Kant S Respect for Persons

Kantian Deontology

Kant’s second principle is about how we should treat other human beings, and even ourselves.

Human beings often act out of self-interest. Some people believe that we are programmed, or determined, to act that way. They claim that we are not really free to respond to the moral law; instead, we follow the path that we are psychologically conditioned to follow. This is a form of determinism. If our actions are determined, if we have no real choice in our actions, then morality is a sham.

Kant believes that moral experience, for example, the fact that the a person taking a logic text could say "no" to cheating despite his or her interest in cheating, shows that determinism is false.

People are not like animals (Kant thinks); we are free to follow the moral law even against all our fondest desires. (What do you think about that statement about animals?)

This makes human beings special. As followers of the moral law, human beings stand apart from other species. People are, first of all, moral-law makers; moral law flows from our ability to reason about whether a making a moral law is consistent. The moral law originates in our ability to universalize and to follow universal maxims.

When we act out of respect for the moral law, we stand apart from all external circumstances, we overcome the conditioning power of environmental influence. By acting morally, we perform a special action, one that comes from our free response to moral laws, one that is unconditioned by external factors. In following the moral law we become ends-in-ourselves.

We are not being used by something or someone else. We are acting freely, as autonomous moral agents. We are following the moral law we created out of our own ability to reason about the universalizability of an action. We make the moral law for ourselves, divorced from the conditioning power of the emotions, external rewards, or selfish gain.

Because people are special -- as free ends-in-themselves -- Kant supports a moral command in addition to the categorical imperative. People should be treated as special, as the source of morality and free action, as ends-in-themselves. This is Kant's principle of respect:

Never treat a person merely as a means, but always as an end.

This moral command does not mean that we cannot "use" people. We rely on each other, socially and personally, all the time. It means that we should not merely use each other. We must treat one another with respect even if we rely on each other. Those of you who have worked as waiters or waitresses know the difference. Some people do not recognize the humanity in others; they are rude or else ignore the person offering a service. Others are considerate and polite. In this way they recognize the humanity of the other.

The respect principle rejects as immoral the kinds of circumstances offered as counterexamples to utilitarianism, such as we will see in the next Lesson. We cannot use part of the population as slaves: this treats them merely as means. We cannot exploit a part of the population for the gain of the rest, and we cannot merely exploit a single individual.

The categorical imperative and the respect principle are the two principles in Kant's moral theory. Both have had tremendous influence. Today, many believe that immoral behavior is precisely the behavior that involves making an exception of oneself, one's family, one's group, one's religion, one's nation. And a moral position that does not respect the humanity in others hardly seems capable of claiming status as a moral theory.

No theory, not even the theory of the great Kant, has accepted by even a majority of philosophers; there is no real agreement about moral theory. Kant’s theory has its faults. They are real and they are quite significant, maybe even overwhelming.

Remember I said that I probably disagree with everything Perice ever said, yet he has influenced my thinking. Kant has influenced contemporary moral thinking, but not too many philosophers actually accept his theory. So take seriously the criticisms of Kant’s theory coming in the next section, but don’t let them convince you that there is little value in his theory. It is a powerful theory, one with great creativity and influence.