Question

What is the “kingdom of ends”? What ideal role does it play in Kant’s ethics? In his religious vision of the summur bonum?

Answer 1

• Kant defines kingdom in the Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785).By a kingdom I understand the union of different rational beings in a system by common laws.
• Kant defines Kingdom of Ends as “a systematic union of rational beings by common objective laws”, i.e., “since what these laws have in view is just the relation of these beings to one another as ends and means.”
• It is an ideal community of rational beings who regard each other as ends in themselves and not just the means to their own ends.
• We are to act as though we were in such a Kingdom even though, empirically, we are surrounded by people who do not conform to that Kingdom. Kant thought the moral and historical task for humanity was to work towards the realisation of such a community of mutual regard. So the Kingdom of Ends is the moral ideal of the perfect society, as understood by Kant.
  
• The Kingdom of Ends is the opposite of treating other people as worthless, or as merely there to be used and discarded.This derives from Kant’s claim that reason motivates morality: it demands that we respect reason as a motive in all beings, including other people. A rational being cannot rationally consent to being used merely as a means to an end, so they must always be treated as an end.
  
• Kant justified this by arguing that moral obligation is a rational necessity: that which is rationally willed is morally right. Because all rational agents rationally will themselves to be an end and never merely a means, it is morally obligatory that they are treated as such. This does not mean that we can never treat a human as a means to an end, but that when we do, we also treat him as an end in himself.
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