Kantian Dignity and its Difficulties

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8093441
AutoresKarl Ameriks (University of Notre Dame , Notre Dame, USA, autor correspondente)
Ano2024
Data de publicação2024-06-17
Open AccessNão
TipoBOOK
PeriódicoKantian Dignity and its Difficulties (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditoraOxford University PressOxford (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/9780198917656.001.0001
OpenAlexW4399740882
ISBN9780198917656
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas173

This book is a systematic and historical study of the nature and reception of Kant’s distinctive conception of dignity. The first chapter discusses contemporary interpretations and defends Kant’s concept of dignity as rooted in a basic capacity of reason for morality, and as an unconditional, all-or-nothing, and inviolable feature of all human beings, one that deserves universal respect. The next four chapters build on this systematic account by explaining how Kant’s notion of dignity was further clarified, or seriously misunderstood or neglected, in five significant contexts: the Baltics (Herder and Prussia's relation to the east), Berlin (the rise of Fascism), Philadelphia (the Declaration of Independence), London (Richard Price and reactions to the American and French Revolutions), and Washington (twentieth-century threats to democracy, in relation to Thomas Mann's career). These chapters stress the surprising fact that Kant ignored the enlightened institutions of the United States. They argue that, in addition to expressing specific racist and anti-Semitic prejudices, Kant held to a general old-world elitist prejudice, in conflict with his own principles. The book concludes with a discussion of Thomas Mann as an especially relevant and influential thinker. At first, Mann advocated a chauvinist misunderstanding of Kantian dignity, but later he promoted a cosmopolitan understanding of dignity that included—unlike Kant—an appreciation of the enlightened aspects of the American tradition. Ironically, when Mann arrived at his later view under the influence of Walt Whitman, this helped him to better appreciate the Kantian features of Early Romantic writings in his own tradition

Dignity · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Political science · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Psychology · War, Ethics, and Justification · Law · Philosophy