The Value of Humanity

While Kant argues that humanity is absolutely valuable and unlike the value of anything else, in The Value of Humanity I develop a relational proposal according to which our value is continuous with the value of other valuable things. I offer lines of thought that make it plausible to say that goodness or value is affecting: such that it helps and serves and enriches. I take the Socratic starting point that good is a notion of benefit, or in a more contemporary idiom, that good is good for someone. If people are bearers of value, I propose that our value is no exception. I explore the possibility that our value is explained through reciprocal relations, or relations of interdependence, as when—as daughters, or teachers, or friends—we benefit others by being part or constitutive of relationships with them. I also investigate the possibility that we can be said to stand in a valuable relationship with ourselves. Ultimately, I propose that people are of value because we are constituted in such a way that we can be good for ourselves in the sense that we are able to lead flourishing lives. Intuitively, a person matters because she matters to herself in a very particular sort of way. To appropriate a phrase, she is a being for whom her life can be an issue.