Book contents
- What is a Person?
- What is a Person?
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Constructing the ‘Mainline Tradition’
- Part II No God, no Soul: What Person?
- 8 Virtue, ‘Virtue’, Rights
- 9 Descartes on Soul, Self, Mind, Nature
- 10 Personal Identity from Hobbes to Locke
- 11 After Locke
- 12 Sympathy or Empathy: Richardson, Hume, Smith
- 13 Ambiguous Rousseau’s Soul and ‘Moi’
- 14 Kant’s Rational Autonomy
- Part III Toward Disabling the Person
- Part IV Persons Restored or Final Solution?
- Epilogue or Epitaph?
- Appendix The World of Rights Transformed Again
- Bibliography
- Index
14 - Kant’s Rational Autonomy
from Part II - No God, no Soul: What Person?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2019
- What is a Person?
- What is a Person?
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Constructing the ‘Mainline Tradition’
- Part II No God, no Soul: What Person?
- 8 Virtue, ‘Virtue’, Rights
- 9 Descartes on Soul, Self, Mind, Nature
- 10 Personal Identity from Hobbes to Locke
- 11 After Locke
- 12 Sympathy or Empathy: Richardson, Hume, Smith
- 13 Ambiguous Rousseau’s Soul and ‘Moi’
- 14 Kant’s Rational Autonomy
- Part III Toward Disabling the Person
- Part IV Persons Restored or Final Solution?
- Epilogue or Epitaph?
- Appendix The World of Rights Transformed Again
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
As we have seen, Boethius and Duns Scotus are hinge-figures; Kant is another, for two reasons: first because he marks a significant point in the gradual shift from talk of human dignity, which is Christian language, to rights-talk, which at least was to become post-Christian; and second, and relatedly, because Kant seems to many to offer the best chance of preserving human dignity and human rights without recourse to religious premises.1 I believe this hope delusory.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- What is a Person?Realities, Constructs, Illusions, pp. 137 - 148Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019