Abstract

The importance of dignity as an ethical and political concept was raised by Kant. Although contemporaries have harassed the considerable rhetorical force of dignity to good effect, neither the content of the concept nor its precise place in political theory have received much, let alone sufficient, discussion. We owe to philosophers in the Kantian tradition what little understanding we have of dignity. This dissertation, however, takes a different point of departure. More at home with the thought of the ancients, it pursues the intuition that dignity is an ethical virtue. In particular, on the proposed analysis dignity turns out to be a second-order unifying virtue. To be dignified is to possess the effective motivation to act out of a concern for the goodness of one's character. Since character is determined by the possession of the virtues and vices, dignity as a virtue is a basic concern to develop, express and maintain the first-order virtues of character in oneself. ;Following Aristotle's view on the relation between virtue and emotion, the analysis of dignity proceeds by developing the function of an emotion thought to be constitutive of dignity, namely contempt. It is concluded that contempt functions to enable the motivation to develop good character by closing off intentions to vicious action. The mechanism by which contempt enables motivation is discussed. ;Determining the precise role the concept of dignity plays in political theory requires establishing something more preliminary, namely, the type of theory dignity is to function in. Continuing with the virtue theme, the conceptual structure of what is called a politics of virtue is investigated. Distinguishing such a theory from the two types of theory exemplified by Martha Nussbaum's and John Rawls' approaches, the general structure of a politics of virtue is proposed. Lastly, a suggestion is made on how dignity as virtue would fit into, and be used to develop, the proposed schema.