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Kant's Necessary Evil

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Kant felt very strongly about how people were supposed to act. According to the Categorical Imperative, he said, “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only” (Rachels, 139). Since humans are so valuable, we need to treat them “as an end”. This means you need to treat them well; respect their rights, avoid harming them, and promote their welfare. To treat people “as an end” according to Kant is, “as beings who (can) contain in themselves the end of the very same action” (Rachels, 139). When you treat people like a means, you are not treating them with respect. You are using them. When you treat people like a means, you manipulate them and use them to achieve your goals. If you were going to treat people as a means would an example would include being friends with someone, so you can get a job at a store that her family owns. This example shows that friend A had no intention of becoming friends with friend B. She lied and pretended to be nice, so she …show more content…

We would all like to believe that for the most part, we treat people as ends. However, sometimes your actions, even if you do not realize it, you are using people. Let’s take for example stated early, how the person told her friend that she would not repay her. If the friend gives her the money, you are using her as a means to get the money. Although you have good intentions to tell your friend the truth, you still are using her in a way. Examples like this happen all the time. To support your family, get into college, and other life events, you have to use people. For example, aren’t you using the people who wrote you recommendation letters? You are being extremely nice to them and get to know them in hopes that they will convince a committee to accept you into the school. Yes, you may like your recommender as person, but during that time, you

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However, this conveys that manipulation can be viewed from both a positive and negative aspect. Manipulation can underline the interconnection of individuals and promote the act of contributing for beneficial outcomes. Nevertheless, it can be perceived as unethical, in addition to restriction in human freedom, which is a fundamental component of societal life. As a result, the topic of manipulation in the novel Ender's Game highlights how exploitation impacts individuals for the advantage of others, and how the dynamic of manipulation constitutes one of the most powerful elements of

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In his brief essay, “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives”, Immanuel Kant emphasizes how essential it is to be truthful and how our duty to be truthful outweighs any other duties we have to ourselves to ourselves or to humanity. Altruistic can be described as a genuinely moral act. People who are altruistic take action for the benefit of others and deem other people’s interests more important than their own interests. Kant believes that people should always do what is right, no matter what the outcome holds. I affirm that Kant believes praising truthfulness above all other duties because he believes it is morally wrong to hurt the dignity of others.

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"Act that you use humanity, whether in your person or in another, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means. " This is the translation of Immanuel Kant 's second categorical imperative which was also known as 'Mere Means Principle ' or 'The Principle of Humanity '. This principle put forth by the great philosopher attempts to give us parameters on, when using people is justified and when it is not. Using other people for our personal benefit cannot be justified morally. Their desires, wishes and intentions also need to be taken into consideration and need to be given equal weight like ours.

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I hope to convince the reader that Kant’s Categorical Imperative is the better way to live a morally conscious life and more practical to follow as well. First I will briefly describe both Kant’s and Mill’s principles. Then I will go on to explain the advantages and disadvantages of both. Finally, I hope to provide a counterargument for some of Kant’s Categorical Imperatives downfalls. Kant states the Categorical Imperative as: "Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will and general natural law."

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Kant’s moral philosophy stands on the notion of good will, an intrinsic good which is perceived to be so without qualification, independent of any external factors. Thus, he dismisses other values that could be taken as good in themselves, such as happiness, honesty, courage, trust etc. as they have worth only under specific conditions, whereas in others they could be transposed into bad acts. For example, trust is necessary for one to be able to manipulate others, one must have courage to be able to

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Moral theories are theories that help us distinguish between a right or a wrong action. Adequate moral theories help us understand that what we should or shouldn’t do in certain situations. Two of the most famous moral theories are Utilitarianism and Kantianism. According to Utilitarianism, an action is right if only if it out of all the other action gives out the maximum utility. In oppose to that, Kantianism says that an action is right if and only if, in performing that action, the person does not treat anyone as a mean and treats everyone as an end in itself.

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Kant’s moral theory of deontology is the study of duty. Deontology focuses on the intentions of the actions and not on the consequences that may follow, the opposite of utilitarianism. According to the theory of deontology, we are obligated to follow the principles and rules regardless of the outcomes. My goal in this paper is to explain the theory of deontology, which has two types of imperatives: hypothetical and categorical that are used when deciding upon the act to be taken; also would like to identify objections against the theory of deontology. Hypothetical imperatives take the form of if you want X, you should do Y (Frederick 4).

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In addition, he believes that “we just have to check that the act we have in mind will not use anyone as a mere means, and, if possible, that it will treat other persons as ends in themselves” (O’Neil, 2008, p. 113). This principle acts as a moral code implying that one should never treat a person merely as a means to an end. Overall, Kantian ethics focuses and recognizes the importance of the value of humanity. His categorical imperative ultimately leads to a “kingdom of ends,” in which norms that deny the value of humanity are not permitted. In my opinion, it would be difficult to disagree because most individuals value their own life.

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In our world there are a lot of different kind of people. Some are nice, kind and very helpful or others or corrupted, cruel minded, greedy or evil minded. Every person has something good in them or something bad, but the one nature or the behavior which some people hate is using someone else for their own benefit. There are a lot of situations in which you see people using their friend or colleges to make them do their work, for example if someone uses his friend to buy him food every day by lying to them. Lying to someone in a wrong way or for your own good is not right because you would not be the person’s true best friend and plus you are not doing your own work.

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