GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

BTRIQi
rules, that they should apply equally to everybody. We are
all, in short, equal before the moral law. It is no excuse,
he holds, for breaking it, to say that one is '/specially
circumstanced" or "peculiarly tempted". One has to a*k
oneself, what would be the effect if everybody were to
make similar excuses on his own behalf? Thus it is a
sign of moral conduct that it can be universalized, that is,
observed by everybody without producing an impossible
situation; it is a sign of immoral conduct that it cannot,
That People should be treated as Ends, never merely as
Means. A further maxim which Kant deduces from
the nature of the moral law is the following: "Act so that
you treat humanity, in your own person and in the person
of everyone else, always as an end as well as a means,
never merely as a means." In virtue of their possession
of a moral faculty, human beings are, as we have seen,
participators in reality; they are, that is to say, from
Kant's point of view, "ends in themselves". It follows
that we are never justified in treating them as if they
were merely means to ends beyond themselves, as steppingstones,
for example, in a career prompted by ambition,
as instruments for the satisfaction of sexual desire, or as
objects for the gratification of sadistic instincts. To take
vengeance on a person for one's own satisfaction, or to
waste a life
person's in ministering to one's own comfort,
is to use that person as a means to an end beyond himself.
But, Kant insists, there is no end which can justify such a
subordination, for there is no end that is ultimately and
absolutely valuable save moral worth, and it is moral
worth which is impaired when a person is treated otherwise
than as an end. The State, then, is never justified
in treating a citizen solely as the instrument of its pur-
poses. 1
Strength
of Kant's Position. Kant's insistence on the
absolute character of the moral imperative is apt to sound
1 See Chapter XIX, pp. 805-806, for *n expansion of thif statement.