MAN AS AN END IN ITSELF: A KANTIAN APPROACH TO THE IDEA OF A PERSON

Abstract

The main component in Kant’s idea of a person is the idea of man as an end in itself. This idea is always linked in Kant to the idea of freedom and to the idea of the formal character of the principles of morals and right. But the idea of an end in itself is obscure per se, and it is not easy to see how it is linked to the other two ideas. To throw light on it also clarifies the present state of the question, both as regards the concept of a person and as regards the relations between morals and right, since they constitute a set of questions that derive, almost all of them, either from Kant or from the polemic with him.