Nandi Theunissen

Rethinking the value of humanity

Oxford University Press, expected jan 2023

This book presents major authors addressing a central topic in ethics.  The essays are remarkably comprehensive—they range creatively over the value of persons, love and respect, dignity and moral standing, reasons and rights, consent and sovereignty, and a multitude of philosophers important for these topics.  These rich and insightful essays—many contributing significantly to the history of ethics—illuminate Kant, as well as earlier figures and later authors as different as Nietzsche and Gandhi.

—Robert Audi, Notre Dame University

Some philosophers hold, with Kant, that humanity (and perhaps only humanity) has priceless value. This special worth, they claim, underwrites the importance of morality. But precisely what is this value? How do we acquire knowledge of it? This collection offers a rich discussion of Kant’s framework, pre-Kantian conceptions of value, and a wide range of post-Kantian and contemporary theories.  It should be essential reading for all students of ethics.

—Richard Kraut, Northwestern University