Kant: extract 4

Immanuel Kant, from

Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals
In the version by Jonathan Bennett presented at www.earlymoderntexts.com

But suppose there were something whose existence in itself had absolute value, something which as an end in itself could support determinate laws. That would be a basis - indeed the only basis - for a possible categorical imperative, ie of a practical law.

There is such a thing! It is a human being!· I maintain that man — and in general every rational being — exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means to be used by this or that will at its discretion. Whenever he acts in ways directed towards himself or towards other rational beings, ·a person serves as a means to whatever end his action aims at; but· he must always be regarded as also an end. Things that are preferred have only conditional value, for if the preferences (and the needs arising from them) didn‘t exist, their object would be worthless. ·That wouldn‘t count against the ̳objects‘ in question if the desires on which they depend did themselves have unconditional value, but they don‘t! If the preferences themselves, as the sources of needs, did have absolute value, one would want to have them; but that is so far from the case that every rational being must wish he were altogether free of them. So the value of any objects to be obtained through our actions is always conditional. Beings whose existence depends not on our will but on nature, if they are not rational beings, have only relative value as means, and are therefore called ̳things‘ [Sachen]; whereas rational beings are called ̳persons‘, because their nature already marks them out as ends in themselves (ie as not to be used merely as means) — which makes such a being an object of respect, and something that sets limits to what anyone can choose to do. Such beings are not merely subjective ends whose existence as a result of our action has value for us, but are objective ends, ie things [Dinge] whose existence is an end in itself. It is indeed an irreplaceable end: you can‘t substitute for it something else to which it would be merely a means. If there were no such ends in themselves, nothing of absolute value could be found, and if all value were conditional and thus contingent, no supreme practical principle for reason could be found anywhere.

So if there is to be a supreme practical principle, and a categorical imperative for the human will, it must be one which, being drawn from the conception of something that must be an end for everyone because it is an end in itself, constitutes an objective principle of the will that can serve as a universal law. The basis for this principle is: rational nature exists as an end in itself. Human beings necessarily think of their own existence in this way, which means that the principle holds as a subjective principle of human actions. But every other rational being also thinks of his existence on the same rational ground that holds also for myself;11 and so it is at the same time an objective principle — ·one that doesn‘t depend on continent facts about this or that subject· — a supreme practical ground from which it must be possible to derive all laws of the will. So here is the practical imperative.

Act in such a way as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of anyone else, always as an end and never merely as a means. Let us now see whether this can be carried out. To return to our previous examples:

First, someone thinking of committing suicide will, if he is guided by the concept of necessary duty to oneself, ask himself

Could my suicide be reconciled with the idea of humanity as an end in itself? ·And his answer to this should be No·. If he escapes from his burdensome situation by destroying himself, he is using a person merely as a means to keeping himself in a tolerable condition up to the end of his life. But a man is not a thing [Sache], so he isn‘t something to be used merely as a means, and must always be regarded in all his actions as an end in himself. So I can‘t dispose of a man by maiming, damaging or killing him — and that includes the case where the man is myself. (This basic principle needs to be refined so as to deal properly with questions such as ̳May I have one of my limbs amputated to save my life?‘ and ̳May I expose my life to danger in order to save it?‘ I shan‘t go into these matters here; they belong to morals and not to the metaphysic of morals.)

[Three times in this next paragraph, and nowhere else in this work, Kant writes of someone‘s ̳containing‘ the end of an action by someone else. Presumably for B to ̳contain‘ the end of A‘s action is for B to have A‘s end as his end also, to seek what A seeks.] Second, as concerns necessary.... duties to others, when someone A has it in mind to make someone else B a deceitful promise, he sees immediately that he intends to use B merely as a means, without B‘s containing in himself the end of the action. For B can‘t possibly assent to A‘s acting against him in this way, so he can‘t contain in himself the end of this action. This conflict with the principle about treating others as ends is even easier to see in examples of attacks on people‘s freedom and property; for in those cases it is obvious that someone who violates the rights of men intends to make use of the person of others merely as means, without considering that as rational beings they should always be valued at the same time as ends, ie as beings who can contain in themselves the end of the very same action.12

Thirdly, with regard to contingent (meritorious) duty to oneself [for ̳meritorious‘ see middle paragraph on page 25], it isn‘t sufficient that the action not conflict with humanity in our person as an end in itself; it must also harmonize with it. In human nature there are predispositions to greater perfection that are part of nature‘s purpose for humanity....; to neglect these might perhaps be consistent with the preservation of humanity as an end in itself but not with the furtherance of that end. [In the original, the italics contrast ̳furtherance‘ not with ̳consistent‘ but with ̳preservation‘. The present version is based on a conjecture that was a slip.]

Fourthly, with regard to meritorious duty to others: — Humanity might survive even if no-one contributed to the happiness of others, but also no-one intentionally took anything away from the happiness of others; ·and this is a likely enough state of affairs, because· the end or purpose that all men naturally have is their own happiness. This would put human conduct into harmony with humanity as an end in itself, but only in a negative manner. For a positive harmony with humanity as an end in itself, what is required is that everyone ·positively· tries to further the ends of others as far as he can. For the ends of any person, who is an end in himself, must as far as possible be also my ends, if that thought ·of him as an end in himself· is to have its full effect on me.

This principle concerning the status of each human being — and more generally of each rational creature — as an end in himself is the supreme limiting condition on the freedom of action of each man. (Supreme in the sense that it trumps everything else, eg prudential considerations·.) It isn‘t drawn from experience; ·there are two reasons why it can’t be·. One reason is the principle‘s universality: it applies to absolutely all rational beings, and experience doesn‘t stretch out that far. The other is the fact that the principle isn‘t about humanity considered subjectively, as something that men do take to be an end, ie do choose to aim at, but rather about humanity considered as the objective end that ought to constitute the supreme limiting condition of all subjective ends, whatever they may be. ·Experience can inform us about what subjective ends men do set before themselves, but not about what non-subjective end ought to trump every subjective end·. So this principle ·can‘t arise from experience, and· must arise from pure reason.

11 Here I put this proposition forward as a postulate. The reasons for it will be given in the last chapter.
12 Don‘t think that the banal ̳Don‘t do to anyone else what you wouldn‘t want done to you‘ could serve here as a guide or principle. It is only a consequence of the real principle, and a restricted and limited consequence at that. It can‘t ·as it stands· be a universal law, because it doesn‘t provide a basis for duties to oneself, or benevolent duties to others (for many a man would gladly consent to not receiving benefits from others if that would let him off from showing benevolence to them!), or duties to mete out just punishments to others (for the criminal would argue on this ground against the judge who sentences him). And so on.