1. First, there is the ultimate moral principle of the
supreme and intrinsic value of the individual human
being, an idea which A. D. Lindsay describes as “the
great contribution to individualism” of the New Testa-
ment and all Christianity (1930-35, p. 676); though
it is also found in the religious, if not the social, ethics
of Hinduism. Absent from earlier Judaism (in which
God's concern was with Israel, the nation), it is adum-
brated in the prophets and clearly set forth in the
Gospels, as in such sayings as: “Inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren,
ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40). In its
Christian form, centered on God and implying the
supreme value of the soul, this idea was reaffirmed at
the time of the reformation, with Luther's and Calvin's
preoccupation with the individual's salvation, and the
sectarian principle that all men are alike children of
God, each with his own unique purpose. It had, on
the other hand, been de-emphasized in the medieval
thesis of the corporational structure of society (itself
rooted in Roman conceptions), which was expressed
by the principle Utilitas publica prefertur utilitati
privatae (“Public utility is preferable to private util-
ity”). According to that thesis, “what mattered was the
well-being of society and not the well-being of the
individual parts constituting it”; the “individual did
not exist for his own sake but for the sake of the whole
society” (Ullmann [1966], pp. 36, 42).
The idea of the individual's supreme worth was
eloquently expressed in a different form by the Renais-
sance humanists, for whom the dignity of man was a
favorite theme, above all in the writings of Giannozzo
Manetti, Marsilio Ficino, and Pico della Mirandola.
Indeed, this idea has come to pervade modern ethical
and social theory in the West. Few modern thinkers
(except some theocrats, late romantics, Neo-Hegelians,
fascists, and others on the far right) have explicitly
rejected it, though it has, to say the least, been treated
with differing degrees of seriousness. Some are pre-
pared to ignore it in the short run, or to qualify it
by balancing it against other principles; others, from
the early sects to the anarchists, have derived from
it the most immediate and egalitarian conclusions.
Moreover, there is room for infinite dispute concerning
its practical implications.
It underlies the Benthamite principle that every man
is to count for one and no man for more than one,
it is enshrined in the Declaration of the Rights of Man,
and it is central to the thought of Rousseau, who wrote:
“Man is too noble a being to serve simply as the instru-
ment for others...” (Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloïse
[1761], V, letter 2). It achieved its most impressive and
systematic expression in the writings of Kant, who
asserted that “man, and in general every rational being,
exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means...”
(Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten [1785], Ch.
II). Kant saw this as an “objective principle” from
which “it must be possible to derive all laws for the
will,” and as entailing the practical imperative: “Act
in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether
in your own person or in the person of any other, never
simply as a means, but always at the same time as
an end” (ibid., trans. H. J. Paton). In his pre-critical
writings Kant sought to ground it in an innate, univer-
sal natural sentiment, while in his critical writings he
offered an (unsuccessful) transcendental proof. More
recently, the philosopher J. McT. E. McTaggart argued
for it in a brilliant paper entitled “The Individualism
of Value” (in his Philosophical Studies, 1934), whose
thesis is that “only conscious beings and their states
have value” and that, in particular, “the individual is
an end, the society is only a means.” In general, it has
the logical status of a religious or moral postulate
which is ultimate in offering a general justifying prin-
ciple in moral argument.
