JUSTICE AS

THE KINGDOM OF ENDS

Yuanmo Hu

New York University Abu Dhabi

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Justice as the Kingdom of Ends

Yuanmo Hu

The meaning of social justice has been a central topic of political philosophy

since ancient Greece. Plato and Aristotle argued that justice is for each individual to

fulfill his function, and take his place in the society accordingly.123

Consequentialists

such as Bentham and Mill gave interpretations of social justice in the form of

maximization of collective welfare.4 5

Deontologists such as Kant gave a very

different formula to justice, requiring people to act in accordance with their duties

rather than be driven by bodily pleasure, based upon a social contract.678

While these

philosophers and theorists gave varied definitions, interpretations, and principles of

justice, we tend to think that the debate is more than semantics: there is something in

common that makes us believe they were indeed attempting to answer the same

question.

A careful review of these theories leads me to the following conclusion:

1. Justice is grounded in morals. All three sorts of theory are inherently rooted in

their respective ethical system. Aristotle argued that the polis is necessary for the

1 Cooper, John M., and D. S. Hutchinson. Plato: Complete Works. Hackett Publishing, 1997. Republic

2 Irwin, Terence, and Gail Fine. Aristotle: Selections. Hackett Publishing, 1995.

3 Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Ed. Roger Crisp. Cambridge University Press, 1996.

4 Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Dover, 2007.

5 Mill, J. S. On Liberty & Utilitarianism. Bantam Classics, 1993.

6 Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Eds. Mary J. Gregor, and Jens Timmermann.

Cambridge University Press, 2012. 7 Kant, Immanuel, and Roger J. Sullivan. The Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge University

Press, 1996. 8 Kant, Immanuel. Practical Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 1999. Theory and Practice

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fulfillment of human nature because the community is where intelligence and

virtue come from. Mill believed that justice is a shared sentiment toward morality

and hence utility. Kant based his theory of justice upon the human capacity of

reason, arguing that justice is submission to the general legislative will.

2. Justice is in the public realm. All three theories have the human society as the

foundation of justice and argue that actions are to be taken in consideration of

others.

Therefore justice is the question of morality in the public realm. Though justice takes

different forms in different contexts, this paper concerns itself with only distributive

justice, that is, what is moral distribution of certain things, whether they are wealth or

rights.

There is a hierarchy of justice concerning these two types of distribution. Goods

and other forms of wealth are only good for some other ends rather than good in

themselves. The discussion of moral distribution of wealth thus inevitably has to be

based on a discussion of moral distribution of rights which is something that is good

in itself. Failure to answer the latter question only results in moral nihilism in the

former, rendering the discussion of the distribution of wealth meaningless. Therefore

we must first understand what moral distribution of rights means.

The most obvious answer to this question is fairness. But that can be interpreted

in a number of ways. Immanuel Kant bases his discussion of basic rights on the

quality that makes men worthy of them – rationality. Kant believes that to recognize

and respect one’s due rights is to recognize him as a law-giving member of human

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action. When one forms a maxim, he can only act according to it if he can will it to

become a universal law. That is, an action is only morally permissible if every rational

agent can will to act the same way without causing logical contradictions. This right is

described by Kant as a simple formula known as the Kingdom of Ends formula. In

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals9, Kant writes, “a human being and

generally every rational being exists as an end in itself, not merely as a means for the

discretionary use for this or that will, but must in all its actions, whether directed

towards itself or also to other rational beings, always be considered at the same time

as an end.”(4:428) Kant explains that rational beings are ends in themselves because

they are “entities whose existence in itself is an end, an end such that no other end can

be put in its place, for which they would do service merely as means.”(4:428)

However, in the Groundwork, the formula of the Kingdom of Ends seems to be

only an attitude or a motive. It is something that is processed in the rational mind

prior to action. In other words, the application of this formula is not observable from

the outside. Kant does not elaborate on how the principle of treating someone as an

end in itself should be applied in situations in the real world. That is, of course, not

saying that the principle itself is problematic. Indeed, all actions are driven and guided

by motives. A correct motive necessarily leads to morally permissible actions, which

is what Kant expects of us. The Kingdom of Ends formula as a principle of justice is a

guideline for the distribution of rights. It requires everyone to equally distribute the

right of law-giving among all rational agents.

9 Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Eds. Mary J. Gregor, and Jens Timmermann.

Cambridge University Press, 2012.

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However, in reality it is often difficult to act only in accordance with reason. It is

especially challenging in the context of social research because the subjects of these

researches are all human beings. Conducting researches on them involves all kinds of

moral issues where a clear guideline is in dire need. Therefore this paper aims at

explaining the Kingdom of Ends formula as a standard of justice in social research. I

will discuss how the formula should be applied in social research, and test several

creeds of social research against the formula to see whether they are morally

permissible.

Some people claim that the formula is not a practical one: we seem to treat people

merely as a means to some other end all the time in daily lives. For example, when we

call a taxi, we seem to only pay for the driving, while the identity of the driver really

does not matter to us. In other words, the driver seems only good for an end –

transportation – in this transaction. The driver’s identity as a rational human being

seems irrelevant, for all we care it could even be software that do the driving, as long

as it gets us to our destinations. Similarly for construction workers, we pay for

apartments in buildings they built, but we rarely care about who the workers are. They

seem to be only good for an end – construction. Their status as rational agents seems

to be absent in our mind. It seems that we are treating them merely as means to other

ends rather than ends in themselves. The people who believe in this thought structure

will then reach the conclusion that the Kingdom of Ends formula is not practical to

say the least, because the human society cannot function without these transactions.

These disbelievers fail to see that these transactions that involve human effort

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only seem morally impermissible because they have the wrong will. It is necessary to

understand that an action has two parts: the will in the mind, and the act in the body.

The former is what distinguishes actions from mere reflexes such as breathing and

blinking – the will does not control the body to act in these circumstances. While an

action and a reflex may appear the same from the outside, their internal structure may

well be different. For example, blinking and winking are both quick shutting and

opening of eyes. They may look the same for an observer, but the former lacks a will.

The same action can also be done from different wills, that is, different motives. The

morality of an action is judged based on its will, rather than its act, because the act is

merely a physical motion with no moral content. For example, saving a drowning

child seems to be a noble action, but its nobility really cannot be told without

understanding the savior’s motive. While doing it from one’s imperfect duty10

to

benefit others is a noble act against one’s inclination (i.e. not to risk one’s own life),

doing it for the expectation of later laudation is not morally permissible. Saving the

child out of selfish desires only treats the child as a means to one’s own glory rather

than an end in himself.

Thus it is obvious why transactions of human service can be from a will that

comes from the Kingdom of Ends formula. Assuming the taxi drivers chose their jobs

out of free will, treating them as ends in themselves means respecting their status as

law-giving members of the human society. With that in mind, we may check whether

the maxim of buying human service can be willed to become a universal law. The

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An imperfect duty is not moral obligatory. It is only a duty because absence of it would be an undesirable scenario. Since it is imperfect, rational agents are not required to do it in all circumstances but expected to because of its moral value.

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answer is obvious: the driver, as a legislative member in the forming of this universal

law, would have no problem with this transaction. In fact, it is exactly him who chose

to provide this service in exchange for money. So long as both parties agree on a price

for a set commodity (in this case a route), there is no contradiction for the maxim of

buying the service to become a universal law. Therefore hiring a taxi is morally

permissible. It is of course not morally laudable like the savior of the drowning child,

because the customer does not act against his inclinations in this transaction. But the

buying and selling of labor is not intrinsically wrong in any way, as long as both sides

treat each other as law-giving members when they test their maxims in this

transaction to reach consensus.

Now that we have established the legitimacy and practicality of the Kingdom of

Ends formula being a standard of justice, we may examine its applications in social

research. I will nominate a few widely accepted guidelines and test them against the

kingdom of ends formula to see whether they really are just.

First of all I pick the beneficence principle from the Belmont Report11

. It states

that researches should avoid harm while maximizing possible benefits. The principle

requires the researcher to not intentionally cause injury and present reasonable risks to

the participants. However, endorsing the principle of double effect, the principle also

recognizes that risks must be permitted in many forms of researches so that the

investigator can obtain meaningful data that distinguish harmful from beneficial

outcomes. In other words, collateral damage upon the participants may be necessary

11

National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Bethesda, MD. The Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research. ERIC Clearinghouse, 1978.

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and is allowed in the researches, as long as the participants are informed of them.

Initially this principle seems odd, since risking harming people for the sake of

research results seems to be using the participants as merely means to the researcher’s

ends. However, a more careful examination of the principle would reveal the crucial

difference from the collateral in this case than in other cases such as war: the

participants have been made aware of the risks and have chosen to carry on

nonetheless. The crucial principle of complete information acknowledges the status of

the participants as rational agents and ergo ends in themselves. This principle allows

them to make decisions to participate and being harmed (reasonably) out of their

autonomy. Therefore they are not merely means in this scenario. The principle of

beneficence is indeed just.

However, it is important to notice that the principle of beneficence is also not a

moral obligation, but only an imperfect duty – to maximize benefits and to minimize

harm should not be required of us in all circumstances.

A second idea is the belief that a research must benefit its participants and target

area before benefiting anyone else. In other words, this belief claims that conducting

research in one place on one set of participants and only benefiting another set of

people in another place is unjust, because the participants carry the burden of research

but do not enjoy the benefits. This is a nuanced derivative of the beneficence principle

discussed above, focusing on the scope of recipients of the benefits.

To act according to this principle describes is certainly morally permissible.

However the principle becomes problematic when it suggests that it is a moral

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obligation. In fulfilling an imperfect duty, the choice of recipients really is not morally

relevant. Since all rational agents are law-giving members of this action, it would

make no sense to discriminate one group from another, since they are all equal in their

capability to reason.

The argument that the participants ought to receive benefits because they carry

burdens is not valid. As discussed in the principle of beneficence, reasonable harm to

the participants is morally permissible as long as they were fully aware of the risk and

the potential harm prior to the research, that is, if they are treated as autonomous

rational agents.

The third example is the belief that the researcher can break the law in his

research for the welfare of his participants. This belief may be held in very specific

scenarios where the participants may be involved in illegal conducts and the law

states that all crimes must be reported. For example, a researcher might want to

conduct a research on migrant workers in a country where a large proportion of

migrant workers gained entry illegally. However the country’s law requires him to

report any and all crimes, either ongoing or in the past, to the authorities. The

researcher realizes that following the law would mean that a lot of his subjects will be

deported and ergo lose his financial source for living. Feeling sympathetic toward the

illegal workers, the researcher may be tempted to conceal that information from the

authorities.

This action deviates from the Kingdom of Ends formula and is ergo unjust. A

rational agent must realize that it is a moral obligation to obey the laws at all times,

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even when the laws are unjust. The rationale is that the laws being unjust does not

undermine the necessity for law as the foundation of human civil society. If the

maxim of breaking a law is to become a universal law, the laws would be meaningless

as guidelines of human action. Therefore to break one law is to completely destroy the

entire legal system. That is to say, the action of breaking the law cannot possibly come

from one’s autonomy, because autonomy comes solely from one’s capability of reason.

So aiding the participants in concealing their crimes is not respecting their autonomy.

Moreover, doing so is in fact treating them as mere means to a contingent end, i.e.

welfare, rather than respecting them as ends in themselves. The Kingdom of Ends

formula requires the researcher to obey the law and report the crime, which is only

true way of respecting what reason should tell the participants to do – receive

punishment for their illegal conducts.

In this paper I have discussed a Kantian standard of social justice, proved its

practicality, and tested existing guidelines of social research against it. The power of

the Kingdom of Ends formula is its conciseness and universality. It is the duty of the

researchers to apply the formula in different circumstances where factors may change

to affect the conclusion. In any case, it is essential to remember that justice as a moral

principle always precedes bodily comforts, and that justice is the sole standard for

ethical social research.