Persons as subjects of interests

We are now in a position to look more closely at the principle of respect for persons, the grounding of which in the mutual recognition of natural persons was the theme of Chapter 5. Kant believed it to be irrational to treat any human being merely as a means to one's own ends; humanity is to be treated, both in one's own person and in the person of every other, as an end. This latter phrase has since become something of a cliché, but just what it means is not at all obvious. An end is generally taken to be an envisaged state of affairs, to procure which an action is performed or a project, stratagem, or policy pursued, or for which some means, instrument, or tool is employed. It is not at all clear, however, how a human being or even the realization of his humanity in such a being, can be represented as an envisaged state of affairs. The formulation may be, indeed, only an unfortunate residue of an instrumental or consequentialist model of practical rationality, which Kant himself rejected, according to which, if something did not figure in a rational explanation of action as a means, it must figure as an end. In my account of the principle, I focus not so much on the positive injunction to treat persons as ends in themselves, as on the negative prescription, not to treat persons merely as means or tools, or as counters in a strategy or as pieces in a chess game.