Description:

Title: How to Value Yourself: Self-Respect and the Setting of Ends

 The self-respecting person values herself. In Kantian terms, this requires valuing herself as both an end and as a setter of ends. In this talk, I explore what it means for a person to value herself as a setter of ends. Kant has plenty to say about what it means for me to value other people as setters of ends, but very little to say about what it means for me to value myself that way. I argue that if I am to avoid servility, I must set ends for myself and treat those ends as having value simply in virtue of the fact that they are mine. I spell out what I take to be significant implications of this view for how we go about practical deliberation, particularly with other people.