Kant and the Moral Law II: The Formula of the End In Itself

1. The Categorical Imperative (CI), Formula of the End-In-Itself (FEI):

• Act in such a way that you always treat persons as ends-in-themselves, and never merely as means to your own (subjective) ends.

2. What does Kant mean by the concept of an end in itself, and what sense does it make to speak of something like a person as being an "end"?

Distinguish between subjective ends and objective ends, and their different kinds of value. This will shed light on the notion of an end in itself. (I'll go over this in lecture.)

3. Kant thinks that if there's going to be any such thing as the moral law at all, it must be based simply on the fact that persons are ends in themselves or objective ends. Why does he think that? His argument goes basically like this:

(i) If the only ends in the world were "subjective ends"--i.e. optional objects of desire or "inclination", or goals which have value only insofar as we desire them (e.g. my getting to the concert tonight)--then the only imperatives that could exist would be hypothetical imperatives (e.g. "If you want to get to the concert tonight, then go buy tickets").

(ii) But morality, if there is such a thing, consists of categorical imperatives (see previous lecture): Moral imperatives aren't conditional on what a given agent happens to want (i.e. they aren't hypothetical imperatives), but are universal and necessary laws for all rational beings. (E.g. "Don't cheat on your spouse.")

(iii) Therefore, if there is such a thing as morality, then there must be some ends that aren't just "subjective ends" of ours, but are rather "objective ends" or "ends-in-themselves"--that is, things "whose existence has in itself an absolute worth", so that they recommend themselves to reason universally, as ends for everyone and as objectively relevant, regardless of anyone's contingent desires.

(iv) But the only plausible candidate for such ends-in-themselves are rational beings—i.e. persons.

(v) Therefore, if there is such a thing as morality at all, then it must be rooted in the existence of rational beings as ends-in-themselves, which gives rise to the simple imperative to treat rational beings always as ends-in-themselves, and never as mere means.

4. What exactly is it to treat something as a mere means?

(a) You treat something or someone as a mere means if you treat it (or him or her) as having only extrinsic value or value relative to your interests, i.e. as a tool to be used for your purposes. (Note that it's okay to treat mere things as mere means.)

(b) Specifically, if it's a person you're dealing with, you treat the person as a mere means if he or she could not in principle freely or genuinely consent to the act in question (or technically, the maxim behind the act), because you are making use of either deception or coercion in using this person for your purposes.

What kind of value do persons have, as opposed to things, which makes it inappropriate to treat persons as mere means?

• Note that while Kant sometimes speaks of persons as having this special value, he also sometimes speaks of the person's rational agency--her ability to reason and to make choices freely based on principles--as what fundamentally has this value. (This distinction is important in understanding his prohibition on suicide, which really has to be put in the second way, in terms of failing to respect the value of your rational agency by subordinating it to considerations of feeling, i.e. destroying your rational agency in order to end suffering.)

• What exactly is it to treat persons as ends in themselves?

(a) In order to treat persons as ends in themselves, you must (i) refrain from treating them as mere means (see above), (ii) respect their intrinsic value, which means (1) refraining from anything that would exhibit callous indifference to them (such as indiscriminately putting people in danger), and (2) positively promoting their development and exercise of their rationality, which includes helping them promote at least some of their own ends.

6. Questions and difficulties:

• Kant divides the world up into "mere things" with only a market price and no intrinsic value, and "rational beings" with dignity and intrinsic value as full-blown ends in themselves. What about non-human animals? Where do they fall? Should we have a third category for them? Also, what about infants and the severely retarded? Where exactly do they fall? How can Kant explain their value given their lack of rational agency?
• Is the FEI too demanding? Isn't it perfectly okay to lie in some circumstances (e.g. to a would-be murderer), even though we're deliberately deceiving someone and bypassing his rational agency? Why should the value of exercising rational agency be taken to be absolute? What about the punishment of convicted criminals (which Kant fully accepts--including capital punishment)? Is this compatible with the FEI? How, since it obviously involves coercion, and is not at all made contingent on the convict's consent? I'll offer one suggestion in lecture.
• Are Kant's particular applications of the FEI plausible? E.g. suicide. What about physician assisted suicide: is this necessarily a case of treating the patient as a mere means? I'll discuss some of the complications here in lecture.