The Trouble with Kants Humanity Formula Andrew Johnson

It is probably safe to say that, of Kants various formulations of the Categorical Imperative, none has been more well-received than the Humanity ormula! "#o 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$ %& '(')*+!, As against -tilitarianism, the Humanity ormula seems, more clearly than Kants -niversal-.aw ormula, to uphold the widely accepted view that persons have certain inviolable rights! /ersons may not be enslaved or raped, they may not be punished without having committed a crime, no matter how much happiness such actions might yield others! /rominent Kantian moral philosophers, such as Christine Korsgaard, Allen 0ood, and Alan 1onagan, have defended the Humanity ormula as a basic moral principle of theoretical ethics!) 2oreover, it has fre3uently provided inspiration for arguments in applied ethics! 45amples include 1enis Arnolds and 6orman 7owies criti3ue of sweatshops,8 9nora

All translations of Kants moral writings are ta:en from Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans! and ed! 2ary

J! &regor %Cambridge( Cambridge -niversity /ress, ,**;+!

)

#ee, e!g!, Christine Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity %Cambridge( Cambridge -niversity /ress, ,**;+,

especially pp! ,))ff!< Allen 0ood, Kants Ethical Thought %Cambridge( Cambridge -niversity /ress, ,***+, pp! ,,,=>>< Alan 1onagan, The Theory of Morality %Chicago( -niversity of Chicago /ress, ,*??+!
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1enis Arnold and 6orman 7owie, "#weatshops and @espect for /ersons,$ Business Ethics Quarterly ,8 %)AA8+!

96eills argument for famine relief,' and 7arbara Hermans analysis of se5ual obBectification!> According to Kant, the Categorical Imperative is "the supreme principle of morality$ %& '(8*)+, and it is a principle that is supposed to give us guidance regarding, among other things, the morality of actions! or a principle to 3ualify as the supreme principle of the morality of actions, it must, I ta:e it, satisfy three conditions! irstly, it must be fundamental, in the sense that it is not derivable from a still more basic principle of moral action! #econdly, it must be complete, in that it is neither limited to certain spheres of action nor in need of supplementation by additional moral principles! inally, it must be plausible, not yielding implications that even most proponents of the principle would regard as false! In what follows, I focus on these last two conditions, which I call "the completeness condition$ and "the plausibility condition!$ 2y argument will be that the Humanity ormula does not Bointly satisfy both conditions! If it is interpreted so as to be complete, it is implausible! If it is interpreted so as to be plausible, it is incomplete! Che completeness condition specifies that a supreme moral principle must, at least in theory,6 an !ithout reliance on any further moral principles, "e action#gui ing in every
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#ee, e!g!, 9nora 96eill, "@ights, 9bligations and 0orld Hunger,$ in Poverty an Social $ustice% &ritical

Perspectives% ' Pilgrimage to!ar (ur (!n )umanity, ed! rancisco JimeneD %Cempe, AE( 7ilingual /ress, ,*F?+, pp! F;-,AA!
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7arbara Herman, "Could It 7e 0orth Chin:ing about Kant on #e5 and 2arriageG,$ in ' Min of (nes (!n%

*eminist Essays on +eason an (",ectivity, ed! .ouise Antony and Charlotte 0itt %7oulder( 0estview /ress, ,**8+, pp! '*=;?!
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Che 3ualification "at least in theory$ is supposed to bloc: as a decisive criticism of a conse3uentialist principle of

rightness the point that we are sometimes unable to determine which action out of the alternative actions has the best conse3uences! or obvious reasons, I dont want in my argument to rely on a stronger necessary condition of ade3uacy than necessary!

situation- %6ote that one way a principle can be action-guiding is by implying that an action under consideration is morally permissible, though not morally re3uired!+ Kant evidently endorses this condition himself! He maintains that "there is only a single categorical imperative$ and that "all imperatives of duty can be derived from this single imperative$ %& '('),+! Although he states the Categorical Imperative in a variety of ways, Kant insists that the various formulations "are at bottom only so many formulae of the very same law$ %& '('8;+! As a version of the supreme principle of morality, the Humanity ormula purports to guide action in any situation in which a moral agent might find herself! Het, as I will try to show, there is a whole class of situations %what Kant calls "imperfect duties$+ for which the Humanity ormula cannot properly guide action unless it is supplemented by some additional moral principle! Che plausibility condition is that a supreme moral principle must not have any implications that are or !oul "e !i ely agree to "e false, even "y partisans of the principleor e5ample, many philosophy students who initially declare themselves partisans of straightforward cultural relativism abandon the view once they see that it sanctions the ran:est forms of racism or se5ism within deeply racist or se5ist cultures! I will ma:e a case that applying the Humanity ormula to particular types of action yields implications that even most Kantians will concede to be false! 2y argument will also be informed by what I ta:e to be a corollary of the completeness conditions re3uirement of "action-guidingness,$ namely, the hermeneutical rule that an interpretation of a vague moral principle shoul not "e frame in terms of concepts that are e.ually vague or vaguer! A facetious e5ample will illustrate the point of such a rule! 0ere we to interpret the Humanity ormula as e3uivalent to the inBunction of , /eter 8(,, to "turn away from evil and do good,$ this might inoculate it against any obBections! Het it would render the

Humanity ormula useless in precisely those cases for which we would li:e to have a moral principle( cases in which we are unsure or disagree about what is good and what is evil! In my view, the inBunction al!ays to treat humanity in persons as an en , never as a means only, is vague and, to be generally useful, re3uires interpretation in more specific terms! Chis contention re3uires some defense< not all Kantian ethicists would agree with it! Allen 0ood, for e5ample, maintains that "ItJhe meaning of Ithe Humanity ormulaJ is clear and determinate because the concepts of humanity %or rational nature+ and e5istent end in itself are both reasonably clear and determinate!$? If 0ood were right about this, we would not be able to distinguish three possible interpretations of the Humanity ormula on the basis of Kants discussion of the false-promising e5ample, whereas in fact we can, as I will presently argue! In addition, some 3uestions about aw:ward cases for the Kantian can motivate the impression that the Humanity ormula is less than fully precise! 1oes a prostitute treat humanity in her own person as a mere meansG 0ere families who hid Jews from the 6aDis morally prohibited from lying to 6aDi soldiers who came :noc:ingG 1oes a corporation that pays sweatshop wor:ers the barest subsistence wage, although it could afford to pay them significantly more, fail to treat them as endsG 0ithout further analysis of what it is to treat humanity in persons as mere means or as ends, it isnt clear what answers the Humanity ormula implies to such 3uestions! urthermore, analyDing the Humanity ormula as a re3uirement "to respect every human being, oneself or any other, as a rational creature,$F or always to treat persons with dignity, or not to interfere with persons autonomy, or to treat persons in accordance with rational principles, does not resolve the difficulty! or intuitions about the nature of respect, dignity, autonomy, and rational principles will li:ewise diverge with respect to controversial cases!
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(p- cit-, p! ,>'! 1onagan, op- cit-, p! ;;!

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In the interests of adding precision to the Humanity ormulas inBunction, we may note that it lays down two re3uirements! irstly, we should not treat humanity in persons as a mere means< call this the Knegative re3uirement! #econdly, we shoul treat humanity in persons as an end< call this the Kpositive re3uirement! 0hile these two aspects of the Humanity ormula are not logically e3uivalent to each other, some commentators have pointed out that there is fundamentally Bust one re3uirement( to treat humanity %in Kants idiosyncratic sense+ as an end, with the re3uirement to avoid treating humanity as a mere means being a narrower logical implication!* I agree that, conceptually, one cannot treat a person as an end and simultaneously treat him as a mere means! However, I argue in what follows that, when it comes to applying the Humanity ormula, the re3uirement to treat humanity as an end cannot stand alone! In spea:ing of humanity as an "end,$ Kant is not using the term in its standard sense of a goal or purpose to be achieved! 4nds of this sort Kant regards as su",ective ends, whereas human beings %or at least those possessing practical reason+ are o",ective ends %& '('8,+! 9bBective ends are ends in themselves, not in the traditional sense of being subBectively valued for their own sa:es, but in the sense of having an inviolable dignity not deriving from subBective human attitudes! 9bBective ends constitute morally necessary side-constraints on our subBective ends! In Kants words, "a rational being, as an end by its nature and hence as an end in itself, must in every ma5im serve as the limiting condition of all merely relative and arbitrary ends$ %& '('8;+! Chis passage provides a clue as well to what Kant means by Khumanity! 0hat is morally crucial about humanity in a person is its identity withLor perhaps inclusion ofLthe persons rational nature, which encompasses the persons capacity for rational agency! #hortly before
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#ee, e!g!, Allen 0ood, Kants Ethical Thought %Cambridge( Cambridge -niversity /ress, ,***+, p! ,'8< and

Chomas Hill, Jr!, "Creating Criminals as 4nds in Chemselves,$ $ahr"uch f/r +echt un Ethi0, Mol! ,, %)AA8+, pp! ,*-)A!

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Kant introduces the Humanity ormula, he affirms that "rational nature e1ists as an en in itself$ %& '(')*+! 4ither this is Bust a variant formulation of the proposition that humanity e5ists as an end in itself, or humanity is a subspecies of rational nature! However, even assuming we have a clear understanding of the concepts of humanity and an end in itself, it isnt obvious what we must do to fulfill the Humanity ormulas positive and negative re3uirements! Kant offers some clarification of his positive re3uirement as it applies to humanity in others with his beneficence e5ample in the 2roun !or0! Kant remar:s that
IhJumanity might indeed subsist if no one contributed to the happiness of others but yet did not intentionally withdraw anything from it< but there is still only a negative and not a positive agreement with humanity as an en in itself unless everyone also tries, as far as he can, to further the ends of others! or, the ends of a subBect who is an end in itself must as far as possible be also my ends, if that representation is to have its full effect in me! %& '('8A+

Although Kant places no restrictions in this passage on the ends of others which I am to ma:e mine, charity demands we interpret the passage 3uoted above as re3uiring that we ma:e only the permissi"le ends of others our own<,A otherwise the Humanity ormula would have the unacceptable implication that we should adopt the nefarious ends of, e!g!, thieves, pedophiles, murderers, and House @epublicans! In The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant e5plicitly issues the needed 3ualification( "0hen it comes to my promoting happiness as an end that is also a duty, this must therefore be the happiness of other men, !hose %permitted+ en 3 thus ma:e my o!n en as !ell$ %22 ;(8FF< parenthesis and italics in original< underlining added+!,, Kant, who
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Charity also demands, of course, that we hold to a manageable number the range of others whose ends we ought to

promote! 7ut this is an e5egetical 3uestion I shall not enter into here!
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H! J! /aton is e5ceptional in recogniDing the need for the 3ualification, noting that "we ought to further the ends of

others only so far as they are not manifestly foolish or incompatible with the moral law$ %op- cit-, p! ,?8+! However, he fails to notice the problem of circularityLwhich I am about to describeLinvolved in determining whether an end

disdains eu aimonistic ethics %see, e!g!, 22 ;(8??=?F+, does not operate with a morally sanitiDed conception of happiness according to which any action that truly contributes to a human beings happiness is morally permissible! -nli:e moral re3uirements, which hold necessarily for all rational agents who have sensuous natures and thus "inclinations$ %Neigungen+,,) the ingredients of happiness are a fundamentally subBective matter! Kant holds that "IiJt is for IothersJ to decide what they count as belonging to their happiness$ %22 ;(8FF+! 7ut if the Humanity ormula enBoins us in part to promote the permissi"le ends of others, then we need a criterion of their moral permissibility! Che needed criterion must come either from the Humanity ormula itself or from outside the Humanity ormula! If it can come only from outside the Humanity ormula, then the formula fails the completeness condition! If, on the other hand, the Humanity ormula can supply the re3uisite criterion of permissible ends itself, then it must be through its negative re3uirement, since the positive re3uirement is what gives rise to the need for the criterion of permissible ends in the first place! 9n this interpretation, the permissible ends of others are those the attainment of which does not entail treating any person as a mere means!,8 0e could rule out the characteristic ends of thieves, pedophiles, murderers,
is "incompatible with the moral law!$
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@ational agents who do not have sensuous natures are not subBect to moral re3uirements, or duties, because they

necessarily act in accordance with reason and hence morality! Che notion of a duty to perform a particular action ma:es sense only when an agent has the option of omitting the action! #ee, e!g!, C/r@ >(8)!
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I have heard this interpretation proposed by both Jon Cresan and .u:e @obinson in conversation! Che idea that an

irreducibly basic re3uirement of the Humanity ormula is the prohibition against treating humanity as a mere means cannot, however, be said to be orthodo5 among Kant commentators! 7oth Allen 0ood %op- cit-, p! ,'8+ and Chomas Hill, Jr!, %"Creating Criminals as 4nds in Chemselves,$ $ahr"uch f/r +echt un Ethi0, Mol! ,, I)AA8J, pp! ,*-)A+, for e5ample, ta:e as basic the inBunction always to treat humanity as an end, with the proscription against treating humanity as a mere means being Bust a logical implication! 0ood puts it star:ly( "the phrase Knever merely as a

and House @epublicans as worthy of promotion on the grounds that attainment of these ends entails using others as mere means! 7ut, as we shall see, this proposal doesnt lead to a sound Humanity ormula either, since the formulas prohibition against using persons as mere means has false implications on te5tually grounded interpretations! 0hat is it to treat a rational agent as a mere meansG Kant offers some clarification in his 2roun !or0 e5amples of the suicide and the false promiser! &iven the controversial nature of Kants rather sweeping disapproval of suicide, I shall consider only Kants e5planation of how the false promiser treats %the humanity of+ the promisee as a mere means! 9n this 3uestion, Kant e5plains that
as regards necessary duty to others or duty owed them, he who has it in mind to ma:e a false promise to others sees at once that he wants to ma:e use of another human being merely as a means, without the other at the same time containing in himself the end! or, he whom I want to use for my purposes by such a promise cannot possibly agree to my way of behaving toward him, and so himself contain the end of this action! Chis conflict with the principle of other human beings is seen more distinctly if e5amples of assaults on the freedom and property of others are brought forward! or then it is obvious that he who transgresses the rights of human beings intends to ma:e use of the person of others merely as a means, without ta:ing into consideration that, as rational beings, they are always to be valued at the same time as ends, that is, only as beings who must also be able to contain in themselves the end of the very same action! %& '( ')*='8A+

Ironically, Kants e5planation may raise as many 3uestions as it answers! It contains, at a minimum, three possible analyses of what it is to treat humanity in another as a mere means!,' Chese analyses involve, respectively, the others not actually sharing the agents end, the others not possi"ly sharing the agents end, and the others not possi"ly agreeing to his treatment by the
means actually plays no role !hatever in the actual content of *)$ %i"i !< italics in original+!
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"At a minimum,$ since further possibilities arise from combining the three basic possibilities in various ways!

agent! Che analyses arent mere e5egetical possibilities, but have been employed, as I will illustrate, by leading Kantian ethicists! 0e need not determine which of the analyses is definitive! or every one of them, I hope to show, spells trouble for the Humanity ormula! Che first possible analysis is based on Kants assertion that the lying promiser is using the promisee without the promisee "at the same time containing in himself the end!$ It suggests the following principle( %6@,+ Action a treats %the humanity in+ person P as a mere means if and only if a has end e, a cannot bring about e without affecting P, and P does not hold e! Cwo elements of the analysans, "a has end e$ and "P does not hold e,$ are straightforward enough< they convey merely that the action in 3uestion aims at an end that the recipient of the action does not actually hold! Che third element, "a cannot bring about e without affecting P,$ may seem a needlessly convoluted variant of the more straightforward "a affects P!$ 7ut the latter, unli:e the former, has the implausible implication that it is possible to treat as mere means those inadvertently affected by an action!,> Allen 0ood affirms an understanding of the negative re3uirement very much li:e %6@,+! He e5plains how Kants application of the Humanity ormula to the false-promising case clarifies Kants earlier evaluation of the case according to the ormula of the .aw of 6ature(

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In fact, I believe more needs to be said here about the way a affects P! Consider, for e5ample, a factory that emits

pollution into the environment for the end of minimiDing costs, though the factory managers :now that the pollution will li:ely be a contributing factor to a number of premature deaths! Che managers might claim that their action of polluting doesnt run afoul of %6@,+, since it is possible that their polluting could bring about the end of minimiDing costs without having any adverse health effects on human beings %as would be the case if the people e5posed to the pollution had e5ceptionally hardy constitutions+! Clearly this isnt the result a Kantian should want! 7ut I dont have the space to e5plore this angle here!

If N the giving and accepting of a promise re3uires the promiser and the promisee to share their ends, then it is clear why the promises falling under -) Iwhich states that "IiJt is a universal law of nature that when anyone believes they are in need of money, they will borrow it and promise to repay it without having any intention to do so$,;J would be impossible, since they preclude such sharing!,?

Che salient moral fact on the present analysis is that the promisee oes not in fact hold the end of the lying promiser, whatever end the lying promiser is aiming at! 7ut if this is what it is for one person to treat another as a mere means, the Humanity ormula is much too restrictive, for it would forbid our treating others Bustly when they dont hold the end of being treated Bustly! It would be wrong to deny an un3ualified Bob applicant a Bob if she doesnt hold the end of having the Bob performed by the most 3ualified applicant, wrong to fail the " $ student who wants a better grade than he is entitled to, and wrong to punish former presidents and vicepresidents for violations of domestic and international law when they believe they should be able to act with impunity! Che ne5t two analyses of treating humanity as a mere means are rooted in Kants claim that the promisee "cannot possibly agree to my way of behaving toward him, and so himself contain the end of this action$ %& '(')*=8A+! Christine Korsgaard ta:es this passage as the basis of her e5egesis of the Humanity ormulas negative re3uirement, which entails what Kant calls "perfect duties,$ or duties which allow "no e5ception in favor of inclination$ %& '('),n!+! Che phrases "cannot possibly agree to my way of behaving toward him$ and "cannot N himself
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(p- cit-, p! F?! 3"i -, p! ,'F! In a stri:ing coincidence, 0ood goes on in the ne5t sentence to reproduce Kants shift from an actual

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sharing of an end to a possible sharing %"cannot consent$+ of it! Che shift doesnt necessarily indicate an inconsistency! It could be that the impossibility of consenting to being treated in a certain way is being cited as evidence that the recipient of the action does not actually share the end of the agent!

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contain the end of this action$ yield, in Korsgaards words, "a test for perfect duties to others( an action is contrary to perfect duty if it is not possible for the other to assent to it or to hold its end!$,F Korsgaard conflates the meanings of these two phrases, although they are in fact importantly distinct! Che e5pression "my way of behaving,$ contained in the first phrase, refers to the action I perform as a means to my end, whereas the second phrase refers e5plicitly to my end! 0hich e5pression is more essential to Kants e5planation of the wrongness of false promisingG #uppose for the sa:e of argument that the more fundamental point for Kant is that the promisee cannot hold the end of the lying promise! If so, Kant cites the impossibility of the promisees agreeing with the action as evidence for this point! Chen we have the following analysis of what it is to treat humanity in a person as a mere means( %6@)+ Action a treats %the humanity in+ person P as a mere means if and only if a has end e, a cannot bring about e without affecting P, and P cannot hold e! %6@)+ represents an improvement over %6@,+ insofar as %6@)+ does not render certain :inds of treatment immoral simply because the recipient of the treatment does not share, however unreasonably or immorally, the end of the treatment! %6@)+ does not, for instance, e5empt lawbrea:ers from punishment simply because they do not share the ends of the punishment! A lawbrea:er can, in principle, share the end society has in punishing him! Het, whereas %6@,+ results in too restrictive a Humanity ormula, %6@)+ ma:es it too permissive! or it is possi"le for those unavoidably affected by even the most immoral actions to hold the ends of those actions! Che end of the car thief may be to enBoy the full-time use of my car, and it is 3uite
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Christine Korsgaard, "Che @ight to .ie,$ in her &reating the King om of En s %Cambridge( Cambridge -niversity

/ress, ,**;+, p! ,8F! Korsgaards statement of the phrases in 3uestion diverges slightly from mine, as she uses a different translation!

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possible for me to share that end, as I would if I decided to give my car to him! Che end of the rapist may be se5ual gratification, and it too is an end it is possi"le for the rape victim to share %though not, of course, .ua rape victim+! Che end of the false promiser may be to pay off a debt or ma:e a purchase, and there is nothing in principle precluding the promisee from holding this end as well!,* Korsgaard would ta:e issue with this point! #he argues that, when you ma:e a false promise, the promisee cannot in fact hold the end of the promise(
In cases of violation of a perfect duty, lying included, the other person is unable to hold the end of the very same action because the way that you act prevents her from choosing whether to contribute to the realiDation of that end or not! Again, this is obviously true when someone is forced to contribute to an end, but it is also true in cases of deception! If you give a lying promise to get some money, the other person is invited to thin: that the end she is contributing to is your temporary possession of the money( in fact, it is your permanent possession of it!)A

Che disagreement between Korsgaard and myself raises the 3uestion of what is to count as the end of an action! #o far I have spo:en of the end of an action as if it were unproblematic that every %intentional+ action has one and only one end! In fact, an action can have any number of ends! or instance, a person might enroll in college as a means to the ends of becoming a doctor,

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Chomas Hill Jr! attempts to circumvent this problem by adding further conditions for the :ind of possibility in

3uestion! 0e conform to the Humanity ormula "by restricting our ends and means to those that anyone affected by us Kcould share at least in the sense that they could rationally and reasonable IsicJ endorse them$ %op- cit!, p! )'+! 0hile there may be philosophical merit to this proposal, it stri:es me as a problematic %route of+ interpretation of the Humanity ormula, given that Kant in the 2roun !or0 evidently thought it could be applied to specific actions without need for Hills criteria of rational and reasonable endorsement! In fairness to Hill, the paper in 3uestion does not claim "strict fidelity to IKantsJ views$ %i"i !, p! )>+!
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(p- cit-, p! ,8*='A!

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developing a deeper understanding of American history, and livening up her social life! All of these ends might in turn be means to the more final end of her happiness! Hence, even if Korsgaard is right that the promisee in Kants e5ample cannot hold the end of the promisers permanent possession of the promisees money, her interpretation of the Humanity ormula will not establish that it is a sound moral principle until she offers a non-a hoc reason for fi5ing on this end to the e5clusion of other ends of the promiser that the promisee can hold! 7ut I dont believe Korsgaard is actually right about this! #uppose, in order to obtain a O,AA loan from me, you ma:e a false promise to pay it bac:< hence you have the end of ta:ing permanent possession of my O,AA! #uppose, in addition, that I, ever a suc:er for your counterfeit charms, want to give you the O,AA as a gift, but dont tell you yet, saving the news as a surprise for your birthday ne5t wee:! Chen we both actually do have the end of your having permanent possession of my O,AA< a fortiori we can hold the same end! It follows, according to Korsgaards interpretation of the Humanity ormula, that you do me no wrong in giving me the false promise! Chis is not the result we should want! &iven the shortcomings of %6@)+, then, let us assume that the morally relevant and more fundamental feature of the false promise case is that the promisee "cannot possibly agree to Ithe promisersJ way of behaving toward him$ %& '(')*=8A+! 0hat Kant evidently has in mind is the logical impossibility of agreeing to receive a false promise in a particular case! It is logically impossible to ma:e a promise to someone who reBects it out of hand, and someone who :nows a promise is false will reBect it out of hand %& '('))+! Korsgaard endorses this interpretation of the negative re3uirement too, as she doesnt distinguish the impossibility of a patients agreeing to an agents way of treating him from the impossibility of the patients holding the agents end! #he describes a case very similar to the one I Bust considered! However, in her case, we are to

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imagine that I somehow :now from the beginning that your promise to repay the loan is a false one, but that I nevertheless want you to have my money! In that event, she rightly points out, "ItJhe nature of the transaction is changed( now it is not a promise but a handout!$), 9nora 96eill is another prominent proponent of this understanding of the Humanity ormulas negative re3uirement!)) 0e can analyDe the interpretation now under consideration as follows( %6@8+ Action a treats %the humanity in+ person P as a mere means if and only if a cannot bring about its end without affecting P, and there is some true description of a under which it is impossible for P to agree to a %other than the description "/ did not actually agree to a$+! Che latter clause in the analysans %before the parenthesis+ is intended to circumvent a :ind of problem of relevant description! A theft can also be truly described as an "appropriation$< a rape is also an act of se5ual intercourse! And there is no contradiction involved in a persons agreeing to anothers appropriation of her property or to se5ual intercourse! 7y specifying that "there is some description of a under which it is impossible for P to agree to a,$ %6@8+ ensures that an action cannot fulfill the Humanity ormulas negative re3uirement merely through redescription! %6@8+ properly deems actions such as theft or rape treatment as a mere means, because it is impossible for the victim of such an action to agree to it without undermining the actions status as a theft or rape! Het %6@8+ results in false positives! #uppose a self-disrespecting wife agrees to her husbands abuse of her, which he engages in for the end of venting his frustrations! &iven her actual agreement to this treatment, I see no true description of it under which it is
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(p- cit-, p! ,8*! 9nora 96eill, "-niversal .aws and 4nds in Chemselves,$ in her &onstructions of +eason% E1plorations of

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Kants Practical Philosophy %Cambridge( Cambridge -niversity /ress, ,*F*+, pp! ,8F-8*!

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impossible for her to agree to it! Cherefore, by %6@8+, the husband does not treat his wife as a mere means! In reality, however, he clearly does! Che same problem will attend any immoral treatment of one person by another where the obBect of the treatment agrees to be so treated! 2y argument has been an argument by elimination, with the twist that I claim to have eliminated all the alternatives! 6one of three reviewed understandings of the Humanity ormulas negative re3uirement, I have contended, renders this re3uirement a tenable moral principle! And if this entailment of the Humanity ormula is untenable, then so must be the Humanity ormula itself! Che potential pitfall of this argument is one that attends any argument by elimination( the best alternative might have gone unconsidered! 9r perhaps a construal of the positive re3uirement can be offered that overcomes my obBection that it lac:s a criterion of permissible ends< this would obviate any need for the negative re3uirement! I would be happy if either of these lines of response to my criti3ue turned out to be correct! It would be no small consolation to thin: that, in the countless hours I have spent poring over Kants e5cogitations about humanity as an end in itself, I was imbibing truth! After all, its something of a stretch to maintain that reading Kant is valuable for its own sa:e!

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