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How did Kant connect moral autonomy with human personality?

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Fragment of a Roman fresco showing Socrates seated and draped in a white robe, with Greek text above, on a red background with visible cracks. — Philosophical anthropology Socrates, Roman fresco, 1st century bce; in the Ephesus Museum, Selçuk, Turkey.

For Immanuel Kant, moral autonomy is inextricably linked to human personality through the essential role of rationality. Kant argued that while human beings are composed of both "flesh and spirit"—experiencing a constant struggle between inclination and reason—it is the capacity for rational agency that defines the person.123

Autonomy is the state of self-governance where an individual’s actions are directed solely by reason rather than by external factors, such as desires, social conventions, or authority. Because rationality is an essential feature of the self, an autonomous person acts according to the categorical imperative, a universal law that any rational agent would recognize as valid.14

Kant connected this to personality by asserting that an autonomous agent must recognize their own intrinsic value as a rational being. Consequently, they must also recognize the intrinsic value of all other rational beings. This leads to his moral requirement to treat humanity, whether in one's own person or in another, always as an end and never merely as a means. Thus, for Kant, the moral subject is not governed by an alien authority but by the voice of reason, which the person recognizes as their own.1423