Charles Michael Gass

The standard view of Kant's moral philosophy is that it is a typical example of what Alistair MacIntyre has labeled "the Enlightenment project of justifying morality"--an attempt to justify traditional beliefs about morality without resorting to metaphysical speculation about the essential nature and end of humanity. Yet the two central claims of that moral philosophy are: that human nature possesses dignity, and so exists as an end in itself, on account of the fact that it is free in nature; and that morality consists of treating humans in a manner which respects this fact about them. I argue that these two claims, far from reflecting a hostility toward essentialistic appeals to human nature in ethics, instead are Kant's attempt to rehabilitate the Stoic and Scholastic view of human dignity as an ontological superiority over the rest of creation. While Kant declines to base ethics on the traditional belief that the universe is ordered purposively, he subscribes to the traditional belief that species can be ranked as more or less perfect in their being than other species. His moral essentialism is the theory that morality consists of treating humans in a manner which respects the fact that, as rational beings who possess a free will, they enjoy an honored place in the hierarchy of being. ;I demonstrate that an essentialistic interpretation of Kant's conception of morality helps resolve several controversies in the secondary literature regarding key elements in his moral philosophy--among them his concept of moral autonomy, his account of the intrinsic goodness of moral virtue, his doctrine of the highest good, and his substantive views on which practices qualify as moral duties and why.