Philosophy Paper
16 Theoretical Perspectives
or unjust, according to the light in which they are
regarded.
It appears from what has been said that justice
is a name for certain moral requirements which,
regarded collectively, stand higher in the scale of
social utility, and are therefore of more paramount
obligation, than any others, though particular cases
may occur in which some other social duty is so
important as to overrule any one of the general
maxims of justice. Thus, to save a life, it may not
only be allowable, but a duty, to steal or take by force
the necessary food or medicine, or to kidnap and
compel to officiate the only qualified medical prac-
titioner. In such cases, as we do not call anything
justice which is not a virtue, we usually say, not that
justice must give way to some other moral principle,
but that what is just in ordinary cases is, by reason
of that other principle, not just in the particular
case. By this useful accommodation of language,
the character of indefeasibility attributed to justice
is kept up, and we are saved from the necessity of
maintaining that there can be laudable injustice.
The considerations which have not been
adduced resolve, I conceive, the only real difficulty
in the utilitarian theory of morals. It has always been
evident that all cases of justice are also cases of expe-
diency; the difference is in the peculiar sentiment
which attaches to the former, as contradistinguished
from the latter. If this characteristic sentiment has
been sufficiently accounted for; if there is no neces-
sity to assume for it any peculiarity of origin; if it
is simply the natural feeling of resentment, moral-
ized by being made coextensive with the demands
of social good; and if this feeling not only does but
ought to exist in all the classes of cases to which the
idea of justice corresponds—that idea no longer
presents itself as a stumbling block to the utilitarian
ethics. Justice remains the appropriate name for cer-
tain social utilities which are vastly more important,
and therefore more absolute and imperative, than
any others are as a class (though not more so than
others may be in particular cases); and which, there-
fore, ought to be, as well as naturally are, guarded by
a sentiment, not only different in degree, but also in
kind; distinguished from the milder feeling which
attaches to the mere idea of promoting human plea-
sure or convenience at once by the more definite
nature of its commands and by the sterner character
of its sanctions.
A SIMPLIFIED ACCOUNT OF KANT ’S ETHICS
Onora O’Neill
Onora O’Neill is the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, a professor emeritus at the
University of Cambridge, and a member of the House of Lords. She is the former principal of Newnham
College, Cambridge University. She has taught philosophy at the University of Essex and Barnard College.
She has published numerous articles on ethics and is also the author of Acting on Principle (1975), Faces of
Hunger (1986), and Constructions of Reason (1989).
Kant’s ethics represent the prevailing approach to deontological moral theory. In this selection, O’Neill
elucidates and provides an interpretation of one of the formulations of the Categorical Imperative, The
Formula of the End in Itself, in terms of the notion of consent. She also highlights the differences between
utilitarianism and Kantian ethics on the value of human life.
Onora O’Neill, “A Simplified Account of Kant’s Ethics,” from
Matters of Life and Death , edited by Tom Regan, 1986.
© 1986 The McGraw-Hill Companies. Reprinted by permission.
Theoretical Perspectives 17
Kant’s moral theory has acquired the reputation
of being forbiddingly diffi cult to understand and,
once understood, excessively demanding in its
requirements. I don’t believe that this reputation
has been wholly earned, and I am going to try to
undermine it. . . . I shall try to reduce some of the
diffi culties. . . . Finally, I shall compare Kantian and
utilitarian approaches and assess their strengths and
weaknesses.
The main method by which I propose to avoid
some of the difficulties of Kant’s moral theory is by
explaining only one part of the theory. This does
not seem to me to be an irresponsible approach in
this case. One of the things that makes Kant’s moral
theory hard to understand is that he gives a num-
ber of different versions of the principle that he calls
the Supreme Principle of Morality, and these differ-
ent versions don’t look at all like one another. They
also don’t look at all like the utilitarians’ Greatest
Happiness Principle. But the Kantian principle is
supposed to play a similar role in arguments about
what to do.
Kant calls his Supreme Principle the Categorical
Imperative ; its various versions also have sonorous
names. One is called the Formula of Universal Law;
another is the Formula of the Kingdom of Ends. The
one on which I shall concentrate is known as the
Formula of the End in Itself . To understand why Kant
thinks that these picturesquely named principles are
equivalent to one another takes quite a lot of close
and detailed analysis of Kant’s philosophy. I shall
avoid this and concentrate on showing the implica-
tions of this version of the Categorical Imperative.
The Formula of the End in Itself
Kant states the Formula of the End in Itself as follows:
Act in such a way that you always treat human-
ity, whether in your own person or in the per-
son of any other, never simply as a means but
always at the same time as an end.
To understand this we need to know what it is to
treat a person as a means or as an end. According to
Kant, each of our acts reflects one or more maxims .
The maxim of the act is the principle on which one
sees oneself as acting. A maxim expresses a person’s
policy, or if he or she has no settled policy, the prin-
ciple underlying the particular intention or decision
on which he or she acts. Thus, a person who decides
“This year I’ll give 10 percent of my income to fam-
ine relief ” has as a maxim the principle of tithing his
or her income for famine relief. In practice, the dif-
ference between intentions and maxims is of little
importance, for given any intention, we can formu-
late the corresponding maxim by deleting references
to particular times, places, and persons. In what fol-
lows, I shall take the terms “maxim” and “intention”
as equivalent.
Whenever we act intentionally, we have at least
one maxim and can, if we reflect, state what it is.
(There is of course room for self-deception here—
“I’m only keeping the wolf from the door” we may
claim as we wolf down enough to keep ourselves
overweight, or, more to the point, enough to feed
someone else who hasn’t enough food.)
When we want to work out whether an act we
propose to do is right or wrong, according to Kant,
we should look at our maxims and not at how much
misery or happiness the act is likely to produce, and
whether it does better at increasing happiness than
other available acts. We just have to check that the
act we have in mind will not use anyone as a mere
means, and, if possible, that it will treat other per-
sons as ends in themselves.
Using Persons as Mere Means
To use someone as a mere means is to involve them
in a scheme of action to which they could not in
principle consent . Kant does not say that there is
anything wrong about using someone as a means.
Evidently we have to do so in any cooperative
scheme of action. If I cash a check I use the teller as
a means, without whom I could not lay my hands
on the cash; the teller in turn uses me as a means
to earn his or her living. But in this case, each party
consents to her or his part in the transaction. Kant
would say that though they use one another as
18 Theoretical Perspectives
means, they do not use one another as mere means.
Each person assumes that the other has maxims of
his or her own and is not just a thing or a prop to be
manipulated.
But there are other situations where one per-
son uses another in a way to which the other could
not in principle consent. For example, one person
may make a promise to another with every inten-
tion of breaking it. If the promise is accepted, then
the person to whom it was given must be ignorant
of what the promisor’s intention (maxim) really is.
If one knew that the promisor did not intend to do
what he or she was promising, one would, after all,
not accept or rely on the promise. It would be as
though there had been no promise made. Success-
ful false promising depends on deceiving the per-
son to whom the promise is made about what one’s
real maxim is. And since the person who is deceived
doesn’t know that real maxim, he or she can’t in
principle consent to his or her part in the proposed
scheme of action. The person who is deceived is as it
were, a prop or a tool—a mere means—in the false
promisor’s scheme. A person who promises falsely
treats the acceptor of the promise as a prop or a
thing and not as a person. In Kant’s view, it is this
that makes false promising wrong.
One standard way of using others as mere
means is by deceiving them. By getting someone
involved in a business scheme or a criminal activ-
ity on false pretenses, or by giving a misleading
account of what one is about, or by making a false
promise or a fraudulent contract, one involves
another in something to which he or she in prin-
ciple cannot consent, since the scheme requires
that he or she doesn’t know what is going on.
Another standard way of using others as mere
means is by coercing them. If a rich or powerful
person threatens a debtor with bankruptcy unless
he or she joins in some scheme, then the creditor’s
intention is to coerce; and the debtor, if coerced,
cannot consent to his or her part in the creditor’s
scheme. To make the example more specific: If a
money-lender in an Indian village threatens not
to renew a vital loan unless he is given the debtor’s
land, then he uses the debtor as a mere means. He
coerces the debtor, who cannot truly consent to
this “offer he can’t refuse.” (Of course, the outward
form of such transactions may look like ordinary
commercial dealings, but we know very well that
some offers and demands couched in that form
are coercive.)
In Kant’s view, acts that are done on maxims
that require deception or coercion of others and so
cannot have the consent of those others (for consent
precludes both deception and coercion), are wrong.
When we act on such maxims, we treat others as
mere means, as things rather than as ends in them-
selves. If we act on such maxims, our acts are not
only wrong but unjust: such acts wrong the particu-
lar others who are deceived or coerced.
Treating Persons as Ends in Themselves
Duties of justice are, in Kant’s view (as in many oth-
ers’), the most important of our duties. When we
fail in these duties, we have used some other or oth-
ers as mere means. But there are also cases where,
though we do not use others as mere means, still we
fail to use them as ends in themselves in the fullest
possible way. To treat someone as an end in him or
herself requires in the fi rst place that one not use
him or her as mere means, that one respect each
as a rational person with his or her own maxims.
But beyond that, one may also seek to foster others’
plans and maxims by sharing some of their ends. To
act benefi cently is to seek others’ happiness, there-
fore to intend to achieve some of the things that
those others aim at with their maxims. If I want to
make others happy, I will adopt maxims that not
merely do not manipulate them but that foster some
of their plans and activities. Benefi cent acts try to
achieve what others want. However, we cannot seek
everything that others want; their wants are too
numerous and diverse, and, of course, sometimes
incompatible. It follows that benefi cence has to be
selective.
There is then quite a sharp distinction between
the requirements of justice and of beneficence in
Kantian ethics. Justice requires that we act on no
maxims that use others as mere means. Beneficence
requires that we act on some maxims that foster
others’ ends, though it is a matter for judgment
Theoretical Perspectives 19
and discretion which of their ends we foster. Some
maxims no doubt ought not to be fostered because
it would be unjust to do so. Kantians are not com-
mitted to working interminably through a list of
happiness-producing and misery-reducing acts;
but there are some acts whose obligatoriness utili-
tarians may need to debate as they try to compare
total outcomes of different choices, to which Kan-
tians are stringently bound. Kantians will claim that
they have done nothing wrong if none of their acts
is unjust, and that their duty is complete if in addi-
tion their life plans have in the circumstances been
reasonably beneficent.
In making sure that they meet all the demands
of justice, Kantians do not try to compare all
available acts and see which has the best effects.
They consider only the proposals for action that
occur to them and check that these proposals use
no other as mere means. If they do not, the act is
permissible; if omitting the act would use another
as mere means, the act is obligatory. Kant’s theory
has less scope than utilitarianism. Kantians do not
claim to discover whether acts whose maxims they
don’t know fully are just. They may be reluctant
to judge others’ acts or policies that cannot be
regarded as the maxim of any person or institu-
tion. They cannot rank acts in order of merit. Yet,
the theory offers more precision than utilitari-
anism when data are scarce. One can usually tell
whether one’s act would use others as mere means,
even when its impact on human happiness is thor-
oughly obscure.
The Limits of Kantian Ethics: Intentions and Results
Kantian ethics differs from utilitarian ethics both in
its scope and in the precision with which it guides
action. Every action, whether of a person or of an
agency, can be assessed by utilitarian methods, pro-
vided only that information is available about all the
consequences of the act. The theory has unlimited
scope, but owing to lack of data, often lacks preci-
sion. Kantian ethics has a more restricted scope.
Since it assesses actions by looking at the maxims of
agents, it can only assess intentional acts. This means
that it is most at home in assessing individuals’ acts;
but it can be extended to assess acts of agencies that
(like corporations and governments and student
unions) have decision-making procedures. It can do
nothing to assess patterns of action that refl ect no
intention or policy, hence it cannot assess the acts of
groups lacking decision-making procedures, such as
the student movement, the women’s movement, or
the consumer movement.
It may seem a great limitation of Kantian ethics
that it concentrates on intentions to the neglect of
results. It might seem that all conscientious Kantians
have to do is to make sure that they never intend to
use others as mere means, and that they sometimes
intend to foster others’ ends. And, as we all know,
good intentions sometimes lead to bad results and
correspondingly, bad intentions sometimes do no
harm, or even produce good. If Hardin is right, the
good intentions of those who feed the starving lead
to dreadful results in the long run. If some tradi-
tional arguments in favor of capitalism are right, the
greed and selfishness of the profit motive have pro-
duced unparalleled prosperity for many.
But such discrepancies between intentions and
results are the exception and not the rule. For we
cannot just claim that our intentions are good and
do what we will. Our intentions reflect what we
expect the immediate results of our action to be.
Nobody credits the “intentions” of a couple who
practice neither celibacy nor contraception but still
insist “we never meant to have (more) children.”
Conception is likely (and known to be likely) in such
cases. Where people’s expressed intentions ignore
the normal and predictable results of what they do,
we infer that (if they are not amazingly ignorant)
their words do not express their true intentions. The
Formula of the End in Itself applies to the intentions
on which one acts—not to some prettified version
that one may avow. Provided this intention—the
agent’s real intention—uses no other as mere means,
he or she does nothing unjust. If some of his or her
intentions foster others’ ends, then he or she is some-
times beneficent. It is therefore possible for people
to test their proposals by Kantian arguments even
when they lack the comprehensive causal knowledge
that utilitarianism requires. Conscientious Kantians
20 Theoretical Perspectives
can work out whether they will be doing wrong by
some act even though it blurs the implications of the
theory. If we peer through the blur, we see that the
utilitarian view is that lives may indeed be sacrificed
for the sake of a greater good, even when the persons
are not willing. There is nothing wrong with using
another as a mere means provided that the end for
which the person is so used is a happier result than
could have been achieved any other way, taking into
account the misery the means have caused. In utili-
tarian thought persons are not ends in themselves.
Their special moral status derives from their being
means to the production of happiness. Human life
has therefore a high, though derivative value, and
one life may be taken for the sake of greater happi-
ness in other lives, or for the ending of misery in that
life. Nor is there any deep difference between ending
a life for the sake of others’ happiness by not helping
(e.g., by triaging) and doing so by harming. Because
the distinction between justice and beneficence is
not sharply made within utilitarianism, it is not pos-
sible to say that triaging is a matter of not benefiting,
while other interventions are a matter of injustice.
Utilitarian moral theory has then a rather para-
doxical view of the value of human life. Living, con-
scious humans are (along with other sentient beings)
necessary for the existence of everything utilitarians
value. But it is not their being alive but the state of
their consciousness that is of value. Hence, the best
results may require certain lives to be lost—by what-
ever means—for the sake of the total happiness and
absence of misery that can be produced.
Kant and Respect for Persons
Kantians reach different conclusions about human
life. Human life is valuable because humans (and
conceivable other beings, e.g., angels or apes) are the
bearers of rational life. Humans are able to choose
and to plan. This capacity and its exercise are of
such value that they ought not to be sacrifi ced for
anything of lesser value. Therefore, no one rational
or autonomous creature should be treated as mere
means for the enjoyment or even the happiness of
another. We may in Kant’s view justifi ably—even
nobly—risk or sacrifi ce our lives for others. For in
doing so we follow our own maxim and nobody
uses us as mere means. But no others may use
either our lives or our bodies for a scheme that they
have either coerced or deceived us into joining. For
in doing so they would fail to treat us as rational
beings; they would use us as mere means and not as
ends in ourselves.
It is conceivable that a society of Kantians, all
of whom took pains to use no other as mere means,
would end up with less happiness or with fewer per-
sons alive than would some societies of complying
utilitarians. For since the Kantians would be strictly
bound only to justice, they might without wrongdo-
ing be quite selective in their beneficence and fail to
maximize either survival rates or happiness, or even
to achieve as much of either as a strenuous group
of utilitarians, who know that their foresight is lim-
ited and that they may cause some harm or fail to
cause some benefit. But they will not cause harms
that they can foresee without this being reflected in
their intentions.
Utilitarianism and Respect for Life
From the differing implications that Kantian and
utilitarian moral theories have for our actions
toward those who do or may suffer famine, we
can discover two sharply contrasting views of the
value of human life. Utilitarians value happiness
and the absence or reduction of misery. As a utili-
tarian one ought (if conscientious) to devote one’s
life to achieving the best possible balance of happi-
ness over misery. If one’s life plan remains in doubt,
this will be because the means to this end are often
unclear. But whenever the causal tendency of acts
is clear, utilitarians will be able to discern the acts
they should successively do in order to improve the
world’s balance of happiness over unhappiness.
This task is not one for the fainthearted. First,
it is dauntingly long, indeed interminable. Second,
it may at times require the sacrifice of happiness,
and even of lives, for the sake of a greater happi-
ness. Such sacrifice may be morally required not
only when the person whose happiness or even
whose life is at stake volunteers to make the sacri-
fice. It may be necessary to sacrifice some lives for
Theoretical Perspectives 21
the sake of others. As our control over the means
of ending and presenting human life has increased,
analogous dilemmas have arisen in many areas for
utilitarians. Should life be preserved at the cost of
pain when modern medicine makes this possible?
Should life be preserved without hope of conscious-
ness? Should triage policies, because they may maxi-
mize the number of survivors, be used to determine
who should be left to starve? Should population
growth be fostered wherever it will increase the total
of human happiness—or on some views so long as
average happiness is not reduced? All these ques-
tions can be fitted into utilitarian frameworks and
answered if we have the relevant information. And
sometimes the answer will be that human happiness
demands the sacrifice of lives, including the sacrifice
of unwilling lives. Further, for most utilitarians,
it makes no difference if the unwilling sacrifices
involve acts of injustice to those whose lives are
to be lost. It might, for example, prove necessary
for maximal happiness that some persons have
their allotted rations, or their hard-earned income,
diverted for others’ benefit. Or it might turn out
that some generations must sacrifice comforts or
liberties and even lives to rear “the fabric of felic-
ity” for their successors. Utilitarians do not deny
these possibilities, though the imprecision of our
knowledge of consequences often somehow makes
the right calculations. On the other hand, nobody
will have been made an instrument of others’ sur-
vival or happiness in the society of complying
Kantians.
A THEORY OF JUSTICE
John Rawls
John Rawls taught philosophy at Princeton, Cornell, MIT, and Harvard universities. He is perhaps the most
important political philosopher of the twentieth century. His books include A Theory of Justice (1971),
Political Liberalism (1993), and The Law of Peoples (1999).
In this excerpt from his book, A Theory of Justice , Rawls argues that justice is best understood as a
certain kind of fairness, where people agree to principles in an initial situation that free and equal people
would see as reasonable. But from within this position, the principle of utility would not be considered
fair. Instead, Rawls proposes that people would accept as fair a set of principles that would work out to the
benefit of the least well-off person.
Reprinted by permission of the publisher from
A Theory of Justice by John Rawls, pp. 11–16; 60–63; 136–142; 78; 101–104,
Cambridge, Mass: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1971, 1999
by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
My aim is to present a conception of justice which
generalizes and carries to a higher level of abstrac-
tion the familiar theory of the social contract as
found, say, in Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. In order to
do this we are not to think of the original contract as
one to enter a particular society or to set up a partic-
ular form of government. Rather, the guiding idea is
that the principles of justice for the basic structure
of society are the object of the original agreement
They are the principles that free and rational per-
sons concerned to further their own interests would
accept in an initial position of equality as defi ning
the fundamental terms of their association. These
principles are to regulate all further agreements;
they specify the kinds of social cooperation that can
be entered into and the forms of government that
can be established. This way of regarding the prin-
ciples of justice I shall call justice as fairness.