The ideas about Kantian deontology in contemporary English language political philosophy

The author analyses Kant’s deontological ethics and the problem of its use for justification of political liberalism. Taking Kant’s notion of personal autonomy as a central one, J. Rawls and M. Sandel interpret his moral and political philosophy as the prime deontological doctrine standing in opposition to consequentialism and teleology. However, the concept of autonomy in Kant''s philosophy is subordinate to the concept of human dignity, the restoring of which as the centerpiece of his ethics allows to avoid the difficulties ascribed to Kant by the aforementioned philosophers. As a result the whole dichotomy of deontology and teleology is questioned, at least in its application to Kant’s philosophy.