"Not as a means to an end but as an end in themselves" Forum

[cheeseee]

Hi guys,

On RC, this saying, "not as a means to an end but as an end in themselves" came up numerous times. What does it exactly mean?

On PT 41, Victorian philanthropists see philanthropy as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself.
On PT 62, Jewett intended her works not as a means to an end but as an end in themselves.

[abl]

Eating ice cream is generally the end in itself. You eat ice cream because eating ice cream is awesome. If you were eating ice cream to get fat, that would be using eating ice cream as a means to an end.

Kant famously said that philosophy should treat people as ends rather than use people as the means to some other end.*

*This is from the depths of my memory and is probably horribly oversimplified.

[Clemenceau]

Something done as an end itself = the actor derives intrinsic value from the act itself.

Example: guy goes to law school because he "loves studying the law"

Doing something as a means to an end = the actor does the act hoping to derive value from a consequence of the act, not the act itself.

Example: guy goes to law school just because he wants a job.

I'm sure there are better explanations, but that's all I got.

[RZ5646]

Eating ice cream is generally the end in itself. You eat ice cream because eating ice cream is awesome. If you were eating ice cream to get fat, that would be using eating ice cream as a means to an end.

Kant famously said that philosophy should treat people as ends rather than use people as the means to some other end.*

*This is from the depths of my memory and is probably horribly oversimplified.

Actually you can use a person as a means as long as you simultaneously treat him as an end in himself, i.e., respect him as a human being. The formula of humanity is something like "one ought to treat humanity as an end in itself, and never as a mere means to an end."

[newcareernewtown]

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[newcareernewtown]

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[juliuscasear90]

Means is the way in which something is accomplished i.e. the method, procedure, facilitation of something external to the process.

End is the objective, goal, purpose, desired result. i.e. the telos of the activity.

Not a means to an end but an end in themselves means that the activity is being engaged in not for some external purpose but for the value and utility derived from the activity in and of itself (that is without requiring or desiring anything outside the activity for satisfaction or validation).

[abl]

Something done as an end itself = the actor derives intrinsic value from the act itself.

Example: guy goes to law school because he "loves studying the law"

Doing something as a means to an end = the actor does the act hoping to derive value from a consequence of the act, not the act itself.

Example: guy goes to law school just because he wants a job.

I'm sure there are better explanations, but that's all I got.

"Loving to study the law" is not the same as "loving to go to law school". You went over a missing step, which could make that argument suspicious.

Kant's paraphrase above is not incorrect, but abi seems to reduce him to the level of friendly aphorism-bound grandpa instead of one of history's most complex philosophers. I would also watch that.

Regarding victorian philanthropy. It's that those performing the philanthropy get a feeling of happiness from doing exactly what philanthropy is, i. e. helping others, and not from something that isn't what philanthrophy is. This means they don't get happiness from seeing their name on some donation chart others see, or because they're trying to right some wrong in the past. It's just happiness from donating itself.

Since someone did mention Kant, I would say it helps if you understand doing something for its own sake as a sort of analytic proposition, and doing something for another reason as a kind of synthetic proposition. But that's just extra knowledge that you don't need to know to separate the two.

Yea, sorry about that. I was mostly just pointing out that in addition to knowing what this expression generally meant, the OP should understand its most common association (Kant's philosophy). My bad memory and laziness combined to not really do Kant justice.

[cheeseee]

thanks guys

[RZ5646]

Actually you can use a person as a means as long as you simultaneously treat him as an end in himself, i.e., respect him as a human being. The formula of humanity is something like "one ought to treat humanity as an end in itself, and never as a mere means to an end."

Okay, tell me how you can both treat a person as a means and treat them as an end. To my understanding, if you treat a person partially as a means in any situation, you're not treating them as an end in that situation. The means would be a negation if this were the lsat.

For an appropriate example, you would say that if you're an attorney looking to get paid you can also do some genuinely good work by treating your client and his/her interests as an end.

But let me ask you: would you be an attorney for no pay? For no benefit, not even your costs paid? If not, you are not treating the client as an end in themselves. They are a means to a monetary end. Don't worry, it's awfully hard to treat anything as an end in itself anyway.

But don't try to justify the practice of law by Kant.

I suppose that may be a weak point in the theory, but I myself don't see any contradiction between the two. In the Groundwork he even has that shopkeeper example where it's probably fine to be a shopkeeper (i.e., use people as a means to money) if you're also treating your customers fairly. When the shopkeeper takes advantage of his customers—fails to respect their rights qua humans—then he runs into trouble. Seems fine to me. As Anscombe teaches us, acts can have multiple descriptions, each with different properties.