Human Dignity

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Human Dignity Theory
A German philosopher Immanuel Kant thought that people occupy a special place in creation. This is an old idea from ancient times; people have considered themselves to be different from all other creatures and not just different but better. Here’s a fact, people have traditionally thought of themselves to be fabulous. Kant did. On his view, people have “an intrinsic worth” in other word “dignity” which makes them valuable “above all price”. Other animals have a value only as much as they serve the peoples purpose. Kant said, “But so far as animals are concerned, we have no direct duties. Animals…are there merely as means to an end. That end is man,” Lectures on Ethics (1779).
We can use animals in any way we please. We do not have to back off from torturing them. Kant does mention that it is wrong to torture animals, but his reason is we might suffer indirectly as a result of it, because “he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men.” So Kant’s view is mere animals have no moral importance and people are another story. According to Kant people may never be used as means to an end.
I will concentrate here on Kant’s belief that morality requires that we treat persons as an end, rather than only a means. When Kant said that the value of human beings “is above all price.” He meant this as a judgment about the place of man in the scheme of things. There are two important facts about people that in his view support this judgment.
First, because people have desires and goals, other things are valuable for them, in relation to their goal. Simple “things” (and this includes animals) have value only as means to ends, and it is the human ends that give those “things” value. So if I wanted to become a better chess player, a book on chess instruction will have value for me, but aside from such ends that book has no value other than the $6...