possible Categorical Imperative or practical law, referring to no end
beyond itself, would lie in this alone. What is more, without an “end
in itself”, there would be nothing of absolute worth that could serve
as a standard for something like a Categorical Imperative. From this,
we see that the “end in itself” is an objective principle that grounds the Categorical Imperative.
Interpretation of the following key passages in the Groundwork
of the Metaphysics of Morals, from 4:428 through 4:429 are the core concern to which I will repeatedly return. For now, it should suffice
to point out that in these passages Kant offers four or five distinct
reformulations of the idea of “beings the existence of which is an
end in itself”. He defines such beings, which may not be used merely
as a means, as “persons”, distinguishing them from natural beings
that may be used merely as means on account of their being “things”
without reason. The two most significant among these key passages
(for our purposes here) come immediately after Kant draws the
distinction between “persons” and “things”. Their relevant sections
read as follows:
[Rational beings are]...beings the existence of which is in itself an
end, and indeed one such that no other end, to which they would
serve merely as a means, can be put in its place, since without it nothing of absolute worth would be found anywhere; but if
all worth were conditional and therefore contingent, then no
supreme practical principle for reason could be found anywhere.
If, then, there is to be a... Categorical Imperative, it must be one
such that, from the representation of what is necessarily an end for
everyone... it constitutes an objective principle of the will and thus 14 Ibid., 4:428.
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can serve as a universal practical law. The ground of this principle is: rational nature exists as an end in itself. The human being necessarily represents his own existence in this way; so far it is thus a subjective principle of human actions. But every other rational being also
represents his existence in this way... thus... it must be possible to derive... [t]he practical imperative... So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means. 15
The claim that “every other rational being necessarily represents
his own existence” the same way that the “human being” does,
makes it clear that in the last line above, stating the practical
imperative, “humanity” refers not to human beings in the sense of
homo sapiens as in the preceding sentences, but to humanitas as rational nature in general – a philosophical usage common since
Stoic cosmopolitanism. These passages suggest that what is shared
by all rational beings – namely, the humanitas of them – consists of the manner in which they are able to represent their “own existence”
to themselves. In other words, to be an “end in itself” is to be a being conscious of one’s own existence. The use of “his own” by Kant as
a qualification of the manner of the representation of existence
strongly supports this reading. Non-rational beings are “things”
in the sense that their manner of being is that of an entity within
the natural world; they are for the sake of nature, and are not their
“own”. Nature, on the other hand, is for the sake of rational beings.
Two passages taken together make this controversial claim:
...the human being... is subject only to laws given by himself but still universal and... he is bound only to act in conformity with his own wil , which, however, in accordance with nature’s end is
a will giving universal law.16
A kingdom of ends is possible only by analogy with a kingdom
of nature; the former, however, is possible only through maxims,
15 Ibid., 4:428-29.
16 Ibid., 4:432.
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that is, rules imposed upon oneself, the latter only through laws
of external y necessitated efficient causes. Despite this, nature as a whole, even though it is regarded as a machine, is still given the name “a kingdom of nature” insofar as and because it has reference to rational beings as its ends.17
This claim that “nature as a whole...has...rational beings as its
ends” does, however, pose a further problem for our interpretation
of what it means to be “an end in itself”. Are rational beings end s in themselves in the sense that their coming-to-be as entities is the
supreme end of Nature? In other words, are rational beings only
qualitatively unique among entities, and not categorical y distinct
from them?
The question may be decided by a passage in which Kant claims
that “Rational nature is distinguished from the rest of nature by
this, that it sets itself an end”, and he very significantly adds that “...
the end must here be thought not as an end to be effected but as
an independently existing end, and hence thought only negatively, that is, as that which must never be acted against and which must
therefore in every volition be estimated... the subject of all possible ends itself...”18 If the being of a rational being, qua entity, were “an end in itself”, then it could presumably be an end – or rather, the most important end “to be effected” by Nature. Yet, as we have seen,
Kant states that “an end in itself” is one that cannot be effected by
anything, in other words, cannot be brought into being through any
apparent natural process. Their independent existence is itself “the
subject of all possible ends” in that they do not exist as actors in the world, as it were, amidst or alongside other things. All of their ends are pursued through their own existence, which means that for each rational being, her existence encompasses her world of practical
activity.
In every activity her existence “reaches consciousness
immediately”, not as the discursive thought “I exist”, but in the
sense that every aim of activity is grounded in, and bounded by, this
17 Ibid., 4:438, my emphasis.
18 Ibid., 4:437.
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existence and repeats a representation of this existence within itself.19
In sum: rational beings are an end in themselves in the sense that they are not within the world, they are the existence of their world.
Whatever is to prevent this from col apsing into solipsistic idealism
is somehow connected to the concept of a “kingdom of ends”, which,
as Kant claims is the archetype and end of the merely so-called
‘kingdom’ of nature. The world becomes “a world of rational beings
( mundus intelligibilis)... a kingdom of ends... [with] all persons as members.”20
What is it that allows a rational being to gain the vantage point
over and above nature that non-rational animals do not have? What
is it that gives him “consciousness of himself” and accounts for the ontological difference between him and other beings brought about by this self-consciousness?21 Freedom. It is not incidental that the
next major discussion in the Groundwork is an understanding of the moral law in terms of free wil . In depth consideration of this
is deferred to the second section’s examination of Kant’s redefining
of “wil ” in his later moral philosophy, and the effect it has on
our
understanding of the problem of the “end in itself” with which we
are engaged in the Groundwork. For now, suffice it to say that Kant makes the following very elegant set of three claims, inferring each
from the previous one in accordance with what he takes himself to
have already established in the Groundwork: 1) Every thing in nature is necessitated by a heteronomy of causes; in other words, no thing in nature is an end in itself because it is the effect of “some thing”
else, which is again only derivatively a ‘cause’; 2) As opposed to
this heteronomy of efficient ‘causes’, the voluntary actions of a
rational being have an altogether different kind of causality, one
whose unified and non-derivative nature can be characterized as
“autonomy” – or freedom of the will; 3) For the will of any being to be in all actions a law unto itself, means for it to act on no maxim
other than that which can have as its object itself as a universal law, 19 Ibid., 4:451.
20 Ibid., 4:438.
21 Ibid., 4:458.
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in other words, the Categorical Imperative.22 Therefore, a “free wil ”
is not a “lawless” will; it is in fact nothing other than a will under moral law. Kant claims thereby to have “traced the determinate
concept of morality back to the idea of freedom”.23
Since Kant has already established, at the outset of the
Groundwork, that the very idea of morality is nonsense unless it applies not only to human beings but to all rational beings, and since it has now been shown that morality “must be derived solely from...
freedom”, it follows that all and only rational beings are free beings.24
A being that is an end in herself, is one whose existence makes it so that she “cannot act otherwise than under the idea of freedom”.25
An “end in itself” is existential y condemned to freedom, in other
words to self-consciousness and responsibility for his own actions,
“cognizant of [the moral “ought”] even while he transgresses it”.26
II.
The problems raised by Kant’s claim that the rational subject
has “free wil ”, insofar as he is conscious of his own causality, are
notorious. Kant attempts to resolve the contradiction between “free
wil ” and natural determinism by setting up a parallelism of two
“different standpoints”.27 From the standpoint of speculative reason
all phenomenal ‘mere appearances’, including that of the subject as
an object, are determined by laws of nature. From the standpoint
of practical reason, the subject is immediately conscious of his own
causal autonomy or freedom of wil .28 Scandalously, this requires
positing things-in-themselves in an “intelligible world” beyond
22 Ibid., 4:446-47.
23 Ibid., 4:449.
24 Ibid., 4:447-48.
25 Ibid., 4:448.
26 Ibid., 4:455.
27 Ibid., 4:450.
28 Ibid., 4:451.
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mere appearances, which cannot be the object of any intuition, and
of which nothing further than its existence can be cognized.29
At times Kant writes dismissively of the subject as thing-in-
itself conscious of its freedom as “only a standpoint that reason sees itself constrained to take”,30 a merely “useful and permitted idea”,31
“the objective reality of which is in itself doubtful”.32 At other times, he claims that in respect to the distinction between the “world of
sense” and the “world of understanding”, the former can be very
different depending on the diverse sensory faculties (sensibilities)
of various rational beings, whereas the world of understanding
is the same for all of them and “is its basis” – in other words, the
world of understanding is not parallel to the merely apparent world
of sense, but grounds it.33 It is not an alternative standpoint, but
the fundamental and inescapable existential standpoint of rational beings. The following key passage in the Critique of Practical Reason lends strong support to the latter position:
...in the union of pure speculative with pure practical reason
in one cognition, the latter has primacy... this union is not
contingent and discretionary but... necessary. For, without this subordination a conflict of reason with itself would arise... if
they were merely juxtaposed (coordinate)... one cannot require
pure practical reason to be subordinate to speculative reason
and so reverse the order, since all interest is ultimately practical
and even that of speculative reason is only conditional and is
complete in practical use alone.34
There is, however, a change in the concept of “wil ” in the Metaphysics of Morals, and we should take this into account before arriving at a 29 Ibid., 4:451-52.
30 Ibid., 4:458.
31 Ibid., 4:463.
32 Ibid., 4:455.
33 Ibid., 4:451.
34 Kant, “Critique of Practical Reason” in Practical Philosophy, 5:121.
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definitive interpretation of what it means that existential Freedom
(with its inescapable ethical responsibility) is the “end in itself”
at 6:226, Kant modifies his concept of will and he introduces the
concept of “the power (or faculty) of choice” ( willküre), in such a way as to replace the concept of “free wil ” with a concept of a
“free choice”. The will becomes nothing other than “law itself”,
directed with absolute necessity, so that it “cannot be called either
free or unfree”.35 What is “free” is only the rational being’s power of choosing to accept the directive of the wil , by acting on a maxim fit for universal law-giving – as opposed to exercising arbitrary “animal
choice” ( arbitrium brutum). This does not mean, for Kant, that freedom of choice lies in the ability to either accept or to choose not to accept the directive of the wil . Rather, freedom of choice is being independent of determination by sensible impulses.36 This negative
concept of freedom is complemented by a positive concept of
freedom as “subjection of the maxim of every action to the condition
of its qualifying as universal law”, which Kant claims is the same as
“the ability of pure reason to be of itself practical”.37 Clearly, this latter formulation harks back to the key passage from the Critique of Practical Reason cited above. Consequently, through the primacy of practical reason established by that passage in the Second Critique,
we may reinterpret the “free wil ” at issue in the Groundwork’s idea of “an end in itself” as the power of rational beings to select which
actions they perform.
Does this replacement of “free wil ” with “free choice” clarify
matters? Not yet. If the will is merely universal law, then each of us cannot have a wil . There is only Wil . Furthermore, if the power of “free choice” is not a power to choose against Will/Law, and is naturalistical y determined arbitrium brutum when it does not
so “choose”, then on what grounds can it ever be said to “choose”
anything at all? Will either moves me, or ‘I’ am as naturalistical y
35 Kant, “Metaphysics of Morals” in Practical Philosophy, 6:226.
36 Ibid., 6:213-14.
37 Ibid., 6:214.
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determ
ined as brutes are. In order to avoid this col apse into
absurdity, the power of choice needs some content that is sensibly conditioned, that is an object of the faculty of desire, and yet does
not reduce it to mere “animal choice”. Indeed, Kant says that this is
exactly what is required if we are to be able to think of Will as our own will – in other words, to make Will ours.38
The universal law as Will cannot simply determine our actions,
we need a maxim with content that allows us to link up with universal
law of our own accord, as it were, in a self-motivated manner.
Kant identifies the happiness of others and one’s own perfection
as objects of the faculty of desire, or material determining grounds
of Will for each subject, that are nonetheless “ends in themselves”.39
For Kant pursuit of one’s own perfection means the cultivation of
physical and mental faculties, including one’s moral cast of mind.40
By “happiness” Kant means “satisfaction with one’s state, so long as
it is assured of lasting”,41 and so pursuit of the happiness of others as an end means seeing to their physical well-being, including the
external goods necessary for this, as well as their ability to pursue
their own moral perfection.42 They are distinct as duties just in so far as each rational being is solely capable of making his own perfection his end, and can only aid others in perfecting themselves by making
their happiness his end.43
This innovation abrogates a strong line of argument in the
Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason against the possibility of any object of the faculty of desire being fit to furnish practical laws consistent with the Categorical Imperative. In the
Groundwork Kant argues that happiness cannot be the end in itself, because it is such an indeterminate concept that, although every
human being wishes to attain it, not only do different human beings
38 Ibid., 6:389.
39 Ibid., 6:385-88.
40 Ibid., 6:386-387; 6:391-93.
41 Ibid., 6:387.
42 Ibid., 6:394.
43 Ibid., 6:386.
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have a different conception of happiness, but even any one human
being is not real y consistent with himself in what he wil s or wishes for in “happiness”. All of the elements that belong to the concept of