## 1. Kantian Roots



Kant sets forth several formulations of the categorical imperative,
that is, the principle he holds to be the supreme principle of
morality. One formulation, often called the "Formula of
Humanity" states:



> 
> 
> So act that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the
> person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely
> as a means. (Kant 1785: 429, italics
>  removed)[2]
> 
> 
> 



The Formula of Humanity contains the command that we ought never to
treat persons merely as means.[3] A few points regarding this command
are helpful to keep in view. First, Kant holds that if a person treats
someone merely as a means, then she acts wrongly. The Formula of
Humanity encompasses an absolute constraint against treating persons
merely as means. Second, Kant does not hold that if in acting a person
refrains from treating anyone merely as a means, then she acts rightly
(Kant 1797: 395). A person can, for example, act wrongly in
Kant's view by expressing contempt for another, even if she is
not using him at all (Kant 1797: 462-464). She would be acting
wrongly by failing to treat the other as an end in himself, rather
than by treating him merely as a means. A third related point is that,
according to Kant, it is both a necessary and a sufficient condition
for one's treating persons in a morally permissible way that one
treat them as ends in themselves (Hill 1992: 41-42). Some
Kantians, especially those engaged primarily in interpretation, rather
than reconstruction, of his views thus understandably hold that far
more important than understanding his position on treating persons
merely as means is understanding his account of treating persons as
ends in themselves (Wood 1999, 143). Fourth, Kant holds that a person
can treat herself merely as a means. If a person acts contrary to
certain "perfect duties to oneself" (Kant 1797: 421),
including her duty not to kill herself (422-423), not to defile
herself by lust (424-425), and not to lie (429-430), then
she treats herself merely as a means, thereby contravening the Formula
of Humanity. It is difficult to discern how, according to Kant, one
treats oneself merely as a means in violating these duties (Kerstein
2008; Timmons 2017: Ch. 7). How, for example, does a person's
lying to another amount to her treating herself merely as a means?



In any case, this article's focus is on treating others merely
as means. Doing that is widely discussed as a possible violation of a
moral constraint. More specifically, the article explores when someone
uses another and either treats or refrains from treating the other
merely as a means. It concentrates on concepts that seem to have roots
in Kant's work, but that are familiar from ordinary moral
 discourse.[3]
 Kant himself devotes little discussion to clarifying the notion of
treating others merely as
 means.[4]
 Yet as is apparent below, some of his remarks have been a springboard
for detailed accounts of the notion.



One salient issue outside the article's purview is that of the
scope of "others" in the prescription not to treat others
merely as means. Does Kant embrace among these others all genetically
human beings, including human embryos and individuals in a persistent
vegetative state, or does he limit the others to beings who have
certain capacities, for example, that to set and rationally pursue
ends (Kain 2009; Sussman 2001)? How should Kant or other theorists set
the scope of those whom we ought not to treat merely as means? Should
we include some non-human animals (e.g., chimpanzees or dolphins)
among them? How should we determine to whom to grant this moral
status?


## 2. Using Another



In order to treat another *merely* as a means or *just*
use him, an agent must use the other or treat him as a means. But when
does someone count as doing that? As noted, using others or treating
them as means is often morally permissible. In everyday discourse,
expressions such as "She used me" can mean she
*just* used me, or treated me *merely* as a means and so
can imply a negative evaluation of action or attitude. But for our
purposes talk of a person using another or treating him as a means
implies no such moral judgment.



Accounts of treating others merely as means sometimes leave implicit
the notions of using another they rely on (Kleingeld 2020). Some
points regarding what using another does or does not amount to seem
uncontroversial. It does not seem sufficient for us to count as using
another as a means that we benefit from what the other has done
(Nozick 1974: 31-32). If, on her usual route, a runner derives
enjoyment from the singing of a stranger who happens to be walking by,
she does not appear to be treating the stranger as a means. Moreover,
not all cases of an agent's intentionally doing something in
response to another are cases of her using the other as a means. If
someone frowns at another approaching, for example, he might not
thereby be using the other at all; he might simply be expressing that
the other is unwelcome.



However, inquiry reveals challenges in specifying what using another
amounts to. We might say that an agent uses another or, equivalently,
treats her as a means just in case the agent intentionally does
something to the other in order to secure or as a part of securing one
of his ends (Kerstein 2009: 166). For example, a passenger uses a bus
driver if he boards her bus in order to get across town; a wife treats
her husband as a means if she lies to him so that his birthday party
will be a surprise; and a victim treats a mugger as a means if she
punches him in order to escape from his grasp. In contrast, a pilot
who drops bombs solely in order to kill enemy combatants might foresee
that innocent bystanders will be harmed. Yet if he does not
intentionally do anything to the bystanders, then he does not treat
them as means, according to this
 account.[5]



But does the account count too much as treating another as a means?
Suppose that an usher at a concert is trying to prevent a small child
from falling through railing on a balcony. She pushes a spectator out
of the way to get to the child. The specification we are considering
implies that the usher has used the spectator as a means; for she has
intentionally done something to her (i.e., pushed her aside) in order
to attain an end (i.e., to get to the child). Some might say that the
usher has treated the spectator in some way, namely, as an obstacle to
be displaced. Yet she has not used the spectator.



In order for an agent to count as using another, it is not enough that
she do something to the other in order to realize some end of hers,
some have suggested. She must also intend the presence or
participation of some aspect of the other to contribute to the
end's realization (Scanlon 2008: 106-107; Guerrero 2016:
779). The usher does not intend the spectator's presence or
participation to play any role in her preventing the child from
falling. She thinks of her simply as "in the way". On one
account, an agent uses another (or, equivalently, uses or treats
another as a means) if and only if she intentionally does something to
or with the other in order to realize her end, and she intends the
presence or participation of the other to contribute to the
end's realization (Kerstein 2013: 58). On this account, an agent
can count as using another when she is striving to benefit him. For
example, a physician giving a patient a treatment to save his life is
using the patient. Some find this implication of the account
implausible (Parfit 2011:
 222).[6]
 Others do not, pointing to cases such as that of a physician using a
patient in a study of a new drug in order to ameliorate the
patient's condition.



In any case, consistent with this account, an agent might use another
through using the other's rational, emotional, or physical
capacities. A tourist might ask someone for directions, using the
other's knowledge to get to his destination; a politician might
use his constituents' fear of crime to gain their support for
more spending on law enforcement; a doctor might use a vein from a
patient's leg to repair her heart. One important question left
unanswered by this and other accounts of treating another as a means
is one of scope. For example, does an agent use another if he uses
biospecimens (e.g., cells) or information (e.g., concerning social
media activity) derived from the other? If so, then the scope of a
constraint on treating others merely as means would extend to the
practices of biobanks and technology companies.


## 3. Sufficient Conditions for Using Others Merely as Means



Much debate concerning what it means to treat others merely as means
stems from a single passage in the *Groundwork of the Metaphysics
of Morals*. Kant is attempting to demonstrate that the Formula of
Humanity generates a duty not to make false promises:



> 
> 
> He who has it in mind to make a false promise to others sees at once
> that he wants to make use of another human being *merely as a
> means*, without the other at the same time containing in himself
> the end. For, he whom I want to use for my purposes by such a promise
> cannot possibly agree to my way of behaving toward him, and so himself
> contain the end of this action. (1785: 429-430)
> 
> 
> 



In these brief remarks, Kant hints at various ways in which we might
understand conditions for treating another merely as a means. We might
understand them in terms of the other's inability to share the
agent's end in using him or to consent to her using him, for
example. In this section, we discuss elaborations of these ways (and
others) of formulating sufficient conditions for someone who is using
another to be treating this other merely as a means.


### 3.1 End Sharing



On the basis of Kant's remarks, we might claim that if another
cannot "contain the end" of an agent's action, that
is, share the end the agent is pursuing in using her, then the agent
treats the other merely as a means. Two agents presumably share an end
just in case they are both trying, or have chosen to try, to realize
this end. But what, precisely, does it mean to say that two agents
*cannot* share an end? Returning to the example at hand, what
does it mean to say that the promisee cannot share the
promisor's end? From the outset, it is important to specify
precisely which of the promisor's ends the promisee cannot
share. It is presumably the promisor's end of getting money from
the promisee without ever paying it back. The promisor's
*ultimate* end might be one that the two can share (e.g., that
of curing cancer). What sense of 'cannot' would be
plausible to invoke in maintaining that a promisee cannot share a
false promisor's end?


#### 3.1.1 Logical impossibility of end sharing



According to one interpretation of Kant, the promisee cannot share the
promisor's end in that it is logically impossible for him to do
so (Hill 2002: 69-70). Suppose the promisor, a borrower, has the
end of getting money from the promisee, a lender, without ever paying
it back. At the time he makes a loan on the basis of this promise, the
lender cannot himself share the end of the borrower's getting
the money from him without ever paying it back, goes this reading. If
the lender shared the borrower's end, then he would not really
be making a loan. For according to our practice, it belongs to the
very concept of making a loan, as opposed, say, to giving money away,
that one believe that what one disburses will be repaid.



This interpretation of the false promising case leads naturally to the
view that a sufficient condition for an agent's treating another
merely as a means is that it is logically impossible for the other to
share the end the agent is pursuing in using her in some way. However,
this proposed sufficient condition might fail to register as treating
others merely as means paradigmatic cases of doing so (Kerstein 2009:
167-168). Take, for example, a loiterer who threatens an
innocent passerby with a gun in order to get $100. It would presumably
be good if a sufficient condition for treating another merely as a
means yielded the conclusion that the loiterer is treating the
passerby merely as a means; for he is mugging her, which, intuitively
speaking, seems to be a clear case of treating another merely as a
means. One might question whether the proposed sufficient condition
does this. Even highly unlikely events are logically possible. It is
improbable, but still logically possible, that the passerby shares the
loiterer's end of his getting $100, one might argue. For
example, the passerby might aim to give $100 to the loiterer, but not
recognize him when he threatens her and so hands over her money to him
as a result of his threat. If this possibility is realized, then the
account would not count the loiterer as treating the passerby merely
as a means. One might also argue that in the case of the false
promise, it is improbable, but still logically possible, that the
lender loans money to a borrower (and thereby believes that it will be
repaid), all the while sharing the borrower's end that she get
money from him (the lender) without paying it back. For example, the
lender might believe that the borrower will pay him back, but share
her end of her getting money from him without repaying it because he
believes that if she does, she will bring about something he covets,
namely, the demise of her reputation. Some philosophers insist,
however, that this sort of scenario is not logically possible; for in
order to be making a loan to another, a person must not only believe
that his money will be repaid, but want and hope that it will be
(Papadaki 2016: 78), they say. If these philosophers' views are
plausible, the proposed sufficient condition in view would deem as
instances of treating others merely as means a range of actions many
envisage as such.


#### 3.1.2 Preventing the other from choosing to pursue one's end



According to a different interpretation of Kant, another cannot share
the end an agent pursues in using him in some way if how the agent
behaves "prevents [the other] from *choosing* whether to
contribute to the realization of that end or not" (Korsgaard
1996: 139). The lender in our example cannot share the
borrower's end of getting money without ever repaying it; for
the borrower's false promise obscures his end and thus prevents
the lender from choosing whether to contribute to it.



This reading of possible end sharing might have implausible
implications when incorporated into a principle according to which a
person who uses another treats the other merely as a means if the
other cannot share the end she is pursuing in using him (Kerstein
2013: 63). Consider young men hiking in the Rocky Mountains for the
first time who find themselves on a mountain in late afternoon without
water and unsure of the way down. To their relief, they spot another
hiker, someone whom they saw park his car in the same area below. They
follow him, using his knowledge of the terrain to get down the
mountain safely. The young men realize that they could, but choose not
to, tell the hiker that they are following him. Out of embarrassment
for their dependence on him, they ensure that they remain undetected.
The way they act prevents the man from choosing whether to contribute
to the realization of their end. According to the notion of possible
end sharing we are here considering, we might have to embrace a view
that some find implausible: Since the hiker cannot share the young
men's end, they are treating him merely as a means and thereby
acting wrongly. To avoid this implication, one might affirm the
following: a person cannot share the end an agent pursues in using him
if the agent's behavior prevents the person from choosing
whether to contribute to the realization of that end and the person
has a right not to be prevented from making this choice (Papadaki
2016: 80). If the hiker fails to have a right not to be prevented from
choosing whether to contribute to the young men getting safely down
the mountain, then they do not treat him merely as a means according
to the amended account. Of course, this amendment invites questions as
to when a person has such a right, as well as making the account of
treating others merely as means depend on an account of moral rights
in a way that Korsgaard (or Kant) might not have intended.


#### 3.1.3 Practical irrationality



The allusion in the false promising passage to possible end sharing is
subject to a third interpretation: the promisee cannot share the
promisor's end in that it would be practically irrational for
her to do so. In typical cases, it would be irrational for the
promisee to try to realize the end of making a loan that is never to
be repaid. This end's being brought about would prevent him from
realizing other ends he is pursuing, ends such as paying rent, buying
groceries, or simply getting his money back.



The notion of practical irrationality at work here seems implicit in
the *Groundwork*. Kant there (1785: 413-418) introduces a
principle that Thomas Hill, Jr. calls (1992: 17-37) "the
hypothetical imperative": If you will an end, then you ought to
will the means to it that are necessary and in your power, or give up
willing the end. Willing an end presumably involves setting it and
attempting to realize it. According to Kant, the hypothetical
imperative is a principle of reason: all of us are rationally
compelled to conform to this principle. An agent would be violating
the hypothetical imperative and thus acting irrationally by willing an
end yet, at the same time, willing another end, the attainment of
which would, he is aware, make it impossible for him to take the
otherwise available and necessary means to his original end. An agent
would violate the hypothetical imperative, for example, by willing now
to buy a house and yet, at the same time, willing to use the money he
knows he needs for the down payment to make a gift to his niece. If he
willed to make the gift, he would be failing to will the necessary
means in his power to buy the house. The Kantian hypothetical
imperative implies that it is irrational to will to be thwarted in
attaining ends that one is pursuing. In typical cases, if a promisee
willed the end of a false promisor, she would be doing just that.



There are two things that an agent who has willed something can do
which would bring his action into compliance with the hypothetical
imperative. He can either will the means that are necessary and in his
power to the end (which, of course, would rule out his willing to be
thwarted in attaining the end) or he can give up willing the end. For
example, the hypothetical imperative would not imply that it was
irrational for the person described above to cease willing now to buy
a house and instead use the money that he knows would be required as a
down payment on it to make a gift to his niece.



A person cannot share an agent's end, according to this third
account, if:



> 
> 
> The person has an end such that his pursuing it at the same time that
> he pursues the agent's end would violate the hypothetical
> imperative, and the person would be unwilling to give up pursuing this
> end, even if he was aware of the likely effects of the agent's
> successful pursuit of her end.
> 
> 
> 



By way of illustration, suppose that a doctor plans to use a healthy
patient to obtain a heart and lungs for transplant, that is, to
extract them from him in an operation that would kill him. We can
imagine that the patient has many ends, for example, that of attending
his daughter's wedding. According to the hypothetical
imperative, it would be irrational for him to pursue this end at the
same time he was pursuing the doctor's end of getting from him a
heart and lungs for transplant. The account implies that the patient
cannot share the doctor's end if he would be unwilling to give
up his end of attending his daughter's wedding against the
background of an awareness of the likely effects of the doctor's
successful pursuit of his organs (e.g., his life being lost and other
lives being saved).



This notion of conditions under which a person cannot share an
agent's end might be included in the following account: An agent
treats another merely as a means if the other cannot share the
proximate end or ends the agent is pursuing in treating him as a
means. An agent's proximate end is something she aims to bring
about directly from her use of the person. Her proximate end might
also be her ultimate end, say, if she uses another to avoid pain. But
her proximate end might be far removed from her ultimate end. Someone
might, for example, use another to develop her skill as a violinist to
earn a good living in an orchestra so she can put her little sisters
through college, and so forth. The account invokes proximate ends
because they are far more intimately connected to the use that brings
them about than ultimate ends need be.



Yet, like the other accounts we have considered, this account is
subject to criticism. One possible shortcoming stems from cases of
competition (Kerstein 2009: 170-171). Sometimes people have the
end of being the sole winner in a competition. A competitor pursuing
such an end might, according to the account, be treating his
competitor merely as a means and thus acting wrongly, even though she
abides fully with the competition's rules. To begin, competitors
sometimes count as treating one another as means. To invoke one
account of doing so (discussed in
 SS2
 above), Player *A* intentionally does something to her
opponent, Player *B*, for example, tries to defeat him, which
requires *B*'s presence or participation. Moreover,
*A*'s proximate end in trying to defeat *B* might
be to win top player for the year; and *B*'s proximate
end in trying to defeat *A* might also be to win top player for
the year. To focus on *A*, she is using *B* to realize
an end, namely her (*A*'s) winning top player for the
year, but *B* cannot share this end. In willing that *A*
be top player of the year, *B* would, in effect, be willing to
be thwarted in his attempt to win top player for the year, assuming
that there can be no tie for top player. Finally, awareness on
*B*'s part of the likely effects of *A*'s
successful pursuit of being the top player would presumably not result
in *B*'s being willing to give up his
(*B*'s) end of being top player. In trying to defeat
*B* to be number one, *A* would be treating *B*
merely as a means and thereby acting wrongly, the account seems to
imply, even if *A* competed fairly, that is, violated none of
the competition's rules. Some might find this implication
implausible. Sometimes becoming the best in some endeavor involves
defeating (and using) competitors to do so. But defeating (and using)
competitors to be the best, especially when they have freely entered a
competition, need not amount to acting wrongly, some might insist.


### 3.2 Possible Consent



In the passage on false promising, Kant references possible consent.
He suggests that the victim of the false promise cannot agree to the
use the false promisor is making of him. We might conclude that the
victim cannot agree on the grounds that he cannot share the
promisor's end; for it would, in the sense invoked above
 (SS3.1.3),
 be practically irrational for him to pursue this end. There is,
however, another way of interpreting the victim's inability to
consent in the context of considering candidates for a plausible
sufficient condition for an agent's treating another merely as a
means. Another account, prompted by the *Groundwork* passage,
is this: An agent uses another merely as a means if the other cannot
consent to her use of him (O'Neill 1989:
 113).[7]
 An agent cannot consent to being treated as a means if he does not
have the ability to avert his being treated as such by dissenting,
that is, by withholding his agreement to
 it.[8]
 If an agent deceives or coerces another, then the other's
dissent is "in principle ruled out" (1989: 111) and thus
so is his consent. Suppose, for example, that an appliance
serviceperson tricks a customer into authorizing an expensive repair.
The customer does not really have the opportunity to dissent to the
person's action by refusing to give his consent to it. For he
does not know what her action is, namely one of lying to him about
what is wrong with his refrigerator. (If he did know what her action
was, then he would not be deceived.) Or suppose that a mugger
approaches you on a dark street, points a gun at you, and tells you
that unless you give him all of your money, he will hurt you. He
leaves you no opportunity to avert his use of you by withholding your
consent. Regardless of what you say, he is presumably going to use
you, whether it is through your handing over your wallet or his
violently taking it from you. Since you cannot consent to his action,
the mugger is treating you merely as a
 means.[9]



The account is subject to objections. It does not suffice for an agent
to treat another merely as a means that the other simply *be*
unable to consent to the way he is being used, some argue. If it did
suffice, then a passerby giving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to
a collapsed jogger would be treating the jogger merely as a means and
thus acting wrongly. But the passerby does not seem to be doing
anything that is morally impermissible.



In light of this objection, someone might propose a different account:
Suppose an agent uses another. She uses him merely as a means if
something she has done or is doing to the other *renders* him
unable to consent to her using him. Of course, although the collapsed
jogger has no opportunity to consent to the passerby's giving
him CPR, the passerby has not put him in that position. So this
account avoids the unwelcome implication that the passerby treats the
collapsed jogger merely as a means.



However, this account is also open to objection. First, it fails to
designate as such some cases that we, intuitively speaking, would
surely classify as treating others merely as means (Kerstein 2013:
74). Think for example of a case where one person knocks someone out
with a "date rape" drug. Another person, who had no
knowledge of or involvement in drugging the victim, sexually assaults
him. Since this other person has not rendered the victim unable to
consent to his use of him, the account does not yield the conclusion
that he treats him merely as a means.



The account arguably not only fails to capture some cases of an
agent's treating another merely as a means, but also designates
as such some cases of deception that, intuitively speaking, are not.
For example, in order to make your spouse's birthday party a
surprise for her, you need to lie to your sister-in-law about your
whereabouts during a certain afternoon. You use her to quell your
spouse's suspicions regarding your plans. As you realize, if you
told your sister-in-law about the party, she would be unable to keep
the secret from your spouse. According to the account, you treat your
sister-in-law merely as a means, since your deception leaves her with
no opportunity to avert your use of her. This conclusion seems
questionable to some, albeit not to others. Here is another case of
what some think of as morally permissible deception (Parfit 2011:
178). Suppose that, in order to save the life of an innocent witness
to a crime, you use her to pass on a lie you have told her to the
perpetrator, Brown. If Brown did not believe the lie, he would kill
the witness. You realize that if you let the witness in on what was
necessary to save her life and told her to lie to Brown herself, she
would not be able to do so effectively. Your treatment of the person
renders impossible her consent to your use of her. But it is
implausible to conclude that you are treating her merely as a means,
some insist.



In these two cases, it makes sense to think that the person you are
using can share your ends, in the sense specified in
 SS3.1.3.
 Your sister-in-law can share the end of your spouse not getting
suspicious regarding a surprise party, and, of course, the witness can
share the end of Brown's coming to believe some lie. Perhaps
that is why in these cases the person's inability to consent to
your use of her seems to fall short of plausibly implying that you are
using her merely as a means.


### 3.3 Actual Consent



A proposal for a sufficient condition for treating another merely as a
means might invoke a notion of actual consent. Suppose an agent is
using another, the proposal might go; he is using her merely as a
means if she has not consented to his use of her (Nozick 1974:
30-31; Scanlon 2008: 107). A more detailed actual consent
proposal is the following: "An agent uses another person merely
as a means if and only if (1) the agent uses another person as a means
in the service of realizing her ends (2) without, as a matter of moral
principle, making this use conditional on the other's consent;
where (3) by 'consent' is meant the other's genuine
actual consent to being used, in a particular manner, as a means to
the agent's end" (Kleingeld 2020: 398). Both proposals
face challenges. For example, suppose a patient arrives in the
emergency room unconscious, with severe injuries. The physician on
duty judges that only an experimental treatment could preserve the
patient's life. She therefore uses the patient in a study of a
new technique to prevent blood loss. Both actual consent proposals
imply, seemingly implausibly, that the physician used the patient
merely as a means.



One might claim that an agent who uses another without the
other's actual consent treats him merely as a means unless
particular conditions obtain: the agent lacks competency to consent,
the other is rationally required to consent (e.g., perhaps to preserve
his life), or the agent is rationally forbidden to consent (e.g.,
perhaps to being someone's slave) (Formosa 2017: 99-100). This
proposal would avoid the implication that the physician in the
preceding example is using the patient merely as a means; for the
patient obviously lacks competency to consent. Yet the proposal seems
to suffer from a shortcoming that all the actual consent accounts
mentioned have. They all seem to imply, implausibly, that an agent
would be treating another merely as a means in cases such as this
(Cohen 1995: 243): Someone uses another without the other's
consent to prevent the light from shining in her eyes, by positioning
herself in an appropriate way.


### 3.4 Invoking Moral Notions (or Not)



A distinction worth noting in accounts of using others merely as means
is that between ones that do and ones that do not appeal to moral
concepts. A clear example of the former type of account is the
following: X uses Y merely as a means if and only if (1) X uses Y as a
means and (2) X's use of Y violates a duty that X owes to Y
(Fahmy 2023: 58). To determine whether an agent uses another merely as
a means on this account, it is obviously necessary to rely on views
regarding which duties the agent owes to the other. Not surprisingly,
philosophers who offer such accounts sometimes invoke Kant's
notion that persons have dignity that demands respect as a basis for
determining our moral duties (2023: 50) (Formosa 2017: 108). A worry
concerning these accounts is that the light they shed on what treating
others merely as means amounts to is limited by the clarity, or lack
thereof, in the moral notions they invoke.



Other philosophers suggest sufficient conditions for a person treating
another merely as a means that seem not to depend on any moral
concepts (Kerstein 2013: 76) (Audi 2016: 4, 56-57). It is often easier
to discern the implications, both plausible and implausible, of these
accounts than the implications of accounts that rely on disputed or
vague moral concepts such as our dignity or rights as persons. Of
course, not only accounts of when agents treat others merely as means,
but also accounts of when they do not do so (Section 5) differ in
whether they are grounded in moral concepts.


## 4. Treating Another Merely as a Means and Acting Wrongly



Kant holds that if someone treats another merely as a means, the
person acts wrongly, that is, does something morally impermissible.
Some accounts of treating others merely as means seem not to yield the
conclusion that if a person treats another in this way, then he acts
wrongly. On one "rough definition", we use another merely
as a means if we both use the other and regard him



> 
> 
> as a mere instrument or tool: someone whose well-being and moral
> claims we ignore, and whom we would treat in whatever ways would best
> achieve our aims. (Parfit 2011: 213 and 227)
> 
> 
> 



For example, a kidnapper treats his victim merely as a means if she
uses him for profit and thinks of him simply as a tool that she would
treat in any way necessary for profit. This account takes quite
literally "merely" in "treating others merely as
means". According to it, treating another merely as a means
amounts roughly to treating the other solely or exclusively as a
tool.



If this is how we understand treating others merely as means, then
doing so does not always amount to acting wrongly, it
 appears.[10]
 Suppose that a gangster considers a barista a mere tool to get coffee
and that he would treat her in whichever way would best serve his
interests. In buying coffee from her, the gangster treats her merely
as a means on this account, but does not, it seems, act wrongly
(Parfit 2011: 216).



On a more detailed, but similar, understanding of treating another
merely as a means, it also seems that the gangster might be doing so
and yet not be acting wrongly. According to this account:
"Treating a person merely as a means is doing something toward
that person . . . on the basis of instrumental motivation, with no
motivational concern regarding any non-instrumental aspects of the
action(s), and with a disposition not to acquire such a concern"
(Audi 2016 56-57).
  

  

These notions of treating others merely as means seem not to coincide
with Kant's notion of doing so. Recall Kant's example of
making a false promise to another for financial gain. Suppose that a
particular false promiser would not do just anything to the other for
gain for himself, for example, he would not murder the other's
family. And suppose that this false promisor does have
non-instrumental motivational concern for the other in that he would
not make this false promise if it would likely result in the other
needing to declare bankruptcy. According to Kant's notion, but
not to these accounts, it appears, the false promisor would be
treating the other merely as a
 means.[11]



We might question whether treating another merely as a means amounts
to acting wrongly even if we focus on the candidate sufficient
conditions examined above. For the sake of simplicity, let us focus on
the possible consent account
 (SS3.2),
 according to which an agent treats another merely as a means if the
other cannot consent to her use of him. (We could just as effectively
employ other proposed sufficient conditions we have discussed for just
using another.) Suppose that two muggers attack a victim. The victim
violently pushes one of the muggers into the other, so that he (the
victim) can make his escape. The victim uses the mugger he pushes, and
the mugger presumably is unable to avert this use simply by dissenting
from it. Yet many would object to the idea that the victim is acting
wrongly. One response to this issue would be to build into accounts of
treating another merely as a means the specification that one is not
doing that if he is using someone in order to prevent himself or
someone else from being treated in this way. Building in this
specification would, of course, tend to make accounts somewhat
unwieldy. Other examples might render more difficult to accept the
idea that treating another merely as a means is always morally
impermissible. Suppose, for example, that we use one person to save a
million people from nuclear conflagration, without giving the one any
opportunity to avert the use by dissenting from it. We thereby treat
the one merely as a means, according to a possible consent account.
But do we act wrongly? Some hold that we do
 not.[12]



They might defend the view that while it is always wrong *pro
tanto* to treat another merely as a means, doing so is sometimes
morally permissible, all things considered. In other words, we always
have strong moral reasons not to treat others merely as means, but
these reasons can be outweighed by other moral considerations,
presumably including the good of many lives being preserved. If,
contrary to Kant's view, the moral constraint against treating
others merely as means is not absolute, then a question arises as to
when it gets overridden.


## 5. Using Another, but Not Merely as a Means



We have explored sufficient conditions for treating another merely as
a means. But just as challenging as pinpointing them is specifying
when someone uses another, but *not* merely as a means.
According to one proposal, if an agent uses another, she does
*not* use him merely as a means if he gives his voluntary,
informed consent to her use of him. To fix ideas let us say that the
consent of the person being used is voluntary only if he is not being
coerced into giving it and informed only if he understands how he is
being used and to what purpose(s). This proposal seems intuitively
attractive. If a person agrees to someone using him and understands
her ends in doing so, then how can she be treating him merely as a
means?



Appealing to reflective common sense, philosophers have tried to
illustrate how. We might refer to one range of cases they invoke as
*exploitation cases* because they seem to involve one person
taking unfair advantage of another, which is a hallmark of
exploitation (Wertheimer 1996). To cite one such case, suppose that a
mother of modest means cannot afford to give her children a good
education. A rich person proposes to finance her children's
enrollment at excellent schools in exchange for her serving as his
personal slave (Davis 1984: 392). The mother might understand the use
he intends to put her to and for what purposes. Moreover, if we think
of coercion as involving an agent threatening to make someone worse
off than she would be if she did not interact with the agent, then the
rich person would not count as coercing the mother into agreeing to
his use of her. The account of using another but not merely as a means
that we are considering might, therefore, imply that the rich person
is not just using the mother in making her his personal slave. That
implication strikes some as implausible.



Another type of case that might cause problems for this account
invokes unnecessary or otiose threats designed to force another to
serve one's purposes. Here is an example of such a case. An
elderly salesperson thinks that his company is trying to force him
into retirement by keeping its latest sales leads from him. Desperate
to make a sale, he intends to use his office manager to obtain the
latest leads. The manager has the password to a database housing the
leads. He tells her that he really needs to close some deals, and
unless she gets the latest leads for him, he is going to reveal to
everyone in the office that she is lesbian. He believes reasonably,
given his incomplete understanding of her and of the attitudes of his
other co-workers, that this revelation would be damaging to her
reputation. But the office manager takes the salesperson, whom she
thinks of as a friendly colleague, to be making an ill-advised joke.
Virtually everyone in the office is already aware of her sexual
preference. And, she believes, the salesperson is cognizant that it is
company policy that all salespeople are to be granted access to the
latest leads upon request. She gives him a puzzled look and agrees to
get him the leads right away.



The salesperson receives from the office manager her voluntary,
informed consent to his use of her to get the leads. She understands
that he intends to use her to this end. Granted, he threatens to make
her worse off if she does not give him the leads. But it is not the
threat, which she does not even register as such, that generates her
agreement to his use of her. She agrees voluntarily. Yet, despite
obtaining her consent for his use of her, some believe that the
salesperson treats the office manager merely as a means and acts (at
least *pro tanto*) wrongly. Others might argue that although
the salesperson has revealed a moral deficiency, he has not
*done* anything wrong. Rather, he has simply revealed a morally
faulty attitude toward the office manager (Scanlon 2008: 46; Walen
2014: 428-429). If we judge that the salesperson does act
wrongly, then we presumably take this case to illustrate that treating
another merely as a means does not necessarily amount to harming her.
In other words, in treating another merely as a means, an individual
can wrong another without harming her.



Regardless of whether we judge in this case that the salesperson acts
wrongly, the case helps to illustrate a distinction between
agent-focused and patient-focused accounts of treating or not treating
another merely as a means. According to the account we are
considering, let us recall, if an agent uses another, she does
*not* use him merely as a means if he gives his voluntary,
informed consent to her use of him. This account focuses on the other,
that is, on the individual treated as a means to determine whether the
agent is treating him merely as a means. If *he* (i.e., the
other) gives his informed, voluntary consent to being used in some
way, then the agent does not treat him merely as a means, according to
the account. To make this determination, an agent-focused account
would, of course, focus more on the agent. Such an account might hold,
for example, that if an agent uses another, she does not use him
merely as a means *if it is reasonable for her (the agent) to
believe* that the other gives his voluntary, informed consent to
her use of him. According to the notion of reasonable belief invoked
here, it is reasonable for someone to believe something roughly if the
belief is justifiable given the person's context (e.g., his
upbringing, cognitive limitations, and so forth). Contrary to the
patient-focused account, the agent-focused account is free from the
implication that the salesperson is not treating the office manager
merely as a means. It is *not* reasonable for the salesperson
to believe that the office manager has given her voluntary consent to
his use of her. It is, rather, reasonable for him to believe that he
has coerced her into giving him the sales leads. A parallel
patient-based vs. agent-based distinction applies, of course, to
accounts of sufficient conditions for treating another merely as a
means. One might, for example, hold that an agent just uses another if
the other cannot share the end the agent is pursuing in using him (a
patient-focused account). Or one might hold that an agent just uses
another if it is reasonable for her to believe that the other cannot
share the end the agent is pursuing in using him (an agent-focused
account).



We have been considering actual consent accounts of agents using
others, but not treating them merely as means. We can also develop
accounts that invoke other concepts familiar from discussion of
sufficient conditions for treating others merely as means, including
the concepts of possible end-sharing and possible consent. For
example, we might suggest that an agent who uses another does not use
that other merely as a means if the other can consent to the
agent's use of him, that is, if the other can avert the use
simply by dissenting from it. This suggestion, as well as others that
invoke additional concepts we have considered, such as that of end
sharing, might generate questionable verdicts regarding exploitation
cases. For example, the mother of modest means discussed above can
consent to the rich person's use of her. Her dissent from it
alone would stop it from occurring. But some would insist that the
rich person is nevertheless treating her merely as a means in making
her his personal slave in exchange for educating his children.



Another approach to conditions under which an agent uses another, but
does not treat him merely as a means takes shape against a literal
construal of treating others merely as means. On this construal,
discussed above, we use another merely as a means roughly if we both
use the other and regard him as a mere tool. According to the
approach, we do *not* treat another merely as a means if our
treatment of the other person "is governed or guided in
sufficiently important ways by some relevant moral belief or
concern" (Parfit 2011: 214). But when is an agent's use of
another governed in sufficiently important ways by some relevant moral
belief or concern? The agent's use of another is so governed,
according to one response, when the agent tries to and succeeds in
using the other only in ways to which the other can rationally
consent.



But when can the other rationally consent? To simplify matters, let us
make some background assumptions. Let us suppose that the people who
might be used understand what will be done to them and to what
purpose, as well as the effects the use will have. Let us also assume
that those who might be used have the power to give (or to withhold)
consent in the "act-affecting sense" (Parfit 2011:
183-184). When we ask whether they can rationally consent to
being used, we are asking whether it would be rational for them to
consent (or dissent) supposing that their choice would determine
whether or not they were used.



Against the background of these assumptions, we can say that, on this
account, a person can rationally consent to being treated as a means
just in case he has *sufficient reasons* to consent to it. The
account rests on an "objective" view of reasons, according
to which



> 
> 
> there are certain facts that give us reasons both to have certain
> desires and aims, and to do whatever might achieve these aims. These
> reasons are given by facts about the *objects* of these desires
> or aims, or what we might want or try to achieve. (Parfit 2011:
> 45)
> 
> 
> 



For example, the fact that a child is in pain as a result of a
splinter stuck in his finger gives me reason to want to and to try to
get it
 out.[13]
 On this account, we have impartial as well as partial reasons for
agreeing to be treated in various ways. Our impartial reasons are
"person-neutral" (2011: 138). We do not need to invoke
ourselves when we describe the facts that yield these reasons. The
fact that some event would cause tremendous pain to a particular
person, for example, gives us reason (albeit perhaps not sufficient
reason) to prevent the event or relieve the pain "whoever this
person may be, and whatever this person's relation to us"
(2011: 138). Our partial reasons are "person-relative":
they "are provided by facts whose description must refer to
us" (2011: 138). The fact that the little boy being hurt by the
splinter is *my* son gives me a partial reason to pull it out.
We each have partial reasons to be particularly attentive to our own
well-being and to the well-being of those in our circle, for example,
our family and friends. According to the account,



> 
> 
> When one of our two possible acts would make things go in some way
> that would be impartially better, but the other act would make things
> go better either for ourselves or for those to whom we have close
> ties, we often have sufficient reasons to act in either of these ways.
> (2011: 137)
> 
> 
> 



For example, regarding a case in which a person could either save
himself from some injury or do something that would save some
stranger's life in a distant land, the person presumably has
sufficient reasons to do either one. In a similar vein, a person can
have sufficient reason to consent to being treated as a means by
virtue of some impartial reason, such as the fact that his being so
treated will save many lives, even if he also has sufficient reason to
dissent from being treated as a means by virtue of some partial
reason, such as the fact that his being so treated will result in
suffering for him. In sum, this account holds that if an agent uses
another, he does not use the other merely as a means if the other has
sufficient reasons, as just characterized, for agreeing to be
used.



The account seems to imply that cases thought to be paradigmatic of
treating others merely as means do not involve treating them in this
way. Take a case in which a pedestrian is on a bridge above a track
where a train is barreling toward five people (Parfit 2011: 218). The
only way to save the five would be to open, by remote control, a
trap-door on which the pedestrian is standing, so that he would fall
in front of the train. The train would kill him, but the impact would
trigger its automatic brake. If a bystander opens the trap door, then
she uses the pedestrian as a means to save the five. The pedestrian
has sufficient reasons to refrain from consenting to being used to
stop the train. After all, it will result in his premature death. But,
according to the account, he also might have sufficient reasons to
consent to being used to stop the train; for his being used in this
way would save the lives of five people, contributing to an outcome
which is presumably impartially best (2011: 220). Suppose the
bystander opens the trap door and uses the person on the bridge to
save the five. In so doing, she might be limiting her use of another
to ways to which the other can rationally consent. If she is, then she
is not treating the person merely as a means, according to the
account.



Consider another well-known example. Five patients at a hospital are
in immediate need of different organs. One patient needs a kidney,
another needs a liver, and so forth. If a surgeon used a healthy
person undergoing routine tests as a resource for organs, killing him
in the process, all of the five would be saved (Harman 1977:
3-4). The healthy person presumably has strong partial reasons
to dissent from being used for his organs. But he also arguably has
enough impartial reason to consent, namely, that five people will
thereby be saved, such that overall he has sufficient reason to
consent. So, assuming that the surgeon is trying to treat people only
in ways to which they can rationally consent, she might not be
treating the healthy person merely as a means, even if before she
succeeds in putting him under, he is begging for his
 life.[14]
 If the account we are considering of using others, but not merely as
means does entail that the bystander and the doctor in these two cases
are not treating others merely as means, the account suffers from a
significant flaw, according to some.



In the words of one philosopher, the idea that it is wrong to treat
others merely as means is "both very important and very hard to
pin down" (Glover 2006: 65). Our investigation has illustrated
challenges in specifying what it means to treat others merely as
means. It has not revealed one, univocal concept, grounded in common
sense, of what just using another amounts to. In the end, there may be
no such concept, but rather a set of overlapping notions, which point
to a range of morally problematic actions or attitudes concerning the
use of others.