Pavlos Eleftheriadis (New York University Abu Dhabi; NYU School of Law) has posted Dignity and Virtue on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Philosophers argue, following Kant, that dignity is an end beyond value, that is not something to be balanced against other ends or interests. Yet, pressing questions arise about the content of this claim. The very language of some person’s ‘equal’ status invites the thought of another’s ‘unequal’ status, a comparison which the Kantian approach, in principle, wishes to exclude. Moreover, why is dignity incomparable? If the value of a comfortable retirement is an end and humanity is an end, why cannot one end be balanced against the other end? Is it not inevitable that ends have to be adjusted, when ends are mutually incompatible? The idea of equal human status is not sufficient to respond to such questions. I believe that the argument needs further strengthening in order for us to see why it is correct. I want to return to Kant’s argument but develop it in a different way. Dignity is not primarily a matter of conduct that we owe to someone else, say to the bystander or the passenger on the plane. It is instead directed inward to the self. It is a duty for internal self-mastery that we owe to ourselves. This internal duty helps create an appropriate account constitutional justice as a test for the legitimacy of a ‘civil condition’. My argument will focus on Kant’s account of necessary human ends. I believe that the priority of dignity can be best defended as an argument about the duty of virtue of any rational being to promote the ends of civility. If such an inner duty exists, it leads by a process of rational steps outwards: it binds all humans and requires them to live in a civil condition with others, because there is no other way of respecting the dignity of one’s own person.
Recommended!
To receive new posts from Legal Theory Blog by email, get a free subscription to Legal Theory Stack.
Lawrence Solum