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202 Chapter 12
individual’s human dignity cannot be fully respected or valued unless the
individual is permitted to develop his or her unique talents optimally.
Human dignity has little value without freedom; for without freedom
personal development and fulfilment are not possible. Without freedom,
human dignity is little more than an abstraction. Freedom and dignity
are inseparably linked. To deny people their freedom is to deny them
their dignity. 20
Dignity, properly understood, secures the space for selfactualisation.
21 That said, dignity qua self-actualisation describes
only a political, and not a metaphysical, state. 22
3.4 Dignity 4: Self-governance
A third formulation of the categorical imperative helps us to identify
a fourth dimension of dignity. 23 An essential feature of the constitutional
politics that issues from the categorical imperative is the
recognition of the ability of (almost) all human beings — through their
capacity to reason — to legislate for themselves. Indeed, as we have
just noted, it is our capacity for self-governance, and the fact that we
are not simply slaves to our passions, that distinguishes man from
beast. (Whether Kant is correct to make reason the sine qua non of
humanity is another matter.) 24 Our capacity for self-governance — the
capacity of (almost) all human beings to reason their way to the ends
that give their lives meaning — is largely what makes democracy the
only acceptable secular form of political organisation in modernity.
For if we are capable of shaping our own ends as individuals, equal
treatment demands that we be able to shape them as citizens. At a
minimum, it means we must be able to participate in the collective-
20 Ferreira v Levin NO & Others 1996 1 SA 984 (CC), 1996 4 BCLR 1 (CC) para 49.
21
See eg Hugo (n 17 above) para 41 (‘[D]ignity is at the heart of individual rights in
a free and democratic society’ (my emphasis)); Prinsloo v Van der Linde 1997 3 SA
1012 (CC), 1997 6 BCLR 759 (CC); National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality
v Minister of Justice 1999 1 SA 6 (CC), 1998 12 BCLR 1517 (CC).
22 See S Woolman The selfless constitution: Experimentation and flourishing as the
foundations of the South Africa’s basic law (forthcoming 2008)(Self-actualisation
is not contingent upon the ability to will freely or to choose freely one’s ends.
Such a conception of freedom is a form of folk psychology. Rather, freedom
consists primarily of having the capacity to participate in ways of being in the
world that already give one’s life the better part of its meaning.) See also AW
Wood ‘What is Kantian ethics?’ in Kant (n 8 above) 176 (‘I doubt that Kant’s
extravagant metaphysics is the best we can do with this problem. The basic point,
however, is that Kantian ethics is no more hostage to the free will problem than
any other ethical theory would be that regards us as reasonable and selfgoverning
beings.’)
23
See Rawls (n 8 above) 183 (‘In the third formulation (that of autonomy) we come
back again to the agent’s point of view, but this time not as someone subject to
moral requirements, but as someone who is, as it were, legislating universal law:
here the [categorical imperative] procedure is seen as that procedure the
adherence to which with a full grasp of its meaning enables us to regard ourselves
as making law for a possible realm of ends.’)
24
See B Williams ‘The idea of equality’ in P Laslett & WG Runciman (eds)
Philosophy, politics and society (1962) 111.