Muguerza, Javier - The Tanner Lectures on Human Values

114 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Tanner</strong> <strong>Lectures</strong> on Human Valuesan end.”79 As I suggested before, our imperative has in somesense a negative character, since - behind its apparent grammaticalaffirmation - it does not actually tell us “just what” we oughtto do but instead what we “ought not to do,” that is, not treatourselves, or anyone, solely as an instrument. Kant is definite onthis point when he affirms that the end that man is, is not one ofthose specific ends that we can decide to achieve with our actionsand that are generally means to achieve other ends, as, for example,well-being or happiness. Man is not an end to be effected.As far as man as an end is concerned, Kant warns, “end is not tobe thought of here as an end to be effected, but as an independentend and therefore in a purely negative way, that is, as somethingthat should never be acted against.” 80“Ends to be effected,” asspecific ends, are, according to Kant, “only relative ends.” Andfor this reason they cannot give rise to “practical laws” or morallaws, but at most serve as a basis for “hypothetical imperatives,”such as those dictated by prudent consideration when we say, “ifwe want to remain healthy, we shall have to follow this or thatmedical advice.” But, according to him, the only specificallymoral end or “independent end” we have - that is, human beinginvested with “absolute value” - requires no less than a “categoricalimperative” such as ours. 81In this sense, and while therelative ends amount to no more than “subjective ends” such asany of us might attempt to realize, men as ends, that is, “persons,”Kant calls “objective ends,” as in a famous passage from theFoundation of the Metaphysics of Morals that I cannot help butquote:Those beings whose existence does not depend on our will,but on nature, have, in the case of irrational beings, a merelyrelative value, as ends, and for that reason are called things;79 Kant, Grundlegung, 428; Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Werke,5:132.80 Kant, Grundlegung, 437.81Ibid., 439ff.