Immanuel Kant occupies a peculiar double position in the book: on the one hand, his formula of humanity of the categorical imperative is honored as one of the clearest formulations of human dignity; on the other hand, his justification of this dignity — in the moral law instead of in the being of the person — is criticized as insufficient.
Key Contribution
Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) contains the famous formulation: “Act so 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” (Handle so, daß du die Menschheit, sowohl in deiner Person als in der Person eines jeden andern, jederzeit zugleich als Zweck, niemals bloß als Mittel brauchest). This formula of humanity agrees in substance with the Personalistic Norm that the book defends: the person may never be a mere means, but deserves affirmation for her own sake (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 146–150).
Central Ideas in the Book
Agreement: Dignity and the Formula of Humanity
The book acknowledges that Kant grasped an essential state of affairs: the human being possesses an unconditional dignity that raises him above all things. In this, Kant meets the Thomistic-personalist tradition that the book defends. Wojtyła’s personalistic norm — persona est affirmanda propter se ipsam — corresponds in substance to what Kant, too, demanded (cf. Bexten 2017, p. 146).
Critique: Duty Instead of Being
The decisive difference concerns the justification. For Kant, respect for the human being is grounded in the universal moral law, in a duty. The personalistic norm, by contrast, is grounded in the being of the person herself: because the human being is what he is — a someone with inalienable dignity — affirmation and love are owed to him. Not from duty, but as the appropriate response to reality. Hengstenberg, taking up Scheler’s critique of Kant, argues that Kant’s concept of personality is grounded “merely in the universal (autonomous) moral law, not in an ontological (substantial) determination of the person” (cf. Bexten 2017, p. 147).
If respect for the human being is grounded only in a duty, the person is not truly affirmed as a person, but for the sake of the law. She is not addressed as a unique Thou, but treated as an instance under a universal law.
The Critique of Metaphysics as Prejudice
Kant also appears in the book as the source of a widespread prejudice: the claim that metaphysics has been overcome and that nothing can any longer be said about the essence of things. The book rejects this as a blanket argument — an appeal to authority that rests not on insight into the matter itself, but on ignorance. Spaemann makes clear that a “post-metaphysical age” would be a contradiction in itself (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 25–27).
Place in the Book
Kant is treated in the chapters Chapter 2: How Can This Question Be Answered? (German) and What Happens When We Forget Who the Human Being Is? (German), and is named as a reading recommendation in the section On Human Dignity (German).
Sources: Bexten 2017, pp. 25–27, 146–150 (Kant’s formula of humanity as a formulation of human dignity; critique of its justification by an ethics of duty instead of by being).
Further sources:
- Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). Akademie edition vol. IV (the formula of humanity of the categorical imperative as a formulation of human dignity)
- Critique of Practical Reason (1788). Akademie edition vol. V (respect as moral incentive; the concept of personality as subjection to the autonomous moral law — the reference text of the Scheler/Hengstenberg critique)
- Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787) (the critique of metaphysics as background of the debate on the ontology of the person)