Using people well, treating people badly
Towards a Kantian Realm of Ends and Means
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About the project
Our project will develop a Kantian account of mistreating persons alongside an account of treating persons well. According to a well-known principle of Kant's ethics, we should never use people merely as means. This is the wrong of instrumentalization. However, Kant also insists on our duties to act as means for one another.
We explore two connections between these ideas. First, we analyse forms of mistreatment beyond instrumentalization, such as exclusion and paternalism. In particular, we emphasise that many forms of mistreatment deny people opportunities to act as means for others. This is the second connection. To affirm people's status as ends-in-themselves, we must recognise their abilities and responsibilities to act as means. As such, we explore an overlooked dimension of Kant's ideal "realm of ends." People should relate to each other, not only as ends-in-themselves, but also as means.
The project is funded by a collaboration of the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). The project team is Corinna Mieth and Ewa Wyrębska-Đermanović (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), Martin Sticker (University of Bristol) and Garrath Williams (Lancaster University). The project began in February 2023 and will run until January 2026.
Goal 1: understanding forms of mistreatment
We will systematise and develop the normative and conceptual implications of new categories of mistreatment, institutional as well as individual. These categories extend the Kantian framework beyond instrumentalization, and compass collective wrongs such as exclusion or unjust competition.
Goal 2: treating people well, using people well
We will develop a Kantian account of how to address these forms of mistreatment, again considering both individual and institutional levels. We will special emphasis on institutions and forms of interaction that enable people to act as means for one another – but not merely as means .
Goal 3: contemporary challenges
We will consider how these forms of mistreatment and ways of using one another well relate to important contemporary ethical and socio-political challenges: migration, decent work and social contribution, and climate change and future generations. As well as learning from these disciplines, we hope our approach will be fruitful for applied ethics, political and legal theory, and sociology. We also hope to learn from and illuminate contemporary activism around these challenges.
The project is supported by:
