Abstract
Our self-understanding as beings that must be equally treated and considered is one of the legacies of Modernity — and the one that has had greatest impact over time. This can be taken as an unsurpassable normative ideal of contemporary societies. Our self-understanding as equals is based on the intrinsic worth that we have as persons, so we must always be considered an end and never only a means. This end, with no relative worth but with intrinsic worth, is what Kant called dignity.
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Notes
See M. Horkheimer (2002), Critical Theory: Selected Essays (New York: Continuum).
I take this distinction from Michael Walzer, Iris Marion Young and Rainer Forst. See M. Walzer (1983), Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (New York: Basic Books);
I. M. Young (1990), Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press);
R. Forst (2009), ‘Zwei Bilder der Gerechtigkeit’, in R. Forst, M. Hartmann, R. Jaeggi, and M. Saar (eds), Sozialphilosophie und Kritik (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp), pp. 205–28.
See D. Miller (1999), Principles of Social Justice (Cambridge, MA, and London: Cambridge University Press), pp. 18–19.
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© 2013 Gustavo Pereira
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Pereira, G. (2013). Introduction. In: Elements of a Critical Theory of Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137263384_1
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