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Page 20
Firstly, under the head of necessary duty to oneself: He who
contemplates suicide should ask himself whether his action can be
consistent with the idea of humanity as an end in itself. If he
destroys himself in order to escape from painful circumstances, he
uses a person merely as a mean to maintain a tolerable condition up to
the end of life. But a man is not a thing, that is to say, something
which can be used merely as means, but must in all his actions be
always considered as an end in himself. I cannot, therefore, dispose
in any way of a man in my own person so as to mutilate him, to
damage or kill him. (It belongs to ethics proper to define this
principle more precisely, so as to avoid all misunderstanding, e.
g., as to the amputation of the limbs in order to preserve myself,
as to exposing my life to danger with a view to preserve it, etc. This
question is therefore omitted here.)
Secondly, as regards necessary duties, or those of strict
obligation, towards others: He who is thinking of making a lying
promise to others will see at once that he would be using another
man merely as a mean, without the latter containing at the same time
the end in himself. For he whom I propose by such a promise to use for
my own purposes cannot possibly assent to my mode of acting towards
him and, therefore, cannot himself contain the end of this action.
This violation of the principle of humanity in other men is more
obvious if we take in examples of attacks on the freedom and
property of others. For then it is clear that he who transgresses
the rights of men intends to use the person of others merely as a
means, without considering that as rational beings they ought always
to be esteemed also as ends, that is, as beings who must be capable of
containing in themselves the end of the very same action. *
* Let it not be thought that the common "quod tibi non vis fieri,
etc." could serve here as the rule or principle. For it is only a
deduction from the former, though with several limitations; it
cannot be a universal law, for it does not contain the principle of
duties to oneself, nor of the duties of benevolence to others (for
many a one would gladly consent that others should not benefit him,
provided only that he might be excused from showing benevolence to
them), nor finally that of duties of strict obligation to one another,
for on this principle the criminal might argue against the judge who
punishes him, and so on.
Thirdly, as regards contingent (meritorious) duties to oneself: It
is not enough that the action does not violate humanity in our own
person as an end in itself, it must also harmonize with it. Now
there are in humanity capacities of greater perfection, which belong
to the end that nature has in view in regard to humanity in
ourselves as the subject: to neglect these might perhaps be consistent
with the maintenance of humanity as an end in itself, but not with the
advancement of this end.
Fourthly, as regards meritorious duties towards others: The
natural end which all men have is their own happiness. Now humanity
might indeed subsist, although no one should contribute anything to
the happiness of others, provided he did not intentionally withdraw
anything from it; but after all this would only harmonize negatively
not positively with humanity as an end in itself, if every one does
not also endeavour, as far as in him lies, to forward the ends of
others. For the ends of any subject which is an end in himself ought
as far as possible to be my ends also, if that conception is to have
its full effect with me.
This principle, that humanity and generally every rational nature is
an end in itself (which is the supreme limiting condition of every
man's freedom of action), is not borrowed from experience, firstly,
because it is universal, applying as it does to all rational beings
whatever, and experience is not capable of determining anything
about them; secondly, because it does not present humanity as an end
to men (subjectively), that is as an object which men do of themselves
actually adopt as an end; but as an objective end, which must as a law
constitute the supreme limiting condition of all our subjective
ends, let them be what we will; it must therefore spring from pure
reason. In fact the objective principle of all practical legislation
lies (according to the first principle) in the rule and its form of
universality which makes it capable of being a law (say, e. g., a
law of nature); but the subjective principle is in the end; now by the
second principle the subject of all ends is each rational being,
inasmuch as it is an end in itself. Hence follows the third
practical principle of the will, which is the ultimate condition of
its harmony with universal practical reason, viz.: the idea of the
will of every rational being as a universally legislative will.
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