First - Degree Würde : A Means to What End ? !

First-Degree Würde: A Means to What End?! An Examination of Human Dignity and Moral Status in Kantian Ethics and Utilitarianism! ! Kantian Ethics! ! In Chapter 10 of his famous book Leviathan, philosopher Thomas Hobbes writes on the topic of the worth of a person. He writes, “The ‘value,’ or ‘worth,’ of a man is, as of all other things, his price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power; and therefore is not absolute, but a thing dependent on the need and judgment of another.” (Hobbes, From: Leviathan, Chap X). One example that Hobbes gives is that of a skilled tactician; a person who would likely be of “high” value during times of war and of a “low” value in times of peace. In his various ethical writings, Immanuel Kant explicitly rejects this notion. An idea central to Kant’s ethics is the idea that all people (or autonomous and rational moral agents) are owed respect simply because they are people (Kant, Groundwork..., 4:435). ! ! In Kantian ethics, the ability to distinguish between things and persons and treat each accordingly is a notion at the heart of acting morally. For Kant, everything has some worth. But he makes a distinction between two different kinds of worth price and dignity (translated from the German word “Würde”). Kant claims that things with a price as their worth can be replaced by some equivalent thing. For example, if I lose a wallet with just twenty dollars in it, that could easily be replaced by an equivalent wallet with twenty more dollars. On the other hand, Kant writes, there also exist some things that are “raised above all price” and “admit(s) of no equivalent” these things are those which have dignity (Kant, Groundwork, 4:434). To Kant, not everything has a dignity. In fact, Kant writes that the only things with dignity are “morality, and humanity (or in the