You are a male heterosexual. You meet a woman and rather like her. You want to have a relationship with her. Unfortunately the woman has horrible kids.
Does it infringe Kant's law of Humanity to be nice to the kids in order to start a relationship with their Mother?
Zubia on Hume and liberalism
4 hours ago
I have a question for you because i can not answer it myself.
ReplyDeleteHow can people NOT be egoistic?i mean that people who are doing something for themselves are definitely egoists, but even if they do something to help others they do it to benefit themselves in some way(either they help OTHERS to directly benefit themselves(paying favor for favor) or they help others to just joy themselves and by that AGAIN doing favor to themselves).
The answer in the link is really misleading. And in some ways totally wrong. Kant never said you should not treat someone as a means - only that you should never treat them as a means without at the same time treating them as a end.
ReplyDeleteTo treat someone as an end is roughly to do something for his sake, to be concerned for him for his own sake.
You can treat someone as a means and at the same time care about him, do what is best for him.
If you take a taxi to the airport and pay the taxi driver the going rate, then this can be good both of you - you can be treating him as an end, and at the same time as a means.
Dimka
ReplyDeletePeople sometimes do something just because it is the right thing to do.