Abstract

Kant’s conception of autonomy has been criticised for identifying acting freely with acting morally. As a result, many Kantians have moved away from Kant’s moral conception of autonomy, instead proposing what I will call an “end-set- ting” or “two-way capacity” account of autonomy. I believe that we should resist these revisions and that doing so makes clear why it is only the capacity for moral autonomy that is of unlimited value. What fundamentally distinguishes our free capacity of volition is the fact that we are autonomous. This capacity en- ables us to have a conception of unlimited goodness that gives us the dignity, i. e. the unlimited value, that non-autonomous beings lack.