IMMANUEL KANT ---cont   

Categorical imperative II : Treat persons as ends 

   The moral force of the categorical imperative becomes clearer in Kant's second formulation of it, the formula of humanity as an end. Kant introduces the second version of the categorical imperative as follows : We can't base the moral law on any particular interests, purposes, or ends, because then it would be only relative to the person whose ends they were. "But suppose there were something whose existence has in itself an absolute value," as an end in itself. "Then in it, and in it alone, would there be the ground of a possible categorical imperative."    
   What could possibly have an absolute value, as an end in itself ? Kant's answer : humanity. "I say that man, and in general every rational being, exists as an end in itself, not merely as a means for arbitrary use by this or that will." This is the fundamental difference, Kant reminds us, between persons and things. Persons are rational beings. They don't just have a relative value, but if anything has, they have an absolute value, an intrinsic value. That is, rational beings have dignity.
   This line of reasoning leads Kant to the second formulation of the categorical imperative. "Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end." 
    Consider again the false promise. The second formulation of the categorical imperative helps us see, from a slightly different angle, why it's wrong. When I promise to repay you the money I hope to borrow, knowing that I won't be able to, I'm manipulating you. I'm using you as a means to my financial solvency, not treating you as an end, worthy of respect. 
   Now consider the case of suicide. What's  interesting to notice is that both murder and suicide are at odds with the categorical imperative, and for the same reason. We often think of murder and suicide as radically different acts, morally speaking. Killing someone else deprives him of his life against his will, while suicide is the choice of the person who commits it. But Kant's notion of treating humanity as an end puts murder and suicide on the same footing. If I commit murder, I take someone's life for the sake of some interest of my own---robbing a bank, or consolidating my political power, or giving vent to my anger. I use the victin as a means, and fail to respect his or her humanity as an end. This is why murder violates the categorical imperative. 
   For Kant, suicide violates the categorical imperative in the same way. If I end my life to escape a painful condition, I use myself as a means for the relief of my own suffering. But as Kant reminds us, a person is not a thing, "not something to be used merely as a means." I have no more right to dispose of humanity in my own person than in someone else. For Kant, suicide is wrong for the same reason that murder is wrong. Both treat persons as things, and fail to respect humanity as an end in itself.
   The suicide example brings out a distinctive feature of what Kant considers the duty to respect our fellow human beings. For Kant, self-respect and respect for other persons flow from one and the same principle. The duty of respect is a duty we owe to persons as rational beings, as bearers of humanity. It has nothing to do with who in particular the person may be. 
   There is a difference between respect and other forms of human attachment. Love, sympathy, solidarity, and fellow feeling are moral sentiments that draw us closer to some people than to others. But the reason we must respect the dignity of persons has nothing to do with anything particular about them. Kantian respect is unlike love. it's unlike sympathy. It's unlike solidarity or felow feeling. These reasons for caring about other people have to do with who they are in particular. We love our spouses and the members of our family. We feel sympathy for people with whom we can identify. We feel solidarity with our friends and comrades.
   But Kantian respect is respect for humanity as such, for a rational capacity that resides, undifferentiated, in all of us. This explains why violating it in my own case is as objectionable as violating it in the case of someone else. It also explains why the Kantian principle of respect lends itself to doctrines of universal human rights. For Kant, justice requires us to uphold the human rights of all persons, regardless of where they live or how well we know them, simply because they are human  beings, capable of reason, and therefore worthy of respect. 

                       MORALITY AND FREEDOM 

   We can now see the link, as Kant conceives it, between morality and freedom. Acting morally means acting out of duty --- for the sake of the moral law. The moral law consists of a categorical imperative, a principle  that requires us to treat persons with respect, as ends in themselves. Only when I act in accordance with the categorical imperative am I acting freely. For whenever I act according to a hypothetical imperative am I acting freely. For whenever I act according to a hypothetical imperative, I act for the sake of some interest or end given outside of me. But in that case, I'm not really free ; my will is determined not by me, but by outside forces --- by the necessities of my circumstances or by the wants and desires I happen to have. 
   
   I can escape the dictates of nature and circumstances only by acting autonomously, according to a law I give myself. Such a law must be unconditioned by my particular wants and desires.  So Kant's demanding notions of freedom and morality are connected. Acting freely, that is, autonomously, and acting morally, according to the categorical imperative, are one and the same. 
   This way of thinking about morality and freedom leads Kant to his devastating critique of utilitarianism. The effort to base morality on some particular interest or desire (such as happiness or utility) was bound to fail. "For what they discovered was never duty, but only the necessity of acting from a certain interest." But any principle based on interest" was bound to be always a conditioned one and could not possibly serve as a moral law."