Appropriately Using People Merely as a Means

Criminal Law and Philosophy 10 (4):777-794 (2016)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

There has been a great deal of philosophical discussion about using people, using people intentionally, using people as a means to some end, and using people merely as a means to some end. In this paper, I defend the following claim about using people: NOT ALWAYS WRONG: using people—even merely as a means—is not always morally objectionable. Having defended that claim, I suggest that the following claim is also correct: NO ONE FEATURE: when it is morally objectionable to use people, this is for many different kinds of reasons—there is no one wrong-making feature that every morally objectionable using has in common. After discussing these claims, I use them to present and motivate what I call the “precaution” theory of norms against using people. I conclude by considering a few cases from the criminal law context—cases that are naturally described as using people—to assess the moral appropriateness of this kind of use in these cases, and to demonstrate how the theory applies to the real world.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-11-27

Downloads
167 (#106,178)

6 months
5 (#244,526)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Alex Guerrero
Rutgers - New Brunswick

References found in this work

Transcending the Means Principle.Alec Walen - 2014 - Law and Philosophy 33 (4):427-464.

Add more references