“A Kingdom of Ends”
The simple ethical principle that’s stuck with me for over half my life
I’m always on the hunt for simple principles for better living. So here’s one that I’ve held dear for quite some time. It goes back to my early days in college — right after I failed at being an illustration major, and began studying philosophy. One of my first classes was Classical Ethical Theories, where we studied what the great minds spanning 2,000 years had to say about what constituted good living and right actions.
That class introduced me to Immanuel Kant, who had a unique way of thinking about how to go about living in the world with others:
Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.
Kant went on to talk about humanity as a “kingdom of ends” — a realm of beings defined by our unique rationality and autonomy. We can, and do, make plans for ourselves, adopt principles, and reshape who we are throughout our lives.
What he’s talking about is the fact that any way that we treat people can do one of two things. It can either fully respect the other party as an autonomous and valuable being —with their own hopes, dreams, and feelings and valuable in and of…
