are its subjects, creators, and adherents. It also provides us strong evidence that this Kantian ideal is not divorced from the beings we are or the world in which we live. More substantively, and with reference to Hellman as our running example, Kant’s discussion gives us good reason to think that a human being who approaches an enlightened state, thus the legislative ideal, not only will make moral and other mistakes, but must. Further, though he emphasizes that the danger of thinking for oneself “is not in fact so great” (WIE 8:35), Kant also recognizes that most of us are too lazy, or too cowardly, to take the risk and that few of us will succeed, as individuals, in becoming independent thinkers. This suggests that he sees, or has the wherewithal to see, the crucial value of moral tenacity and grit of the sort that made it possible for Hellman to take a moral stand that was both unpopular and deeply disadvantageous. That these same features may, at other times, foster mistakes is certainly in itself no reason to regard their moral significance with suspicion

240  Sarah Holtman or hesitancy on the Kantian view, now illuminated by the discussion of enlightenment. Error on the road to enlightened moral agency is simply part of the human condition. Hellman should not rest easy with her errors, moral or otherwise, of course. The fact that a personal characteristic central to this kind of moral progress may not always stay our course, though, is no ground for removing it from the list of traits that may be vital to the task. Instead, we have good reason to value such a trait as morally central in those who possess it. We also have reason to seek to develop it in ourselves, albeit striving for greater awareness of moral risks and greater sensitivity to the demands incumbent on moral decision-makers than Hellman sometimes realized. As for Hellman’s predisposition to question non-moral social norms, Kant seems yet more positively inclined because there is no place for merely mechanical precepts among the enlightened (or those progressing toward that end). These discourage independent thought, analysis, and judgment. They are, we might say, the reins by which society, with its mores and prejudices, aims to lead us. If a staunch commitment to resist such norms will help us escape this “ball and chain” despite our human, crowd-following tendencies, it appears Kant would be ready to endorse it. True, unlike Hellman, a fully enlightened being, and one who fully realizes her status as moral legislator, will have the grounds for rejecting such precepts in mind and in hand at all times. A human being attempting the legislative perspective with embryonic enlightenment, though, is not the ideal model, but the imperfect being who uses that model as a guide. If successful use is critically supported by resistance to low-level social norms as a kind of default, this seems to be a further guide for human moral progress. Again, the developing moral agent who properly keeps enlightenment as her lodestar must strive to do better than Hellman sometimes did. She must work to achieve the active and regular recognition that reasoned examination must follow close on the heels of morally appropriate norm-resistance. Given our human conditions and limitations, though, morally attuned norm-resistance and evaluation is one characteristic that a human moral legislator of a Kantian bent should seek to develop and employ both as a means to moral progress and a component of it. Hellman’s work as a playwright and memoirist is surely not what Kant had first in mind in referencing the freedom to work and speak as a scholar and the role that these play in furthering the enlightenment of individuals and societies. But this might be as much because he chose to focus on religion (and politics) and to claim (whether he believed it or not) that the arts and sciences were less at risk of incapacitation via government limits and intrusion than political speech. Whatever the explanation, the discoveries that we make, through literature, the visual arts, music and the like, dramatically expand our understandings of ourselves and our relationships to others and the world. These, in turn, inform us in

Legislating in the Fray  241 setting our own ends, in weaving them into a coherent fabric or conception of a valuable life, and in appreciating, supporting, and informing the ends of others. Hellman’s effort in this regard allowed her both to acquire deep insights into the nature and role of memory in our self-conceptions and relationships and to realize the importance of leaving these aside in gauging what it meant to testify honestly and with due concern for others’ welfare. That it did is a further credit to the depth of her insight, her developed grasp of standards of moral obligation and decision, and her capacity to integrate the two. If Hellman’s memoirs crossed the line between honesty and deception, making use of herself, or her audience, as mere things, that is a separate question.18 Its answer does not remove imaginative inquiry of the sort in which she engaged from among the features that are crucially supportive of the character or work of the moral legislator or even mitigate their significance. It rather suggests that our progress toward both enlightenment and the realization of our capacities as moral legislators must seek to integrate a true and firm commitment to moral basics with this kind of free thought and its issue. 11.5.3 Character We now have ample reason to think that there is room for Hellman’s moral tenacity, norm skepticism and imaginative exploration in Kant’s account of the moral legislator. These are features that Kant can, and often does, recognize as central supports for human progress toward enlightenment and for our approximation (though never perfect attainment) of the perspective of the kingdom of ends. Two worries remain though. We can capture the first by noting that details of the relationship between traits like Hellman’s and the commitments that characterize the kingdom of ends perspective (those to shared standards of action, respect for humanity and reverence for moral capacity and moral requirements) remain unclear. This may leave us less than fully satisfied with the Kantian view and even raise doubts about how fully it can appreciate the role that such features play in moral decision-making. Can we gain a more precise understanding of such features as moral basics in the Kantian scheme? The second worry concerns cases in which, we may think, one or more of the morally important traits that we find in Hellman regularly, or almost exclusively, supports some other agent in moral wrongdoing. How can we distinguish such a case from Hellman’s? And does the possibility of these morally malign cases cast doubt on the conclusion that such characteristics may function as moral essentials in a Kantian scheme? Kant’s remarks on “character as a way of thinking” in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View offer insights into possible Kantian responses to both worries and arguably deepen our understanding of the enlightened moral legislator in the process. For two reasons, the Anthropology initially may seem a questionable resource for my

242  Sarah Holtman purposes. First, it represents the final version, or “manual” to use Kant’s phrasing, for a popular lecture course that he frequently taught.19 It is not as consistent or thorough in its arguments as the works at the heart of his moral and political theories. Moreover, the Anthropology importantly offers Kant’s views on the features of human beings in the world. He certainly distinguishes anthropology done from a physiological and from a pragmatic point of view. The latter concerns not merely “what nature makes of the human being,” but “what he as a free-acting being makes of himself, or can and should make of himself” (Anth 7:119, emphasis in original). Interpreters disagree, though, about the extent to which we properly view this discussion as a contribution to Kant’s normative work.20 These grounds for reservation notwithstanding, in addressing character as a way of thinking Kant makes clear that his topic is not merely what the human being is, but instead what he should make of himself. The discussion thus offers what Kant understood to be insights into the features of persons that can sustain or undermine human moral success. As such, it can provide us some help with the questions at hand. “Character,” as Kant now intends it, is a “property of the will by which the subject binds himself to definite practical principles that he has prescribed to himself irrevocably by his own reason” (Anth 7:292). Central to the value of this commitment is “the formal element of the will in general, to act according to firm principles (not to fly off hither and yon, like a swarm of gnats)” (Anth 7:292). A will that is so committed, Kant continues, “has something precious and admirable in it” (Anth 7:292). While other properties of a human being have a mere price, moreover, character so understood “has an inner worth that is beyond all price” (Anth 7:292). This worth, Kant suggests, is present even though the principles to which a person is committed “may sometimes indeed be false and incorrect” (Anth 7:292). These remarks suggest the potential for a rich and morally valuable relationship between principled traits of human character and the deep commitments that define the perspective of the kingdom of ends. They seem to imply, first, that to have character in the sense Kant has in mind in this passage is to have a settled and reliable commitment to firm, actionguiding principles that one understands to supplement and give voice to the CI itself (of which FKE is, of course, one version). Although Kant’s language admits of more than one interpretation, reference to practical principles prescribed “irrevocably” by one’s own reason certainly offers support for this reading. More, to prescribe such supplemental, actionguiding principles to oneself on grounds that reason offers and endorses – that is to have character – is to count among one’s features a matter possessed of dignity. It is thus, apparently, to possess a central aspect of human moral capacity. For as we noted earlier, only “[m]orality, and humanity so far as it is capable of morality” (G 4:435) possess dignity on Kant’s view.

Legislating in the Fray  243 We may question, of course, whether we could properly count among such supplemental principles Hellman’s tenacious moral commitment, norm skepticism and penchant for imaginative exploration of memory – all importantly developed, however imperfectly, with her deep moral commitments in mind. Kant’s further remarks regarding standards related to character, though, certainly suggest that we could. These Kantian standards (all negative) include prohibitions on intentional falsehood, on dissembling, and on tendencies to attend unduly to gossip or to fear violations of fashion (Anth 7:294). Hellman’s moral tenacity is an established trait in service of the first two of these. Her settled norm skepticism evidently voices the third. Her commitment to bringing imaginative exploration of the human condition, and especially of human memory, to bear on moral decisions, and with the guidance of her other moral commitments, is central to the successful realization of all three. In some cases, we can think of Hellman’s principled commitments as one with those Kant mentions. (This seems especially true of her norm skepticism.) In others, we might perhaps best see them as firmly held principles that are descendants or offshoots of the standards Kant describes. They thus would be among a number of possible traits that could (alone or in concert with others) play an essential role in a well-developed and well-functioning moral character. Whether they are among the principles of character Kant names here or derivative of them, to the extent that Hellman’s traits represent firm commitments tightly connected to foundational moral principles that she has accepted and internalized, they are different in kind from mere moral helpmates or assistants on a Kantian account. On the picture Kant suggests here, Hellman’s traits are elements of character central to the status of legislator for a possible kingdom of ends and possessed of dignity. Both Kant’s own caveat regarding the possibility that principles of character may sometimes permit moral mistake and the developmental view he offers in the essay on enlightenment, moreover, allow that traits like Hellman’s could maintain this status on the Kantian view despite the kinds of moral error that they sometimes may encourage. It remains to distinguish Hellman from those who may seem to share some of her traits but to put them to use largely, or exclusively, for morally bad ends. Examples might include Joseph McCarthy, John S. Wood or another of the major players in the witch-hunts that made elements of Hellman’s character so evidently crucial for moral success. Each, for instance, held tenaciously to judgments about the moral dangers of communism and those who espoused it, relentlessly pursuing and punishing those innocent of any wrongdoing for mere political convictions or unreliable allegations of them. Each likewise rejected basic social norms of respect for those called to testify before their committees, engaging instead in threats and bullying that encouraged false testimony to the detriment of innocents.

244  Sarah Holtman Such individuals, of course, would lack the kind of Kantian moral character that we have now suggested could be attributed to Hellman. In his own exploration of those who fail in the realm of character, Kant distinguishes and describes the moral imitator, the person of malice, and the individual whose “formed resolution” is accompanied by a “rigid and inflexible disposition” (Anth 7:293). The imitator, who simply mimics another, has no moral character at all. For, though reliant “on principles that are valid for everyone,” a person must develop the standards that are his character through “originality in the way of thinking” and “from a source that he has opened by himself” (Anth 7:293). In other words, we might say, the person of character can be no mere mimic. To chart a successful moral course through the complex and often-fraught realities that are the world, he must grasp the connection between the firm lowerlevel principles that make up character and those that lie at morality’s foundations. Morally deficient in another way, the person of malice may have a character of sorts, a settled commitment to lower-level principles. Rather than giving voice to moral requirements, though, his firm maxims instead do violence to them. The inflexible person of resolution, by contrast, lacks character either moral or evil. Unlike the moral imitator, he does possess a “natural predisposition that is very favorable to character” (Anth 7:293). This disposition, though, is not yet a set of settled standards that follow both “from reason and morally practical principles” (Anth 7:293).21 On the picture Kant now offers, these persons each go wrong not in the sense that Hellman sometimes did, diverging briefly, though importantly, from the path set for her by deep moral commitments and the settled traits of character developed to give them voice. Not one of these morally deficient individuals is on the path to enlightenment and the realization (or approximation) of the status of moral legislator. Some may have better chances of commencing on this path than others. Thus far, however, these persons lack both the deep moral commitment and the developed principles of character whose mutually supporting combination offers a fuller, though still speculative, understanding of what we require to aspire to the status of enlightened moral legislator for a possible kingdom of ends.22

11.6 Conclusion This brings me to the end of my defense of Kant and my inquiry into what he helps us grasp about ourselves as moral decision-makers. I have argued that, appearances aside, Kant recognizes, and perceptively explores and addresses, the difficulties that human beings will face in approaching the moral legislative ideal and in charting a successful moral course in a challenging world. Their progress toward this ideal, and toward attitudes that acknowledge the dignity of moral agents and moral standards, requires the pursuit of enlightenment, and is made more plausible by Kant’s exploration

Legislating in the Fray  245 of character as a way of thinking. Necessitated by our human features and limits, our pursuit of enlightenment must, in turn, be sensitive to them. It not only benefits from but requires that we possess some close relatives of the moral tenacity, norm resistance or skepticism, and imaginative inquiry that characterized and supported Lillian Hellman’s moral success against great odds. It also links those features, despite grounds for doubt, to the realization, or approximation, of the role of moral legislator by the human creatures that we are. Moral character, as we could term it, describes a principled bridge between our deep moral commitments and the world in which we human beings must give them voice. It offers some insight into how we might more precisely describe the traits that are central and valuable partners in our moral endeavors. It similarly provides a clearer indication of how we might distinguish the true moral aspirant from the moral mimic, the person of malice and the person of inflexible resolution, each of whom seems to share the aspirant’s traits but to fail more or less profoundly to aim at the moral ideal. Lest we lose sight, an inquiry into the connections among dignity, enlightenment, character as a way of thinking, and the kingdom of ends, informed by Hellman’s case, also reminds us that Kantian moral theory is not well described as unreasonably idealistic or utopian. As a thoughtful and careful reading reveals, Kant’s practical philosophy is aspirational. Those who are to aspire to approximate its ideals (individual, political, cosmopolitan) are multifaceted and imperfect human beings whose personal ends will be varying and conflicting, whose judgments (moral and otherwise) will sometimes go wrong and who require decision-making models and other methods of guidance in order to progress in the realms of morality and happiness alike. These aspirants are, to play on Kant’s phrase, “crooked timber[s],” made for self and mutual governance, whose dignity we must acknowledge and express with reverence (see IUH 8:23).

Notes 1 I owe thanks to the volume editors and to audiences at the University of Minnesota and at the 2020 biennial meeting of the North American Kant Society for insightful comments that informed my thinking and enriched and strengthened my argument. I am especially grateful to Helga Varden, Bennett McNulty, and Jan-Willem van der Rijt for urging me to discuss Kant’s account of character, and to Adam Cureton for suggesting that I address the problem of purveyors of injustice who may seem to turn the traits of character that I applaud to morally bad ends. 2 References to Kant’s works use the volume and page number of the German Academy edition. All translations of these texts are from The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Abbreviations for in text citations are as follows: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (G); The Metaphysics of Morals (MM); “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment” (WIE); Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (Anth); “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim” (IUH).

246  Sarah Holtman 3 Criticisms of this sort take a variety of forms. For just two examples of many, see Julia Annas (1984); Martha Nussbaum (2010). 4 For a brief and accessible biography that captures both Hellman’s admirable features and the controversy that surrounds her, see Henderson (2009). 5 During the late 1940s and 1950s, fear of communism ran high in U.S. politics and in American society more generally. For those accused of associating with supposed communist organizations, or of harboring allegedly communist sympathies and ideals, negative consequences were significant. Although the era takes its name from Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Wisconsin Republican, the attitudes and repressive methods that marked the period pre-dated McCarthy’s involvement, lasted beyond his death in 1957, and involved actions and players well beyond his purview. Anticommunist efforts included federal, state, and local government loyalty programs and ongoing investigations by committees in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The most famous (or infamous) of these committees were McCarthy’s own Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and the House Un-American Activities Committee (which subpoenaed Hellman’s testimony in 1952). Loyalty programs, congressional committee hearings, and a wide variety of related efforts forced government employees from their jobs on ideological grounds (often without proof). They also led to accusations against intellectuals, writers, and actors (among others) that encouraged employers to place them on a “blacklist” of persons who were disloyal to the U.S. and whom no employer in the industry should be willing to hire. Fear of financial and other consequences encouraged employers to honor the blacklist. Fear of blacklisting encouraged those called to testify before congressional committees to offer names of supposed communist sympathizers and subversives with little or no justification. Those like Hellman, who refused to name names, knew that their own names would be included on these lists. The injustice in which Hellman and those like her refused to participate, of course, was not merely false accusation of those innocent of communist activity. It was the suppression of basic freedoms of thought, expression, and association. For an accessible, short and thorough history of the period, see Storrs (2015). For Hellman’s account of the McCarthy period and her experiences with it, see her memoir Scoundrel Time (Hellman 1976). 6 Among the basic protections afforded all persons under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is the right not to be compelled to offer self-incriminating testimony as part of a criminal proceeding. So-called “unfriendly witnesses” called to appear before the McCarthy committee and HUAC typically invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against compelled self-incrimination. They did so not only to avoid implicating themselves, but to cut off questioning that might have resulted in their implicating (or being taken to implicate) others. Hellman hoped to avoid this course by offering to testify regarding, but only regarding, her own activities. HUAC ultimately rejected her proposal. In her appearance before the committee, Hellman then took the Fifth and suffered the blacklisting and unemployment that inevitably accompanied such decisions. 7 Hellman (1952). 8 In her letter to Wood, Hellman, in fact, seems to intend that one cannot fully satisfy the moral requirement to tell the truth simply by abstaining from factually false claims. At least when one appears as a sworn witness, she seems to suggest, one’s obligation further includes a full disclosure of relevant facts in response to official questions. Here, however, I will not take up this further aspect of her view.

Legislating in the Fray  247 9 Kant’s Rechtslehre, or Doctrine of Right, is the most fully developed expression of his political philosophy. 10 Neither justice nor ethics forbids all harms to others in pursuit of one’s own interests on a Kantian model, of course. In the purely moral realm, in particular, causing relatively insignificant harms to another in order to save oneself from serious injury or death may demonstrate no disregard for the other as a person and may be perfectly justifiable. Such insignificant harms, however, were not those at issue in Hellman’s case. 11 Churchwell (2011). 12 These urgings include Kant’s warnings against following low-level social norms and “mechanical precepts” without adequate moral examination. His view is not that such norms are never morally reliable guides. It is that their status as moral guides can follow only from their relationship to more basic moral standards and not from the fact that some culture, religious community, or other social group follows or endorses them. 13 Hellman describes this encounter in Hellman (2001, 2). 14 Cavett (2002). Mary McCarthy, of course, was no relation to the senator for whom the era and its witch-hunts are named. 15 Churchwell (2011) 16 For a fuller discussion of the formula of the kingdom of ends and the related formula of autonomy, see Holtman (2009). 17 This general strategy follows the reading John Rawls offers. See Rawls (2000, 208–11). 18 Hellman, it is important to note, did not expressly claim anything other than imaginative exploration for her memoirs. As she once explained, “What I have written is the truth as I saw it, but the truth as I saw it, of course, doesn’t have much to do with the truth. It’s as if I have fitted parts of a picture puzzle and then a child overturned it and threw out some pieces.’’ See Churchwell (2011). If we take her at her word, the issue with Hellman’s memoirs is not that each was a nest of untruths. It is that, at least occasionally, Hellman strayed from her literary endeavor to advance, as truths, assertions that she knew to be false, perhaps with self-serving motives. 19 See Robert B. Louden, “Translator’s Introduction,” Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 227–30. 20 Compare, for example, the varying views put forward in the articles contained in Jacobs and Kain (2003). 21 For a detailed textual analysis that differs somewhat from the one I suggest but draws a far tighter connection between Kant’s discussion of character and the realization of Kantian moral agency, see Frierson (2006). 22 Absent a robust description of each individual, of course, we cannot say which of Kant’s categories best fits the failings of McCarthy, Wood, or their associates.

Works Cited Annas, Julia. 1984. “Personal Love and Kantian Ethics in Effi Briest.” Philosophy and Literature 8 (1):15–31. Cavett, Dick. 2002. “Lillian, Mary and Me.” The New Yorker, December 9, 2002. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/12/16/lillian-mary-and-me. Churchwell, Sarah. 2011. “The Scandalous Lillian Hellman.” The Guardian, 21 January 2011. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/jan/22/lillian-hellmanchildrens-hour-sarah-churchwell.

248  Sarah Holtman Frierson, Patrick. 2006. “Character and Evil in Kant’s Moral Anthropology.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 44 (4):623–34. Hellman, Lillian. 1952. Letter to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, May 19, 1952. In The National Archives Catalog. https://catalog. archives.gov/id/24200384 Hellman, Lillian. 1976. Scoundrel Time. New York: Little Brown and Company. Hellman, Lillian. 2001. An Unfinished Woman. N.p.: Barnes and Noble Classics. Henderson, Bruce. 2009. “Lillian Hellman.” In Jewish Women’s Archive. https:// jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/hellman-lillian. Holtman, Sarah. 2009. “Autonomy and the Kingdom of Ends.” In The Blackwell Guide to Kant’s Ethics, edited by Thomas E. Hill, Jr., 102–18. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Jacobs, Brian, and Patrick Kain, eds. 2003. Essays on Anthropology. New York: Cambridge University Press. Nussbaum, Martha C. 2010. “Perceptive Equilibrium: Literary Theory and Ethical Theory.” In A Companion to the Philosophy of Literature, edited by Gary L. Hagberg and Walter Jost, 239–67. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. Rawls, John. 2000. Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy. Edited by Barbara Herman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Storrs, Landon R. Y. 2015. McCarthyism and the Red Scare. In Oxford Research Encyclopedias, American History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/ acrefore-9780199329175-e-6#acrefore-9780199329175-e-6-bibliography-0001.

12 The Kingdom of Ends as Ideal Kiran Bhardwaj

The kingdom of ends is described as a “systematic union” of rational agents, each of whom is engaged in setting laws for the community and must abide by those laws (G 4:433, 4:462).1 As such, the kingdom of ends is an appealing utopian vision of what our community could be, especially since ordinary interactions within our communities are often full of frustration and conflict. It also is one of only a handful of concepts that Kant describes as an ‘ideal’ in the Groundwork.2 This chapter will give a broadly Kantian way of looking at the kingdom of ends as an ideal. It will propose an understanding of Kantian ethical ideals such that they help to harmonize the rest of our moral psychology with what reason requires. In particular, ideals provide a kind of complementary motivation that speaks to the parts of us that are non-rational. Ideals (as objects of the imagination) can certainly motivate us—they can inspire and encourage us. However, only ideals of particular kinds, according to Kant, can move us in ways that are aligned with what the moral law requires of us. Some ideals—like Gauguin’s ideal of artistry— can tempt us away from what the moral law requires. Yet the ideals that Kant identifies, including the ideal of the kingdom of ends, can inspire us in a direction that corresponds to our duties. We know that our needs, our fears, and other features of our psychology have a propensity to pull us away from what duty commands us to do and toward things that we think will make us happy (G 4:405). We might wish to be free of these inclinations, as Kant briefly suggests would be best for us (G 4:429). However, it is more reasonable to conclude that we cannot be rid of them, and instead need to learn to work with them.3 On this view, ideals do not motivate us to act morally. However, they can help us to secure a more coherent self and speak to how we are embodied rational agents. I will argue that the role of the ideal of the kingdom of ends (as well as the other Kantian ideals) can serve well in a broadly Kantian ethical theory, especially when paired with a contemporary understanding of the imagination. Section 12.1 will introduce these accounts of the imagination, Section 12.2 will consider how imaginative engagement with Kantian ethical ideals DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-16

250  Kiran Bhardwaj can serve as a tool to orient us and reconcile us to what we ought to do, Section 12.3 focuses on the uses of the kingdom of ends in particular, and Section 12.4 engages with some further considerations for the view offered in this chapter.4

12.1 The Work of the Imagination Ideals are special tools in Kant’s ethics. They require a combination of ideas of reason and “great force of imagination” both in our judgment of them and also in our presentation of them (CPrR 5:235). They can help us prove to ourselves that what we ought to do is possible for us (Rel 6:62). The fact that one can imagine a human being who can conduct themselves in a morally perfect way—Kant gives a version of what is recognizably a Christ figure for this ideal—can help “attune our mind” and show that such a moral goodness “can be practiced and attained by us” (Rel 6:64). Imaginative engagement with any of the Kantian moral ideals can help us, I suggest, to overcome temptations to do other than what we ought to. These ideals allow us to imaginatively project what the Kantian moral person or community might be like. Insofar as we respond to imaginings in ways that affect our real-world emotional responses and judgments, imaginative engagement with our ideals can influence us in ways that are complementary to moral motivation. Whether or not Kantian ideals ground moral action, they do serve as a way to engage the non-rational parts of ourselves while leading us to be consistent with what the moral law requires.5 In order to understand the interpretation of ideals that I propose, I suggest we first look toward contemporary theories of the imagination, which might be able to illuminate how the Kantian ideals could serve as tools for us. Imaginings are quite like perceptions or beliefs or desires. They can mimic perceptions, beliefs, and desires (depending upon the case) and sometimes even substitute for them (Currie and Ravenscroft 2002, 8, 11). Imaginative immersion—as Susanna Schellenberg tells us—can be beneficial to learning, allowing us to see perspectives that we might not have otherwise and to practice new strategies (2013, 508). For example, we can see new perspectives from imagining the experiences of a fictional character, children learn a great deal from make-believe games, and athletes use imaginative practices to improve their performance. Ideals are, as I will refer to them here, not only a list or a definition of what excellence is, but are a way of representing ‘what excellence is like’ or ‘what excellence could be like’. Ideals, as imaginings, engage with a complex network of perceptions and beliefs and desires, and our desires for them represent deep-seated desires we have not merely in the context of the imagining, but in the course of our ordinary life. The imagination has two characteristics that are especially relevant with respect to our imaginative engagement with ideals. The first is ‘mirroring’, by which we mean the ways in which imaginings conform to

Kingdom of Ends as Ideal  251 real features of the world. The second is ‘contagion’: how imaginings can influence our behavior beyond the scope of the imaginative episode. The first characteristic, ‘mirroring’, refers to the ways in which imaginings can accurately reflect real features of the world. As Tamar Gendler explains it: when we pretend X is Y, X is taken to have the effects and features within the pretense that Y is in reality believed to have (Gendler 2010, 142–3). The things we imagine, in short, tend to reflect and conform to realistic patterns of behavior—when I imagine that I’ve dropped my glass of water, I will ‘mirror’ its fall and the resulting consequences (broken glass; wet floor). Mirroring means that our imagination can lend us insights when we’re deliberating about what to do and how to do it because it requires us to attend to both realistic physical and psychological consequences. We use imaginings of another person’s mind, as well as projection from our own selves and other strategies, to be able to gain insight into other minds (Myers and Hodges 2009, 281). For example, when I script out a difficult conversation that I need to have with a friend, the conversation I imagine would build in my and my friend’s tendencies in conversation, values, willingness to listen to each other, and so on—and by playing out an imagined conversation, I might be able to better anticipate what I should say. Imaginative ideals, too, can mirror realistic physical and psychological consequences. When we imagine a virtuous person, for example, we mirror our very real capacity to feel pain and suffering, temptations to not follow the moral law, and that we must work in order to understand our own motives. Despite these obstacles, the virtuous person has a good will that is also strong. We can imaginatively immerse in—and in so doing, practice—the behaviors of the virtuous person, even though they face temptations contrary to the moral law.6 The second characteristic of imagining that is worth discussing is that of ‘contagion’. In some cases of imagining, we recognize that a particular pretense episode is a pretense episode, and everything involved is a mere imagining (Gendler 2010, 7). This kind of ‘quarantining’ or ‘encapsulation’ allows us to avoid having an imaginative episode influence what we think is true about the world—just because I could imagine what it would be like to be betrayed by my friend does not mean that I have been betrayed by her. Nonetheless, despite the way in which we often quarantine our imaginings, when we are vividly immersed in an imaginative episode, emotions and beliefs can escape quarantine. While we might recognize that the imagining we engage with is not reality-reflective, we engage with it as if the content were reality-reflective (Gendler 2010, 242). This is imaginative contagion. As a result of imaginative contagion, imaginings have the power to move us outside of pretense episodes the same ways that non-imagined perceptions, beliefs, or desires do.7 While imaginative contagion in some cases may cause us trouble—imagining a monster in our closet might have kept our childhood selves up at night, for example—it can also be

252  Kiran Bhardwaj a benefit.8 Consider, for example, how world-class athletes use imagining to boost their athletic performance, thereby improving their motor and motivational skills during a stressful situation. After one imagines what it feels like to perform well, the motor pathways used in the motor performance tend to have a more rapid response time and result in a more accurate performance (Decety and Stevens 2009, 7, 14). I suggest that imaginative practice—and its contagious effects—similarly can benefit us in our engagement with ideals. For example, purposeful and detailed imagining of the mindset of a virtuous person—what they think about, how they act—have a desirably ‘contagious’ effect if those imagined patterns of deliberation, emotions, and beliefs influence how we act in our ordinary lives. Morality can ask things of us that we don’t want to give. Imaginative contagion can explain the ways in which ideals help reconcile us to performing actions that we think are worth doing but are inclined not to do.9

12.2 Kantian Ideals and the Imagination Kant writes that “All ideals are fictions. We attempt, in concreto, to envisage a being that is congruent with the Idea. In the ideal we turn the Ideas into a model” (Eth-Mr2 29:605).10 Thus, the ideal is an attempted empirical instantiation of a Kantian moral idea (CPR A569/B597). So, for example, we can apply the idea of moral perfection to a particular object: a person. The ideal of the virtuous person is an individual who possesses everything that we would need to be good: “goodness of soul, or purity, or fortitude, or serenity, etc.” (CPJ 5:235). An ideal can serve as a model of a realistic person, or, as in the case of the kingdom of ends, a community. I take my cue from Kant’s claim that our use of ethical ideals requires the imagination (CPrR 5:235), and suggest we use modern accounts of the imagination to see how these Kantian ideals can influence us. Imaginative engagement with an ideal comes with a concomitant affective and physical response—responses that can persist even when we are not actively immersed in the imagining. There are ways in which ideals can lead us astray, of course, but when functioning well, those responses can explain the special kind of motivation that our ideals have on us. Imaginative engagement with Kantian ideals do four things for us: they orient and harmonize our activities, they reconcile us to our moral project, and they inspire hope in us. 12.2.1 Orientation First, Kantian ethical ideals involve a kind of intention and orientation toward a particular outcome that presents itself as an (out-of-reach) goal for our efforts (CPR A569/B597). We know that many ideals are unattainable—they are consistent with human nature, but seldom do we see

Kingdom of Ends as Ideal  253 people even coming close to exemplifying their features (Eth-V 27:675). Yet the adoption of and development toward certain moral ideals is important. In Kant’s words, they are “needful for the elevation of human life” (Eth-V 27:675, MM 6:469). Why are ideals needful? Kant seems to think that human psychology is such that our actions must be aimed toward some end (a ‘consequence’) (Rel 6:4). If we set certain ends (moral ideals) for ourselves, then we will be directed toward consequences that align with the demands that the moral law makes on us (Rel 6:7n, 6:66). Kant writes, “since the sensible inclinations of human beings tempt them to ends (the matter of choice) that can be contrary to duty, lawgiving reason can in turn check their influence only by a moral end set up against the ends of inclination” (MM 6:380–1, also see Rel 6:6n). So, rather than being tempted to hoard as many goods for myself as I can, I might be inspired by a vision of a cooperative community in which each person has the resources they need to thrive. Rather than spending outsized amounts of time doing things that are merely entertaining, I might orient myself toward a version of myself who is perfectly virtuous and be better able to fulfil my imperfect duties. Moral ideals set a goal for our efforts: a consequence that we as moral agents could continually approximate toward in a number of smaller actions (CPrR 5:109, 122; MM 6:383; Rel 6:61). If we do so, the parts of our psychology that are consequence-oriented (e.g., our capacity to feel pleasure or to desire), will better follow the direction that rationality requires of us. This process involves “awakening a lively feeling of this ideal” (Eth-V 27:681, also see G 4:462). So, for example, Kant says “if we consider the gracious consequences that virtue would spread throughout the world, should it gain entry everywhere, then the morally oriented reason (through the imagination) calls sensibility into play” (Rel 6:24n, also see G 4:409). This should, I think, remind us of the ways in which imaginative immersion can be contagious: our inclinations and feelings can be shaped so that they are well-aligned with what the moral law requires and influence us even when we are not actively thinking about the ideal. We may be capable only of approaching our ideals, and not attaining them (Eth-V 27:681). Nonetheless, the orientation they provide can help our emotions and our concern for consequences to better fall in line with what the moral law requires. 12.2.2 Harmonization Another virtue of the Kantian ideals is that they permit us to imagine some way to harmonize or make consistent the variety of ends that we aim at in our lives, both for individuals and across community members. We know that there are conflicts in desirable features for a life or in a community, and to satisfy some to a high degree would rule out others.

254  Kiran Bhardwaj Because imaginings mirror realistic features of the world, they can allow us to test and adjust those features and to put them into balance. We are regularly stretched between many possible ends, both moral and nonmoral—should we be promoting our careers, should we focus on our parenting, have we done enough community service, could we spend time on a hobby? Often, our difficulties come in deciding which ends to promote at which time.11 If we can imagine a harmonious person or community, that ideal may provide guidance for us in how to resolve various impasses in our ordinary decision-making. For example, take how we must allocate our time to better ourselves. In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant writes that perfection is “taken to mean the harmony of a thing’s properties with an end” (MM 6:386). To achieve moral perfection, then, a person would try to cultivate her natural capacities and ensure that they are in line with what duty requires of us (MM 6:387, 6:391). We might consider a person who can execute all the human duties (Rel 6:61). It can be helpful to imagine such a person who has managed to strike some choiceworthy balance between not only discharging all their perfect duties, but also promoting the happiness of others and their own perfection in a satisfying way. Likewise, a perfect moral community would entail a number of virtuous human beings working harmoniously toward an end (Rel 6:95). This would likely be a community with practices and institutions that support people in making virtuous choices, and, secondarily, help promote each person’s happiness. But for such a moral community, coordination—or harmonization—is required between persons (Rel 6:139). Our projects can come into conflict and may be mutually incompatible. So perhaps an ideal moral community could mirror these features of our ordinary communities, and in so doing help us determine methods to fairly mediate between the permissible projects of community members. One apparent problem with ideals providing such guidance is that they look ill-suited for our ordinary lives because ‘harmonious’ lives and communities are difficult to imagine in great detail. However, Kant thinks that there is a degree of choice involved in how we might proceed. With regards to virtue, Kant writes, Which of these natural perfections should take precedence, and in what proportion one against the other it may be a human being’s duty to himself to make these natural perfections his end, are matters left for him to choose in accordance with his own rational reflection about what sort of life he would like to lead and whether he has the powers necessary for it. (MM 6:445) Perhaps a person can use a moral ideal of the virtuous person who resembles themselves—having similar natural talents, cognitive biases

Kingdom of Ends as Ideal  255 and other strengths and weaknesses—but who has managed to strike a balance between cultivating their talents and pursuing projects in a way that leaves them able to meet their duties, while also living a life that is pleasing to them. 12.2.3 Reconciliation These two functions (orientation and harmonization) of Kantian moral ideals can serve to reconcile us to the constraints that morality places on us. As mentioned before, Kant writes that since the sensible inclinations of human beings tempt them to ends (the matter of choice) that can be contrary to duty, lawgiving reason can in turn check their influence only by a moral end set up against the ends of inclination. (MM 6:380–1) Our ideals lend us stamina in our practice of morality (Rel 6:61). A pursuit of certain ideals—the morally perfect person, the ideal moral community—may help us stave off any temptations to do other than what morality directs us to do because of the ways in which our inclinations toward the ideal can be strengthened and used as a counterbalance for the inclinations that pull us against what morality requires. This view is consistent with Kant’s insistence that moral action must not be motivated by our inclinations, but instead be motivated by the moral law. The best interpretations of Kant are those that read him as sensitive to our concerns as empirical creatures with needs and wants. We have a number of desires. What matters is whether they are subordinated to moral motivation (Rel 6:36, 6:58). Natural inclinations can still be part of our motivational structure—and may pull us toward the same actions as morality requires of us. If our natural inclinations happen to be directed toward a moral ideal (one which we find compelling in a number of ways), we might be less distracted by other consequences or emotions that might otherwise tempt us to do other than what morality requires of us. 12.2.4 Hope Finally, Kant emphasizes the work that ideals can do for us in helping us to hope and to avoid despair. There are two kinds of hope that are at play here: hope for our moral perfection and hope for our happiness. First, we must be able to hope that we can become morally perfect. I may not be able to think of becoming morally perfect as the same kind of ‘attainable’ goal as becoming fluent in French, or becoming a lawyer. Yet, as Kant writes, a person “must be able to hope that, by the exertion

256  Kiran Bhardwaj of his own power, he will attain to the road that leads in that direction, as indicated to him by a fundamentally improved disposition” (Rel 6:51, also see 6:48). Moreover, we must hope that our past misbehaviors are redeemable (Rel 6:116). Our ‘reasonable hope’ is grounded in that we ordinarily can see steady improvement in our dispositions and strength of will (Rel 6:68). It is not certainty (Rel 6:76). The ideal works to “stimulat[e] greater hope and courage and effort in achieving it” (Rel 6:133). Secondly, we must be able to hope that we will become happy to the degree that is proportional to our desert (MM 6:377). Again, Kant is best interpreted as being sensitive to our needs as empirical creatures. If our hope were merely directed toward becoming morally perfect, it would be asking a great deal from creatures with needs and wants. However, our hope is directed toward deserving happiness (and receiving it) as well as being virtuous. The Kantian moral ideals assist us in attending to our duties because we can imagine what it would be like if these ideals were to come to pass. Hope is a balm against temptations to do otherwise than what morality requires. It makes us feel capable of taking on sometimes burdensome tasks and ensures that we feel like there is a possibility of appropriate reward that will follow. Considering those attractive features of an ideal can help to avert our despair. Negative feedback—evidence that others do not act rightly or worries that others may harm us—might lead us to give up on the desire to establish an ethical community. However, mentally contrasting an imagined future to our current reality has been shown to be a strategy that enables us to respond to such negative feedback (Oettingen and Kappes 2009, 395). This mental contrasting leads us to be energized to put in efforts to bring about the desired outcome and commit to plans that would allow us to attain the desired future (Oettingen and Kappes 2009, 396–7). When we imaginatively immerse in the ideal of a harmonious moral community, we might be inspired by our feelings of pleasure in thinking of a community of persons who are like us, but who have managed to live well together. Together, these four features—orientation, harmonization, reconciliation, and hope—show what is particularly helpful about the Kantian ideals. Kant says that we must continually approximate or ‘elevate’ ourselves to ideals, and that doing so is a duty (MM 6:383, 6:409; Rel 6:62). A failure to attend to the Kantian ideals, I propose, isn’t the same kind of wrongdoing as a failure to fulfill our perfect duties or failing to fulfill our imperfect duties to an appropriate degree. It involves a failure of orientation and reconciliation that might otherwise improve our commitment to the ends of duty, and specifically the commitment that the dignity of each person is worthy of a certain kind of respectful regard.

Kingdom of Ends as Ideal  257

12.3 The Kingdom of Ends as an Imaginative Ideal Let us now focus on the particular ideal of the kingdom of ends.12 The ethical community that Kant describes is one of ideal citizens who both serve as ideal legislators of laws for all persons in the community but are also subject to those laws (G 4:433; Hill and Zweig 2002, 87). These persons stand in moral relationships to each other. They live under laws that respect their dignity as ends in themselves, as well as promote the (permissible) ends that each person sets for themselves (G 4:433). As Robert Adams describes the ethical community of the Religion, the purpose of this community is to provide a social structure “in which people instruct, encourage, and support each other in virtue, instead of providing each other with temptations to vice” (Adams 1998, xxviii). Why might an ideal of the kingdom of ends, a community of virtuous agents, make the moral law more accessible to us? Imagining a kingdom of ends hooks up to “intuition and feeling” (Hill and Zweig 86, ref to G 4:436–7). Its appeal is due to how it would represent (abstractly) the world that would be actual if everyone followed the moral law (Hill and Zweig 86). As such, the ideal of the kingdom of ends offers a glimpse of what a perfect community could be like, and imaginative engagement with this ideal can allow the other parts of our moral psychology to come into better alignment with what our moral motivations should be. This ideal is particularly powerful because the motivations in question are our social motivations: our desires to be with each other and be in community with each other. Imaginative engagement with the ideal of the kingdom of ends can provide a structural scaffolding for how we should engage with our actual community to make it more like the moral community. It can reconcile me to my duties, and perhaps even improve my ordinary practices of deliberation. The kingdom of ends is compelling because it can serve as a social ideal: not just for an individual agent (as the ideal of the virtuous person does), but for a world of rational agents. Prior to the introduction of the kingdom of ends in the Groundwork, we might have wanted more guidance for what it would be like for rational agents to collectively act according to the moral law. We might worry, for example, that agents— all of whom are acting rightly—might conflict with each other in various ways. Or we might worry that we don’t know what social relationships between persons look like when all are acting on the moral law. As Barbara Herman points out, the kingdom of ends can show how we both can prioritize autonomy as well as deep social connections between Kantian agents.13 This is because the Kantian rational agent is not an isolated individual, but a rational agent (with empirical needs) living together with others (Herman 2007, 188, 196; G 4:433–4). We are interested in being with others (MM 6:471). We want to share and discuss our thoughts with others, to love and engage with others (MM 6:469),

258  Kiran Bhardwaj and we want sympathy from others (G 4:423). All of these social interests require, by definition, being with others. If we only needed to solve a coordination problem, we would merely need rules and institutions that would resolve conflicts. Instead, the kingdom of ends “plainly gives expression to some social element in Kant’s account of moral judgment and obligation” (Herman 2007, 190). We can consider how respecting each person as an end in themselves would or might work in conditions like ours to form particular communities, relationships, or sets of specific rights and duties. This ideal directs the powerful feelings that we have in wanting to be with others. We think it would be wonderful to be able to live in a community founded on respect for the human dignity in each person, and where we mutually support each other’s concerns and projects. When we imagine the ideal, we also mirror the best kinds of feelings that we have for others: our love for others, our desire to help others. The ideal of an ethical community could channel those inclinations in a specific way—toward beneficence, generosity, or sympathy. These inclinations can be ‘contagious’—present when we imagine the ethical community, and which also may move us to act well in our ordinary lives. Similarly, our imaginative engagement with such a community may reconcile us to doing our duty and give us hope that we can live with others in the ways that we would wish. The kingdom of ends also helps us to orient ourselves by mirroring realistic features of our own social world. We imagine the members of the kingdom of ends to be like us in many ways—they would communicate using speech (rather than the sci-fi alternative of having a shared mind), they would have a number of private ends, they would be susceptible to temptations, and so on. The community would be full of people with mutually inconsistent plans and projects and motivations. These are not fully abstract ‘rational agents’ but agents who we can imagine to be relevantly like ourselves. Each person would need to consult with others, would need to be able to set aside their self-interest (despite temptations), and would know that their motivations can sometimes be opaque even to themselves. We know that we have interests and projects that are in conflict with those of others. Both moral and political philosophers are interested in how, exactly, we are to resolve these conflicts. One way we can make these projects and interests mutually consistent across persons is by accepting ‘side-constraints’ of permissibility. So, for example, I won’t carry out my project if it would injure someone else (or otherwise breach a perfect duty that I have to someone) (Herman 2007, 207–8). I must rein in my self-interest because of its tendency to tempt me to undermine others’ rational agency. I must also satisfy whatever positive moral obligations apply. For example, I can carry out my projects, so long as I am also working to help others secure their own happiness and to promote my own perfection

Kingdom of Ends as Ideal  259 (Herman 2007, 207–8). For example, I ought not pursue business ventures if my doing so would make vital resources scarce for others (Herman 2007, 204). We must, then, believe that some kind of cooperation is possible with others. Imagining an ideal community of human agents might help remind us that my own non-moral projects aren’t unconditionally worth pursuit; they can and should be part of my life, but only if they are consistent with broader moral considerations. There are limits to the degree to which we can imagine this ideal community. We know, even in small groups of people, that it is difficult to understand and appreciate what others value and would choose to do accordingly. When you extend that complexity to the concept of “all rational agents”, our imagination hits a limit. In short, the complexity of an ‘ethical community’ means that details of what the community would be like are left vague or imprecise. However, we can clearly rule out certain ways in which a community would act. We would rule out, for example, communities in which agents only consider a subset of persons and their values in their deliberations about what to do, rather than all persons. We would rule out communities that are not centered on respecting the dignity of all persons. We would rule out malicious behaviors and activities, including projects (or formulations of projects) that would undermine others. So, for example, competition might be permissible, but not policies of ‘winning no matter the cost’ (Wood 1970, 169–70). Similarly, we might recognize ways in which the communities that we live with promote the oppression or domination of some social groups, and work against these systems. The final feature of the kingdom of ends that makes it particularly helpful to us is how it can serve as a deliberative ideal, in which we imaginatively immerse in a pretense that we are a member of the kingdom of ends. We know that the mirroring feature of the imagination can help us improve our deliberation and practice new strategies (Schellenberg 2013, 508). If we take time to imagine the circumstances we might encounter and what we could do accordingly, it gives us an explorative mindset, which allows us to creatively identify more means to whatever end we have set (Faude-Koivisto et al. 2009, 80). Similarly, I propose, we can improve our habits of deliberation—and, importantly, co-deliberation— if we are to imaginatively immerse in the ways in which we would reason were we members of the kingdom of ends. As Thomas E. Hill, Jr. suggests, ideal legislators would seek dialogue with other reasonable moral agents, and when they cannot resolve their disputes, act according to the judgments they can best justify to other moral deliberators (2000, 224). Hill writes: “The ideal of moral agents as jointly legislating moral laws, I suggested, urges us to curb our moral self-complacency by consulting others, listening to divergent views, and submitting our own convictions to criticism” (Hill 2000, 45). Imagining how we would act as ideal deliberators

260  Kiran Bhardwaj can serve as practice for better deliberation in ordinary circumstances. We would think of the characteristic beliefs, desires, and mental life of the good deliberator. Doing so would allow us to avoid hastiness or failures to accommodate the needs and ends of others and to consider what each person needs in order to exercise their agency. Perhaps, too, we will be inspired to try to create social conditions that empower each agent to have a voice and to hear others regarding moral matters. For example, our ordinary deliberations can be disproportionately informed by the views of members of our own social groups, and we might recognize that we must do more work to grapple with and consider the views of people with experiences much different than our own. To respect the dignity of all others as persons, we’d make efforts to ensure that we are not failing those we don’t have as many affinities to as co-deliberators: for example, to not commit acts of epistemic injustice (Fricker 2007) and to make sure that we recognize where our practices of co-deliberation are well-suited to all kinds of communities and cultural norms for deliberation, not just those of a dominant culture. The impact of imagining ourselves as a better deliberator can have an important kind of effect on real-world motivation and performance as a result.

12.4 Further Considerations Finally, I propose that we examine two further considerations that may come up for this account in brief. First, we might ask about the emphasis this account places on cultivating our desires and feelings. After all, our desires and feelings are neutral with respect to our moral worth (G 4:398–400). Actions must be motivated by the moral law in order to have moral worth, and even identical-seeming actions that are solely motivated by our desires and feelings do not meet that standard. Yet as I had said at the outset, it is important to recognize that we are not only rational agents, but embodied rational agents. As such, we will do better by not solely considering how our desires and feelings can lead us astray, but how to (via the Kantian ethical ideals) reinforce and augment those desires and feelings that are aligned with doing what we ought to for moral reasons. These coordinate desires and feelings can and ought to be secondary to moral motivation, but they still should be part of the motivational structure we should aim to have. Having overlapping kinds of motivation that direct us toward doing our duty will, of course, make our obligation to know ourselves and understand our own motivations (and whether we’re motivated for the right sorts of reasons) more challenging. Nonetheless, having an account of moral motivation that considers not only our rationality, but our humanity, is worth the extra effort. Second, we should be wary of how ideals can be dangerous. Kant is aware of these dangers: he warns, for example, that we may go astray

Kingdom of Ends as Ideal  261 when using an ideal “since it can often be defective” (Eth-Mr2 29:604–5). We can lay out a range of pathological behaviors that could result from the misuse of ideals: I might become despondent about my own inadequacy, pushed to an unhealthy and unyielding kind of perfectionism, have my ‘head in the clouds’ and refuse to face up to the ways in which our community is not the moral community, or think that I’m doing better than I am and hypocritically judge others.14 Moreover, ideals (even carefully characterized ones) can become distorted in the imagination—I could mistake a flawed vision of community as if it represents the ‘kingdom of ends’. As a result, it is important to engage with these Kantian ideals with a great deal of care, humility, and critical evaluation. The details of the community that I imagine, for example, could build in my own biases or personal limitations. However, the practices of co-deliberation with others that the kingdom of ends promotes might help me catch and modify errors in what I have imagined. Moreover, the ways in which my immersive engagement with ideals influence me to act in the real world should be carefully audited to ensure that what I do as a result is suited for a morally imperfect world (e.g., not acting as if all others are perfectly trustworthy or willing to engage in deliberation with me). In short, it is important to recall that ideals should be a secondary part of a Kantian account of morality, and their use in our lives should be constrained by our primary commitment of respect for other rational agents. We ought not to prioritize seeking the ideal over other methods of evaluating and testing our motivations and actions. Imaginative immersion in the ideal of the kingdom of ends, however, is an excellent way to engage our desires to be with others, and channel those desires in ways that can be conducive to doing our duty. Kant says that [Moral inquiry]15 serves to produce in us a lively interest in the moral law by means of the splendid ideal of a universal kingdom of ends in themselves (rational beings) to which we can belong as members only if we are scrupulous to conduct ourselves in accordance with maxims of freedom. (G 4:462–3) If we are to use this and the other Kantian ethical ideals as a tool, then it does not seem to make our well-fitting emotions a matter of luck or coincidence, but part of what it is to reconcile ourselves to what the moral law requires of us. As such, this alignment of our inclinations is something that we can choose for ourselves, by purposefully engaging with ideals (or perhaps other methods) to make sure that our inclinations do not pull us away from what reason requires of us. As such, these ideals are a meaningful, if secondary, part of human moral life.

262  Kiran Bhardwaj

Notes 1 This chapter uses the Kemp Smith translation of CPR (Kant 2007), the Beck translation of CPrR (Kant 1956), the Guyer and Matthews translation of CPJ (Kant 2000), the Hill and Zweig translation of G (Kant 2002), the Heath translation of the L-Eth (Kant 2001), the Gregor translation of MM (Kant 1996), and the Wood and di Giovanni translation of Rel (Kant 1998). 2 The only other ideals besides the kingdom of ends mentioned in the Groundwork are those of moral perfection (G 4:408, also in Rel 6:61, 6:64-7, 6:76, 6:129, 6:191) and happiness (which Kant says is an ideal of the imagination, not of reason) (G 4:418). Elsewhere in his ethical writings Kant also describes the highest good (Rel 6:135) and friendship (MM 6:469) as ideals. Finally, in the Critique of Judgment, he also includes beauty as an ideal (though not an ethical ideal) (CPJ 5:229ff). 3 As such, this interpretation falls within the broader feminist Kantian movement to ensure that we need not diminish the role or importance of the emotions (see Dillon 1995 for one exemplar, and Hay 2013, 78n5 for a list of other philosophers who use Kant for feminist purposes) and to help Kantian ethics resist the criticisms that it leaves no room for us to appropriately think of ourselves as social beings (see Herman 2007 and Reath 1997). 4 These ideas come from Chapters 1 and 4 of my dissertation. See Bhardwaj 2017. 5 John Rawls (in his Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy) acknowledged that it is hard to see how the moral law should connect with the final aims and purposes of human life, and with our moral psychology generally (Rawls 2000, 211). Rawls’ answer is also to look to Kant’s discussions of ideals. Ideals, he says, can help to serve the requirements of the moral law, but also seem to capture possible consequences of doing so and arouse our emotions. Consider the kingdom of ends, for example. Rawls writes, “Just as the representation, or an exemplar, of a morally worthy action done from a steadfast regard for the requirements of the moral law apart from all advantage to oneself uplifts the soul and arouses in us the wish that we could act in the same way, so, likewise, the ideal of a realm of ends (as the conception of a particular moral world) arouses in us the wish that we could be a member of that world.” (Rawls 2000, 213). 6 See Rel 6:63-4 for Kant’s comments along these lines. 7 The somatic responses to imaginings have been explored by Damasio, Tranel, and Damasio 1991. Also see Nichols 2006, 8; Izard 1991, 172; and Green and Donahue 2009. 8 Mental practice—e.g., imagining—can in fact improve our performance. Frank et al. 2014 gives an excellent literature review. 9 The use of the imagination is not always in the service of doing one’s duty for the right reasons. For example, I might know what duty requires of me and not want to do it—yet imagining what would happen if I failed to do my duty and the guilt I would subsequently feel would be sufficient to spur me to do my duty. In this case, the contagious nature of the imaginative immersion would cause me to act in accordance with duty, but not from duty. Thanks to Jan-Willem van der Rijt for this point. 10 A description of the distinction between an idea and ideal is first stated in the Critique of Pure Reason. The Critique of Pure Reason’s description of the distinction between ideas and ideals is, unfortunately, opaque (CPR A567571/B596-599). I have instead chosen to use the more accessible statements from the third Critique and the Lectures on Ethics. The Lectures on Ethics’ description is more user-friendly, but it should be noted the source isn’t as

Kingdom of Ends as Ideal  263 trustworthy because it is student notes on lectures by Kant, not published work by Kant himself. Nonetheless, it seems to correspond to the idea/ideal description in the first Critique (CPR A567-568/B595-596ff) and the later third Critique (CPJ 5:232). See Dean 2013 for a full textual exegesis of Kant’s distinction between an idea and an ideal. 11 Hill, in “The Importance of Autonomy”, writes: “While it may be debated whether having a unified personality is in general a moral goal, surely we can agree that it is a morally worthy goal to try to face our important moral decisions with as few as possible of these self-fracturing obstacles.” (1987, 136–7). 12 Given how very few concepts in Kant’s ethical writings that he calls ‘ideals’ it is reasonable to think that the kingdom of ends refers to the same ideal as the ‘ethical community’ of the Religion (Rel 6:96, 6:101). Following Wood 1970, I will take this continuity between the two concepts for granted, and use passages from both the Groundwork and the Religion to elucidate the topic. 13 Herman thinks that Kantian ethics is attractive because of “the dignity it accords the individual person because of her capacity to act both freely and as reason requires, as well as from the moral equality of persons that follows from locating the basis of moral status in each agent’s own practical reason” (Herman 2007, 187). Yet it looks to some objectors to be, by this theoretical emphasis, supportive of a kind of individualism, with persons who are radically separate from one another (Herman 2007, 188). They worry that we cannot have both autonomy and deep social connection within Kantian ethics (Herman 2007, 188). Herman argues against these objectors in “A Cosmopolitan Kingdom of Ends”. 14 This list is influenced by Hill n.d. 15 The replaced text is “It”, but it is not definitively obvious that “moral inquiry” is the referent. I have used ‘moral inquiry’, as that is the overall topic of the paragraph and the referent for the previous “it” in the paragraph. The only other option—which makes less sense, I believe—is that the “Idea of a pure world of the understanding, as a whole of all intelligences to which we ourselves belong as rational beings” is what produces in us a lively interest. This is a possible reading, which perhaps means that Kant is speaking about the relationship between the Idea of the kingdom of ends and the ideal of the kingdom of ends. Nonetheless, I think that ‘moral inquiry’ is the better reading.

References Adams, Robert Merrihew. 1998. “Introduction.” In Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, by Immanuel Kant and edited by Allen Wood and George di Giovanni, vii–xxxii. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bhardwaj, Kiran. 2017. “Reason, Emotion, and Consequence: Moral Psychology and Kantian Ideals”. Dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Currie, Gregory and Ian Ravenscroft. 2002. Recreative Minds: Imagination in philosophy and psychology. New York: Oxford University Press. Damasio, Antonio, Daniel Tranel, and Hanna Damasio. 1991. “Somatic Markers and the Guidance of Behavior: Theory and Preliminary Testing.” In Frontal Lobe Function and Dysfunction, edited by H. Levin, H. M. Eisenberg, and A. L. Benton, 217–29. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dean, Richard. 2013. “Humanity as an Idea, as an Ideal, and as an End in Itself.” Kantian Review 18 (2), 171–95. doi:10.1017/S1369415413000083

264  Kiran Bhardwaj Decety, Jean and Jennifer A. Stevens. 2009. “Action Representation and Its Role in Social Interaction.” In The Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation, edited by Keith D. Markman, William M. P. Klein, and Julie A. Suhr, 3–20. New York: Psychology Press. Dillon, Robin S. 1995. “Toward a Feminist Conception of Self-Respect”. In Dignity, Character, and Self-Respect. Edited by Robin S. Dillon. New York: Routledge. Faude-Koivisto, Tanya S., Daniela Wuerz, and Peter M. Gollwitzer. 2009. “Implementation Intentions: The Mental Representations and Cognitive Procedures of If-Then Planning.” In The Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation, edited by Keith D. Markman, William M. P. Klein, and Julie A. Suhr, 69–88. New York: Psychology Press. Frank, Cornelia, William M. Land, Carmen Popp, and Thomas Schack. 2014. “Mental Practice and Mental Rehearsal: Experimental Investigation on the Functional Links between Motor Memory and Motor Imagery.” PLoS ONE 9 (4): (2014), e95175. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0095175 Fricker, Miranda. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198237907. 001.0001 Gendler, Tamar. 2010. Intuition, Imagination, and Philosophical Methodology. New York: Oxford University Press. Green, Melanie C. and John K. Donahue. 2009. “Simulated Worlds: Transportation into Narratives.” In The Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation, edited by Keith D. Markman, William M. P. Klein, and Julie A. Suhr, 241–56. New York: Psychology Press. Hay, Carol. 2013. Kantianism, Liberalism, and Feminism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Herman, Barbara. 2007. Moral Literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 1987. “The Importance of Autonomy.” In Women and Moral Theory, edited by Eva Feder Kittay and Diana T. Meyers. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. n.d. “Is Kantian Ethical Thinking Utopian?” (manuscript) Hill, Jr., Thomas E. and Arnulf Zweig. 2002. “Editors’ Introduction”. In Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant, edited by Thomas E. Hill, Jr. and Arnulf Zweig, 19–108. New York: Oxford University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2000. Respect, Pluralism, and Justice. New York: Oxford University Press. Izard, Carroll E. 1991. Psychology of Emotions. New York: Plenum Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1956. Critique of Practical Reason. Translated by Lewis White Beck. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. Kant, Immanuel. 1996. Metaphysics of Morals. Translated and edited by Mary Gregor. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1998. Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. Translated and edited by Allen Wood and George di Giovanni. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2000. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Edited by Paul Guyer, translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Kingdom of Ends as Ideal  265 Kant, Immanuel. 2001. Lectures on Ethics. Edited by Peter Heath and J.B. Schneewind, translated by Peter Heath. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Kant, Immanuel. 2002. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Arnulf Zweig. Edited by Thomas E. Hill, Jr. and Arnulf Zweig. New York: Oxford University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2007. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Myers, Michael W. and Sara D. Hodges. 2009. “Making It Up and Making Do: Simulation, Imagination, and Empathic Accuracy.” In The Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation, edited by Keith D. Markman, William M. P. Klein, and Julie A. Suhr, 281–94. New York: Psychology Press. Nichols, Shaun. 2006. “Introduction”. In The Architecture of the Imagination, edited by Shaun Nichols. New York: Oxford University Press. Oettingen, Gabriele and Andreas Kappes, 2009. “Mental Contrasting of the Future and Reality to Master Negative Feedback.” In The Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation, edited by Keith D. Markman, William M. P. Klein, and Julie A. Suhr. New York: Psychology Press, 395–412. Rawls, John. 2000. Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Reath, Andrews. 1997. “Legislating for the Kingdom of Ends: The Social Dimension of Autonomy” In Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for John Rawls. Edited by Andrews Reath, Barbara Herman and Christine M. Korsgaard. New York: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511527258 Schellenberg, Susanna. 2013. “Belief and Desire in Imagination and Immersion.” The Journal of Philosophy. 110 (9): 497–517. doi: 10.5840/jphil2013110914 Wood, Allen W. 1970. Kant’s Moral Religion. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

13 Gaslighting, Self-Respect, and the Kingdom of Ends1 Cynthia A. Stark

The term “gaslighting,” which is now widespread in popular discourse, derives from George Cukor’s classic 1944 film Gaslight. The antagonist, Gregory, attempts to drive his wife, Paula, insane by denying her accurate perceptions and memories. For instance, when she reports hearing strange sounds in the house and seeing the gaslights dim, Gregory insists that she is imagining these things, even though he knows he is causing them by secretly rooting around in the attic. He also hides his stopwatch in her purse and later pretends to find it there, accusing her of stealing it and then forgetting that she has done so. As a consequence of Gregory’s efforts, Paula begins to fear that she has lost her hold on reality. Generally speaking, then, to gaslight someone is to deny her2 credible judgments, perceptions or memories, typically in a certain domain, so as to convey to her that her judgments, perceptions or memories in that domain are mistaken or unreliable.3 As a result, the target may lose confidence in her capacity for judgment in that domain. Sometimes that is the gaslighter’s goal. In the field of psychology, gaslighting is treated as a form of emotional abuse, and therapists seek to help targets deal with its deleterious psychological effects.4 Recently, philosophers and other scholars have begun to examine the nature and functions of gaslighting and to explain why it is wrong or unjust.5 This chapter contributes to that project. I assess gaslighting from a broadly Kantian viewpoint, arguing, first, that gaslighting is, under certain circumstances, apt to damage targets’ capacity for moral agency and their self-respect. These injuries, I maintain, constitute pernicious obstacles to achieving the Kantian goal of a kingdom of ends. To make my case, I first present the account of gaslighting on which I rely. Second, I identify a certain type of proposition that gaslighters often deny, namely, persons’ credible reports that another’s action toward them was harmful or wrong. Third, I explain how such denials are apt to damage persons’ capacities for moral judgment and their self-respect. Finally, I explain why causing this damage prevents the establishment of a kingdom of ends on earth. DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-17

Gaslighting, Self-Respect and the Kingdom of Ends  267

13.1 What is Gaslighting? Despite its relative youth, the philosophical literature on gaslighting contains a variety of accounts of its nature. This is not surprising given that gaslighting, as the case of Gregory and Paula shows, has psychological, epistemic, and moral dimensions. Some theorists treat gaslighting primarily as a form of epistemic (and, in particular, testimonial) injustice,6 while others see it primarily as a type of wrongful manipulation.7 The main difference between these two ways of understanding gaslighting is this: as a form of testimonial injustice, gaslighting is a refusal to accept another’s credible testimony, which is caused by an identity prejudice harbored, perhaps unconsciously, by the hearer. On these views, the gaslighter does not set out to cause his target to doubt her own perception of events, although this can be a result. As a form of manipulation, gaslighting is an attempt, perhaps unconscious, to undermine another’s sense that she has a firm grasp on some aspect of reality, which is done by challenging her reasonable perception or interpretation of events.8 Because I wish to examine the wrongs associated with causing someone to think that her grasp on moral reality is compromised, I will treat gaslighting as a form of wrongful manipulation. I rely on the following account, which I have defended elsewhere: Gaslighting occurs when a person (“the gaslighter”) manipulates another [“the target”] in order to make her suppress or doubt her justifiable judgements about facts or values. He does this by denying the credibility of those judgements using these two methods: First, the gaslighter sidesteps evidence that would expose his judgment as unjustified. Second, he claims that the target’s judgement lacks credibility because it is caused by a defect in her.9 The second of these tactics is called “displacement” because the gaslighter displaces the issue of the credibility of the target’s judgment from the evidence (which supports her judgment) to some imputed or real defect in her that allegedly invalidates her judgment. The following is an illustration: New Clothes: When [Mitchell] … wears [some] new clothes to Sunday dinner at his parents’ home, his mother bursts out laughing. “Oh Mitchell, that outfit is all wrong for you—you look ridiculous,” she says. “Please, dear, the next time you go shopping, let me help you.” When Mitchell feels hurt and asks his mother to apologize, she shakes her head sadly. “I was only trying to help,” she says. “And I’d like an apology from you for that tone of voice.”10 Here Mitchell makes the clearly plausible judgment that his mother has wronged him. When confronted, his mother side-steps the abundant

268  Cynthia A. Stark evidence that she has done this by glossing her disrespectful and condescending comments as “helpful.” She then indicates, by nodding sadly, that Mitchell has misunderstood her comments, thus attributing his judgment that she has wronged him to a misinterpretation on his part. His judgment is not credible, on her view, because it arises from his inability to see that she has his best interests in mind. Then, in turning the table on him, Mitchell’s mother further side-steps and displaces: She side-steps by focusing on his (alleged) harsh tone rather than on the content of the request for an apology or the reason for that request, and she displaces when she implies that Mitchell is the one acting disrespectfully.

13.2 Examples and Distinctions Below are some examples of gaslighting culled from the philosophical literature. Some do not fit my characterization of gaslighting. But that does not matter for my purpose here, which is to present some distinctions regarding the types of propositions that gaslighters typically challenge. Mispronoun: James, a cisgender man, mispronouns Victoria, a trans* woman colleague, repeatedly at a department function. Victoria relates this event to a trusted cisgender colleague Susan, who refuses to believe the accusation. Susan insists that Victoria must have misheard James.11 Sexual Harassment: A woman says to a man, “John brushed up against my bottom, that’s sexual harassment.” The man replies, “sexual harassment? I’m sure it was an accident.”12 Attractiveness Ranking: In my first year of grad school (this decade) I found out that some male students had discussed a ranking of female grad students’ attractiveness. I believe there was also a ranking based on “cup size”. When I expressed to one of the offenders that the behavior was inappropriate, I was badgered for being oversensitive and philosophically interrogated for what he thought were groundless restrictions on mere conversation between male friends. It was all suggested that my concern about the list was really just a matter of my insecurity about my place on it!13 A different sort of challenge is posed by the gaslighter in each of these examples. In Mispronoun, the gaslighter denies that the wrongful event reported by the speaker took place: Susan denies that the mispronouning occurred. In Sexual Harassment, the gaslighter denies that the event that the speaker reports is of a kind that is wrongful. He claims that the incident was not a case of sexual harassment, but rather an accident. In Attractiveness Ranking, the gaslighter denies the speaker’s evaluation of the event as wrongful. He

Gaslighting, Self-Respect and the Kingdom of Ends  269 does not deny that there was an attractiveness ranking, but rather that the ranking was inappropriate. While all three of these examples are of someone denying another’s claim that she has been harmed or wronged, I am interested in the last two types of case because my aim is to explain the ways in which gaslighting might damage one’s capacity for moral judgment, as contrasted with one’s capacity for accurate perception or memory.

13.3 A Kantian Framework In order to outline the moral framework from which I evaluate the practice of gaslighting, I summarize below three Kantian ideas: the kingdom of ends, dignity, and self-respect. The kingdom of ends, Kant says, is a union of rational beings under common laws. It consists of both objective ends—rational beings themselves—and the subjective ends of such beings—their aims and projects.14 These ends are harmonized by the common laws of the kingdom. The kingdom of ends formula of the categorical imperative enjoins us to regard ourselves as legislating members of a possible kingdom of ends. To regard ourselves in this way, is, first, to create moral laws as fully rational, which guarantees, among other things, that we will follow them. Second, it is to legislate laws that are universal in form and intent. Third, it is to make laws such that in obeying them, one obeys only oneself. In this respect, members of the kingdom of ends are autonomous; they are subjected to no laws that are externally imposed upon them. Fourth, it is to legislate on the condition that one regards the humanity in oneself, and in all other members, as an end in itself. This entails that the principles governing the kingdom of ends will aim to preserve and respect the humanity in persons and, in so doing, enable persons to pursue their morally permissible personal ends unfettered.15 Moreover, the kingdom of ends is not merely a hypothetical point of view from which agents should determine moral laws, but is also, for Kant, a goal toward which persons should strive.16 In abiding by the rules that would be adopted by the occupants of a kingdom of ends, one therefore partially realizes that ideal.17 “In the kingdom of ends,” Kant says, “everything has either a price or a dignity.”18 Something that has a price, Kant explains, has a relative value, whereas something that has dignity has intrinsic value and is “exalted above all price”; it has “an unconditioned and incomparable worth.”19 In spite of stating that “morality, and humanity insofar as it is capable of morality, is the only thing that has dignity,” Kant in fact attributes dignity to a number of other things: 1) rational beings who obey no laws other than those that they enact at the same time themselves, 2) morally right acts, 3) the maxims of such acts, 4) a good will, 5) “the law-making that determines all value,” 6) “humanity” or “rational nature,” 7) “a person who fulfills his duties,” and 8) a person’s “capacity to make universal law … on the condition of being himself also subject to the law he makes.”20 These remarks suggest

270  Cynthia A. Stark that Kant believes that insofar as morality has dignity, so too do the things that are bound up with it: the capacity for morality, the activity of determining moral principles, the results of that activity when undertaken correctly, and persons who are successful in undertaking that activity.21 The literature on Kant’s ethics has emphasized Kant’s claim that humanity has dignity.22 Perhaps this emphasis emerged because when Kant explains the humanity formula of the categorical imperative, he asserts that the humanity in persons has absolute, as opposed to relative, value, which, given his account of dignity, seems to imply that humanity has dignity, though Kant does not say this explicitly in his account of the formula of humanity.23 (Indeed, Kant discusses dignity, in the Groundwork, only in the context of the formula of the kingdom of ends.) Or perhaps this emphasis emerged because Kant uses the phrase “the dignity of humanity” several times in the Metaphysics of Morals, especially in discussing our duties to ourselves as moral beings.24 Yet there is great controversy over what humanity consists in for Kant and therefore what feature(s) of us ground our dignity.25 In keeping with a number of commentators’ views,26 I will interpret humanity as our rational capacity and ability to set ends. This includes our capacity for morality, which I take to consist in the ability to make correct or reasonable moral judgments, to commit oneself to moral principles, and to act morally. Given its special value, our humanity, Kant says, is the proper object of our own respect. But the nature of this self-respect is not obvious, for Kant offers multiple and seemingly incompatible accounts of self-respect in the Metaphysics of Morals. In one passage, he describes it as a feeling toward which we are naturally predisposed. In another, he describes it as a duty, and in others as an attitude. It turns out that these are distinct notions of self-respect, which are, nevertheless, intimately related. Regarding the feeling of self-respect, Kant says, “[T]he law within [a person] inevitably exacts respect for his own being, and this feeling (which is of a special kind) is the ground of certain duties, i.e., of certain actions consistent with his duty to himself.” “Thus,” he continues, “it cannot be said that he has a duty of self-respect, for he must have respect for the law within himself in order to able to conceive of duty at all.”27 Despite claiming that self-respect cannot be a duty, Kant nevertheless outlines a duty of self-respect, which is, on his view, contrary to the vices of “servility,” “arrogance,” and “false humility.”28 This “duty regarding the dignity of humanity in us” demands that we see ourselves as the moral equal of others: “[M]an as a person,” he says, i.e., as the subject of a morally practical reason … possesses a dignity (an absolute inner worth) whereby he exacts the respect of all other rational beings in the world, can measure himself against each member of his species, and can esteem himself on a footing of equality with them.29

Gaslighting, Self-Respect and the Kingdom of Ends  271 The third conception of self-respect alluded to by Kant is a high opinion of ourselves that is contrary to negative self-assessments such as humiliation or self-contempt. He discusses this attitude in his remarks about our duty of love toward others and our duty to ourselves to refrain from lying. In describing the duty of love, he says, But this kindness also involves a dependence of [another’s] welfare upon my generosity, which humiliates him. Therefore, it is a duty to spare the recipient such humiliation and to preserve his self-respect by treating this beneficence either as a mere debt that is owed him, or as a small favor.30 With respect to lying, Kant claims that the liar, “makes himself contemptible in his own eyes and violates the dignity of humanity in his own person.”31 Here he states that a person who fails to fulfill a duty to herself and, in so doing, neglects the value of her own humanity, is bound to experience self-contempt as a consequence.32 Though he does not explicitly describe self-contempt as contrary to self-respect, Kant is clearly alluding, in the passage about lying, to our tendency to evaluate ourselves on the basis of our actions. He alludes to this tendency, also, when he maintains that we should have a low opinion of ourselves when we compare ourselves to the moral law for our “actions are not only in contravention of the moral law, but also lacking in purity.”33 The sense of worth that we have, or lack, on the basis of our own assessments of our conduct is often referred to as self-respect.34 Persons who have self-respect in this sense are able to, as Hume puts it, “bear their own survey.”35 The first two notions of self-respect deployed by Kant are related as follows: our duty to respect ourselves demands that we refrain from suppressing our feeling of respect for ourselves, which feeling includes the sense that we are the moral equal of others. That this is the nature of our duty of self-respect is brought out by the actions Kant lists as contrary to it: sycophancy, flattery, groveling, seeking favor, and permitting one’s rights to be trampled.36 These are intentional acts of self-deprecation that belie one’s equal status with others. One acts as though one is morally inferior, thereby ignoring or renouncing one’s equal status. I have argued elsewhere that it is reasonable to think that some who fail in their duty of self-respect do not intentionally renounce their equal status, but rather genuinely fail to recognize it due to unjust treatment.37 Persons who are routinely treated as if they are morally inferior, may, understandably, come to regard themselves as morally inferior, natural predispositions notwithstanding.38 Hence, below, I will assume that persons can fail in their duty of self-respect not only by committing intentional acts that disavow their equal standing, but also by genuinely believing that they have a lower standing than certain others due to social arrangements that encourage that belief.39

272  Cynthia A. Stark The third type of self-respect—a positive self-assessment—is related to the other two types in this way: this positive assessment is what we tend to experience when we succeed in fulfilling our duties, including our duty to respect ourselves. Hence it is an attitude we have when we, among other things, sustain and exhibit our conviction in our equal moral status, thus embracing our natural feeling of respect for our own humanity.

13.4 The Facilitating Conditions of Gaslighting’s Success Though gaslighting is always wrong, because it is a form of wrongful manipulation, it is not always harmful because it is not always successful. The gaslighter may fail to instill doubt in his target.40 There are certain situations, however, where gaslighting is more apt to be successful. These include cases where there is limited corroborating evidence, the harm experienced by the target is tied to oppression, the hearer treats the testimony as utterly groundless, and/or the target trusts the gaslighter. The first two of these circumstances are present in Mispronoun, Sexual Harassment, and Attractiveness Ranking; the third is present in Attractiveness Ranking and the fourth is present in Mispronoun. In all of these examples, the evidence of the wrongdoing about which the target testifies does not extend beyond her own testimony. Targets testify that they were mistreated, but the testimony cannot be corroborated. Victoria hears someone mispronouning her, but presumably no one else notices. A woman experiences a man touching her inappropriately, but there are no witnesses. A woman learns that the male graduate students in her department are ranking the attractiveness of the female students, but her assertion that this is wrong cannot be independently established: there are no institutional rules prohibiting such rankings and there is no person, let’s say, with the institutional or moral authority to verify the wrongness of the action. Where there is no one to verify the experience of the speaker, there is an opening for self-doubt to creep in. This aspect of gaslighting is, in fact, highlighted in the film. Part of Gregory’s success in causing Paula to doubt her perceptions rests on the fact that the housekeeper is hard of hearing and so cannot confirm Paula’s reports of strange sounds, and the fact that the maid, encouraged to do so by Gregory, holds Paula in contempt, which prevents Paula from enlisting her as an ally. Further, the harms attested to in the above examples are gender-specific: mispronouning, sexual harassment, sexist treatment.41 Those in dominant social positions—in this case, men or cisgender persons—who do not themselves typically experience these types of harms, are often skeptical of them. They may believe that they rarely occur, that the people who complain of them are cynical or thin-skinned, or that the actions complained of are of little consequence. Moreover, the views of powerful groups tend to be prevalent in society and this gives the gaslighter an advantage: he can count on the distorted public perception of harms such

Gaslighting, Self-Respect and the Kingdom of Ends  273 as sexual harassment to help him undermine his target’s confidence in her interpretation of her experience. In denying her interpretation, he can foment doubt by presenting himself as merely appealing to “commonsense” or “conventional wisdom” or as simply having the majority on his side. One can more easily cause someone to doubt her interpretation of her experience if one does not merely question it but treats it as outrageous. In fact, Abramson includes this feature in her characterization of gaslighting. She says, [Gaslighting] is a form of emotional manipulation in which the gaslighter tries (consciously or not) to induce in someone the sense that her reactions, memories, perceptions and/or beliefs are not just mistaken, but utterly without grounds—paradigmatically, so unfounded as to qualify as crazy.42 In Attractiveness Ranking, the target describes her interlocuter as not merely disagreeing with her, but as rejecting her testimony out of hand. The interlocuter does not merely suggest that the target may be oversensitive, he “badger[s] her for being oversensitive;” he does not merely engage in discussion about her concern, he “interrogates” her about her “groundless” view and, in a paradigmatic case of displacement, suggests that her condemnation of his conduct is caused by a personal flaw: her insecurity about her own perceived attractiveness. While the testifier in this case did not in fact fall for any of this nonsense, the point is that gaslighters frequently treat their targets’ judgements as completely unfounded and this is more apt shake targets’ confidence than is a mere questioning of their judgements. Gaslighting will tend to be successful, furthermore, when the target cares about and trusts the perspective of the gaslighter. According to Stern, a specialist in gaslighting in personal relationships, individuals are more susceptible to the effects gaslighting when they are invested in the perspective of the person who is gaslighting them. Hence gaslighting relationships tend to arise between spouses, employers and employees, parents and children, and close friends or colleagues. In Mispronoun, Victoria confides in Susan because she trusts her; we can assume that Victoria would not relate the incident indiscriminately to any colleague she happened to encounter. This aspect of gaslighting is also implied in the film. Gregory takes advantage of Paula’s psychological frailty, which is caused by a childhood trauma: Paula’s aunt, who was raising her, was brutally murdered in the house in which Gregory and Paula are now living. She sees Gregory as someone who will care for her and restore her happiness and she agrees to move back to her childhood home at his request. Paula’s deep trust in Gregory, which he meticulously cultivates prior to their move to her childhood home, persuades Paula to question her own perceptions when they are contradicted by Gregory.

274  Cynthia A. Stark

13.5 The Injuries of Gaslighting Below I examine the injuries that successful gaslighting is likely to produce. I argue, first, that successful gaslighting undermines persons’ moral capacity by groundlessly shaking their confidence in their ability to make sound moral judgments in some domain. This, in turn, makes it difficult for them to make certain moral judgments and to follow through with them. I argue, second, that gaslighting is apt to injure its targets’ self-respect, by causing them to see themselves as moral inferiors and/or disavow their moral agency. 13.5.1 Groundlessly Undermining Another’s Capacity for Moral Judgment Suppose that a woman makes a credible report of sexual harassment and is told by sources she respects or admires—family members, say, or friends—that what she experienced was not sexual harassment. Or suppose they grant that it was harassment but aver that it was too trivial to complain about. They respond, suppose, with such comments as “He was only flirting,” or “He was just joking,” or “He didn’t mean anything by it,” or “You’re being too sensitive,” or “It was a compliment!” or “What do you have against this guy?” Reactions of this sort may not only lead one to doubt, without reason, one’s judgment about the particular case, but also to doubt—again, without reason—one’s evaluations regarding cases of a certain type, say cases of sexual harassment generally. For instance, one might lose confidence in her ability to evaluate others’ testimony that they were sexually harassed. Or one might lose confidence in one’s ability to read social cues generally in the domain of gender relations. So, one might doubt her reasonable judgment that a man’s joke was sexist, for instance, or that her male boss condescended to a female coworker. Experiencing frequent qualms about one’s capacity to do something of significance is not only painful but also makes it difficult to carry out that activity. For instance, being frequently worried about one’s ability to do some aspect one’s job or some aspect of parenting makes working and parenting difficult. It is hard to think clearly, to gain perspective on one’s decisions, and to follow through with them. In short, when someone lacks confidence in an ability it is sometimes difficult to exercise it. But in gaslighting, the doubt induced in the target is unwarranted: the gaslighter unjustifiably encourages his target to question her moral evaluations and, perhaps, her capacity to make moral evaluations in some domain. The gaslighter thus harms the target by putting her in a state of doubt that makes exercising her capacity for morality difficult and unpleasant, and, because her doubt is misplaced, he causes her to suffer needlessly. Furthermore, he wrongs her by misleading her into thinking that her sound judgments are questionable.

Gaslighting, Self-Respect and the Kingdom of Ends  275 13.5.2 Groundlessly Undermining Another’s Self-Respect Self-respect, as we saw from Kant’s treatment of it, is a multifaceted phenomenon. This feature of it is captured by Robin Dillon’s extensive catalogue of ways in which persons can lack or lose respect for themselves.43 Dillon divides self-respect into two broad types, both of which are exemplified in Kant’s remarks about self-respect. These are recognition self-respect and evaluative self-respect. A person recognition respects herself when she properly understands her status as a being with a moral capacity—when she recognizes, through her deeds and attitudes, that she possesses dignity. To fulfill one’s Kantian duty of self-respect—to see oneself as the moral equal of others—is to exhibit recognition self-respect, for part of recognizing the dignity of one’s humanity is regarding oneself as having the same moral standing as others. A person respects herself in the evaluative sense when she appraises herself correctly for the quality of her actions or attitudes. One ground of evaluative self-respect is success in sustaining one’s recognition self-respect when one is tempted to foreswear it or when it is challenged by others. Below I argue that gaslighting can undermine one’s recognition self-respect. 13.5.2.1 Kantian Recognition Self-Respect There are two ways in which gaslighting is apt to produce in some individuals a sense that they have a lesser moral standing than others. The first is by suggesting that a certain sort of inappropriate treatment is in fact befitting the person who was subjected to it. If a person loses confidence in her ability to tell whether an act that seems wrong to her is actually wrong, when it is actually wrong, she might permit others to mistreat her, which is contrary to her duty to regard herself as the moral equal of others. Suppose, for instance, that a woman’s older male boss expresses intense interest in her romantic life, asking her if she dates older men, if she cheats on her boyfriend, etc. Suppose she confides in a friend about this, and he scoffs, telling her that this is obviously fatherly concern and scolding her for not appreciating her boss’s protectiveness. This woman might lose confidence in her ability to identify sexual harassment when it occurs and she might, therefore, end up tolerating such behavior in various contexts, thinking it appropriate. She might ignore her own discomfort or look for an explanation of it in her personal history: “I probably feel this way because my own father was so distant,” she might conclude. Insofar as this woman tolerates this violation of her moral rights, she fails to respect herself, which she has been encouraged to do so by her gaslighting friend. Another way in which gaslighting might diminish one’s Kantian selfrespect has to do with the fact, discussed above, that gaslighters frequently claim or imply that their targets’ credible interpretations of events are

276  Cynthia A. Stark not merely wrong, but wildly so. Often, gaslighters do not merely challenge their targets’ interpretations of events, but rather deride or scorn their targets. They accuse them of being over-sensitive, paranoid, crazy, or prudish. Or they go so far as to aver that the target is committing a wrong in complaining of mistreatment. These types of reactions to a person’s testimony that they have been wronged suggest that the person making the judgment of wrongdoing needs to be put in his place. Consider, again, New Clothes and Attractiveness Ranking. In New Clothes, Mitchell’s mother does not simply convey that Mitchell has misunderstood her comments about his clothes. Rather, she tells him that the problem with their exchange is that he has disrespected her. He has absolutely no right to request an apology, she suggests, because he is the one who is in the wrong. “How dare you ask me to apologize,” she implies. In Attractiveness Ranking, the woman complaining about the attractiveness ranking is accused of having the temerity to interfere with mere conversation among fellow graduate students. “How dare you decree what people can talk about with their friends?,” the gaslighter implies. A person subjected to this sort of treatment might come to doubt her standing to judge people whom she suspects may have wronged her, worrying that to do so would exhibit self-importance. For example, Mitchell might question his right to demand an apology when people ridicule him, thinking such behavior impertinent. Or a woman might question her right to challenge sexist behavior at work, thinking her doing so is an infringement upon people’s private interactions. When persons believe they lack standing to complain of certain types of mistreatment or abuse, they fail to see themselves as he moral equal of others, and hence fail to fully respect themselves as moral beings. 13.5.2.2 Agentic Self-Respect Besides being encouraged, sometimes inadvertently, to see themselves as having a lesser moral standing, there is another way that targets of gaslighting are induced to lack recognition self-respect: They may be prompted to lack what Dillon calls agentic self-respect.44 Those with agentic self-respect comport themselves in a manner that is befitting a moral agent, and this includes, according to Dillon, committing themselves uncompromisingly to moral standards. Insofar as targets of gaslighting experience doubt about the soundness of their moral judgments in a specific domain, especially if this doubt is persistent, they cannot commit themselves uncompromisingly to moral standards because they cannot be sure what those standards are. They are morally disoriented, as it were, and so either fail to commit, or do so hesitatingly or sporadically. This makes them vulnerable to shamelessness, corruption, self-betrayal, self-absorbedness, and lack of personal autonomy, all of which are incompatible with agentic self-respect.45

Gaslighting, Self-Respect and the Kingdom of Ends  277 The shameless person feels the pull of a moral standard, and suspects she is violating it, yet feigns ignorance of its importance in order to avoid shame. She pretends not to care that something she has done may be morally wrong or harmful. Suppose a target of gaslighting—call her Paula— comes to doubt her ability to tell when her male co-workers’ banter is sexist because she was gaslighted by her spouse when she complained to him of sexism at the plant. So, she laughs when a male co-worker says something sexist to a female co-worker. She suspects that her action was morally objectionable, and she therefore feels some remorse, but pushes it aside and convinces herself that it doesn’t really matter that she laughed. The corrupt person sees herself as fulfilling moral standards when she is in fact failing to do so because she has committed to the wrong standards. Consider, again, Paula. Imagine that rather than talking herself into the idea that laughing at sexist comments is not objectionable, she in fact commits to the notion that people should be able to say whatever they want in the workplace; restrictions on their comments are an infringement on mere conversation among co-workers, she believes. The self-betrayer abandons her standards. We can imagine that Paula would not have put up with sexist comments prior to being gaslighted. Yet now she tolerates them, having adopted the view that such comments are within people’s moral rights. The self-absorbed person incessantly worries that her actions are immoral. Her self-scrutiny goes beyond the vigilance necessary to ensure that she is fulfilling the principles of morality and takes the form of an obsession. Suppose Paula’s doubt about her capacity to judge sexism causes her to worry constantly about the time she laughed when a male co-worker told a female co-worker that she was at the top of his attractiveness ranking. She begins obsessing about all of her conversations at work, wondering if she has somehow been unkind or disrespectful or sexist herself. Suppose after a while, out of exhaustion, Paula gives up on morally evaluating her co-workers’ possibly sexist behavior and decides to follow the lead of other workers; she adopts their standards regarding workplace banter. In doing this, Paula has sacrificed her personal autonomy by neglecting to make independent moral judgments.

13.6 Gaslighting, Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends Gaslighting someone who claims to have been wronged, like any immoral act, thwarts the long-term moral goal of establishing a kingdom of ends on earth. However, this type of gaslighting (henceforth “gaslighting”) does not hinder the establishment of a kingdom of ends merely by virtue of being immoral. It undermines this goal more fundamentally: First, it is aimed at its targets’ capacity for morality—that which, Kant says, renders every rational being worthy of membership in the kingdom of ends. Second, it can prevent its targets from seeing themselves as ends in themselves, which is a condition of membership in the kingdom of ends.

278  Cynthia A. Stark The aim of the gaslighter, whether conscious or not, is to sow the seed of doubt in the mind of his targets. He attempts to make them doubt a particular credible judgment, or a series of judgments. This may make them doubt their ability to make certain types of judgments correctly—those concerning e.g., ridicule or sexism. In treating persons in this way, the gaslighter violates the categorical imperative by failing to treat their humanity as an end in itself. He does so by circumventing their reason and manipulating them by nonrational means.46 But the gaslighter does not merely fail to engage his targets’ rational capacity, he seeks to impair it by misleading his targets into doubting their intact ability to exercise that capacity well. Hence, the gaslighter seeks to damage the feature of persons that grounds their incomparable worth. To the extent that the gaslighter causes his targets to lack self-respect, he causes them to improperly value their own humanity. A person whose diminished self-respect takes the form of believing that she matters less than others, from a moral point of view, fails to recognize the full value of her humanity. She neglects to see that simply in virtue of her rational capacity and capacity to set ends, she has the same moral worth as other rational beings. A person whose diminished self-respect takes the form of failing to commit herself uncompromisingly to the principles of morality alienates herself from her own humanity. He neglects to embrace his moral capacity, thus repudiating its special value. In undermining its targets’ self-respect and damaging their capacity for morality, gaslighting powerfully thwarts the establishment of a kingdom of ends. A world in which all ends, both objective and subjective, are harmonized cannot be achieved when some persons are disabled from committing forthrightly to moral principles, made to believe that they do not have the full status of objective ends, or are made to think that they are incapable of legislating correct moral laws.

13.7 Conclusion I have argued that gaslighting, understood as a form of manipulation designed to press persons into doubting their credible judgments, can damage those persons’ moral capacity by inducing them to doubt their ability to deploy that capacity. I argued, further, that gaslighting can injure targets’ self-respect by causing them to see themselves as morally inferior to others or to disavow their moral agency. Hence gaslighting hinders the establishment of a kingdom of ends on earth by preventing individuals from possessing fully the capacity and self-conception necessary for the creation of such a kingdom.

Notes 1 Thanks to Robin Dillon, Adam Cureton, and Jan-Willem van der Rijt for feedback on an earlier version of this essay.

Gaslighting, Self-Respect and the Kingdom of Ends  279 2 Throughout the paper, I use feminine pronouns to refer to the target of gaslighting and masculine pronouns to refer to the gaslighter so as to not obscure the fact that gaslighting is a gendered phenomenon. This is not meant to suggest that men are never the targets of gaslighting or that women are never the perpetrators. 3 Riggs and Bartholomaeus (2018, 385). 4 Barton and Whitehead (1969), Calef and Weinshel (1981), Gass and Nichols (1988), Kline (2006), Riggs and Bartholomaeus (2018), Stern (2018). 5 Roberts and Andrews (2013), Abramson (2014), McKinnon (2017), Davis and Ernst (2017), Ahern (2017), Tobias and Joseph (2018), Woodard (2018), Stark (2019), Spear (2019), Adkins (2019), Sweet (2019), Spear (2020) Podosky (2021), Beerbohm and Davis (forthcoming), Kirk-Giannini (unpublished), Woodard (unpublished). See also Benson (1994). 6 For example, McKinnon (2017), Podosky (2021). 7 For example, Abramson (2014), Stark (2019). 8 This is not to say that someone who is routinely subjected to epistemic injustice will not come to doubt her perceptions and judgments. Nevertheless, this outcome has not been a main concern in the literature on gaslighting as testimonial injustice. Moreover, it is clear that many cases of manipulative gaslighting involve a refusal to believe a person’s testimony. 9 Stark (2019, 224). 10 Stern (2018, Kindle location, 184). 11 McKinnon (2017, 168). 12 Podosky (2021, 208). 13 Abramson (2014, 5). This story is from the What It’s Like to Be a Woman in Philosophy blog. 14 G 4:433. Kant’s works will be referenced in the following way: G – Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Kant 1964), MM – The Metaphysics of Morals (Kant 1983), and Eth-C – Lectures on Ethics: Collins’s Lecture Notes (Kant 1997). 15 Hill (1992b, 60–1). 16 Korsgaard (1996, 153). 17 McClosky (1976, 398). 18 G 4:434. 19 G 4:434, 436. The idea of dignity as a kind of intrinsic worth is compatible with its being understood also as a status. It is an “inner” worth in the sense that it is a status that is arises from an internal source, namely our humanity, rather than a status that is conferred by an external source such as a political authority. See Hill (2020, 183). 20 G 4:434–6, 439. 21 See Sensen (2011, 180–202). 22 For example, Paton (1948), Hill (1992a), Dean (2006, 39). 23 G 4:428. 24 MM 6:420, 429, 435–6. In discussing these duties in Lectures on Ethics, Kant refers to the “worth of humanity” (Eth-C 27:349). 25 Dean (2006, 24–33) gives a comprehensive overview of this controversy, explaining the views of a variety of Kant scholars. 26 Hill (1992a, 40), Hill (2020, 179, n. 3, 183), Herman (1993, 238), O’Neill (1989, 138). 27 MM 6:402–3. 28 MM 6:434–6, Eth-C 27:348–51. 29 MM 6:434–5. 30 MM 6:448. 31 MM 6:429. 32 MM 6:429. See also MM 6:430.

280  Cynthia A. Stark 3 Eth-C 27:350. 3 34 Massey (1983), Dillon (1992). See also Sachs (1981). 35 Hume (1971, 620). 36 MM 6:436. See also Cureton (2013). 37 Stark (1997). 38 Hill’s (1991) exploration of Kant’s notion of servility treats servile individuals— The Deferential Wife, the Uncle Tom and the Self-Deprecator—as persons who genuinely believe in their inferior status in relation to certain others; they do not merely feign inferiority in order to curry favor as Kant describes the servile. 39 But see Schemmel (2019) and Bird (2010). 40 Unsuccessful gaslighting might be harmful in addition to being wrong. For instance, a target of unsuccessful gaslighting might experience a sense of betrayal. I am assuming that successful gaslighting is especially harmful due to the nature of the injuries it creates, which I outline below. 41 Abramson (2014, 3) claims that gaslighting is often motivated by sexism. 42 Abramson (2014, 2). 43 Dillon (1992). 44 Dillon (1992, 133). 45 Dillon (1992, 133–4). 46 Hill (1992a, 50).

Works Cited Abramson, Kate. 2014. “Turning Up the Lights on Gaslighting.” Philosophical Perspectives 28:1–30. Adkins, Karen. 2019. “Gaslighting by Crowd.” In Health, Wellbeing and Society, edited by Zachary Hoskins and Joan Woolfrey, 75–87. Charlottesville: Philosophy Documentation Center. Ahern, Kathy. 2017. “Institutional Betrayal and Gaslighting.” The Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing 32 (1): 59–65. Barton, Russell and J.A. Whitehead. 1969. “The Gas-light Phenomenon.” The Lancet 1258–60. Beerbohm, Eric and Ryan Davis. Forthcoming. “Gaslighting Citizens.” American Journal of Political Science. Benson, Paul. 1994. “Free Agency and Self-Worth.” The Journal of Philosophy 91 (12): 650–68. Bird, Colin. 2010. “Self-Respect and the Respect of Others.” European Journal of Philosophy 18 (1): 17–40. Calef, Victor and Edward M. Weinshel. 1981. “Some Clinical Consequences of Introjection: Gaslighting.” Psychoanalytic Quarterly 50 (1): 44–66. Cureton, Adam. 2013. “From Self-Respect to Respect for Others.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 94: 166–87. Davis, Angelique M. and Rose Ernst. 2017. “Racial Gaslighting.” Politics, Groups and Identities. DOI: 10.1080/21565503.2017.1403934. Dean, Richard. 2006. The Value of Humanity in Kant’s Moral Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dillon, Robin. 1992. “How to Lose Your Self-Respect.” American Philosophical Quarterly 29 (2): 125–39. Gass, Gertrude Zemon and William C. Nichols. 1988. “Gaslighting: A Marital Syndrome.” Contemporary Family Therapy 10 (1): 3–16.

Gaslighting, Self-Respect and the Kingdom of Ends  281 Herman, Barbara. 1993. The Practice of Moral Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 1991. “Servility and Self-Respect.” In Autonomy and SelfRespect, 4–18. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 1992a. “Humanity as an End in Itself.” In Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant’s Moral Theory, 38–57. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 1992b. “The Kingdom of Ends.” In Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant’s Moral Theory, 58–68. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2020. “The Kingdom of Ends as an Ideal and a Constraint on Moral Legislation.” In Kant’s Concept of Dignity, edited by Yasushi Kato and Gerhard Schönrich, 177–94. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hume, David. 1971. A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by L.A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1964. Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, translated by H.J. Paton. New York: Harper & Row. Kant, Immanuel. 1983. Ethical Philosophy, translated by James W. Ellington. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. Kant, Immanuel. 1997. Lectures on Ethics, translated by Peter Heath and edited by Peter Heath and J.B. Schneewind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kline, Neal A. 2006. “Revisiting Once Upon A Time.” American Journal of Psychiatry 163 (7): 1147–48. Korsgaard, Christine M. 1996. “The Right to Lie: Kant on Dealing with Evil.” In Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Massey, Stephen J. 1983. “Is Self-Respect a Moral or a Psychological Concept?” Ethics 93: 246–61. McClosky, Mary A. 1976. “Kant’s Kingdom of Ends.” Philosophy, 198: 391–99. McKinnon, Rachel. 2017. “Allies Behaving Badly: Gaslighting As Epistemic Injustice.” In The Routledge Companion to Epistemic Injustice, edited by Gail Pohlhaus, Jr., Ian James Kidd and José Medina, 167–74. New York: Routledge. O’Neill, Onora. 1989. Constructions of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paton, H.J. 1948. The Categorical Imperative: A Study in Kant’s Moral Philosophy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Podosky, Paul-Mikhail Catapang. 2021. “Gaslighting First and Second Order.” Hypatia 36: 207–27. Riggs, Damien W. and Clare Bartholomaeus. 2018. “Gaslighting in the Context of Clinical Interactions with Parents of Transgender Children.” Sexual and Relationship Therapy 33 (4): 382–94. Roberts, Tuesda and Dorinda J. Carter Andrews. 2013. “A Critical Race Analysis of the Gaslighting Against African American Teachers.” In Contesting the Myth of a Post-Racial Era: The Continued Significance of Race in U.S. Education, edited by Dorinda J. Carter Andrews and Frank Tuitt, 69–94. New York: Peter Lang. Sachs, David. 1981. “How to Distinguish Self-Respect from Self-Esteem.” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 10: 346–60. Schemmel, Christian. 2019. “Real Self-Respect and its Social Bases.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 49 (5): 628–51. Sensen, Oliver. 2011. Kant on Human Dignity. Boston: De Gruyter.

282  Cynthia A. Stark Spear, Andrew D. 2019. “Epistemic Dimensions of Gaslighting: Peer Disagreement, Self-Trust and Epistemic Injustice.” Inquiry. DOI: 10.1080/0020174X.2019.1610051. Spear, Andrew D. 2020. “Gaslighting, Confabulation and Epistemic Innocence.” Topoi 29, 229–41. Stark, Cynthia A. 1997. “The Rationality of Valuing Oneself: A Critique of Kant on Self-Respect.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 35 (1): 65–82. Stark, Cynthia A. 2019. “Gaslighting, Misogyny and Psychological Oppression.” The Monist, 102: 221–35. Stern, Robin. 2018. The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life. New York: Harmony Books. Sweet, Paige L. 2019. “The Sociology of Gaslighting.” American Sociological Review 84 (5): 851–75. Tobias, Heston and Ameil Joseph. 2018. “Sustaining Systemic Racism Through Psychological Gaslighting: Denials of Racial Profiling and Justifications of Carding by Police Utilizing Local News Media.” Race and Justice. DOI: 10.1177/2153368718760969. Woodard, Elise. 2018. “Gaslighting, Implicit Bias and Higher-Order Evidence.” Unpublished.

14 Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment in the Kingdom of Ends Adam Cureton

Kantian ideas of dignity, autonomy, and the kingdom of ends are inspiring to many of us, but they can also seem vague, abstract, and not especially helpful for our addressing our practical concerns.1 Three underappreciated and perhaps surprising themes in Kant’s thinking together suggest a new, unorthodox, but still somewhat obscure approach to interpreting and applying these ideas. The first theme is Kant’s suggestion that rational nature, or the faculty of reason, not only legislates, enforces, and adjudicates moral principles about how we should choose, but it also exercises these governing powers on many other parts or aspects of our minds. Reason legislates laws that concern how we organize and pursue our permissible ends, what we judge, assume, infer, or think, when and how we investigate or reflect on our beliefs and deliberate about our ends, what we pay attention to, what we imagine, how we apply concepts, and even what we desire and feel. The second theme is that rational nature not only includes capacities and powers but also many intrinsic needs, drives, dispositions, and other interests. The metaphor of an “interest of reason,” which Kant sometimes uses, 2 expresses the idea that rational people, simply as such, value or care about certain things for their own sake. These rational interests, which reason itself drives us to pursue, include self-regarding and other-regarding interests in explaining and systematically unifying things, making them consistent and harmonious, preserving, protecting, developing, and exercising rational nature, promoting happiness, protecting freedom, forming relationships of solidarity, and respecting oneself and others.3 And the third theme connects the first two through a common way of interpreting the Categorical Imperative as a principle of rational justifiability to all.4 According to this theme, reason legislates, executes, and adjudicates laws to our various mental faculties that are justifiable to everyone, not just in terms of standards of prudence, but also in terms of our many formal and substantive interests of reason.5 The laws that reason legislates include not just recognizably moral ones, such as duties of respect and justice, but also ones concerning how we specify our own conceptions of happiness, pursue our personal DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-18

284  Adam Cureton goals and projects, work through logical proofs, and form beliefs about the natural world. This sketch of a partial conception of reason suggests a new approach to interpreting, reconstructing, or perhaps supplementing the interrelated Kantian ideas of autonomy, dignity, and the kingdom of ends. Our capacity for rational self-legislation is the capacity to govern ourselves by reason in all areas of life, not just in how we act but also in what desires and feelings we have, what we pay attention to, how we use our imaginations, what we communicate to one another, and what judgments we affirm. Our dignity is partially grounded in this autonomous capacity to legislate principles of reason on the basis of our intrinsic rational interests while respecting our own dignity and that of others involves respecting these interests we all share.6 And a kingdom of ends, or a more generalized version of it, is a world of people who are united by their effective commitment to govern themselves in all respects by reason. My aim in this essay is not fully to justify this partial framework, defend it, or attribute it to Kant. My more limited aim is instead to explore and develop one aspect of it by considering three specific interests that Kant sometimes attributes to the faculty of reason along with some of their potential implications for understanding and applying Kantian ideas of autonomy, dignity, and the kingdom of ends. Rational nature, Kant sometimes suggests, includes interests in acquiring knowledge of all kinds, in correcting any errors in our thinking, and in thinking for ourselves in all matters. For example, Kant says that “through the drive for cognition,” the faculty of reason “effects the feeling of a need.”7 These three rational interests we all share, which not only concern how our faculties of judgment and understanding should operate but also how we should act and choose, help to make certain prima facie laws of reason, such as ones that concern acquiring knowledge, correcting error, and seeking enlightenment, justifiable to us and others.8 Including these rational interests among the standards and criteria that determine whether presumptive laws of reason are justifiable to all helps to explain some of the duties that Kant describes. Doing so reveals essential features of our rational capacity for self-legislation, namely that rational and reasonable people as such care about knowledge, avoiding error, and enlightenment in ways that help to determine what principles and laws are justifiable to all of us. It fills in a crucial aspect of the dignity we all share as autonomous persons. And this framework partially specifies what an ideal kingdom of ends would be like.9 Consider, for example, the right to freedom of thought, which protects us from various kinds of manipulation, coercion, and indoctrination from other people when it comes to how and what we think about religion, the government, science, and much else. Incorporating rational interests in knowledge, avoiding error, and thinking for ourselves into a conception of reason allows for a direct way of justifying this right that differs from other approaches. Rawls, for example, argues that freedom of thought

Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment  285 is a social condition that enables people to develop and exercise their power of practical reason to form, revise, and pursue a conception of the good. According to Rawls, the parties in his Original Position would agree on this right as a way of protecting an essential means to satisfying their rational interest in living lives of their own choosing. 10 If, however, rational and reasonable people also care about acquiring knowledge, correcting errors in their thinking, and enlightenment for their own sakes, then a right to freedom of thought is likely justifiable to each of them as a way of protecting these fundamental rational interests as well, apart from any connections between freedom of thought and freely choosing a way of life for oneself. My plan in this chapter is first to explain and provide some evidence that, according to Kant, the faculty of reason has intrinsic interests in representing what is true or real (14.1), in avoiding and correcting errors in our judgments (14.2), and in thinking for ourselves (14.3). After considering several complications and objections (14.4), I explore some presumptive laws of reason that Kant sometimes thinks are justifiable to all rational people on the basis of these shared rational interests (14.5). I next consider some implications that these rational interests have for how we might understand Kantian ideas of autonomy, dignity, and the kingdom of ends (14.6). I close by considering an objection to my analysis, namely that I do not respect the supposedly fundamental distinction between theoretical and practical reason (14.7).

14.1 Rational Interests in Representing What Is True or Real The faculty of reason, Kant suggests, has intrinsic interests in maximizing our representations of what is true or real.11 Reason, Kant says, aims for “the systematic completeness of all cognitions;” we have “a common interest in the investigation of truth;” “one must always strive to broaden his learned cognition;” it would be a “crime against human nature” for one age to “conspire to put the following one into such a condition that it would be impossible for it to enlarge its cognitions;” we must promote “the inner worth of the sciences;” and attempting to explain nature in mechanical terms “is not merely allowed, but we are also summoned to it by reason.”12 The faculty of reason has interests, more specifically, in maximizing what all human persons understand, have insight into, and know.13 Let’s consider these in turn. 14.1.1 Understanding We can come to understand, that is, cognize, something in the world in two ways, according to Kant. One way is basically when something directly or indirectly affects our senses and our faculty of understanding

286  Adam Cureton organizes that data or the “forms” of sense themselves under a concept.14 A second way for us to understand something is for other people to provide us with credible testimony about their experiences of it.15 14.1.2 Insight To have insight into something is to cognize it through reason alone.16 The insights that are produced by our faculty of reason itself, which are limited to ones about its own nature and its ideas of morality and freedom, are grounds for the truth of propositions, such as that certain choices are contrary to duty or that certain ends can come about. Our faculty of reason cannot have insight into the existence of souls or God.17 Testimony from other people about insights they claim to have cannot provide us with insights, which can only arise within our own faculty of reason itself.18 14.1.3 Knowledge In order to explain Kant’s complicated conception of knowledge, we must first discuss how he understands the mental faculty of judgment. This faculty is the capacity to form, revise, assess, reflect on, investigate, infer, suppose, affirm, deny, and withhold assent to judgments or, as we tend to say, beliefs. Cognitive judgments connect a representation, such as ones from our senses, imagination, or understanding, with a concept, cognition, or other cognitive mental state.19 When we affirm a cognitive judgment or belief, our faculty of judgment can be determined to do so by two kinds of mental states, namely those that represent grounds of the truth of the judgment and those that do not. First, some mental states represent grounds for the truth of the proposition we affirm. A ground of a proposition is something that indicates that the proposition has some objective probability of being either true or false.20 Grounds of propositions do not depend on our attitudes toward them but instead are “based on the constitution of a thing, or on a true property.”21 They include, for example, objects in the world, natural facts, laws of nature, mathematical postulates, logical principles, or anything else that makes a proposition more or less likely to be true. For example, “a tree is connected with its fruit[;] the tree is the ground, the fruit the consequence” and “the ground for the dampness of the west wind [is] the fact that it comes over the sea.”22 The grounds of a proposition determine “what ought to be held concerning it.”23 Human persons, according to Kant, can acquire mental states that represent grounds of truth only in the three ways we previously discussed, namely through experience, through acquaintance with the testimony of others, and through rational insights. Second, our faculty of judgment can also be affected by mental states that do not represent grounds for the truth of the propositions we affirm. Some of these mental states are “subjective” in the sense that they depend

Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment  287 on “the nature and the interest of the subject” who has them.24 We might be determined to affirm a judgment as true by our feelings, desires, imaginings, and habits. Someone might judge that God exists, for example, because of the comfort this brings her or her fear of eternal damnation for not affirming that judgment.25 Our arrogance and vanity can lead us to falsely judge “more than one knows and is in any position to know” and to falsely ascribe “to oneself alone the possession of all true cognitions.”26 The “falsely inventive power of imagination” of some people might lead them to “believe they are surrounded by enemies everywhere” and to “consider all glances, words, and otherwise indifferent actions of others as aimed against them personally and as traps set for them.”27 Repeatedly exposing children to religious dogmas can instill habits that lead them to continue affirming these judgments in later life.28 And we might judge that a philosophical theory is true simply because people we admire affirm it.29 The two kinds of mental states that lead us to affirm a judgment, namely those that represent or do not represent grounds for its truth, also determine our degree of confidence in our judgment. We are convinced of a judgment we hold when we are sure of it, we do not waver in affirming it, and we are disposed not to give it up. If we learn and understand a mathematical demonstration of a proposition, for example, then these mental states, which represent grounds for the truth of the proposition, might be so convincing to us that they lead us to affirm it with great confidence. Or, if our happiness depends on our child being innocent of some crime then that subjective mental state, which does not represent grounds for the truth of our judgment, might be so strong that it leads us to affirm her innocence “with more tenacity than one who knows it.”30 Combining these ideas together, someone knows a proposition, according to Kant, just in case there are grounds that indicate that it is probably true; she holds that proposition as true on the basis of mental states that represent grounds of its truth; and she holds that proposition as true with conviction on the basis of mental states that represent grounds of its truth.31 Reason has the aim of extending and acquiring knowledge up to the point of full knowledge, including knowledge of things in the world, laws of nature, metaphysical principles, the nature and limits of our cognitive capacities, its own interests, ideas, principles, and laws, and our own mental states.32 Reason not only has an interest in us affirming propositions that are true, but it also has an interest in our doing so on the basis of mental states that represent grounds for their truth. A judgment we affirm might be true but not count as knowledge because we assent to it on the basis of feelings, desires, or other mental states that do not represent grounds of its truth.33 Such a judgment is “false formaliter” but “correct materialiter.”34

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14.2 Rational Interests in Avoiding and Correcting Errors The faculty of reason not only has interests in acquiring knowledge, but it also drives us to discover, avoid, and prevent errors in our judgments. Let’s extend our discussion of Kant’s conception of knowledge to consider some of the ways that our faculty of judgment might err. 14.2.1 Two Kinds of Errors According to Kant, there are two main kinds of errors in judgment we can make. One kind of error is holding as true a proposition that is either false or probably false. These errors mostly occur because of the influence that subjective mental states, which do not represent grounds of truth, have on our faculty of judgment. For example, a hypochondriac imagines she has many symptoms and so erroneously judges herself to be sick. Our fondness for smoking might lead us to judge that it is not bad for us. Bribery, threats, and social pressures of various kinds can sway our power of judgment through our inclinations for money, safety, honor, and fame. We may erroneously judge that a moral principle is true because of a tendency in our faculty of judgment to imitate the judgments that most people hold. And propensities of the faculty of reason itself can lead us erroneously to hold as true judgments that are not supported by sufficient grounds of their truth, such as the drive to seek the unconditioned leading to antinomies of reason. A second kind of error occurs when we mistakenly think that we know a proposition because we think that our affirmation of it was determined by mental states that represent grounds of its truth when, in fact, we affirm it on the basis of other kinds of mental states, such as our desires or feelings. We may think we know that spirits exist because we mistake a hallucination, dream, or other imagining as an experience from our faculty of understanding. And we may deceive ourselves into thinking we know we will find gold on our trip when our judgment was actually determined by our desire to find gold rather than by any evidence that we will find it. 14.2.2 Guise of the Truth The faculty of understanding supplies our faculty of judgment with mental states that represent grounds for the truth or falsity of judgments, either in the form of experiences or acquaintance with testimony, while our faculty of reason also supplies mental states that represent grounds of truth for certain kinds of propositions, in the form of insights. If these three kinds of mental states, namely experience, acquaintance with testimony, and insight, were the only ones that

Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment  289 affected our faculty of judgment and, in particular, “if there were no power active, if no power interfered” then, according to Kant, “we would actually never err” in our judgments.35 Our faculty of judgment, however, is also affected by mental states that do not represent grounds of truth or falsity, such as our feelings, desires, and imaginings. Kant endorses what we might call a “guise of the truth” thesis in which erroneous judgments almost always occur because mental states that do not represent grounds of their truth join with ones that represent such grounds, and make the latter deviate from their destination (Bestimmung) just as a moved body would of itself always stay in a straight line in the same direction, but starts off on a curved line if at the same time another force influences it in another direction.36 In most errors in which our faculty of judgment runs together mental states that represent and do not represent grounds of truth or falsity, there is usually still a “partial truth …, however hidden it is” because “the understanding” or reason are “in fact active in every error” by leading our faculty of judgment to judge truly.37 If we discover some evidence that our child committed a crime, for example, but nonetheless judge that she is innocent because of our love for her, we at least “have used [our] understanding” or reason in some way to arrive at the judgment, even though our faculty of judgment was misled by our love.38 There is thus, in almost all cases in which our cognitive mental faculties are not significantly impaired, “no total error” in judgment.39

14.3 Rational Interests in Thinking for Oneself The faculty of reason has a rational interest in each of us thinking for ourselves. We think for ourselves, or think in an enlightened way, when our judgements of truth are not influenced by subjective mental states that do not represent grounds of the truth of the judgments we affirm and when, in addition, these subjective mental states do not influence whether or how we reflect on or investigate the truth of judgements we have or might have.40 Failing to think for oneself is “passive” and “heteronomous” thinking while reason has an interest in enlightened thinking, free from these kinds of subjective influences in forming, denying, withholding, maintaining, reflecting on, and investigating judgments about what is true or false.41 Combined with Kant’s “guise of the truth” thesis, in which our unimpaired faculties of understanding and reason almost always supply mental states that represent grounds of truth, someone who thinks for herself tends to judge according to those mental states instead of subjective ones that do not represent grounds of truth.

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14.4 Complexities and Controversies Assuming that, for Kant, each of us has rational interests in representing what is true or real, in avoiding and diminishing errors, and in thinking for ourselves, there are several further questions we can ask about these interests. First, does Kant think that these interests are to be maximized and, if so, does he think it is possible for them to be completely satisfied? According to Kant, when reason favors an end, such as knowledge, then it presumptively pushes us to fully satisfy that end unless other interests or requirements of reason limit us from doing so or, in some cases, unless we cannot do so. Kant recognizes, in particular, that there are inevitable limitations to our cognitive faculties, which can be seriously impaired, tend to mature with age but also to decline after a certain point, vary in how well they function across different people, and face obstacles from our other mental faculties. According to Kant, we cannot understand, have insight into, or know everything; nor can we avoid or prevent all errors in our judgments or perhaps even think entirely for ourselves on all matters; but our faculty of reason nonetheless has intrinsic interests in promoting these goals as much as possible. Second, are these rational interests intrinsic or are they simply means to satisfying other interests of reason? The faculty of reason arguably has other interests that are served by acquiring certain kinds of true representations, eliminating certain kinds of errors, and thinking for ourselves, such as interests in applying and fulfilling moral duties to, for example, develop our talents, help others, respect their rights, scrutinize our motives, and justly administer governments we are part of as well as in effectively pursuing our own happiness and in developing friendships. The textual evidence I have provided suggests, however, that, for Kant, reason also has intrinsic interests in acquiring true representations, eliminating errors, and thinking for ourselves, apart from the other rational purposes they serve.42 Third, how should we adjudicate conflicts among these rational interests or between them and other interests of reason? Striving after more knowledge might expose us to errors while purifying ourselves of errors might prevent us from acquiring more knowledge. Some kinds of knowledge might significantly diminish our happiness, make it difficult for us to form close personal attachments, diminish the self-respect of others, or undermine the stability of governments. Errors of certain kinds can promote sociability, such as minor errors in judgment occasioned by etiquette and good manners. And pursuing enlightenment can be arduous and interfere with our other pursuits, such as those of helping others, caring for our children, or promoting justice.43 Kant even claims that the faculty of reason itself produces subjective mental states that lead us to affirm or assume some, in a sense, erroneous judgments, such as that God

Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment  291 or souls exist, even though these judgments cannot count as knowledge because we cannot have mental states that represent grounds for their truth.44 Prioritizing these and other interests or otherwise adjudicating conflicts among them might require a more systematically unified conception of reason than perhaps Kant provides, but we can, in the next section, at least examine some of the prima facie and potentially conflicting laws that they favor. Fourth, are these rational interests only self-regarding or do we also have rational interests in maximizing the understanding, insights, and knowledge of other people, in minimizing their errors, and in them thinking for themselves? There is not much explicit textual evidence one way or the other on this issue, but we can look to the overall structure of Kant’s conception of reason for clues about the scope that he thought these interests have. Kant sometimes suggests that the interests rational people have in, for example, the happiness of other people, in respecting them, and in treating their humanity or rational nature as an end in itself derive from their self-regarding rational interests in their own happiness, self-respect, and humanity as an end in itself combined with a shared commitment to a principle of mutual justifiability.45 A different structure that is compatible with some of Kant’s texts is that rational people have non-derivative rational interests of various kinds that concern all people, not just themselves, as well as a commitment to a basic principle of justifiability that adjudicates conflicts among the interests of different people. Which, if either, of these structures best reflects Kant’s thinking or fits with reflective commonsense depends on specifying the details of their corresponding conceptions of reason. It is worth recalling that the former, quasi-contractualist, structure has long been criticized as a disguised form of egoism while the latter structure might better capture the spirit of Kant’s concern for the future of the human species, his conception of God, and his description of the apparent mutual concern among members of a kingdom of ends, which he describes as “a whole both of rational beings as ends in themselves and of the ends of his own that each may set himself.”46 Let’s assume that we have intrinsic rational interests in maximizing the understanding, insights, and knowledge of everyone, in minimizing their errors, and in all of us thinking for ourselves. Let’s consider some of the prima facie laws of reason that these rational interests favor when combined with an abstract version of the Categorical Imperative, which requires us to conform to laws or principles that are justifiable to everyone on the basis of their interests of reason.

14.5 Prima Facie Laws of Reason Understood as a principle of justifiability, the Categorical Imperative requires us to conform to laws that are rationally justifiable to everyone while its many formulations and interpretations specify and clarify this

292  Adam Cureton fundamental principle of our faculty of reason. Whether these approaches focus on versions of the Formula of Universal Law, the Formula of Humanity, or the Formula of the Kingdom of Ends, they share a common need to specify standards and criteria that determine whether putatively rational laws are rationally justifiable to persons. Our rational interests in having true representations, avoiding errors, and thinking for ourselves provide criteria for whether, for example, someone could will a maxim as a universal law, could share the ends of others, or would co-legislate a law if she were a member of the kingdom of ends. By analogy, much as a rational being “cannot possibly will” a universal law of nature not to develop his natural talents because “as a rational being he necessarily wills that all the capacities in him be developed,” rational people could not agree to a universal law that hinders them or subsequent generations from “correcting old errors” in their thinking because such a law conflicts with their rational interest in promoting “the vocation and end of humanity.”47 Let’s consider what kinds of presumptive laws might be justifiable to all rational people in light of their rational interests in acquiring true representations, correcting errors, and thinking for themselves. The principles or laws of reason I mention below, which Kant himself endorses in some places and in some form, are presumptive or prima facie principles that reason favors in the sense that, all else equal, each of us could or would rationally will them, or ones like them, as universal laws on the basis of these rational interests. The precise content of these presumptive laws, their relations to ones favored by other rational interests or standards, whether they are coercive laws or not, and how, in particular, reason resolves conflicts among them and other presumptive laws of reason all depend on how the Principle of Justifiability is interpreted and on what these other interests or standards are. To reiterate, these are prima facie laws that presumptively require or forbid certain things, although, for ease of exposition, I will often not include this qualifier and instead simply say that a law requires this or that. 14.5.1  Prima Facsie Laws Concerning Ourselves If we all have rational interests in acquiring true representations, correcting and avoiding errors, and thinking for ourselves then the following kinds of laws, which are addressed to ourselves, are good candidates for ones that are justifiable to all of us in light of those interests. Some of these presumptive laws concern acquiring cognitions or experiences. They require us, for example, to provide as much sensory input as possible to our faculty of understanding for it to organize under concepts by, for instance, sharpening our senses and gathering, organizing, paying attention to, and remembering perceptions.48 They also require our faculty of understanding to develop and acquire as many concepts as possible, to

Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment  293 remove any contradictions within them, to apply them to sensory inputs as clearly, distinctly, and exactly as possible, and to eliminate empty concepts that cannot apply to our intuitions.49 Remember that I am describing these laws as prima facie or presumptive ones that can be overridden by other such laws (pragmatic considerations, for example, might limit how many concepts people in various positions should acquire). Other presumptive laws concern acquiring credible testimony from other people about their experiences. These laws require our various mental faculties to seek out such testimony by, for example, reading books, taking classes, and communicating with others. They require us to assess the credibility of those who provide such testimony but also to trust them by assuming, unless we have good evidence to the contrary, that they can have experiences and that they are “honorable and upright until the opposite has been proved.”50 Some presumptive laws have to do with acquiring rational insights. These laws require our faculty of reason itself to analyze its own ideas, such as those of duty and virtue, to examine its own powers and limits, to clarify its laws and principles, and to defend itself from attacks.51 Some presumptive laws are concerned with acquiring knowledge. They require our faculty of judgment to gather knowledge, form judgments for our consideration that do not contradict themselves, look for and assess any grounds that possible judgments may have, affirm judgments whose grounds indicate that they are probably true, moderate our judgments by the strength of our available evidence, be “cautious enough in venturing a judgment,” investigate whether judgments we already affirm are true or count as knowledge, and not remain willfully ignorant about any matter or succumb to the “punishable prejudice … not to undertake any closer investigation concerning the whole thing.”52 They also require our faculty of judgment to look for any hidden errors in our judgments, reflect on what mental states and faculties led us to affirm and maintain them, which in some cases is “a duty no one can escape if he would judge anything about things a priori,” and abandon or moderate judgments that are probably false or that we do not have sufficient grounds to affirm.53 Some of these laws have to do with thinking for ourselves. Even when our judgments are true or probably true, “reason … wants grounds” and so favors laws that require us to think for ourselves by reflecting on whether we affirm them on the basis of mental states that represent or do not represent grounds for their truth.54 It also requires us to search for any grounds from our own faculties of understanding and reason that might make them true or false, not to make the “judgements of others into the determining grounds of one’s own” when it comes to nonempirical propositions, and to consider various matters indifferently and impartially from both sides, to weigh grounds for it on one side and the grounds for its opposite on the other side, to hold

294  Adam Cureton the importance of all these various grounds up against one another properly, and to pronounce on their advantage.55 And reason otherwise requires us to pursue enlightenment, in which our judgments as well as our reflections and investigations are not determined by subjective mental states, such as our feelings or desires, that do not represent grounds of truth. According to Kant, a useful means for identifying and correcting errors in our judgments is to “think oneself (in communication with human beings) into the place of every other person,” so our rational interests also favors laws requiring us to do so.56 Putting “oneself in the place of another” and thinking “the matter over from another point of view” is often an effective way of “abstracting from the limitations that contingently attach to our own judging,” namely non-representational mental states such as feelings, desires, habits, and other peculiarities of our own minds, and so “to see if the grounds that are valid for us have the same effect on the reason of others.”57 Reflecting on our own judgments from many such standpoints helps to “protect oneself well against false judgments,” identify errors in our judgments, and determine whether we know something.58 Other people, however, might also be in the grip of biases and prejudices, so taking up the standpoints of others is not always an effective means of correcting our own errors.59 Ideally, however, the aim is to take up a “universal standpoint (which [we] can only determine by putting [ourselves] into the stand-point of others)” in which we abstract completely from non-representational mental states and reflect on and affirm judgments accordingly on the basis of experience, testimony, and insight.60 14.5.2  Prima Facie Laws Concerning Others Our rational interests in acquiring true representations, correcting and avoiding errors, and thinking for ourselves also likely make certain prima facie laws concerning the treatment of other people justifiable to everyone. These interests of reason, according to Kant, favor “a duty to respect a human being even in the logical use of his reason.”61 This duty requires us to judge, unless we have good evidence to the contrary, that we and other people possess faculties of understanding, reason, and judgment and that our and their faculties of judgment are not necessarily subject to “merely subjectively determining causes,” such as feelings and desires, but can be determined “in accordance with objective grounds that are always valid.”62 In light of the “guise of the truth” thesis we discussed in the second section, we are also required not to judge in most or all cases that the erroneous judgments of others are utterly false or absurd but instead to suppose that their “judgment must yet contain some truth and to seek this out.”63

Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment  295 These interests also favor laws that establish a right to freedom of thought in which we are forbidden from occasioning errors in the thinking of one another and from discouraging or preventing them from acquiring understanding, insight, or knowledge, correcting errors in their thinking, or reflecting on or investigating judgments they have or are considering.64 It is, Kant says, “objectionable,” “illegal by reason of its form,” and “against … conscience” to infringe on this right by, for example, attempting to “compel the judgement of others to our own view” through subjective mental states that do not represent grounds of truth, such as bribery, intimidation, and threats, flattery, withdrawing “certain civil advantages otherwise available to everyone,” or other forms of social pressure.65 We might, for example, instill in people an aversion to reflecting on or investigating certain judgments by telling them that God or the state will punish them for “the slightest deviation from certain propositions” and for “any investigation” into those judgments so that “they will not trust themselves to allow a doubt to arise even in thought alone regarding these propositions imposed on them.”66 Or, in a metaphysical or religious dispute, we might “cry high treason … [and] call together the public … as if they were to put out a fire.”67 We might also implant in someone “false representations which are repugnant to reason” by, for example, telling “stories about the appearances of spirits and ghosts” or plying him with hallucinogens in ways that, for example, make him “incapable of ordering his sense representations according to laws of experience.”68 We might try to produce in others strong feelings of awe, beauty, love, anger, or fear that put them “into a condition most unsuitable for judging,” reflecting, and investigating, such as a preacher who rouses feelings of sublimity in order to secure the assent of her flock or a defendant who attempts to corrupt a judge by his tears.69 And we might attempt to encourage habits of judgment in other people, especially in children, that lead them to imitate the judgments of others, such as educators who “know how to ban every examination of reason by their early influence on people’s minds, through prescribed formulas of belief accompanied by the anxious fear of the dangers of one’s own investigation.”70 It is, Kant says, also “unjust” and “contradictory to the worth of humanity” to demand that someone affirm our judgment about a moral or other non-empirical matter simply because we affirm it.71 These and other kinds of infringements to a right to freedom of thought, which is grounded in the rational interests we all share in acquiring knowledge, correcting their errors, and thinking for themselves, “violate the sacred right of humanity and trample it underfoot,” are “opposed to the humanity in [our] own persons and so to the highest right of the people,” and “is really theft of the first rights and of the greatest advantages, of the human race, and especially of the human understanding.”72

296  Adam Cureton 14.5.3  Prima Facie Laws Concerning Communication In human persons, “a great means” and perhaps “the only means” of gathering testimony from others, “testing the correctness of our own judgments,” “uncovering, becoming aware of, and correcting” our errors, and clarifying our insights and concepts is to communicate with other people.73 Our rational interests in acquiring true representations, correcting errors, and thinking for ourselves, combined with these supposed facts, thus also favor prima facie laws that concern communication.74 These presumptive laws require us not to hide our experiences, insights, and knowledge from other people, not to “conceal the weak points” in our judgments or arguments, and to “openly [admit] one’s doubts” about them.75 They also forbid us from intentionally causing errors in the judgments of others through certain forms of lying and deception.76 “If a man publishes a false report,” for example, he “offends against mankind, for if that were to become general, the human craving for knowledge would be thwarted.”77 We also have “natural obligations” to be sincere and candid: “everyone must frame only such utterances as can coexist and agree with the greatest consciousness of truth and the total absence of any consciousness of the opposite.”78 These presumptive laws also require us to test our judgments by the judgments of other people to see whether they agree with us or not.79 This “is a subjectively-necessary touchstone of the correctness of our judgments generally” because when we compare our judgments to others, we are often more likely to recognize when we are mistakenly taking “something merely subjective (for instance, habit or inclination)” for a ground of truth.80 These presumptive laws require us to instruct other people, especially children, in what we understand, have insight into, and know and to persuade them of what we know by adducing grounds for or against the truth of those propositions.81 They also require us to “uncover all errors” in the judgments of others.82 And, if we discover that someone affirms a false judgment, we are presumptively required to investigate what led him to commit that error, to “make distinct enough … the means by which he has been misled into holding this or that to be true,” “to prove to him the falsehood,” and to refute his judgment to others for whom its falsity is not obvious, all in order “to help one another mutually and in friendship [and] to support each other.”83 Other interests of reason, such as those in respect, happiness, and solidarity, might favor laws that have implications for whether or how we should point out and attempt to correct errors in the judgments of others. If, for example, doing so would involve undermining a person’s sense of self-worth, acting in an impolite or insulting way, causing them painful feelings of shame or embarrassment, frustrating central values or convictions that give a point or purpose to their life, or damaging our relationships with them then the laws of reason, all things considered, might

Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment  297 in some cases require us to ignore, tolerate, “moderate our judgment” about, or avoid mentioning errors we find in their judgments and instead focus on “where he is right.”84 And these presumptive laws of reason establish a “universal right” to freedom of communication, which is the liberty to “think as it were in community with others to whom we communicate our thoughts, and who communicate theirs with us” without hindrance.85 Infringements of this right include certain uses of force, threats, and “being decried as a malcontent and a dangerous citizen.”86 Someone who violates or takes away this “sacred right of humanity” is “to be regarded as the worst enemy of the extension of human cognition, indeed, of men themselves.”87

14.6 Autonomy, Dignity, and the Kingdom of Ends Investigating the rational interests that Kant at times believes we have in acquiring true representations, correcting errors, and thinking for ourselves, along with their potential connections to the Categorical Imperative, provides a new and perhaps promising way of explaining and justifying some plausible principles of reason. These interests, their role in justifying principles of reason, and those principles themselves also shed new light on how we can understand Kant’s ideas of autonomy, dignity, and the kingdom of ends. Autonomy, according to Kant, is a set of capacities and rational dispositions, namely the capacity to rationally legislate moral laws for oneself and all other rational agents independent of natural desire and inclination, the capacity to be subject only to laws of reason that we legislate for ourselves and to act from those laws, and rational dispositions to govern ourselves by reason. Although Kant’s conception of autonomy has been understood in different ways, one possibility we have been exploring is that a person is a co-author of the moral law if the moral law is justifiable to her and all other persons on the basis of our intrinsic rational interests, including our interests in knowledge, avoiding error, and enlightenment.88 Autonomy, on an account of this sort, includes the rational interests that determine whether candidate principles are justifiable to us. Governing oneself by reason thus involves following and acting from the laws that our faculty of reason legislates, enforces, and adjudicates to our various mental faculties on the basis of its concerns for, among other things, ensuring that we and others know as much as we can about the natural world, correcting mistakes in our logical, mathematical, or scientific reasoning, and avoiding prejudices and biases in how we think about other people. The “idea of the dignity of a rational being” is, like aristocratic ideas of the dignity of kings and dukes, the position or status of someone who is autonomous, “who obeys no law other than that which he himself at the same time gives.” Such a person’s “own nature as an end in itself” marks him out “as lawgiving in the kingdom of ends - as free with respect to all

298  Adam Cureton laws of nature, obeying only those which he himself gives and in accordance with which his maxims can belong to a giving of universal law (to which at the same time he subjects himself).”89 Jointly legislating moral laws with others is not simply a matter of choosing any principles we want but instead involves affirming principles on the basis of our rational interests. Our dignity thus consists in part of the capacity to legislate laws in this way and, if the previous account of autonomy is correct, thus also includes the rational interests that determine what principles are rationally justifiable to us. If these interests include ones concerning knowledge, error, and thinking for oneself then having them is part of what gives us dignity and so gives us an “unconditional, incomparable worth” as authors and subjects of the moral law.90 Respecting the dignity of persons thus requires us, among other things, to respect these rational interests by, for example, judging that they are important and worthy of attention in each person and not expressing disdain for them. Respecting our own dignity involves, for example, reasoning and assessing probabilities well, acquiring knowledge, not ignoring plain facts or disconfirming evidence, not using facts negligently, not deceiving ourselves, and otherwise facing up to the world as it is. And we respect the dignity of others by, in part, not obscuring or hiding evidence from them, not deceiving or lying to them, engaging them with reason and argument, and helping them to identify mistaken beliefs they might have. Our rational interests in knowledge, avoiding error, and enlightenment, as well as the kinds of laws that they imply, also help to fill in the idea of a kingdom of ends. Fully reason-governed people in such a world would be united by their commitment not just to laws of reason that prohibit violence, envy, and injustice and to ones that require beneficence and respect. They would also be jointly committed to laws of reason that protect, for example, freedom of thought and communication and that require everyone to gather knowledge, correct one another’s errors, educate the next generation, cooperate in scientific or other epistemic pursuits, strive for perfect enlightenment, and other laws that concern how they exercise their cognitive powers.91 Such an ideal not only serves as a model for improving our current world, but it also provides us with hope for a better future and motivation to do our part to bring it about. Although these expanded but still underdeveloped conceptions of autonomy, dignity, and the kingdom of ends are controversial and might not fit all of Kant’s texts, they reveal a promising approach to interpreting and applying them by appealing to a wide variety of substantive interests of reason, including those in knowledge, error, and enlightenment.

14.7 Theoretical and Practical Reason I have suggested that Kant at times claims that rational nature in each of has interests in acquiring knowledge of all kinds, correcting errors in our

Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment  299 thinking, and seeking enlightenment. Our reason leads us to care about and pursue these things for their own sake, independently of what we might otherwise desire or choose. I examined how Kant understands these interests in terms of his conceptions of knowledge, error, and enlightenment. I explored how they can combine with a principle of mutual justifiability to generate a wide variety of principles that presumptively require us, for example, to respect freedom of thought and speech, to avoid deceiving and manipulating other people, to acquire and carefully consider facts, and to think for ourselves. And I examined some implications for how we might understand Kantian ideas of autonomy, dignity, and the kingdom of ends. I’ll end by considering an objection to the ways I have used our rational interests in knowledge, avoiding error, and enlightenment to generate some presumptive laws of reason through an abstract version of the Categorical Imperative. The worry is that many of the presumptive laws I described that arise from these interests do not seem to be moral requirements, in Kant’s sense or otherwise, even if they are prima facie laws of reason and even if they sometimes serve moral purposes. Studying science, math, and history, experiencing far-flung parts of the world, counting blades of grass, memorizing old phonebooks, correcting our mistaken judgments about medieval royal lineages, seeking out contradictions in esoteric mathematical proofs, and imparting our knowledge of early 20thcentury baseball statistics might in some farfetched cases be indirectly useful for helping other people, showing them proper respect, and upholding their rights, but in many circumstances they seem to be entirely pointless pursuits for most of us, at least from the moral point of view. Theoretical reason, for Kant, concerns how things are; practical reason concerns how things ought to be; and pure practical reason or morality concerns how things unconditionally ought to be, so it might seem that, according to Kant, most of the prima facie laws I have discussed here are principles of theoretical rather than pure practical reason and so not direct moral requirements at all. If so, then it appears that my partial conception of reason is not faithful to a core element in Kant’s philosophical system. That might be fine, but it’s worth noting that the natures of and relationship between theoretical and practical reason is a notoriously difficult interpretive issue in Kant scholarship.92 There are some reasons, in particular, for thinking that Kant did not always maintain a clear separation between them. First, Kant sometimes describes what are apparently principles of theoretical reason as duties and obligations when he says, for example, that philosophers have “not only the title but also the duty, if not to state the whole truth in public, at least to see to it that everything put forward in public as a principle is true;” that the nature of our reason lays on us the duty of first reflecting on general laws and then, as far as possible, of grasping every individual and

300  Adam Cureton then every species under them, and in such a way of forming some sketch of the whole; that “on account of the importance that the study of nature in accordance with the principle of mechanism has for our theoretical use of reason” we have an “obligation to give a mechanical explanation of all products and events in nature, even the most purposive, as far as it is in our capacity to do so;” and that “it is a duty first to show whence this or that incorrectness of human cognition has come, i.e., I must discover the source of the error.”93 Perhaps Kant meant these to be metaphorical statements, but he also might have intended them to be statements of genuine moral duties and obligations, even though they apparently concern and arise from theoretical reason. Second, in his moral writings, Kant describes various duties that apply to our faculty of judgment rather than to our faculty of choice. He claims, for example, that those in a rightful condition have a duty not to investigate the origins of their state, that we have a duty to scrutinize our motives and to develop and learn a metaphysics of morals, and that our duties to respect ourselves and others include duties to judge that they have inner worth.94 Moral principles, these examples suggest, are not just about what maxims or ends we should adopt, what we should do, or otherwise how we exercise our faculty of choice; some of them also seem to concern our faculty of judgment directly. Third, Kant ascribes to the faculty of reason abilities to enforce and adjudicate laws of “theoretical” reason in ways that are analogous to its abilities to enforce moral laws by producing moral feelings and desires and to adjudicate them through conscience: Reason has the “commanding authority” and power to “direct, stop, or impel” our cognitive faculties to conform to these standards, such as to “use force” to “overpower” feelings, habits, and other prejudices that may be influencing our judgments.95 And he says that reason is the “highest court of appeals for all rights and claims of our speculation” with the authority and capacity to pass judgment on whether our thinking conforms to the laws that reason prescribes and to “pronounce sentence” on us with the “force of law,” such as to “censure” us with feelings of self-reproach if we were too hasty in drawing a conclusion from empirical evidence.96 Fourth, as we have seen in this chapter, Kant claims that we have moral rights to acquire true representations, correct errors, and think for ourselves as well as duties not deceive or manipulate others, to help them to acquire knowledge, and to point out errors in their judgments. And “since all others with the exception of myself would not be all,” the rational interests that ground these rights and duties also seem to ground self-regarding duties to protect and promote those interests in ourselves as well.97 Fifth, Kant sometimes implies that our capacities of theoretical reason have unconditional worth:

Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment  301 Now, a human being really finds in himself a capacity by which he distinguishes himself from all other things, even from himself insofar as he is affected by objects, and that is reason. This, as pure selfactivity, is raised even above the understanding; metaphysics is also the culmination of all culture of human reason … That as mere speculation it serves more to prevent errors than to amplify cognition does no damage to its value, but rather gives it all the more dignity and authority through its office as censor; “the feeling of the sublime in nature is respect for our own vocation,” which “as it were makes intuitable the superiority of the rational vocation of our cognitive faculty over the greatest faculty of sensibility;” “logical egoism consists, then, in nothing but the presumed but often false self-sufficiency of our understanding … [T]his conceited mode of thought … is even most contrary to real humanity”; and “the dignity of mankind … includes the healthy use of reason.”98 Finally, Kant claims that “there can, in the end, be only one and the same reason, which must be distinguished merely in its application” and he characterizes the basic principle of thinking in a way that is strikingly similar to some formulations of his supreme moral principle: To make use of one’s own reason means no more than to ask oneself, whenever one is supposed to assume something, whether one could find it feasible to make the ground or the rule on which one assumes it into a universal principle for the use of reason.99 Although these various passages can be interpreted in different ways, they to some extent suggest that, according to Kant at some times, there is really only a single faculty of reason that legislates rational laws on the basis of its fundamental principle and its various interests, without any basic distinction among moral, prudential, and theoretical laws. On this view, rational laws are not distinguished by their form, by the mental faculty that they apply to, or by their origin in one part of reason rather than another; instead, they are all simply requirements of reason that a fully reason-governed person would govern herself by and that would unify such people in an ideally rational world.100 For certain practical purposes, however, we might legitimately classify some requirements as “moral” and others as merely requirements of prudential or theoretical reason by, for example, enforcing the former more strictly than the latter, formally or informally punishing violations of the former but not the latter, and giving greater priority to the former over the latter in cases of conflict. Whether or not this further interpretive strategy can succeed, I have argued that, for Kant, each of us has rational interests in enlarging our store of cognition and knowledge, correcting errors in our judgments,

302  Adam Cureton and thinking for ourselves; that these interests are an essential part of our capacity for rational self-governance; and that they help to determine the shared laws that are justifiable to all rational and reasonable people.

Notes 1 I am grateful to Tom Hill, Mark Timmons, Jan-Willem van der Rijt, participants at the 2020 Virginia Normative Ethics Workshop, and participants at the 2021 Central APA for their helpful feedback on this essay. 2 e.g., G 4:460n; MM 6:212–13; A462/B490-A476/B504; A741 /B769; CPJ 5:223; NF 18:274. I will refer to Kant’s works with these abbreviations followed by standard Academy volume and page numbers. AB - (Kant 1998), Anth - (Kant 2007a), CF - (Kant 2001a), CPJ - (Kant 2000), CPrR - (Kant 2007b), Eth-C - (Kant 2001d), Eth-V - (Kant 2001b), G - (Kant 1996a), L-Anth - (Kant 2013), L-Log - (Kant 1992), L-Th - (Kant 2001c), MM - (Kant 1996b), MPT - (Kant 1996c), Ped - (Kant 2007c), Rel - (Kant 2001e), RevS (Kant 1999c), TP - (Kant 1999b), WIE - (Kant 1999a), WOT - (Kant 2001f). 3 A few Kant scholars, including Ferrarin (2015, 24–34), Kleingeld (1998a), Yovel (1986), Raedler (2015, 12–15, 60–6), have noticed and discussed Kant’s claims about reason’s interest in systematic unity and unconditionality, but Kant at times claims that there are many more interests of reason than this and that these interests play a prominent role in justifying specific requirements of reason. 4 In some places, Thomas E. Hill, Jr. gestures towards an expansive set of rational interests that help to determine how his ideal legislators deliberate and legislate in Hill (2000, 139, 150–1, 2002b, 152–3, 2012, 309, 2020, 189). See also Guyer (1995). 5 Maxims fail the Formula of Universal Law test just in case it is not possible to rationally will both our maxim and a universalized version of it for our imperfect world. Rational willing, according to Onora O’Neill, is limited to abiding by rational norms of consistency and coherence (O’Neill 1989, 89–93). See also Korsgaard (1996c), Herman (1993, 121–2). 6 Cureton (2021). 7 WOT 8:140n. 8 Hill, for example, denies that we have intrinsic rational interests in knowledge (Hill 1992, 89, cf. 91, 2002a, 35). 9 There are longstanding controversies about what, in Kant’s view, gives us dignity or makes us ends in ourselves (e.g., Korsgaard (1996b), Wood (1999, 2008), Timmermann (2006), Dean (2006), (Sensen 2011)). My suggestion is more expansive than these interpretations: For Kant, our autonomy is the basis of our dignity and includes all rational interests that together determine whether we could or would rationally legislate a law of reason. 10 Rawls (1999, 181–3). 11 A644/B672; A666/B694; CPrR 5:36, 120; Anth 7:297; Ped 9:449; L-Log 24:59. 12 A655/B683, L-Log 24:828, L-Log 24:73, WIE 8:39, L-Log 24:820, and CPJ 5:429, respectively. 13 A470/B498; A643/B671-A 644/B672; A655/B683; L-Log 24:55, 73, 833; WIE 8:39, L-Log 24:59, 133, 835, and CPrR 5:120; Anth 7:281n, 297; Ped 9:449; L-Log 24:828, respectively. 14 How Kant distinguishes the faculties of understanding and reason is a subject of controversy among Kant scholars. See, for example, Guyer (1994), Allison (1996, 80–91).

Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment  303 15 CPJ 5:284, 468–9; Anth 7:104; WOT 8:141; Eth-C 24:448; L-Log 24:99, 830, 870. For further discussion of Kant’s account of testimony, including debates about whether he is a reductionist or anti-reductionist about testimony, see Mikalsen (2010), Gelfert (2006), Shieber (2010), Schmitt (1987). It is not entirely clear how, in particular, Kant thinks our mental faculties and those of others operate in ways that provide us with cognition of the experiences of others. 16 L-Log 24:133–5; MM 6:328. 17 L-Anth 25:549–50. 18 L-Log 24:244, 870, 897. 19 CPJ 20:223–4. 20 L-Log 24:194, 145; A293/B249. 21 L-Log 24:143. 22 L-Log 24:43 and L-Log 24:824, respectively. 23 L-Log 24:145. 24 L-Log 24:70, 162; cf. CPJ 5:293; WIE 8:36. 25 Rel 6:179; Anth 7:209–10; L-Log 24:176. 26 L-Log 24:86, 176 and L-Log 24:94, respectively. 27 Anth 7:215. 28 WOT 8:145; TP 8:281. 29 L-Log 24:50, 78, 177; WIE 8:35; A836/B864. 30 L-Log 24:852. 31 For further discussion of Kant’s epistemology and, specifically, his conception of knowledge, see Chignell (2007a, 2013, 2007b), Stevenson (2003). 32 A643/B671-A 644/B672; A655/B683; Anth 7:281n, 297; Ped 9:449; L-Log 24:73; Eth-V 27:699, CPJ 5:429, CPJ 5:415; A798/B826, B21; MM 6:216, A804/B832, A851/B879; CPrR 5:107; L-Anth 25:551, 1301, and MM 6:441; Eth-V 27:613–14, respectively. 33 L-Log 24:170; CPJ 5:294–5; L-Anth 25:547–8. 34 L-Log 24:170. 35 L-Log 24:102. 36 A294/B350-A295/B351. 37 L-Log 24:94 and L-Log 24:825, respectively. 38 L-Log 24:825. 39 L-Log 24:85. Kant admits the possibility of utterly absurd or false judgments but attributes them mostly to people with significant cognitive impairments or those who simply want to be contrarian. In most all cases of error, our faculties of understanding or reason led our faculty of judgment to judge truly, even if other mental states, such as feelings, desires, or imaginings, ultimately led us to affirm a mistaken judgment. 40 WIE 8:36; CPJ 5:294–5; Anth 7:200, 228–9; L-Anth 25:1480–1. 41 CPJ 5:294 and RevS 8:14, respectively. For interpretations of Kant’s conception of enlightenment, which tend to be somewhat narrower than what I present here, see Deligiorgi (2002), Schmidt (1992), Merritt (2009). 42 Other passages might oppose this conclusion. Kant sometimes claims that the interests of theoretical reason are conditional on, subordinate to, or means to moral interests of reason (Bxxxviii; A840/B868; CPrR 5:121; CPJ 5:206,442; G 4:460n; Rel 6:43–4, 185; Anth 7:281n; L-Log 24:798; Eth-C 27:462). As I suggest in the final section, it is difficult to interpret and maintain Kant’s distinction between theoretical and moral reason in light of, for example, some of the duties that he thinks we have. 43 L-Log 24:70. Keller (2004) and Stroud (2006), for example, note apparent conflicts between norms of friendship and some of the presumptive laws I have described.

304  Adam Cureton 44 This claim, as Mark Timmons pointed out to me, seems to be inconsistent with the “guise of the truth” thesis mentioned above. I am not sure how to resolve the tension, although perhaps the dispositions of reason that supposedly lead us to judge that God exists, for example, count as exceptions to that thesis. For further discussion of Kant’s conception of faith or Belief and the practical postulates, see Chignell (2007a, 2013). 45 Cureton (2013b, 2013a). 46 G 4:433. 47 G 4:423 and TP 8:305, respectively. 48 A226/B273; L-Log 24:87 and Anth 7:168–9, 214, respectively. 49 L-Log 24:56, A150/B189–A151/B190, Anth 7:137-8, Anth 7:137–8, L-Log 24:41, L-Log 24:29–31, and A220/B267–A221/B268; L-Log 24:823, respectively. According to Kant, our faculty of understanding, by its nature, tends to perform these mental operations to some extent, but by legislating, enforcing and adjudicating laws of these kinds, the faculty of reason spurs it to cognize the world as completely as it can. 50 L-Log 24:246; cf. L-Log 24:244. For discussion of Kant’s account of credible testimony and our apparent obligations to trust others, see Gelfert (2006, 2010), Shieber (2010). 51 WOT 8:134; A777/B805-A778/B806; CPrR 5:107. 52 L-Log 24:83, 160, 163; Rel 6:89, L-Log 24:832, Ped 9:474; L-Log 24:143; A260/B316–A262/B319, and L-Log 24:164; cf. L-Log 24:67, respectively. 53 L-Log 24:833, A262/B319; cf. L-Log 24:87, and MM 6:387, cf. L-Log 24:105, respectively. 54 L-Anth 24:546. 55 CF 7:32–3; L-Th 28:1115, CPJ 5:282, and L-Log 24:158–9, respectively. 56 Anth 7:228. 57 L-Anth 25:1480, CPJ 5:294, and A821/B849, respectively. 58 L-Anth 24:1480. 59 A821/B849. 60 CPJ 5:295; cf. WOT 8:146; A738/B766; A752/780. 61 MM 6:463. 62 RevS 8:14. 63 MM 6:463; cf. L-Log 24:833. 64 MM 6:328; Anth 7:229; 744/B772. Rawls (1999, 181–3), by contrast, argues that freedom of thought is a social condition that enables people to develop and exercise their power to form, revise, and pursue a conception of the good. If, however, people have an interest in thinking for themselves then freedom of thought is also justifiable to all on the basis of this interest as well. 65 L-Log 24:170, CF 7:29, Rel 6:188, Eth-C 27:409, L-Log 24:59; CF 7:29, CF 7:29, Anth 7:272, Rel 6:133–4, and Anth 7:210; A746/B774–A747-B775, respectively. 66 Rel 6:133. 67 A746/B774–A747-B775. 68 L-Anth 25:546 and Anth 7:170, respectively. 69 L-Log 8:42 and L-Log 24:808, respectively. 70 TP 8:281; CF 7:34 and WOT 8:145, respectively. 71 Anth 7:200 and Eth-V 27:706, respectively. 72 WIE 8:29, MM 6:328–9, and L-Log 24:151, respectively. 73 Anth 7:129, L-Log 24:874; cf. WOT 8:144, Anth 7:129, and L-Log 24:151, respectively. 74 Deligiorgi (2002) argues for a closer connection between enlightenment and communication, in particular, that the former is constitutive of or a necessary condition for the latter.

Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment  305 75 Eth-C 24:462 and MPT 8:266, respectively. 76 Shieber (2010) notes a similar line of argument focused on the purpose of language for why, in Kant’s view, some kinds of lying and deception are immoral. Shieber’s argument along with the ones I provide are consistent with other arguments Kant gives against lying, such as ones that focus on respect for persons as such (see Korsgaard (1996a, Chps. 5,12), Buss (2005)). 77 Eth-C 24:447. 78 Eth-V 27:699. 79 Eth-C 27:411. 80 Anth 7:219. 81 L-Log 24:86; L-Log 24:869 and L-Log 151, respectively. 82 L-Log 24:869. 83 MM 6:463; L-Log 24:869; L-Log 24:833–4, and L-Log 24:85, respectively. 84 L-Log 24:85 and L-Log 24:828; cf. Eth-V 27:645; Eth-C 27:314, respectively. For further discussion of Kant’s social epistemology, see Gelfert (2010), O’Neill (2002). 85 L-Log 24:93 and WOT 8:144, respectively. See also A752/B780; TP 8:304; Anth 7:128–9; WIE 8:39; WOT 8:144; L-Log 24:93; CF 7:20; Rel 6:133–4. 86 A752/780; cf. WOT 8:144. 87 WIE 8:39 and L-Log 24:150. See also L-Log 24:874. 88 See, for example, Hill (2000), Rawls (1999), Cureton (2013a). 89 G 4:434–6, Kant’s italics. 90 G 4:434–6. 91 O’Neill (1989, 43–44) also interprets the Kingdom of Ends as including shared commitments to laws of truthfulness and candor. 92 Some commentators argue that Kant does not provide a coherent account of the “unity of reason” (Guyer 1989). Others argue that theoretical and practical reason are unified because they share a teleological view of nature (Guyer 2000, Kleingeld 1998b), they have common structural features (Neiman 1994), or all reasoning is ultimately practical (Mudd 2016). For additional discussion on the nature of theoretical and practical reason, see Rescher (2000), Wood (1970). 93 CF 7:33, L-Th 28:1115, CPJ 5:415, and L-Log 24:833, respectively. 94 MM 6:371, MM 6:441, MM 6:216, and MM 6:462, respectively. See also Cureton (2021). 95 WOT 8:134, Anth 7:201, Eth-C 27:362, and L-Log 24:162, respectively. 96 A669/B697, Anth 7:145, CF 7:33, and A711/B759, respectively. 97 MM 6:451, Kant’s italics. 98 G 4:452, Kant’s italics, A850/B878–A850/B879, CPJ 5:257, L-Log 24:151, and Eth-C 27:460, respectively. 99 G 4:392; cf. Axx; CPrR, 5:91, 121 and WOT 8:146; cf. L-Anth 25:548–9, respectively. 100 Mudd (2016) defends a similar interpretation of the principle of systematic unity, which she regards as a categorical imperative of practical reason to seek such unity, whereas my suggestion goes a step farther and claims that, for Kant, there is no fundamental difference between principles of theoretical and practical reason and so no need to reduce the former to the latter. Carrying out this interpretive strategy would also require, among other things, showing that, for example, reason unconditionally requires us to follow certain prudential principles with conditional content (e.g., to unconditionally abide by the principle “take the necessary means to your ends or give them up”). This strategy might not work, however, if there are more substantial prudential requirements.

306  Adam Cureton

Works Cited Allison, Henry E. 1996. Idealism and Freedom: Essays on Kant’s Theoretical and Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buss, Sarah. 2005. “Valuing Autonomy and Respecting Persons: Manipulation, Seduction, and the Basis of Moral Constraints.” Ethics 115 (2):195–235. Chignell, Andrew. 2007a. “Belief in Kant.” Philosophical Review 116 (3):323–60. Chignell, Andrew. 2007b. “Kant’s Concepts of Justification.” Noûs 41 (1):33–63. Chignell, Andrew. 2013. What May I Hope? New York: Routledge. Cureton, Adam. 2013a. “A Contractualist Reading of Kant’s Proof of the Formula of Humanity.” Kantian Review 18 (3):363–86. Cureton, Adam. 2013b. “From Self-Respect to Respect for Others.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 93 (4):166–87. Cureton, Adam. 2016. “Unity of Reasons.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19 (4):877–95. Cureton, Adam. 2021. “Treating Disabled Adults as Children: An Application of Kant’s Conception of Respect.” In Respect: Philosophical Essays, 270–88, edited by Richard Dean and Oliver Sensen. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dean, Richard. 2006. The Value of Humanity in Kant’s Moral Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Deligiorgi, Katerina. 2002. “Universalisability, Publicity, and Communication: Kant’s Conception of Reason.” European Journal of Philosophy 10 (2):143–59. Ferrarin, Alfredo. 2015. The Powers of Pure Reason: Kant and the Idea of Cosmic Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gelfert, Axel. 2006. “Kant on Testimony.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 14 (4):627–52. Gelfert, Axel. 2010. “Kant and the Enlightenment’s Contribution to Social Epistemology.” Episteme 7 (1):79–99. Guyer, Paul. 1989. “The Unity of Reason: Pure Reason as Practical Reason in Kant’s Early Conception of the Transcendental Dialectic.” The Monist 72 (2):139–67. Guyer, Paul. 1994. “The Systematic Order of Nature and the Systematic union of Ends.” Vernunftbegriffe in der Moderne: Stuttgarter Hegel-Kongreß, Stuttgart. Guyer, Paul. 1995. “The Possibility of the Categorical Imperative.” Philosophical Review 104 (3):353–85. Guyer, Paul. 2000. Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Herman, Barbara. 1993. The Practice of Moral Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 1992. “The Kantian Conception of Autonomy.” In Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant’s Moral Theory, 76–96. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2000. “Donogan’s Kant.” In Respect, Pluralism and Justice: Kantian Perspectives, 119–52. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2012. “Treating Criminals as Ends in Themselves.” In Virtue, Rules and Justice: Kantian Aspirations, 296–319. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment  307 Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2002a. “Kantian Analysis: From Duty to Autonomy.” In Human Welfare and Moral Worth: Kantian Perspectives, 61–96. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2002b. “Reasonable Self-Interest.” In Human Welfare and Moral Worth: Kantian Perspectives, 125–63. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2020. “The Kingdom of Ends as an Ideal and a Constraint on Moral Legislation.” In Kant’s Concept of Dignity, edited by Yasushi Kato and Gerhard Schönrich, 177–94. Berlin: De Gruyter. Kant, Immanuel. 1992. Lectures on Logic. [L-Log], edited and translated by J. Michael Young. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1996a. “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.” [G]. In Practical Philosophy, edited and translated by Mary J. Gregor, 37–108. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1996b. “The Metaphysics of Morals.” [MM]. In Practical Philosophy, edited and translated by Mary J. Gregor, 353–603. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1996c. “On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy.” [MPT]. In Religion and Rational Theology, edited and translated by Allen W. Wood and George Di Giovanni, 24–37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1998. Critique of Pure Reason. [A,B], edited and translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1999a. “An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?” [WIE]. In Practical Philosophy, edited and translated by Mary J. Gregor, 11–22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1999b. “On the Common Saying: That May Be Correct in Theory, but It Is of No Use in Practice.” [TP]. In Practical Philosophy, edited and translated by Mary J. Gregor, 273–310. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1999c. “Review of Schulz’s Attempt at an Introduction to a Doctrine of Morals for All Human Beings Regardless of Different Religions.” [RevS]. In Practical Philosophy, edited and translated by Mary J. Gregor, 1–10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2000. Critique of the Power of Judgment. [CPJ] Translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Edited by Paul Guyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2001a. “The Conflict of the Faculties.” [CF]. In Religion and Rational Theology, edited by Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni, 233– 327. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2001b. “Kant on the Metaphysics of Morals: Vigilantius’s Lecture Notes.” [Eth-V]. In Lectures on Ethics, edited by Peter Heath and J. B. Schneewind, 249–452. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2001c. “Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion” [L-Th]. In Religion and Rational Theology, edited by Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni, 335–451. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2001d. “Moral Philosophy: Collins’s Lecture Notes.” [Eth-C]. In Lectures on Ethics, edited by Peter Heath and J. B. Schneewind, 37–222. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

308  Adam Cureton Kant, Immanuel. 2001e. “Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason.” [Rel]. In Religion and Rational Theology, edited by Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni, 39–216. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2001f. “What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?” [WOT]. In Religion and Rational Theology, edited by Allen W. Wood and George Di Giovanni, 1–14. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2007a. “Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View.” [Anth]. In Anthropology, History, and Education, edited by Günter Zöller and Robert B. Louden, 227–429. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2007b. Critique of Practical Reason. [CPrR], edited and translated by Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2007c. “Lectures on Pedagogy.” [Ped]. In Anthropology, History, and Education, edited by Günter Zöller and Robert B. Louden, 486–527. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2013. Lectures on Anthropology. [L-Anth] Translated by Robert R. Clewis, Robert B. Louden, G. Felicitas Munzel and Allen W. Wood. Edited by Allen W. Wood and Robert B. Louden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Keller, Simon. 2004. “Friendship and Belief.” Philosophical Papers 33 (3):329–51. Kleingeld, Pauline. 1998a. “The Conative Character of Reason in Kant’s Philosophy.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 36 (1):77–97. Kleingeld, Pauline. 1998b. “Kant on the Unity of Theoretical and Practical Reason.” Review of Metaphysics 52 (2):500–28. Korsgaard, Christine M. 1996a. Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Korsgaard, Christine M. 1996b. “Kant’s Formula of Humanity.” In Creating the Kingdom of Ends, 106–22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Korsgaard, Christine M. 1996c. “Kant’s Formula of Universal Law.” In Creating the Kingdom of Ends, 77–105. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Merritt, Melissa McBay. 2009. “Reflection, Enlightenment, and the Significance of Spontaneity in Kant.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 17 (5):981–1010. Mikalsen, Kjartan Koch. 2010. “Testimony and Kant’s Idea of Public Reason.” Res Publica 16 (1):23–40. Mudd, Sasha. 2016. “Rethinking the Priority of Practical Reason in Kant.” European Journal of Philosophy 24 (1):78–102. Neiman, Susan. 1994. The Unity of Reason: Rereading Kant. New York: Oxford University Press. O’Neill, Onora. 1989. Constructions of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Neill, John. 2002. “The Rhetoric of Deliberation: Some Problems in Kantian Theories of Deliberative Democracy.” Res Publica 8 (3):249–68. Raedler, Sebastian. 2015. Kant and the Interests of Reason. Berlin: De Gruyter. Rawls, John. 1999. A Theory of Justice. Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Rescher, Nicholas. 2000. Kant and the Reach of Reason: Studies in Kant’s Theory of Rational Systematization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schmidt, James. 1992. “What Enlightenment Was: How Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant Answered the Berlinische Monatsschrift.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 30 (1):77–101.

Knowledge, Error, and Enlightenment  309 Schmitt, Frederick F. 1987. “Justification, Sociality, and Autonomy.” Synthese 73 (1):43–85. Sensen, Oliver. 2011. Kant on Human Dignity. Berlin: De Gruyter. Shieber, Joseph. 2010. “Between Autonomy and Authority: Kant on the Epistemic Status of Testimony.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80 (2):327–48. Stevenson, Leslie. 2003. “Opinion, Belief or Faith, and Knowledge.” Kantian Review 7:72–101. Stroud, Sarah. 2006. “Epistemic Partiality in Friendship.” Ethics 116 (3):498–524. Timmermann, Jens. 2006. “Value without Regress: Kant’s ‘Formula of Humanity’ Revisited.” European Journal of Philosophy 14 (1):69–93. Wood, Allen W. 1970. Kant’s Moral Religion. Ithaca,: Cornell University Press. Wood, Allen W. 1999. Kant’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood, Allen W. 2008. Kantian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yovel, Yirmiyahu. 1986. “The Interests of Reason: From Metaphysics to Moral History.” Seventh Jerusalem Philosophy Encounter.

15 Deliberating with Solidarity, Respect, and Appreciation Thomas E. Hill, Jr.

15.1 Aims and Limits of the Project I begin with some general remarks on my project here and its relation to Kantian ethics.1 The main aim of this essay is to describe three moral attitudes and to commend them as important for orienting deliberations about mid-level policies and decisions.2 The secondary aim is to point toward Kant’s ideas of human dignity and the kingdom of ends as inspiring an interpretation of these attitudes and confirming their importance. For the most part, the three attitudes are explained without special Kantian terminology, and their connections with Kant’s texts will be mentioned but not laid out in scholarly detail. Moral philosophers typically focus on whether particular acts are right or wrong or on the general principles and values by which we can make such judgments. By contrast, this essay primarily concerns moral attitudes. Attitudes are dispositions to feel, to think, and to choose that are only partly and indirectly under our control. They tend to be reason-sensitive: that is, we often adopt, change, or abandon attitudes in response to reasons. Kantians hold that the Categorical Imperative is the comprehensive principle for guiding and constraining rational choices and so, from a Kantian perspective, we have a moral duty to try to adopt and maintain a certain attitude if but only if this is required by the Categorical Imperative.3 What attitudes we have largely shapes what particular actions we choose, and so in a sense an investigation of moral attitudes is mid-way between practical ethics (which asks about the morality of particular acts) and normative ethical theory (which looks for comprehensive moral standards). The three orienting attitudes to be discussed here are called basic because of their governing role in certain decision-making contexts, but for Kantians as morally necessary attitudes they must be expressive of or derivative from the Categorical Imperative. I turn now more specifically to the themes to be explored and the plan for discussion. Specific moral principles are articulated, questioned, and defended at many levels – in personal conversations, policy debates, and ultimately in moral theory. For example, especially when confronted with possible DOI: 10.4324/9781003027874-19

Solidarity, Respect, and Appreciation  311 exceptions, we may argue with friends and colleagues about the scope and priority of our principles regarding promise-keeping, obedience to the law, loyalty, gratitude, friendship, and charity. We may think together not just about obligations but also about ideals – not just what we must do but what would be best to do. In these deliberations we presuppose certain general moral attitudes that should orient our thinking and may help us to clarify our specific moral values and possibly resolve initial disagreements. Three such basic orienting moral attitudes are human solidarity, respect for persons, and appreciation. Ideally, these attitudes, which partially reflect traditional values of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, should have a fundamental orienting role in all practical discussions as well as in moral theory. The plausibility of these claims depends, of course, on how we interpret what I have called human solidarity, respect for persons, and appreciation.4 The first two values are presupposed in some form in ordinary moral deliberations. Immanuel Kant expresses these orienting values of respect and solidarity in his ideal of a kingdom of ends. The third orienting value, which I call appreciation, is most obviously relevant to individual and social choices among options that are considered morally permissible, for example, for individuals planning vacations, visiting museums, and giving gifts, and for policy-makers preserving national parks, supporting the arts, and taking aesthetic values into account when planning public buildings and spaces. Arguably, however, the attitude of appreciation extends beyond recognition of beauty in art and nature. As a basic orienting attitude, it calls for consideration of all sorts of things that may be good and worthy of attention in themselves, not solely because they are useful or pleasing to us. Moreover, although most obviously relevant to permissible individual choices, an orienting attitude of appreciation can also direct us to reasons that are relevant to moral judgments about what is best to do. For example, while human solidarity and respect for generations of oppressed people give us reasons not to glorify those who oppressed them, nevertheless there may be aspects and symbols of their complex historical contexts that we can appreciate. My plan is this: I begin, first, by giving some examples of the sort of local moral deliberations that I have in mind and explaining what I mean by a basic orienting attitude. Then, second, I describe an ideal of human solidarity as a broad inclusive practical stance that should be maintained in all serious moral deliberations. Third, I comment on the kind of respect that is needed as a basic orienting attitude. This moral respect is more than politeness5 and more even than empathy and kindness; and it is owed not only to one’s fellow deliberators but to all human beings who may be affected by one’s choices. Fourth, I describe an ideal of appreciation that extends beyond art and music to all manner of things that we find good in human beings and their lives. Finally, I summarize

312  Thomas E. Hill, Jr. the main themes of my discussion here and call attention to remaining issues for further investigation. Ideally, these three orienting attitudes of solidarity, respect, and appreciation should be further explained, related, and unified as necessary aspects of a moral point of view.

15.2 Basic Orienting Attitudes Suppose that members of a city council are trying to reform police practices, corporate board members are meeting to review compensation and leave policies for their employees, or family members are finally facing the question what to do about their mother’s increasing dementia. Each individual in these discussions brings to the table her or his own personal interests and values, cultural perspective, passionate commitments, habits of thought, and potentially relevant information, but with this they (like us all) also bring thoughtless prejudices, implicit biases, and misinformation. Let’s suppose that they meet in an institutional context (for example, council or board meetings, serious family discussions) that incorporates certain rules, values, and traditions, but we can imagine that disagreements remain despite this common ground. Before they proceed to make and debate proposals about what to do (for example, to reduce police brutality, to cut or raise employee benefits, or to send Mom to the memory care unit of a nursing home), they might do well to remind themselves of their various constraints on their deliberations, including moral ones.6 The deliberating members will naturally try to identify common goals and find effective ways to achieve them. They would reasonably ask of each proposal, “What will be its likely effects on interested parties? What are our alternatives and their predicted effects? Are these various predicted effects benefits or costs to those affected?” They may well also ask, “Is the proposal legal and consistent with our valued institutions?” Finally, they should consider, in the light of these and other considerations, “Is what is proposed morally permissible or required?” and “Is it all-things-considered the best thing to do?” Questions about likely effects, costs, and benefits must be assessed in context according to the evidence at hand. The question about legality, if there are doubts, the deliberating members may leave to their lawyers. But regarding morality and what is all-things-considered best to do, they may ask themselves, as we do, what commitments and values are we presupposing when we ask these questions? Participants in the deliberations (and readers who imagine them) may understandably cite some of their favorite principles, such as ‘Be kind,’ ‘Act with integrity,’ or ‘First do no harm.’ The more rule-governed among them may try to settle questions by appeal to the rules and precedents of established practices, such as the constitution that authorizes and limits the city council, the corporation’s documented commitments to its workers, or the family’s proud history of caring for their elderly at home. But

Solidarity, Respect, and Appreciation  313 the familiar moral maxims and established rules and practices are often insufficient to resolve the issues. Questions arise about how they are to be interpreted, how they apply to their situation, and which has priority. Especially where there are deep cultural differences among the deliberating members, the various principles that they cite as moral may conflict with each other. The more specific the issue, the more likely the underlying conflicts will come to light. Some council members may advocate a stop-and-frisk policy “to keep our communities safe” while others condemn the policy because “it is a covertly racist interference with liberty.” Corporation board members may argue against a beneficial leave policy for employees because “our first obligation is to our stock-holders,” while another member may counter with “the policy protects the most vulnerable in the company.” The old man in the family deliberation may urge the family to keep his ailing wife at home, arguing “we must respect her wishes,” even though the son and daughter counter with “we will all be better off if we let the nursing home care for her.” In these situations, the participants would do well if they shared some basic moral attitudes to orient their deliberations, whether or not these prove to be sufficient by themselves to settle particular issues. Their question then is, before we debate the cases citing our particular principles and values, are there any basic orienting attitudes that we can all agree are essential to deliberating about what is morally right and best to do? In effect, we are looking for basic norms or standards for the attitudes that one should maintain when engaging in serious moral deliberation. Although the perspective here is partly inspired by Kant, my hope is that we can recognize fundamental features of common morality independently of our prior commitments to particular comprehensive theories. Let us consider then the three orienting attitudes that I have mentioned (solidarity, respect, and appreciation) as reasonable background commitments for any serious moral discussion about more specific principles and policies. I call these orienting attitudes basic because they are always potentially relevant in moral deliberations, not in need of derivation from anything more fundamental to morality, and, taken together, they are the source of many other moral values. I do not claim, however, that these are the only important moral attitudes that are non-derivative. For example, some may well argue that fairness, general welfare, piety, or loyalty to family and friends are essential to any moral orientation and not derivative from other values. The proposal to consider here, however, is that there is an interpretation of human solidarity and of respect that, together with a further value of appreciation, can serve as an appropriate orienting framework for practical moral discussions and perhaps for moral theory as well. We can assume for now that other moral values are derivative or not at issue in the cases at hand.7 What matters in this exploratory essay is not yet what we can prove but how we can most reasonably interpret the attitudes insofar as they serve as a framework

314  Thomas E. Hill, Jr. for thinking about specific issues. From my broadly Kantian perspective, these particular attitudes are salient because solidarity and respect, as I interpret them, are inspired by Kant’s famous formulas of the Categorical Imperative, and appreciation, as I interpret it, can be seen as an expansion of aesthetic ideas in Kant and others.8

15.3 Human Solidarity City council members may object to a particular proposal on various grounds, complaining, for example, that the proposal is ineffective for the intended purpose, likely to offend voters, too costly, harmful to city residents’ health, and so on. But sometimes the objection may be about exclusion and dismissal. The proposal, it may be argued, leaves some city residents out of consideration, arbitrarily dismissing their demands or ignoring their welfare and wishes altogether as if they did not matter. The immediate objection, let us imagine, is not focused on particular wrongs but more generally on failure to see that “they are one of us.” When council members protest an exclusion, saying “they matter” because “everyone counts,” their point could be merely about local regulations, for example, that the city council charter requires inclusive (but not necessarily equal, just, or benign) consideration of all who qualify as city residents. If so, this would not necessarily be a moral argument because the council regulations themselves could be unfair and oppressive to some city residents. For example, the council regulations may say every city resident must pay a [substantial] poll tax to vote, dine only in restaurant’s [racially] designated areas, and never wear hijabs in schools, churches, or public places. In this context, when council members say “they are one of us,” this would mean “they are residents too” but not necessarily they are equals under the law – or morality. Similarly, a corporate board member may press for more inclusiveness, arguing that not only stock-holders’ earnings but employees’ welfare should be taken into account in their deliberations because “they are our people too.” But this again is not necessarily a moral argument because “our people” may refer to a morally objectionable group identity, for example, a mafia “family” or a corporation where owners and workers alike are serving an evil cause. Likewise, in serious family discussions, someone may protest the exclusion of their unreliable, loud, and often-drunk uncle, saying “despite all this, he is one of us,” but again the argument for inclusion is not necessarily a moral one. “One of us” here could just refer to Uncle’s inclusion in a family of unjust bigots. These local demands for inclusion fail to be moral demands, when they do, because they do not call for deliberations that take into account all of humanity. For example, morality requires not only that the city council avoids arbitrary exclusion of some city residents but also that the regulations applying to all city residents are fair and non-oppressive to those

Solidarity, Respect, and Appreciation  315 who are not residents of the city, such as those who work or visit there but live elsewhere. Similarly, from a moral point of view the corporate board must not only include the will and interests of a large group (employees), it must also refuse to be engaged in (“evil”) enterprises that would be condemned from the standpoint of all humanity. Families must not only avoid arbitrarily excluding “one of their own” but also ensure that “their own” family is not a group of unjust bigots. Moral deliberations must appropriately take into account the will and welfare of all human beings. Everyone matters.9 Every human being is ultimately “one of us” from a moral point of view.10 Obviously, context matters. Many kinds of specific exclusions from this or that group are morally justified because there is no objection to them from the point of view of everyone. A decent city council need not always include residents of other cities in their deliberations; corporate board meetings may often reasonably exclude those who represent rival commercial interests if they operate in a just social system; and families may sometimes be morally justified in telling their obnoxiously drunken uncles to stay away from their gatherings. These specific exclusions are morally justified, if they are, because they make sense even from the most inclusive moral perspective of humanity. This attitude that makes justifiability to all the ultimate moral standard for who may be included or excluded in any specific group (as well as for how members may be treated) is the core of human solidarity. A sense of solidarity with all humanity should serve as a necessary background in all moral deliberations, even though more specific moral considerations (benefit and harm, individual rights, fidelity to commitments, authority and freedom) are normally in the forefront of our minds. Humanity here is not just the name of a biological species but is partly a normative concept, referring primarily to those we trust have the capacities necessary for being responsible agents with moral obligations as well as moral rights and powers. But also humanity, as a moral concept, must include children and others whose capacities for morality are undeveloped, damaged, or absent from birth, but who can still possess rights protected by trustees.11 No moral theory can claim exclusive rights to the idea of human solidarity, but arguably the universal law and kingdom-of-ends formulas of Kant’s Categorical Imperative offer a compelling interpretation. To explain briefly: First, Kant’s universal law formula requires us to act only on “maxims” that we “can will as universal laws.”12 Maxims are principles or personal policies that we act on. Thinking of our maxims as universal laws means considering them as principles or policies that everyone acts on or may permissibly act on. Willing is not just wishing or picking but rather rationally choosing (an exercise of practical reason). Whether or not we “can will” our personal principles and policies as universal laws, then, depends on whether or not, all considered, we can rationally choose for everyone to live by those maxims or for everyone to

316  Thomas E. Hill, Jr. be permitted to do so. We cannot rationally choose what is inconsistent or incoherent as a law for everyone, and (arguably) there are further standards of rational choice in Kant’s conception of a community of interacting rational agents with autonomy of the will. Interpretations of Kant’s universal law formula vary in detail but all understand the central point that our policies (as individuals or groups) must be able to pass a test of reasonable consideration from the standpoint of all persons.13 Second, making his idea of human solidarity more vivid, Kant offers a later formula that asks us to imagine a possible “kingdom [or realm] of ends” consisting of mutually respecting rational persons who legislate common moral laws.14 These ideal legislators represent “autonomy of the will” in that they legislate from common rational interests while abstracting from their desire-based personal ends. Interpretations vary but the heart of Kant’s associated formula is well expressed by Sarah Holtman as follows: Act only on those maxims that you could legislate as universal laws for all members of a possible kingdom of ends, that is for a community of rational agents viewed as ends in themselves possessed of particular ends of their own and living under a system of common laws.15 This formula, duly interpreted, is Kant’s fullest expression of the most fundamental moral requirements for policies and principles, and it affirms that we should always maintain the core attitude of human solidarity according to which personal and local considerations must ultimately be able to pass scrutiny from an ideal moral perspective that includes all human beings.16 In calling the orienting attitude here solidarity, I draw the term and associated values from its use in particular political and social contexts and extend it to all humanity. Being in solidarity with a particular person or a group implies not only caring and hoping for their success and well-being, but also identifying with the values that they represent.17 We can maintain an attitude of solidarity with long-deceased ancestors, mentors, and exemplars that we have admired and respected. For example, West Point graduates stand in solidarity with “the long gray line” of past graduates who have served honorably for their country. Similarly, those who marched together in protest of bigotry and for civil rights in Selma, Washington, D.C., etc., may rightly feel solidarity with all activists for their common cause. More broadly still, those who aspire to be morally good may feel solidarity with all who struggle to be good, past and present, for they identify with their commitment to morality. But how, then, can we be in solidarity with all humanity, when this includes everyone, good and bad? We obviously should not identify ourselves with the operative values of

Solidarity, Respect, and Appreciation  317 corrupt and malicious people, but in human solidarity, as I see it, we can identify with the basic human values, the humanity, of even these people. Assuming that they have not totally degenerated into amoral sociopathic animals, they too value human connection, partially recognize the force of norms that they flout, and experience some moral qualms of conscience. With human solidarity we hope that humanity will long survive and thrive, that unjust and demeaning institutions will improve, that social conditions will support the better angels of our nature, and that bad people will reform. These hopes, however, do not amount to a plan of action. The call for human solidarity as a basic orienting moral attitude does not by itself lay out full criteria for taking up a moral point of view.18 It calls for broad inclusiveness, caring, identification, hope, and what I call the core attitude of human solidarity, namely, that personal and local considerations must ultimately be able to pass scrutiny from an ideal moral perspective that includes all human beings.

15.4 Respect for Humanity As often noted, there are different kinds of respect. We can respect individuals for excellence in their various roles, respect them as holders of worthy positions and offices, or respect them as good human beings. For example, his followers may respect our current President for sound policies and good judgment; his detractors may still respect him as the President; and all may (or may not) respect him as a good human being, depending on their moral assessments of him. The first and third cases represent appraisal respect, which represents a judgment of a person’s merit or excellence of some kind. The second case represents what is seen as due deference to a person’s office or station in an organization or institution. This is one form of recognition respect.19 Basic respect for persons as human beings or, as Kantians say, respect for humanity, can be seen as a broader form of recognition respect that treats belonging to humanity (or, in a sense, being human) as having a status or “dignity” in an ideal global community or “kingdom of ends” with rights and responsibilities appropriate for beings capable of governing themselves and cooperating with others in a rational and reasonable way. On this interpretation, basic respect implies readiness to recognize and give due deference to every person as a human being with dignity, a status that is not earned and cannot be forfeited. Being human here is treated as having an inalienable place, office, or standing with moral rights and responsibilities in an ideal moral community that is never fully instantiated but represents what all rational and reasonable people, insofar as they respect morality, would aspire to make real.20 It is this fundamental respect for persons as human beings that should be one of the basic orienting attitudes for all practical deliberations about policy and action. We

318  Thomas E. Hill, Jr. cannot have appraisal respect for every person as a good human being because many, perhaps most, do not deserve it. Nevertheless, we can be careful to honor even deplorable, mean-spirited people as fellow human beings at least by respecting their human rights and holding them responsible for harm that they do. Respect is not the same as affectional love or beneficent concern for others’ happiness. Having affectional love for every human being is psychologically impossible, given the massive numbers of people and distances separating them. In policies, if not in emotions, we could at least try to have a beneficent concern for the happiness of everyone, though all too often, by disregarding others’ values and cultural identity, paternalistic promoters of universal happiness disrespect their beneficiaries. Presumably, we can also try to maintain an attitude of basic respect for every person as a human being if we understand this as a disposition and commitment rather than a passing feeling. To maintain respect for persons as human beings, we must avoid disrespect of several kinds, some deeper and more serious than others. Consider an analogy. Having the fullest respect for someone as a scholar would include (a) recognition of the person’s being a scholar, which is a status defined by conventional norms and expectations, (b) appraisal of the person as a good scholar, that is, as one who serves well in the role, such as satisfying the conventional norms and expectations of scholars, and (c) readiness to behave toward the person as those norms require. Fully selfrespecting scholars, for example, accept their role, judge themselves good in that role, and hold themselves responsible for meeting its standards. These norms require not merely displaying the gestures of scholarly self-regard but actually living up to the standards of good scholarship. Likewise, others fully respect a person as a scholar by acknowledging the person as a scholar who performs well in the role and by treating the person accordingly (for example, trusting the person’s expertise in his or her field, reviewing the person’s work by professional standards, etc.). Similar remarks could be made using analogies with being a judge, a social worker, a military officer, or a butler. Assuming this conception of full respect, there are corresponding kinds and levels of disrespect. For example, expressing a deep kind of contemptuous disrespect, one might say “You are a second-class scholar!21 or, worse, “You are no scholar at all!” Alternatively, one might express a condemning disrespect for a person because of their professional performance, saying “You are a bad scholar, too often over-looking relevant data, relying on outmoded methods, failing to cite sources, and drawing illogical conclusions.” Finally, one might express disrespect for a person as a scholar by behaving rudely, expressing disregard for the conventional norms for how one is to treat scholars, such as, for example, shouting baseless, politically-motivated “arguments” in a seminar on the interpretation of Plato’s Timeaus.22

Solidarity, Respect, and Appreciation  319 Suppose, as has been suggested, that we think of all human beings as having a normative status that is analogous in some ways to the statuses of being a scholar, a judge, a social worker, a military officer, a butler, etc. Each status has a kind of dignity largely defined by associated norms that indicate how those who have that status are to act and be treated. The status of dignity as a human being, unlike the others, is essentially determined by moral principles that set the fundamental standards for how all human beings should act and how they should be treated. Moreover, one’s moral status as a human being is a position that is not voluntarily taken up but is rather acquired by birth, as if a “given” or “assigned” role in a global community. At least from a Kantian point of view, one cannot resign one’s moral status, as self-proclaimed amoralists might claim to do, and one cannot lose or forfeit it by neglect and wrongdoing, as some moralists say that the most vicious oppressors do. Following through the analogy, we could say that full respect for a person as a human being consists of a) recognition of the person as having the moral status with its associated rights and responsibilities, b) moral appraisal of the person as a good human being, and c) readiness to behave toward the person as moral principles require. Obviously we cannot have the fullest respect for every person as a human being because we cannot without delusion appraise everyone as a morally good person. Moral appraisal respect (i.e., b) must be earned. But we can and should recognize every person as having the status of dignity as a human being (i.e., a) and be ready to behave toward every person as moral principles require (i.e., c). Forms of unjustified disrespect would be, first and foremost, failure to recognize a person as a human being, relegating them to either second-class status or, worse, denying them human rights and responsibilities altogether. A less all-encompassing form of disrespect is failure to behave toward a person as moral principles require by, for example, breaking promises, dealing dishonestly with them, and disregarding their safety and welfare. Rudeness, mockery, and contemptuous slurs are tokens of disrespect because they express an unwillingness, even if partial and temporary, to recognize a person as a human being with dignity and to behave accordingly. The deepest disrespect, however, may work silently and without overt tokens of disrespect, exemplified by common thieves, sweet talking seducers, and bigots with good manners. In general, respect implies a need for restraint, holding back, or paying deference as due to the object of respect, but what, more specifically, is the restraint and deference due to someone as a human being?23 For Kantians, the respect due to every person is respect for their humanity, where humanity is interpreted as rational nature. Others may not follow Kant completely (or even know his works), but they probably share at least some of his basic ideas. For example, at least adult morally responsible human beings, who can have obligations as well as rights, are presumed to have a capacity for rational self-control, a respect for facts and

320  Thomas E. Hill, Jr. rational procedures by which facts can be confirmed, and a desire to relate to other persons through rational dialogue that respects mutually acceptable norms. A morally responsible person needs and wants to be trusted to give straight information, make and keep promises, own, sell, and give property, and express and work through disagreements by exchange of reasons rather than manipulation and coercion. That is, they prefer to relate to each other, in David Falk’s words, by “guiding,” not “goading.”24 Individuals have these rational capacities and desires to different degrees, of course, and for present purposes I set aside important questions about respect for young children, elderly persons with dementia, and other cognitively impaired human beings who lack the rational capacities needed for responsible moral agency. The basic orienting attitude of respect highlighted here is a kind of respect that policy-makers and others in their deliberations should have toward themselves, their fellow deliberators, and all morally responsible human beings. It is meant to be the mutual respect that morally responsible human beings should share as they deliberate together and prepare to make policies or significant decisions in solidarity with all human beings.

15.5 Appreciation So far, I have tried to describe two attitudes, human solidarity and respect for humanity, that arguably should orient our deliberations about the morality of our particular policies and decisions. For me these are inspired by Kant, and I have briefly noted the connection. With this basic moral orientation and a good grasp of relevant empirical facts, I have suggested, we can see better the necessity and the limits of more specific values and working principles. For many serious moral problems, this may be all that is needed to show what must be done. Now I want to highlight another basic and apparently independent consideration that I believe should also be reflected in our orienting attitudes, namely, we should recognize and appreciate things that are in themselves good, valuable, and worthy of attention. The classic example of this is appreciation of beauty, but the ideal of appreciation, I suggest, has a broader application. The suggestion is that we should not only respect all human beings and stand in solidarity with them, but we should also be ready in relevant practical contexts to find and respond appropriately to them and the things in their lives that are intrinsically good – not just useful, morally commendable, or pleasant to experience or to observe. In general, this means caring not only about each person’s preferences, choices, and basic welfare, but also about the quality of their lives – what is worthy of wanting, choosing, and having in one’s life. When making general policies, the attitude of appreciating intrinsic value, as I interpret it, can be a relevant consideration. For example, the attitude obviously should matter when thinking about whether it is

Solidarity, Respect, and Appreciation  321 wrong to cut all public funds for education in art and music or wrong to prohibit street artists and musicians from performing in public spaces. How an attitude that appreciates the quality of lives should shape our general policies, however, is often unclear and contested because we cannot intimately know and understand the lives of many people, especially many diverse people at a distance. For those closest to us, however, we have special reason and opportunity to try to appreciate what is intrinsically good in them and their lives, and arguably not trying can be a moral failing, even if it is not a failure of respect or of caring for their welfare and enjoyment.25 Similarly, I think, we should try to appreciate what is good in itself, actually and potentially, in our own lives as well, though many will hesitate to call one’s refusing or neglecting to do this a moral failing. This idea of intrinsic value is controversial, variously interpreted, underdeveloped, and long resisted by contemporary philosophers. The history of resistance, as I see it, goes back to the early days of the 20th century, when G.E. Moore dominated discussions in ethical theory.26 He argued that intrinsic goodness (or value) is a simple, indefinable, nonnatural property that we access by intuition, prompting critiques by J.O. Urmson, R.M. Hare, Peter Strawson, and others.27 The objections, which I largely shared, focused on Moore’s metaphysical and epistemological claims, but more troublesome, in my view, was Moore’s attempt to defend utilitarianism against objections to Bentham, Mill, and Sidgwick just by replacing “pleasure” with “intrinsic value” as that which we have a duty to maximize. These are serious objections to Moore’s idea of intrinsic value and his “ideal utilitarianism” that incorporated it, but they do not undermine the modest suggestion here that appreciation should be regarded along with human solidarity and respect as a basic orienting attitude in moral deliberations. In this essay I mean to use the terms “intrinsic value,” “good in itself,” etc., as commonly used in ordinary language in reference to things that we appreciate independently of whether or not they are useful, satisfy conventional criteria, or the basis of moral demands.28 Words like ‘good’ and ‘valuable’ are broad and multi-purpose, generally expressing that we have positive reasons of some kind to favor, select, employ, or attend to what is called good or valuable. Often the reasons have to do with a thing’s utility or with another relation it has to the things we care about. In calling something “good in itself” and “intrinsically valuable” we indicate that its utility and relations to other things are not our only reasons for favoring the thing, but the expressions do not specify some descriptive property that all intrinsically good things have in common. The expressions point to something and invite us to notice, pay attention, observe, take in, etc. the thing we call “good in itself,” and they are used to recommend and express an expectation that others who understand will find it worthy of attention too.29 Classic utilitarians were

322  Thomas E. Hill, Jr. understandably concerned to specify a kind of goodness to be produced, brought about, and promoted in greater or lesser quantities (for example, pleasure, preference-satisfaction) because their basic moral principle makes rightness entirely dependent on the relative quantities of intrinsic goodness and badness. But in ordinary life, the things we call good in themselves are not limited to things that we can produce, make more of, etc. We can appreciate them, find them worthy of our attention (admiration, understanding, sharing, being connected with, etc.) without supposing that each such judgment is a call to action. That human beings can have a life richly surrounded with things that they can experience as good and worthy apart from further consequences should be a relevant consideration in moral deliberations of many kinds, but what we should do in the end must not violate other moral requirements (such as respect, human solidarity, and justice). Appreciation, in the broad sense intended here, is not the same as gratitude. Being grateful typically requires appreciation of the good will of a benefactor, but we can appreciate good things (for example, sunsets, bird songs, an infant’s smiles) without necessarily feeling gratitude to anyone for them, though many are moved to credit a divine being for all good things. To appreciate something, seeing it as good in itself, is not the same as enjoying it and taking pleasure in it. The experience of appreciating things, finding them good in themselves, is often pleasant, but in appreciating something, our attention is turned to the thing itself and not what we get from it. And sometimes we can appreciate something as intrinsically good even though it is not pleasant, for example, intimate moments of sharing grief with those we love, the painful experience of a runner trying to top his best times, or the sadness of a music lover in the grips of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder or Beethoven’s late piano sonatas. Such experiences may be considered “meaningful” and good because they contribute to a person’s “wellbeing.” They generally contribute to a person’s well-being, when they do, because they are appreciative recognitions of something good, and it is not only their utility in promoting well-being that makes them good. The main point is that appreciation of good things is not reducible to well-being. Returning to our initial examples, how might it make a difference if policy-makers were appreciative of intrinsically good things? Let us imagine that other considerations (respect, fairness, fidelity to commitments, etc.) have already grounded a framework of moral prohibitions and responsibilities for city council, corporate board, and family members independently of judgments of intrinsic value. For example, we can well imagine that it becomes clear that the city council should halt the practice of stop-and-frisk and initiate re-training for police, the corporate board should authorize paid leave for parents who are caring for new-born infants, and the family mentioned earlier should invite their

Solidarity, Respect, and Appreciation  323 obnoxious uncle for Thanksgiving dinner only with explicit conditions and promises. How could introducing considerations of appreciation matter in these contexts? Usually, I conjecture, such factors become important less when we are concerned with strict rights and duties and more when we consider further ways that we might make human life and society better. The quality of life of citizens would be improved if they had more parks and public concerts and if the council supported rather than cut the fine arts program in their schools. The corporate board, having fulfilled its strictest moral duties, could still temper its pursuit of profit with an effort to create spaces in which workers can appreciate the sights, sounds, and shapes around them while they work or get together on breaks. The obnoxious uncle’s family, having laid down the strict conditions for his attendance, could concentrate on helping him to appreciate for a while the potentially good experiences of a family Thanksgiving. The family debating what to do about mother’s increasing dementia should consider her quality of life in the available nursing homes and at home, where quality of life is not measured entirely by considerations of safety and comfort but also by what she can still appreciate with diminished capacities. Kant discusses appreciation in his Critique of Judgment. Two points from this complex work are especially worth highlighting here. First, to judge appreciatively that something has aesthetic value (for example, as beautiful or sublime) requires us to a suspend the practical mentality that demands of everything “What is its use?” and “What is it good for?” and the hedonistic mentality that always asks “How much will I enjoy it?” and “What’s in it for me?” Setting aside these attitudes, Kant suggests, is essential for aesthetic appreciation and at least a step toward a moral point of view. Second, despite this significance of aesthetic values as preparing us for morality, Kant argued in the Groundwork and Critique of Practical Reason for a supreme principle of morality without relying on judgments of beauty and sublimity.30 Such judgments can be objective, in a sense, but in Kant’s view they are reflective judgments rather than determinate judgments about what is or ought to be the case.31 The intermediate-level principles of The Metaphysics of Morals (for example, regarding self-improvement, respect, gratitude, and beneficence) do not refer to them and Kant’s supporting arguments for these principles do not depend on them.32 This does not mean, however, that aesthetic values have no place in Kantian moral deliberations, for they can affect how Kant’s principles are applied. For example, arguably if recognition of aesthetic values is a stepping stone to morality, as Kant suggests, this can be important for both moral education and self-improvement. Since, as we know, aesthetic appreciation is often enjoyable and freely chosen in many contexts by responsible people, it must be a factor to consider in particular cases as we try (in otherwise permissible ways) to promote the happiness of

324  Thomas E. Hill, Jr. others, to express gratitude, and to express respect for the human capacities of mind and spirit reflected in artistic creation and valuing natural beauty. Kantians should consider, too, that both intrinsic value judgments and judgments of duty may ultimately be grounded in respect for humanity. If humanity (our “rational nature”) is interpreted broadly to include the “powers of mind and spirit” involved in artistic creation and aesthetic appreciation, then those who respect and value humanity as an end in itself should see these as good in themselves, worthy of attention, preservation, and encouragement. If, in addition, our humanity includes our capacity to find intrinsic value in things independently of beauty and aesthetic value, then arguably readiness to appreciate such things would become a morally grounded ideal, even if not a strict duty.33 To summarize, in this section I proposed supplementing standard Kantian moral theory by incorporating the recognition of values beyond the demands of utility and moral duty. What I have added, with a nod to G. E. Moore and his followers but without bringing their metaphysical baggage, is an expanded idea of appreciation of intrinsic values, not merely in art and nature but also in everyday life. I suggested that an attitude of appreciation, a readiness to appreciate whatever is intrinsically worthy of attention, should always be a part of our mindset as we take up questions about what is morally right and best to do. What I leave behind, with a nod to Moore’s critics, are many hard questions regarding the interpretation, epistemology, and metaphysics of intrinsic value judgments of the kind illustrated here.34

15.6 Concluding Remarks My reflections here no doubt raise many questions. I have described ideals of human solidarity, respect, and appreciation, and proposed that these should be basic orienting attitudes for moral deliberations. I have mentioned Kant’s idea of a kingdom of ends as a possible source of inspiration for at least two of these basic orienting attitudes, human solidarity and respect, but I did not attempt to trace in detail the roots of these ideals in Kant’s texts. My account of appreciation makes use of the idea that things can be intrinsically good, but I have not discussed the related idea that things can be intrinsically bad. Taking a big picture perspective on morality and the good life, I noted a connection between the three basic orienting attitudes proposed here and three traditional values. An attitude of human solidarity, one might say, is a kind of commitment to Goodness; an attitude of respect for humanity (as rational nature) implies concern for Truth; and an attitude of appreciation includes recognition of Beauty and extends the underlying idea to recognition of other things of intrinsic value.

Solidarity, Respect, and Appreciation  325

Notes 1 This essay was initiated by a conference in Bayreuth, Germany in the summer of 2018. I am grateful to the sponsors, participants, and especially to JanWillem van der Rijt for organizing the conference and to Adam Cureton for helpful editorial comments. Discussions with Adam Cureton, Jan Willem van der Rijt, Richard Dean, and Oliver Sensen were helpful and encouraging. This wide-ranging essay is not primarily addressed to Kant scholars but to a more general audience. The discussion of respect and appreciation here draws from related papers, Hill (2020a, 2021). 2 Deliberation about mid-level policies and decisions is neither deliberation about what to do on a particular occasion nor deliberation about the most comprehensive norms and principles, such as the utility principle or the Categorical Imperative. Regarding the idea of mid-level moral principles and policies, see Hill, Thomas E., Jr. (2012b) and (2020b). 3 Adopting a certain attitude, such as readiness to protect one’s children from harm, can be a moral duty because the requirement to do so is derivative from the Categorical Imperative in light of facts about the human condition. Adopting other moral attitudes (for example, human solidarity and respect as described in this essay) could be a derivative duty of this sort or it could be a moral duty to adopt these attitudes because the attitudes themselves are expressions of a person’s morally necessary commitment to the Categorical Imperative (or aspects of it). 4 The term “appreciation” is ambiguous, and I should make clear which sense I mean to be using throughout this essay. The distinction, as explained by Jan-Willem van der Rijt, is roughly between “1. to judge carefully and accurately [which means the outcome of the judgment may be negative] and 2. to respond appropriately approvingly to something of value [so necessarily positive]).” An example of the first sense, I suppose, would be (1) ‘I appreciate the fact that these termites may cause my house to collapse,’ and an example of the second sense would be (2) ‘I appreciate the sound of birds outside my window in the morning.’ It is the second (positive) sense that is intended throughout this essay. It is noteworthy, however, that the appropriate approving response to something of value (appreciation in the second sense) commonly involves judging carefully and accurately (appreciation in the first sense) that it is in fact valuable. 5 Good manners, however, can express respect. See Buss (1999). 6 Perhaps for many people these basic moral attitudes are so much a part of their character that reminders are not needed until the discussions manifestly reflect contrary attitudes. Similarly, the rules of debate in formal discussions (for example, Robert’s Rules of Order) may need to be invoked only infrequently when a discussant deviates significantly from them. 7 If Kantian moral theorists think the basic attitudes of human solidarity and respect are best expressed by Kant’s universal law and humanity formulations of the Categorical Imperative, then they would have reason, following Kant, to try to show that other moral values (such as beneficence, gratitude, selfpreservation, self-improvement, and justice) are derivative from basic solidarity and respect. 8 Immanuel Kant (2002), Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, 214–40 [4: 413–40]. Bracketed numbers refer to volume and page of the standard Academy edition of Kant’s works. Kant’s views on aesthetic judgement are in Kant (2000), Critique of the Power of Judgment, 87–230 [5: 201–356]. 9 Those who protest injustice are often angered in the U.S. today when observers counter “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter.” This can be confusing

326  Thomas E. Hill, Jr. to those who reasonably accept the basic moral point of human solidarity that we have been discussing, that is, that ultimately all practices favoring or excluding some people must ultimately be justifiable from the point of everyone (suitably interpreted). Countering “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter” angers some protesters in the “Black Lives Matter” movement, I conjecture, because in their judgment what needs to be said, urgently and loudly, at this particular time is not our general and presumably true philosophical point about the ultimate moral standard but rather that Black Americans still disproportionately suffer from racial injustice, discriminatory criminal punishment, and indefensible police practices. 10 See Holtman (2018), 33–41, and Baier (1958), 187–207. 11 These human beings who are incapable of moral responsibility can still have moral rights exercised by trustees. Whatever other sources of their rights may be, there are surely good reasons for responsible moral agents who are capable of thinking from a moral point of view to want to extend protection and support to them in view of their roles in our lives and our intimate connections with them. See also brief comments in Hill (2020b, 182). There is obviously need for more discussion here. 12 Kant (2002), 222–5 [4: 440–4]). 13 Kant’s “three great maxims” are to think for oneself, to think consistently, and to think from the point of view of everyone (Kant 2000, 174–5 [5: 294–5]). 14 Kant (2002), 223–40 [4: 433–40]). Although it has become the standard English translation, initially due to H.J. Paton, the term “kingdom of ends” is not quite accurate because the “head” (Oberhaubt) is not strictly a sovereign and “kingdom” (Reich) might be better rendered as “realm” or “commonwealth.” 15 Sarah Holtman, “Legislating in the Fray: Lillian Hellman and the Kingdom of Ends” in this volume, Chapter 11. 16 The ideal point of view of everyone is not the perspective of universal agreement, which may merely reflect convergence of contingent desires. Thinking from the perspective of the kingdom of ends requires being prepared to think in abstraction from personal differences and respecting rational nature (humanity) in each person as an end in itself. 17 Being in solidarity with people in the past typically involves attributing to them values that we believe we share, and these people can come to represent these values in our thoughts. For example, I may feel in solidarity with Socrates and generations of philosophers who represent for me the values of critical thinking and intellectual integrity. We may aim to be in solidarity with our ancestors by taking into account their preferences and ways of doing things, honoring their achievements, protecting their reputations, and showing gratitude. Being in solidarity with people whose values and lives are not known to me specifically may be more difficult but not impossible. Presumably we share broad human concerns, both self-regarding and other-regarding. Even without knowing them, we can regret that they suffered (if they did), wish that their children (if any) thrived, and hope that their legitimate aspirations for the future (if any) will not be frustrated. See also Cureton (2012). 18 What I call human solidarity is not identical with commitment to Kant’s universal law formula of the Categorical Imperative if the latter is taken to be a comprehensive moral principle sufficient by itself to distinguish right from wrong in all cases. A reasonable reconstruction of Kant’s formula, in my view, would treat it as an important requirement on moral judgment but not by itself sufficient. 19 The terms appraisal respect and recognition respect stem from Darwall (1977).

Solidarity, Respect, and Appreciation  327 0 Hill (2000a, 2000b). See also Wood (2008, ch. 5, 85–105). 2 21 Here, for purposes of my analogy, I understand the speaker to refer to an inferior class of scholars, with fewer rights and privileges, who are supposed to be due less respectful deference, such as “research assistant.” The speaker’s judgment concerns inferior status rather than inferior talent and performance, which “second class scholar” could mean in another context. 22 Lest anyone misunderstand, the disrespectful rudeness imagined in this example consists in behavior that is inappropriate for the context in volume, motivation, and epistemic standards. 23 See, for example, Cureton (2020). 24 Falk (1986). 25 This is a main theme illustrated in Hill (2020a) cited earlier. 26 Moore (1903, 1912). Other philosophers incorporated similar ideas of intrinsic value into their theories. For example, Ross (1930), Lewis (1946). 27 Urmson (1950), Hare (1952), Strawson (1949). 28 Commonsense judgments about what is good in itself are often described as judgments about “non-instrumental value.” Such judgments are also not based on conventional standards of the sort we presuppose in judging, for example, which apples are good, which basketball shots were good, etc. Also, in appreciating something as “good in itself,” in an ordinary sense, one does not necessarily think that it is the sort of thing that we have duties to produce, perform, or promote. We may well make some moral judgments about how we should respond to what we see as intrinsically good, but not always, not necessarily, and not simply as an implication of the thing being intrinsically good. In calling a thing good in itself, in ordinary language, it seems, we imply that it is something that one can appreciate, that is worthy of attention, and that there is a reason to regard it favorably to some extent (and not for its utility, etc.); but we do not imply much more. In this essay (and others) I have suggested that a morally good person, in deliberating about local policies and principles, would try to maintain basic orienting attitude of appreciation – that is, being alert to and appropriately responsive to what is intrinsically good in an ordinary sense – but I do not mean to suggest that this point simply follows from what it means to call things intrinsically good. 29 Elizabeth Anderson calls attention to various kinds of value judgments in Anderson (1993). See also Wolf (2011), Hill (1991, 2012a). 30 Kant (2002), 208–48 [4: 406–48]. Kant (2007), 17–50 [5:19–56]. 31 Kant explains aesthetic judgments of beauty as disinterested, universal, necessary judgments of purposiveness without purpose. Despite some similarity and influence, the discussion of appreciation in this essay is not meant as an interpretation of Kant’s aesthetic theory. Regarding Kant’s theory, see, for example, Hannah Ginsborg, “Kant’s Aesthetics and Teleology”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2019 Edition). 32 Kant (1996), 565–83 [6: 445–68]. 33 The points in this paragraph are not presented as strictly implied by Kant’s texts but rather as ideas worthy of development in a 21st-century broadly Kantian perspective. 34 My efforts to interpret intrinsic value judgments in a way that avoids pitfalls in this area are expressed in Hill (2012b). Among those whose work or comments directly or indirectly made me uncomfortably aware of the need to return respectfully to the topic of intrinsic values were Steven Darwall, John Garthoff, Shelly Kagan, Douglas MacLean, Susan Wolf, and (long ago) C.I. Lewis and Thomas E. Hill, Sr.

328  Thomas E. Hill, Jr.

Works Cited Anderson, Elizabeth. 1993. Value in Ethics and Economics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Baier, Kurt, 1958, The Moral Point of View. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Buss, Sarah. 1999. “Appearing Respectful: The Moral Significance of Manners.” Ethics 109 (4):795–826. Cureton, Adam. 2012. “Solidarity and Social Moral Rules.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15 (5):691–706. Cureton, Adam. 2020. “The Limiting Role of Respect.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability, edited by Adam Cureton and David Wasserman, 380–398. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Darwall, Stephen. 1977. “Two Kinds of Respect.” Ethics 88 (1):36–49. Falk, W. D. 1986. “Goading and Guiding.” In Ought, Reasons, and Morality, 42–66. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Ginsborg, H. 2019. “Kant’s Aesthetics and Teleology”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2019 Edition). Hare, R. M. 1952. The Language of Morals. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2021. “Beyond Respect and Beneficence: An Ideal of Appreciation.” In Respect: Philosophical Essays, 151–70, edited by Richard Dean and Oliver Sensen. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 1991. “Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments.” In Autonomy and Self-Respect, 104–17. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2000a. “Basic Respect and Cultural Diversity.” In Respect, Pluralism, and Justice: Kantian Perspectives, 59–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2000b. “Must Respect Be Earned?” In Respect, Pluralism and Justice: Kantian Perspectives, 87–118. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2012a. “Finding Value in Nature.” In Virtue, Rules and Justice: Kantian Aspirations, 95–106. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2012b. “Assessing Moral Rules: Utilitarian and Kantian Perspectives.” In Virtue, Rules, and Justice: Kantian Aspirations, 203–24. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2020a. “Ideals of Appreciation and Expressions of Respect.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability, edited by Adam Cureton and David Wasserman, 363–79. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill, Jr., Thomas E. 2020b. “The Kingdom of Ends as an Ideal and a Constraint on Moral Legislation.” In Kant’s Concept of Dignity, edited by Yasushi Kato and Gerhard Schönrich, 177–94. Berlin: De Gruyter. Holtman, Sarah. 2018. “Beneficence and Disability.” In Disability in Practice: Attitudes, Policies, and Relationships, edited by Adam Cureton and Thomas E. Hill, Jr., 33–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1996. “The Metaphysics of Morals.” In Practical Philosophy, edited by Mary J. Gregor, 353–603. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2000. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Edited by Paul Guyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Solidarity, Respect, and Appreciation  329 Kant, Immanuel. 2002. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Arnulf Zweig. Edited by Thomas E. Hill, Jr. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2007. Critique of Practical Reason. Translated by Mary J. Gregor. Edited by Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lewis, C. I. 1946. An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation. La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing Co. Moore, G. E. 1903. Principia Ethica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moore, G. E. 1912. Ethics. London: Williams & Norgate. Ross, W. D. 1930. The Right and the Good. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Strawson, P. F. 1949. “Ethical Intuitionism.” Philosophy 24 (88):23–33. Urmson, J. O. 1950. “On Grading.” Mind 59 (234):145–69. Wolf, Susan. 2011. “Good-for-Nothings.” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 85 (2):47–64. Wood, Allen W. 2008. Kantian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Index

Note: Page number followed by ‘n’ refers notes numbers. abuse 266, 276 accountability 16, 171, 173 Achenwall, Gottfried 41, 48n48, 92, 116, 128n20, 128n22, 164n12, 165n26 admiration 53, 81, 242, 274, 287, 316, 322 Alexander the Great 95 amorality 317, 319 ancestors 163n9, 316, 326n17 anger 295, 325n9 animals 11, 34–5, 96, 145n79, 186, 188n17, 192, 203n2, 317 Anthony, Mark 152 anthropology 32–3, 46n10, 196, 241–2, 245n2 anthropomorphization 73 apology 267–8, 276 appreciation 20–1, 228, 241, 259, 311–14, 320–4, 325n1, 325n4, 327n28, 327n31 arbitrariness 32, 116, 120, 123, 154, 164, 164n21, 177, 314–15 architectonic 55, 191 aristocracy 77, 138, 163n9, 297; see also dignity, aristocratic; nobility arrogance 208–9, 270, 287 aspiration 1, 21, 76, 244–5, 316–17, 326n17 assistance 17, 99, 207–8, 210, 212, 216, 218, 243, 256 atrocities 4, 148, 191–3, 200 attitudes 18, 21, 62, 65, 112, 172, 183, 236–7, 244, 246n5, 270–2, 275, 286, 310–27 Augustine of Hippo 52 authoritarianism 137–8, 144n36

authority 2, 15–6, 39, 48, 65, 111–29, 138, 149, 153, 164n14, 165n26, 170, 172–3, 176, 178–9, 181, 185, 187n5, 190, 193–4, 197, 200, 213, 217, 272, 279n19, 300–1, 315 authorship 34, 36, 136, 297–8 autonomy 13–5, 20, 38, 47n39, 51–3, 58–61, 64–6, 69–70, 80, 98–102, 103n23, 109, 111, 125–6, 165n22, 171, 175, 184–5, 194, 212–13, 257, 263n11, 263n13, 269, 276–7, 283–5, 297–9, 302n9, 316; see also categorical imperative; formulation of autonomy avarice 75 awe 295 barbarism 109, 128n18, 161–2, 166n36, 171 Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb 32–3, 46n10 beauty 21, 84n12, 85n20, 262n2, 295, 311, 320, 323–4, 327n31 Beethoven, Ludwig van 322 beliefs 250–2, 260, 283–4, 286–7, 295, 298, 304n44 beggary 210, 212–13, 216 beneficence 13, 41–3, 45, 206–10, 213, 258, 271, 298, 318, 323, 325n7 Bentham, Jeremy 321 betrayal 182–3, 238, 251, 280n40; self-­ 276–7 bias 20, 238, 254, 261, 294, 297, 312 bigotry 314–16, 319 Boleyn, Anne 81, 154 Butler, Joseph 53

Index  331 categorical imperative: connections between different formulations 7, 9, 14, 22n7, 48n45, 52, 57, 60–1, 70, 74, 82n1, 93–100, 141, 142n2, 143n4, 156–7, 191, 291–2; vs. hypothetical imperative 63, 70, 180; and justification 197–8, 283, 291, 297, 305n100; as supreme principle of morality 6, 68, 70, 233, 310; see also formulation of autonomy; formulation of humanity; formulation of law of nature; formulation of the kingdom of ends; formulation of universal law; morality, supreme principle of Catholicism, Roman 76, 88, 91–2, 98, 101 causation 72–4, 83n7, 85n20, 97, 170, 172, 174–5, 184 character 18–9, 32, 38, 42, 63, 74, 169, 173, 186, 187n5, 227–8, 231, 233, 238, 240–5, 247n21, 325n6 charity 41–3, 211, 213–14, 219, 311 Charlemagne 95 checks and balances 163n6 children 20, 84n13, 116, 127n18, 128n27, 155–6, 179, 187n9, 211, 218–19, 250–1, 273, 287, 289–90, 295–6, 315, 320, 325n3, 326n17; drowning 42, 213–4, 220 Christianity 77, 79, 91, 98, 101–2, 133, 148, 151, 157–8, 229 Church 9, 13, 30, 68–9, 75–80, 82, 82n2, 85n26, 85n27, 133, 151 Cicero, Marcus Tullius 52, 91, 103n23, 148, 150–3, 155, 163n7, 164n15, 165n31 citizen 15, 79, 128n23, 137–42, 149–50, 155–6, 158, 162, 170, 178, 181–2, 213, 220, 257, 297, 323; passive 140–1, 155–6, 187n9; see also dignity, of citizen; kingdom of ends, membership of city councils 21, 312–15, 322–23 civil condition 122–3, 126, 128n26, 129n36, 170 climate change 200 Code of Justinian 110 coercion 2, 4, 41, 43–4, 48n47, 111, 118–20, 164n14, 170, 284, 292, 320 cognition 71–2, 78, 84n10, 84n11,84n13, 116, 284–7, 289,

292, 297–8, 300–1, 303n15, 304n49 commitment, moral 14, 18, 21, 77, 79–81, 100–1, 112, 194, 196–202, 227–45, 256, 261, 284, 291, 298, 305n91, 312–13, 315–16, 318, 322, 324, 325n3, 326n18 Commonwealth of Ends, see kingdom of ends communication 84n13, 116, 192, 230, 293–4, 296–8, 304n74 communism 231, 238, 243, 246n5 community 13, 51, 55, 57–9, 98, 101, 103, 125, 130n43,134, 163, 178, 181, 183, 247n12, 297, 313, 319; cultural 198; ethical/moral 1, 14, 17–8, 20, 70, 75–82, 82n2, 85n26, 146n82, 235–39, 249–50, 254–61, 263n12, 316–17; normative 199; political 95–6, 139; of rights 17, 190, 199–200, 203; social 19, 198 competition 171, 259 complacency 259 condemnation 182, 231 condescension 214, 268, 274 confidence 20, 182, 266, 273–5, 287 conflict 15, 19, 123, 134–5, 143n21, 202, 249, 254, 257–8, 291, 313 conscience 33, 168, 171, 187n3, 229–31, 295, 300, 317 consent 15, 120, 123, 138, 177, 180 consequentialism 2, 153, 160, 164n18, 183 constitution 1, 96, 129n40, 133, 137, 139–40, 145n57, 148, 163n6, 164n12, 193, 203n2, 246n6, 312; of a church 76–7, 80, 82, 85n27 contempt 116, 218, 318–19; self-­ 271 conviction 193, 195, 259, 272, 287, 296 cooperation 17, 124, 171, 217, 219, 253, 259, 298, 317 coordination 130, 134, 214, 254, 258 corporate boards 312–15, 322–23 cowardice 19, 239 crime/criminal 13, 16–7, 44–5, 48n56, 61, 63, 109, 126n4, 127n18, 169–71, 176–83, 185, 187n9, 188n13–n15, 285, 287, 289, 325n9 custom 150, 231 cynicism 18, 162, 272

332 Index debt 41–2, 169, 187, 209–10, 216, 221n9, 271 decency 180–1, 213, 217, 219–20, 221n4, 229, 231, 315 deception 4, 20, 241, 288, 298–300, 305n76; self-­ 233 decision making 18, 21, 42–3, 74, 128n28, 145n57, 219, 227–9, 232–45, 254, 263n11, 274, 310, 320, 325n2 degradation 2, 76, 154, 158, 208, 210, 215, 221n5 dehumanization 154 deliberation 18–21, 102, 176, 251–2, 257, 259–61, 283, 302n4, 310–15, 317, 320–4, 325n2, 327n28 dementia 21, 312, 320, 323 deontology 2, 114 dependency 140, 153, 178, 199, 209–10, 212–18, 221n9, 271 desert 16, 30, 42, 168–86, 208, 218, 256, 318; see also merit desire 19–20, 58, 141, 174, 250–1, 253, 255–8, 260–1, 283–4, 287–9, 294, 297, 299–300, 303n39, 316, 320, 326n16 despotism 129n40, 135, 144n47; see also dictatorship; tyranny deterrence 44, 178–9, 188n12 dictatorship 161–2; see also despotism; tyranny digitalization 191 dignity: absolute 3–4, 12, 35–6, 64, 101, 148, 170, 172, 207–8, 270, see also value, absolute; worth, absolute; animal 11, 192; as a basic value 194; as basis of rights 22n11, 103n23, 192, 195, 300; in behavior 150, 153, 208; of citizen 15, 139–41, 150, 155, 158, 163n10; contingent 11–2, 31, 194–5; as dignitas 16, 30, 89, 91, 101, 109, 139–40, 148–51, 154–5, 163n7, 164n13; as a discussion-­stopper 193; of duty 9–10, 38, 155, 165n31; equal 3, 12, 17–8, 76, 91, 141, 148, 157, 164n20, 207–8, 210, 215–16, 218–20, 263n13, 270, see also status, equal; worth, equal; of freeman 16, 154, 164n21; ground/ basis of 12, 17, 33–5, 37, 41, 66, 69–70, 81, 142, 191, 270, 278, 284, 302n9; as incomparable 11, 61, 64,

164n20, 237, 265, 278, 298; inherent 1, 4, 12, 15, 31, 51, 207, see also dignity, intrinsic; as inner quality 101; as inner transcendental kernel 11, 46n7; intrinsic 13, 31–2, 46n7, 65, 237, 269, 279n19, see also dignity, inherent; as inviolable 18, 149, 207–8; juridical 15, 109, 114; as metaphysical value property 4; of moral concepts 9; nominal definition of 33; of office 30–1, 48n41, 88–9, 92, 103n10, 139, 149–51, 153–5, 163n9, 301; vs. price 10–1, 33–7, 61–2, 65, 109, 141, 148, 172, 218, 236, 269; and sanctity 151; social 11–2, 208, 210, 213, 217, 220; skepticism of 4, 21n2; stages of 65, 103n23; as status 1, 4, 11–8, 21, 30–2, 91, 111, 113–14, 126n2, 139, 141, 150–1, 172, 190–1, 194–6, 199, 207–10, 212, 239, 279n19, 297, 317, 319, see also status, moral; threats to 16, 148, 158, 160, 164n19; vagueness of 2, 171, 283; violation of 4, 17–20, 43, 154, 192–3, 200, 206–8, 211, 218, 220, 221n2, 271 disability 2, 286, 187n9 discretion 3, 177, 212 disempowerment 219 disposable 218–20 disrespect 44, 129n34, 182, 206–8, 268, 276–7, 318–19, 327n22 domination (also non-­domination) 16, 123–4, 141, 152–5, 158–62, 164n12, 164n17–n18, 164n20–n21, 188n13, 219 drunken uncle 314–15, 323 dueling 109, 188n11 Durkheim, David Émile 201 duty: of beneficence 41–3, 207, 213; to be useful 208, 214–15, 218–20; as divine command 78, 165n32; of love 208–9, 271; of omission 41; to oneself 42, 103n23, 109, 114, 117, 221n5, 230; perfect/imperfect 15, 34–5, 41–4, 48n41, 48n53–n54, 116–17, 207, 214, 253–4, 256, 258; of respect 208, 230–1, 283; of right 110–22, 126, 127n6, 129n31; of rightful honor 113–14, 117, 129n34 dwarf-­tossing 192

Index  333 education 20, 79–80, 182–3, 192, 194, 295, 298, 321, 323 egalitarianism 12, 16, 89–90, 95–6, 148–9, 158–9; see also equality egoism 291, 301 embodied agency 17, 125, 199, 249, 260 embryos 192 emergency 99, 217, 220 empire of ends, see kingdom of ends emotion 172, 186, 250–3, 255, 261, 262n3, 262n5, 318 emotional abuse 266, 273 empathy 311 empowerment 51, 260 ends, setting/pursuing of 6–7, 12, 29, 34–7, 39–41, 43, 45, 47n29, 47n34, 58, 62, 70, 132, 134–5, 143n21, 156, 217, 219, 235–7, 241, 247n10, 253, 255, 257, 259, 269–70, 278, 283, 285, 290–1, 299, 304n64 enlightenment 19–20, 201, 228, 233, 238–41, 243–5, 284–5, 290, 294, 297–9, 303n41, 304n74 enthusiasm 80 envy 75, 77, 298 equality 12, 15, 20, 43–4, 51, 61, 76–7, 79–80, 91, 96, 100–2, 103n23, 113–18, 122, 124, 136, 138–41, 143n21, 146n83, 155–6, 164n20, 170, 176–9, 219, 221n9, 263n13, 270–1, 275–6, 314; see also dignity, equal; inequality; status, equal; worth, equal error (also mistake) 20, 157, 165n23, 171–2, 186, 197, 210, 231, 238–40, 243, 261, 264, 273, 284–5, 288–301, 303n39 ethical commonwealth 14, 187 etiquette 290 European Union 201 evil 63, 75, 126n2, 169, 173, 178, 244 evolutionary psychology 171 excellence 30, 250, 317 exclusion 17–8, 169, 187n9, 207, 218–20, 314–15, 325n9 exemplars 316 experience 60, 64, 80, 83n4, 84n10, 85n20, 97, 179, 184, 250, 260, 272–4, 286, 288, 292–6, 303n15, 320–3

exploitation 17, 124, 206–8, 211–13, 217–19 external relations 110, 170 fairness 217, 219–20, 236, 254, 313–14, 322 faith 77–80, 86n30, 169, 174, 304n44 falsehood 233, 243 false humility 208, 221, 270 family 14, 21, 77, 85n28, 187, 216, 274, 312–15, 322–3 fear 53, 119, 141, 152, 187n3, 188n12, 209, 218, 243, 246n5, 249, 287, 295 feeling 14, 19, 52, 67n9, 68–71, 74, 80–2, 94, 181, 183, 192, 213, 219, 253, 256–8, 260, 270–2, 284, 287–9, 294–6, 300–1, 303n39, 318, 322 Feinberg, Joel 21n1 feminism 262n3 finitude 17, 70, 79, 83n6, 198–9 first-­person perspective 195 flattery 210, 212, 221n5, 271, 295; see also sycophancy formalism 170, 175, 194 formulation of autonomy (FA) 59–61, 234–6, 247n16 formulation of humanity (FH) 3–5, 7–8, 55–8, 70, 91, 95, 98, 100, 110–2, 141, 156–7, 165n27–n34, 177, 206, 213, 234–5, 270, 278, 292, 315, 325n7 formulation of law of nature (FLN) 73–4, 91, 100, 142n2 formulation of the end-­in-­itself, see formulation of humanity formulation of the kingdom of ends (FKE) 3, 5–7, 14–5, 51–2, 55, 59, 68, 71, 74, 82, 85n18, 88–100, 125, 132–5, 139, 141, 149, 156–9, 165n27, 199, 206–7, 215, 233–7, 242, 247n16, 269–70, 292, 315–16 formulation of universal law (FUL) 5, 7, 55, 57–8, 60, 73–4, 84n14, 85n21, 91, 93, 95, 98–9, 103n19, 157, 234–5, 292, 302n5, 325n7, 326n18 freedom (also liberty) 2, 12, 15, 29–49, 65–6, 73, 76–7, 80, 84n14, 90–1, 98–100, 103, 110, 114–20, 123, 125, 135, 137–8, 140, 144n47, 151, 155–6, 166n37, 174–5, 178–9, 184,

334 Index 194, 200, 202–3, 212, 230, 239–42, 246n5, 261, 263n13, 283, 297, 313, 315; basic 212; external/outer 111, 118–20, 123, 125, 129n34, 176–7, 180–1; inner 81, 112, 125, 176, 181, 230; as libertas 152, 164n13; as non-­domination 16, 152–4, 160, 164n12, 164n17–n19; of speech and thought 239, 241, 246n5, 284–5, 295, 297–9, 304n64; of the will 8, 32–3, 37, 127n11, 140 friendship 14, 85n24, 216, 232, 251, 262n2, 268, 273–6, 290, 296, 303n43, 311, 313 future, openness of 197, 202–3 Garve, Christian 52 gaslighting 1–20, 266–80 generic conditions of agency 17, 194 genocide 200 Gewirth, Alan 2, 190, 199 god 13–4, 16, 39, 44, 48n44, 53, 56–7, 70, 72, 80, 83n6, 84n11–n13, 86n30–n31, 91, 96, 98–102, 133, 136, 143n8, 151, 157–9, 165n28– n30, 169, 174, 184–5, 203n2, 286–7, 290–1, 295, 304n44; image of 91, 98, 101, 151, 158; kingdom of 8–9, 75, 78–9, 81, 133, 136, 163n5, 169; as primus inter pares figure 158 Golden Rule 177 goodness 13, 21, 36, 79, 250, 252, 311, 321–2 gossip 243 government 30, 44, 111, 129n40, 138–9, 144n47, 149, 163n6, 182, 192, 210, 240, 246n5, 284, 290 Grace, Kingdom of 13, 52, 55, 125 gratitude 209–10, 213–14, 218, 221n9, 232, 311, 322–4, 325n7, 326n17 gravitas 153 grief 322 Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm 30 Grotius, Hugo 41, 91 groveling 165n30, 271 guilt 168–9, 180–1, 183, 262n9 Hamilton, Alexander 152 happiness 9, 13, 36, 41–2, 51, 53–8, 60, 63, 70, 74–6, 82, 83n6, 99, 134, 143n15, 168–9, 172–5, 184–5,

187n6, 197, 209, 230, 245, 254–6, 258, 262n2, 273, 283, 287, 290–1, 296, 318, 323 Hare, Richard Mervyn 321 harm 120, 185, 211–12, 214, 229–30, 233, 247n10, 256, 266, 269, 272, 274, 277, 280n40, 312, 314–15, 325n3 harmony 19, 40, 54, 56, 74, 139, 153, 249, 252–6, 269, 278, 283 Harrington, James 152–3 heaven 8 Hellman, Lillian Florence 18–9, 227–47 Henry VIII 81, 154 heteronomy 38, 102, 289 hierarchy 12, 16, 76, 109, 139, 148–50, 154–5, 158–9, 164n20 highest good 9, 13–4, 48n46, 53–4, 56–7, 63, 70, 74–6, 82n1, 83n6, 85n25, 262n2 Hobbes, Thomas 88, 91–3, 103n10, 114, 123–4, 127n14 holiness 77, 79, 157–8, 165n29 Holy Roman Empire 95 homo noumenon vs. homo phaenomenon 34, 45 honeste vive 15, 109–30 honesty 81, 229, 231–2, 241 honor 2, 30, 77–8, 109, 121, 128n18, 188n11, 229, 231–2, 288, 293, 316, 318, 326n17; love of 230; rightful 110, 113–15, 117, 129n34 hope 8, 13, 17, 19, 41, 51, 53–7, 66, 81, 83n9, 161, 202–3, 252, 255–6, 258, 298, 317, 326n17 House Committee on Un-­American Activities 18–9, 229 household 77, 81, 85n28, 155 human condition 194, 199, 240, 243, 325n3 human standpoint 195, 198 humiliation 2, 154, 182, 195, 207–8, 210–13, 216–17, 219, 271 hypocrisy 216, 221n5, 233, 261 idea of reason 16, 52, 70, 85n21, 94, 158, 250 identification 314–18 identity politics 192 imagination 13–4, 19, 62, 92–5, 98–100, 249–63, 283–9, 303n39; -formula 92–4, 99–100

Index  335 immortality 91, 98, 101, 184 imperative; see also categorial imperative: eudaimonistic 197; hypothetical 60, 63, 70; instrumental 197; moral 197, 199 impunity 160 incentives 38, 53–4, 59, 69, 75–6, 81, 112, 153, 178 inclination 9–10, 20, 37, 39, 54, 58, 62, 65, 75, 81, 113, 217, 230, 237, 249, 252–3, 255, 258, 261, 288, 296–7 independence 8, 34, 36, 38, 56, 70, 114–17, 140–1, 155–6, 177 indignity 17–8, 209–10, 215 individualism 59, 153, 194, 263n13 inequality 2, 140, 208–10, 213, 216–17 infanticide 109, 127n18, 188n11 inferiority 155, 208–9, 218, 221n3, 271, 274, 278, 280n38, 327n21 injustice 162, 210, 212, 227, 230, 246n5, 266, 271, 295, 298, 314–15, 317, 325n9; epistemic 260, 267, 279n8 institutions 18, 83n9, 111, 113, 121, 170–1, 180–2, 184, 186, 188n13, 92, 200–1, 207, 210, 212–13, 216–17, 219, 227, 230, 254, 258, 272, 312, 317 instrumentalization 113, 119, 124, 192, 207–8, 210–12, 215, 217, 221n5; prohibition on 3, 148, 193, 207 insult 4, 17, 154, 182, 207, 219, 296 intercultural understanding 191 interest: empirical 37, 144n29; moral 80–1, 261; rational 20, 283–305; of reason 20–1, 283–305; self-­ 68, 81, 124, 178, 238, 258 intergenerational ethics 200 interpretative exotism 89–90 intuition 13–4, 52, 55, 66, 68–86, 94, 158, 181, 257, 293, 301, 321 irreplaceability 2, 10, 33, 65 ius talionis 178–80, 182

240, 245, 250, 258–9, 266–80, 283–305, 310–11, 317–18, 322–4, 325n4, 326n18, 327n28, 327n31, 327n34 jurisprudence 3, 110 justice; see also injustice; retribution: distributive 5, 121; divine 169; public 115, 121–4, 128n23, 129n33, 129n37, 129n39, 178; restorative 188n14; social 91, 232; violation of 180

Jellineck, Georg 202 judging being, perspective of 195–6 judgment 20, 43, 48n53, 72–4, 83n9, 84n12, 84n14, 85n19, 116, 121, 126, 129n39, 130n44, 174–5, 195–9, 201, 228, 231–2, 237–8,

law; see also formulation of law of nature; formulation of universal law: external 111, 125; giving of 3, 7–8, 10, 14–6, 21, 40, 46n7, 47n34, 51, 58, 64, 66, 102n7, 103n17, 127n11, 132–42, 149, 151, 154–9, 164n20,

kindness 236, 271, 311 kingdom of ends (also commonwealth of ends, realm of ends, empire of ends); see also formulation of the kingdom of ends: as an architectonic 55; centrality of 6, 55, 88, 149; as controversial 5–9, 92–3; as ideal moral community 1, 13–4, 18–21, 55, 57, 68, 70, 125, 146n82, 170, 199, 206, 220, 235, 237, 249–53, 257–8, 261, 262n5, 263n12, 269, 277, 284, 298, 311, 316–17; vs. kingdom of God 8, 16, 75, 101, 133; vs. kingdom of nature 71–4, 82n1, 83n5–n6, 85n21, 97, 143n23; membership of 5, 7–8, 58, 66, 132–46, 156–9, 170, 215, 235–7, 244, 259, 277–8, 292; and moral motivation, 5–6, 13, 52–4, 66, 68–9, 82, 158, 165n31, 249–50, 252, 257–8, 260–1; political nature of 7–8, 15–7, 95, 101, 125, 132–46, 149, 157, 190, 200; sovereign/ supreme head (Oberhaupt) of 7–8, 16, 56, 58, 133, 137–8, 158, 165n29, 326n14; as a systematic union 6–7, 18, 22n6, 40, 58, 70, 81, 125, 134, 156, 165n23, 165n25, 206, 215–16, 218–19, 234–5, 249, 269; translation of 9, 14, 48n44, 95–6, 103n17, 135–6, 143n24, 163n5, 326n14; as ‘a very fruitful concept’ 6–7, 11, 61, 70, 81, 134, 158, 228, 234

336 Index 165n23, 165n25, 165n34, 185, 253, 255, 269, 297, see also legislation; moral 6, 16, 19, 29, 32, 37–40, 46n7, 47n34, 48n41, 48n44–n45, 51–60, 64, 67n9, 68–71, 77–8, 80–2, 83n9, 84n14, 91, 96, 98–101, 111–12, 125–6, 126n2, 127n9, 133, 143n23, 151, 157–8, 169–70, 176–7, 183–6, 187n5, 197–8, 238, 249–63, 269, 271, 278, 297–8, 300, 316; natural 41, 48n47, 92, 116, 127n14, 128n20; penal 45; rule of 122, 125, 193, 201 laziness 19, 239 learning 250 legal system 15–7, 39, 48n41, 121, 132, 143, 152, 170, 180–2, 192–3 legislation 2, 12, 14–6, 19–20, 38–40, 44–5, 48n41, 48n44, 51, 58, 60, 69–71, 78, 81, 84n14, 85n27, 88, 95–6, 98–102, 103n23, 111, 125, 129n40, 135–42, 144n29, 170, 178–80, 182, 185–6, 193, 227–47, 257, 259, 269, 278, 283–4, 292, 297–8, 301, 302n4, 302n9, 304n49, 316; see also law, giving of Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von 13, 52, 55, 125 Leo the Great 103n23 liberty, see freedom literature 240 Livy, Titus 152 Locke, John 88, 91, 118 love 54, 77, 79, 83n7, 84n13, 85n24, 85n28, 98, 208–9, 230, 257–8, 271, 289, 295, 318, 322; self-­ 75, 81, 174, 187n5 loyalty 157, 229, 246n5, 311, 313 Luhmann, Niklas 201 lying 55, 229–30, 233, 271, 296, 298, 305n76 Machiavelli, Niccolò 152 Madison, James 138, 152 Mahler, Gustav 322 malice 244–5, 259, 317 manipulation 20, 267, 272–3, 278, 279n8, 284, 299–300, 320 marginalization 18, 211 McCarthy, Joseph Raymond 18, 228–9, 233, 243, 246n5–n6, 247n22 McCarthy, Mary Therese 232, 247n14

memory 18, 228–9, 231–3, 241, 243, 269 mental states 286–91, 293–5, 303n39 mentors 316 mercy 187, 188n15 mere means 7, 100, 110, 112, 117, 148, 165n34, 208–9, 211, 217–19, 230; see also formulation of humanity merit 33, 36, 38, 40, 43, 129n32, 155, 174, 179, 209–10, 216–17, 317; see also desert micro-­aggression 192 mid-­level policies 310, 325n2 Mill, John Stuart 164n12, 321 minority 156, 239 misinformation 312 mistake, see error mixed constitution 163n6 mockery, see ridicule modernity 91–2, 201–2 monarchy 77, 95, 128n23, 136, 138–9, 144n50, 145n56–n57, 152–3, 163n10 Montesquieu 91, 138, 152 Moore, George Edward 321, 324 moral agency 10, 16, 19, 32, 157–9, 165n31, 174, 213, 217, 219, 227–9, 232–3, 237, 239–40, 244, 247n21, 253, 259, 266, 274, 276, 278, 320, 326n11 moral capacity 18–20, 29, 31, 118, 126n2, 141, 238, 241–2, 270, 274–5, 277–8 moral caution 228 moral challenge 228 moral disagreement 157, 165n24, 311–12, 320 morality, supreme principle of 6–7, 47n39, 51, 55, 57, 68, 70–1, 73–4, 233, 323 moral law, see law, moral moral progress 77, 228, 239–41, 244–5 moral psychology 14, 69, 249, 257, 262n5 moral resolve 69, 74, 81–2, 187, 231 moral success 227, 237, 242–3, 245 moral support 228 moral tenacity 18, 231–3, 237–45 murder/murderer 45, 48n56, 179–81, 183, 188n11–n12, 188n15 music 240, 311, 321–2

Index  337 Napoléon Bonaparte 95 nature: animal 34–5, 113; human 34, 65–6, 76–7, 89, 127n14, 187n5, 207, 252, 285; kingdom of, see kingdom of ends, vs. kingdom of nature; rational 16, 38, 66, 198, 269, 283–4, 291, 298, 319, 324, 326n16; state of 111, 116, 118–21, 123–4, 127n14, 127n18, 128n23, 128n26, 130n43, 162, 170, 180 needs 8, 10, 20, 56, 58, 62, 70, 78, 140–1, 207, 209–13, 217, 219–20, 221n9, 235, 249, 255–7, 260, 283 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm 168, 171, 221n3 nobility 2, 5, 12, 16, 30, 54, 81–2, 89, 91, 109, 139, 145, 154–5, 164n15, 164n19, 194–5, 207; see also aristocracy noblesse oblige 165n31 non-­domination, see domination normative order 190–1, 193–4, 200 norms 18, 20, 30, 58, 82, 135, 137, 177, 228, 231–3, 237–8, 240–1, 243, 245, 247n12, 260, 302n5, 303n43, 313, 317–20, 325n2 Norris, Henry 81 obedience 10, 22n10, 37, 39, 66, 78, 121, 138, 142, 150, 155, 161–2, 173, 269, 297–8, 311 omnilaterality 111, 118, 121–4 opportunity 18, 120, 196, 206, 217–20, 238 oppression 161–2, 227, 259, 272, 311, 314, 319 orientation 18, 21, 197, 200, 250, 252–3, 255–6, 258, 310–13, 316–17, 320–1, 324, 327n28; dis-­ 20, 276 parenthood 21, 60, 77, 84n13, 109, 128n18, 128n27, 214, 218, 254, 267–8, 273–6, 312, 322–3 participation in social life 213–15, 218–20, 312–13 paternalism 213, 217–18, 318 Paton, Herbert James 5, 9, 21, 59, 68, 81–2, 82n1, 84n15, 85n17, 133, 135–6, 162n4, 326n14 perception 97, 126n4, 192, 213–14, 250–1, 266–7, 269, 272–3, 279n8, 292

perfection/imperfection 1, 4, 8, 12–4, 19, 34, 42, 56, 70, 79, 83n4–n5, 97, 157–8, 165n28, 241, 243, 245, 250, 252–8, 261, 262n2, 298, 302n5 personality/personhood 34–5, 44, 101, 113–14, 125, 129n34, 140, 171, 178–9, 186, 221n5, 230, 263n11 persuasion 92, 110, 273, 296 phenomenal world 109, 174 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni 101, 103n23, 151 pleasure 232, 253, 256, 321–2 policy-­making 20–1, 227, 310–27 politeness 296, 311 political associations 125, 190, 194 political transformation 191 populism 161 poverty 17–8, 200, 206–21 power: addiction to 75, 77; arbitrary 123, 154, 164n21, see also domination; bargaining 217; to bind 113–14; concentration of 153; dominating, see domination; first-­and second-­order 118–19, 124; mental 10; of mind and spirit 324; political 76, 161, 163n6, 193, 201; separation of 129n40, 138; social 209–10, 218; supranational 201 powerlessness 206–7, 217, 220; see also domination prejudice 187n3, 240, 267, 293–4, 297, 300, 312; see also bias; bigotry prerogative 64, 66, 230 pride 119, 209 private property 130n43, 134, 153, 172, 177, 202, 206, 216, 220, 320 projects 254–5, 258–9, 269, 284 promise-­keeping 62, 99, 116, 236, 311, 319–20, 323 protestantism 88, 91–2 prudence 17, 36, 38, 43, 119, 124, 178, 209–10, 283, 301, 305n100 Pufendorf, Samuel von 88, 91–2, 103n23 punishment 13, 16–7, 40–5, 48n56, 109, 128n18, 160, 169–71, 176–85, 187–8n9–n15, 243, 293, 295, 301, 325n9 purity 9, 37, 76–7, 79, 252, 271 quality of life 323

338 Index racism 227, 313–14 rank 2, 11, 16, 29–31, 39, 46n6, 88–9, 92, 137, 139, 149, 151, 153–5, 163n8, 164n19, 209 Rawls, John Bordley 5, 103n15, 103n17, 142n2, 143n24, 146n82, 247n17, 262n5, 284–5, 304n64 realm of ends, see kingdom of ends reciprocity 117, 124, 136, 216–18 recognition 2, 12, 30, 44, 100, 159, 164n14, 170, 177–8, 182, 192, 208, 214, 217, 219, 239–40, 271, 275–6, 278, 311, 317–24 refugees 201 Reich, Klaus 52, 83n6 representation 94, 285–6, 290–7, 300; political 121–3, 129n40, 138; symbolic 74, 77, 79, 85n20 republicanism 15, 129n40, 136–9, 145n57, 185; ancient Roman 152–3; neo-­Roman 16, 137, 149–66 reputation 109, 128n18, 163n9, 231–2, 326n17 respect: appraisal vs. recognition 67n9, 192, 275–6, 317–19, 326n19; for dignity 4, 16–20, 31, 44, 142, 150, 153, 192, 199–200, 208, 211, 216, 239, 256–60, 270, 284, 298; for humanity 19, 44–5, 65, 163n7, 190, 192, 196, 202, 236–8, 241, 269, 272, 294, 317–20, 324, 326n16; for moral law 54, 67n8, 78, 80, 112, 270, 317; for persons 2–4, 21, 31, 35, 63–4, 109, 112, 126n2, 156, 170, 179, 182, 190, 194, 198, 206–21, 230–1, 258, 261, 276, 283, 299–300, 310–27; for rights 123–4, 126, 178, 182–3, 190, 192, 194, 200, 290, 318; universal 64, 109, 126n2, 142, 163n7, 196, 200, 202, 319–20; see also self-­respect responsibility 36, 76, 134, 139, 171–2, 186–7, 209, 236, 315, 317–23, 326n11 retribution 16, 44, 49n57, 169–71, 176–87, 188n15 revelation 78 reverence 4, 67n9, 236–8, 241, 245 revolution 152, 163n6, 232 ridicule (also mockery) 4, 8, 267, 276, 278, 319

right; see also dignity, as basis of rights; duty, of right: acquired 114–15, 117, 119–20, 124, 128n25–n27; Community of 17, 190, 199, 203, 203n7; hermeneutics of 200–3; -holders 114, 118, 128n25, 177, 190, 194, 199; human 2, 11, 17, 22n11, 148, 162n3, 190–4, 199–203, 203n7, 318–19; of humanity 15, 110–11, 117, 119, 126, 127n8, 295, 297; innate 15, 111, 113–19, 122, 127n8, 127n16, 128n25–n26, 128n26, 129n28-­29, 129n34; modalities of 116, 119–21, 123, 128n24–n25; natural 92, 123, 129n29, 153; private 111, 121–3, 128n26, 129n39; public 122–3, 129n39; to punish 179; relations of 16, 177–82, 188n13; trampling of 160–1, 271; universal principle of 44, 135, 139, 176 rituals 77–80, 82, 82n2, 86n30 Rousseau, Jean-­Jacques 88, 91, 101–2, 136–8, 140, 144n50, 161, 163n6 rudeness 318–19, 327n22 sadness 322 scandal 150, 230 schemata 71–3, 78–9 Schopenhauer, Arthur 175, 187n3 science 240, 284–5, 299 scripture 78 self-­abasement 160 self-­assertion 15, 20, 110, 112, 114, 116, 208, 221n9; see also standing up for oneself self-­censorship 153 self-­conception 20, 241, 278 self-­control 319 self-­doubt 20, 267, 272–8, 279n8 self-­esteem 30, 109, 113, 192, 207, 209, 270 self-­improvement 169, 250, 256–7, 259, 323, 325n7 self-­interest 68, 81, 124, 178, 238, 258 self-­mastery 142 self-­perception 192 self-­preservation 123, 127n14 self-­respect 20, 109, 113, 126n4, 160, 208–10, 212–13, 219, 231, 266, 269–78, 283–4, 290–1, 300, 318

Index  339 self-­understanding 17, 98, 184, 191–203, 231, 240 sensibility 45, 81, 253, 301 sensus communis 198 servants 85n28, 140, 145n53, 155 servility 35, 113, 208–9, 270, 280n38 sexism 272, 274, 276–8, 280n41 sexual harassment 268, 272–5 shame 126n4, 165n31, 229, 276–7, 296 Sidgwick, Henry 321 significationism 90 sin 151, 169, 186 sincerity 296 slave/slavery 4, 16, 33, 149, 153–4, 156, 159, 163n7, 164n21, 165n34, 208 sociability 290 social embeddedness 19, 198 socialism 232 social order 132, 134, 136 social pressure 237, 288, 295 social relations 208, 217, 257 solidarity 18, 21, 213, 283, 296, 310–27 Soviet Union 232 speech 20, 152, 163n7, 182, 240, 258, 299 Spinoza, Baruch 91 Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich 232–3, 238 standards 2, 19–21, 31, 83, 112, 120, 124, 126n2, 142n1, 177, 179, 231, 235–44, 247n12, 260, 276–7, 283–4, 292, 300, 310, 313, 315–16, 318–19, 325n9, 327n22, 327n28 standing, see status standing up for oneself 160–2; see also self-­assertion state; see also nature, state of: corruption of 162; definition of 22n8, 90; idea of 157 status (also standing); see also dignity, as status: equal 12, 77, 157, 194, 206–14, 218–20, 271–2, see also dignity, equal; worth, equal; legal 15, 115, 118, 129; moral 1, 4, 16–7, 21, 155–6, 183, 206–20, 228, 238–40, 243–4, 263n13, 272, 275–6, 278, 317, 319; normative 191, 319; social/political 11, 14, 16, 30–1, 91, 109, 139, 141, 150, 154, 178, 194–5, 207–10, 216, 219–20, 318

Stevenson, Charles Leslie 92 stigma 109, 127n18 stoicism 46n6 Strawson, Peter 321 striving 19–20, 58, 76, 79, 112, 196–7, 201, 240, 269, 285, 290, 298 sublimity 10, 37–8, 64, 66, 113, 141, 295, 301, 323 suffering 16, 45, 161, 168–88, 206, 209, 219, 251, 274, 325n9, 326n17 suicide 99 sui iuris 16, 115, 149, 152–9, 161, 165n22, 165n34 superiority 75, 155, 208–9 survival 188n12, 210–12, 216, 219, 317 sustainability 191 sycophancy 153, 271 symbols 13–4, 68–86, 143, 160, 181, 311 sympathy 258 talents 33, 99, 254–5, 290, 292, 327n21 technology 2, 17, 148, 200–1, 221n4 teleology 71, 74, 84n15, 85n21, 97, 185, 305n92 temptation 187n5, 209, 217, 231, 250–8, 275 thanksgiving 323 threats 40–1, 44, 53, 81, 178, 188n12, 211, 214, 218, 221n2, 231, 243, 288, 295, 297; see also dignity, threat to totalitarianism 148, 161 totality 14, 55, 76, 83n6, 85n26, 88, 94, 96–102, 103n23 torture 2, 4, 168, 179 transcendental 4, 101, 125, 177, 195 trustees 315, 326n11 truth, guise of 288–9, 294, 304n44 truth-­telling 229–30, 233, 246n8, 247n18, 305n91 tyrannicide 152, 163n6 tyrant/tyranny 43, 135, 159, 162, 163n6, 231 Ulpian, Gnaeus Domitius Annius 109–10, 119–22 understanding 36, 71–3, 80, 86n29, 195, 239, 263n15, 284–95, 301, 302n14, 303n39, 304n49

340 Index unemployment 213, 219, 246n6 universality 64, 76–7, 79, 111 universalization 37, 39–40, 55, 57–9, 90, 113, 126, 157, 185, 207, 302n5; see also categorical imperative; formulation of universal law Urmson, James Opie 321 value; see also dignity, vs. price; dignity, as value: absolute 34, 36, 46n8, 63, 172; aesthetic 311, 323–4; fundamental 34, 46n8; of human beings 36, 61, 64, 198, 271, 278, 317, 324; inner 33; intrinsic 13, 46n7, 269, 320–4, 327n26, 327n34; moral 2, 112, 228, 233, 311, 313, 325n7; nature of 62, 103n23; orienting 311; recognition of 324; sentimental 172; traditional 311, 324; unconditional authorship 47, 63, 109 vice 42, 44, 75, 77, 175, 209, 221n10, 230, 257, 270 victim 17, 20, 181–3, 188n13, 188n15, 192 violence 120–1, 126, 244, 298 virtue 9, 33, 42, 63, 69–70, 74–82, 83n6, 85n20, 174–6, 184–5, 187n5–n6, 229–31, 253–4, 257, 293 voltaire 91 vote 140, 150, 314 vulnerability 75, 123, 194, 199, 207, 210–12, 218, 231, 276, 313 war 2, 68, 109, 137, 191 wealth 209–10, 212

well-­being/welfare 2, 168, 211, 241, 271, 313–16, 319–22 will: free 8, 33, 46n8, 140, 175; general 161, 166n35, 178–9, 181–2, 185; good 10, 33–4, 36, 52, 61, 63, 65–6, 168, 228, 251, 269, 322; holy 133, 136, 198; united 123, 138, 140 Willkür 32, 38, 47n39, 73, 115, 165n28 worth: absolute 64, 207, 235; elevated 4, 12, 151; equal 12, 18, 216, see also dignity, equal; status, equal; incomparable 11, 61, 64, 164n20, 237, 269, 278, 298; inherent/intrinsic 1, 15, 110, 237, 279; inner 10, 33, 35–6, 62, 64, 101, 109, 113, 207, 242, 270, 279, 285, 300; moral 13, 78, 110, 112, 207, 216, 221n5, 260, 278; relative 10, 62; self-­ 112–13, 192, 221n5, 296; unconditional 36, 61–2, 64, 78, 109, 164n20, 170, 269, 298, 300 worthiness 30, 34, 53, 66, 75–6, 82, 83n5, 126n2, 142, 168, 173–4, 256, 277, 298, 311, 317, 320–2, 324, 327n28, 327n33 worldviews 202 worm 160 wrongdoing 15–6, 18, 20, 115, 119–21, 128n18, 128n22, 129n34, 160, 162, 169–70, 173, 176, 178, 182–6, 208, 211–13, 221n3, 229, 241, 243–5, 256, 266–9, 272, 274–7, 319, 321