Yes. I think You're right, Elvin. Kant wrote that to treat people with dignity is to treat them as ends in themselves rather than as a means to an end. So I think another way to say that is that a person has dignity when they have the freedom to choose their purpose for themselves.

Michael Sandel at Harvard recently published a book that touches on this issue called "The Tyranny of Merit." His basic argument is that not everyone wants to take part in the globalized, credentialed, triathlon running, yoga-crazed world order. Many just want a job that pays the bills, a family that loves them and a community they can belong to and they are offended when others don't treat them with dignity for those preferences.