Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Using The Other As A Means To An End
“Using The Other As A Means To An End”

“Means to an end” is an idiomatic expression which means something that you are not interested in but that you do it because it will help you to achieve something else. Take for example, I don’t have any professional ambitions. For me, work is just a means to an end. Or in other words, it may means something done to achieve something else. Take for example, I have to study philosophy because it is on the prospectus, in short in able for me to graduate. Other best example for this would be a running politician, well obviously for them to win in the politics they used people by showing other people that they are worth voting for. They gave some donations or even what we call ‘suhol’ in order for them just to win. Much more for that was that it even come to the point of threathening or killing his opponent politician just to make sure he/she wins the politics. What a bad side of using other as a means to an end.
Now lets go back to the phrase “using the other as a means to an end” which obviously mean using other person for its own benefits. Well so far as I remember , I never use any person for my own benefits, never in my life that happen, well in fact I am the one being used up by them. It’s not my attitude of using other person for my own sake. Since I was a child my parents had already taught us what is morally right and what is morally wrong. The values I gain from my parents, from my friends, or in the school is enough for me to become a better person without using anyone else just for my own benefits. I do believe and I live with this thought that if you want something, you have to earn for it, work hard for it, and that’s the kind of attitude I am worth living for.

According to Immanuel Kant, “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end.” We have moral duties to oneself and others, such as developing one's talents, and keeping our promises to others. However, Immanuel Kant argued that there is a more foundational principle of duty that encompasses our particular duties. It is a single, self-evident principle of reason that he calls the "categorical imperative." A categorical imperative, he argued, is fundamentally different from hypothetical imperatives that hinge on some personal desire that we have, for example, "If you want to get a good job, then you ought to go to college." By contrast, a categorical imperative simply mandates an action, irrespective of one's personal desires, such as "You ought to do X." Kant gives at least four versions of the categorical imperative, but one is especially direct: Treat people as an end, and never as a means to an end. That is, we should always treat people with dignity, and never use them as mere instruments. For Kant, we treat people as an end whenever our actions toward someone reflect the inherent value of that person. Donating to charity, for example, is morally correct since this acknowledges the inherent value of the recipient. By contrast, we treat someone as a means to an end whenever we treat that person as a tool to achieve something else. It is wrong, for example, to steal my neighbor's car since I would be treating her as a means to my own happiness. The categorical imperative also regulates the morality of actions that affect us individually. Suicide, for example, would be wrong since I would be treating my life as a means to the alleviation of my misery. Kant believes that the morality of all actions can be determined by appealing to this single principle of duty.
Posted by m0g0l at 6:59 AM 0 comments
Labels: Philosophy