Kant's end-in-itself: the case of the cognitively incapacitated human

Medjie, Philip (2025) Kant's end-in-itself: the case of the cognitively incapacitated human. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Immanuel Kant’s (1785/1998) Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals introduced a paradigm shift in the field of moral philosophy; it shifted the focus from moral realism—the conception that moral principles or laws are mind-independent entities—to a concept of morality that involves human beings actively originating moral principles or laws. This emphasizes the pivotal role human beings play in Kantian moral theory. Kant’s notion of humanity permeates throughout the varying formulations of his supreme principle of morality—the Categorical Imperative. This study analyzes Kant’s concept of humanity and its relation to the notion of the end-in-itself vis-à-vis the dignity of a marginalized group of human beings termed the ‘cognitively incapacitated’—humans who lack capacity to make moral or rational decisions. In this thesis, I examine the various interpretations that philosophers, namely Christine Korsgaard (1996), Allen Wood (1998) and Richard Dean (2006), give to the Kantian notion of humanity and further explore their implications for the dignity of the cognitively incapacitated human. I defend the claim that though the cognitively incapacitated human may not measure up to the standard as an end-in-itself, they ought to be accorded dignity and respect that supersedes that accorded to nonhuman sentient beings. The basis of this claim is that “the will”, in Kant’s view, is the primary principle for ascribing dignity and respect to sentient beings. The cognitively incapacitated human does not possess the full complement of the will, that is, they are unable to make moral choices, yet they possess an aspect of the will, namely, the capacity to make choices through the motivation from sensuous inclinations. Hence, they have to be accorded with a certain degree of dignity and respect.

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