May I Treat A Collective As A Mere Means
American Philosophical Quarterly 51 (3):273-284 (2014)
Abstract
According to Kant, it is impermissible to treat humanity as a mere means. If we accept Kant's equation of humanity with rational agency, and are literalists about ascriptions of agency to collectives it appears to follow that we may not treat collectives as mere means. On most standard accounts of what it is to treat something as a means this conclusion seems highly implausible. I conclude that we are faced with a range of options. One would be to rethink the equation of humanity with rationality. Another would be to abandon the prohibition on treating as a means. The last would be to abandon literalist construals of attribution of agency to collectivesAuthor's Profile
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References found in this work
Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant's Practical Philosophy.Onora O'Neill - 1989 - Cambridge University Press.
Citations of this work
Corporate Crocodile Tears? On the Reactive Attitudes of Corporate Agents.Gunnar Björnsson & Kendy Hess - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94 (2):273–298.
Can a Corporation Be Worthy of Moral Consideration?Kenneth Silver - 2019 - Journal of Business Ethics 159 (1):253-265.
Group Agents and Moral Status: What Can We Owe to Organizations?Adam Lovett & Stefan Riedener - 2021 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 51 (3):221–238.
Collective Obligations and Demandingness Complaints.Brian Berkey - 2019 - Moral Philosophy and Politics 6 (1):113-132.
Does the Machine Need a Ghost? Corporate Agents as Nonconscious Kantian Moral Agents.Kendy M. Hess - 2018 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 4 (1):67-86.
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