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Kant dignifies the concept of dignity by integrating it into his sublime moral philosophy. But he does not define it either and, if we discount the Metaphysical Foundations (1785), where he uses the term 16 times, it only occurs very occasionally in his work. Rather than being an essential component of his system, it tends to be a synonym for words that are essential: autonomous subject, self-legislating I, end in itself, compendium of the humanity of humans. The second formulation of the categorical imperative states: “So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only” (Kant 2008, p. 46). Kant could have reformulated that imperative, with identical meaning, by simply saying: “Act in accordance with the dignity of which you are the bearer.”

Two distinctions in the works of Kant serve to introduce his idea of dignity. In the Critique of Practical Reason, he differentiates between happiness and dignity: “Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we should make ourselves happy, but how we should become worthy of happiness” (Kant 1898, p. 227). In our pursuit of happiness, which Kant identifies with pleasure or desire, we resemble brute animals, who instinctively seek the same satisfaction. Therefore happiness, pleasure, sentimental wellbeing – aims of the morality of English empiricism (Hume, Smith) – do not do justice to the loftiness of the human condition. In contrast to that sentiment-based ethic, Kant posits the ideal of an autonomous subject, who only obeys the universal-impersonal laws that his reason acknowledges, not only independently of experience and feeling, but even perhaps in spite of them, so that the struggle with his own instinctive inclinations will shed an even more favorable light on the grandeur of human morality. We might add that persistent adverse fortune may well stifle our desire for happiness because, however much we practice all the virtues, we will only be increasing the probabilities of achieving happiness, without, however, any guarantee of success. But nothing in this world – no circumstance whatsoever – can deprive us of the privilege of living our lives with dignity and of always acting in accordance with that dignity that belongs exclusively to us. Therefore, what is uniquely universal and distinctively human is not to be happy but to be worthy of being happy, and that dignity, which is worthy of happiness, but which this world does not provide, justifies Kant’s postulation of a God and a future life where dignity and happiness finally coincide.

A foretaste on Earth of this future heaven would be the “kingdom of ends” that Kant imagines in the Metaphysical Foundations. In respect of this kingdom, the philosopher articulates the second of his interesting distinctions. “In the kingdom of ends,” he writes, “everything has either value or dignity. Whatever has a value can be replaced by something else which is equivalent; whatever, on the other hand, is above all value, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity” (Kant 2008, p. 52). There are, therefore, replaceable things that are not valued by their intrinsic worth but by their instrumental utility in obtaining other goods, whereas there are beings, like those belonging to the human race, that are not replaceable because, of themselves, they are endowed with intrinsic value. The immoral act par excellence would therefore be objectification, by virtue of which, man is treated as an object and is dehumanized because he is given the treatment reserved for things that only have a price.

In conclusion, up to the time of Kant, dignity is understood to be a distinctive feature of man and is associated with some positive quality, which is exclusive to him – in Cicero, reason, in Mirandola, freedom, in Kant, morality – and which imposes on the bearer certain duties of validation. It is not by chance that the history of dignity begins with Cicero’s On Duties and culminates with Kant’s famous exclamation: “Duty! Thou sublime and mighty name” (Kant 1898, p. 180). The being, which distinguishes itself from brute animals because it possesses reason, freedom, or morality – qualities that give that being a particular dignity – is expected to act in accordance with that dignity. The duty to confirm or perfect the original, intrinsic dignity ends up by producing a selective effect because, in fact, only a person who fulfills those duties can rightly call themself worthy. This idea is also confirmed in Kant’s work, where the concept continues to preserve hints of aristocratic overtones: following the lines of his argumentation, full dignity belongs not to all men and women but only to those who are morally the best.