Greg asked:

I was watching TV and a news magazine did a story about a little girl who had leukemia and she was
dying. So the parents used a new type of technology to treat her by using cells from another baby
which the parents conceived. Many fertilized eggs were scanned, and the helpful one was her new
baby brother, and others destroyed. Is this against Kantian ethics because they are using a human as
a means to an end, even though the girl was saved by this procedure?

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Kant would have found the use of cells from one body to save another's life morally acceptable.
Taking cells from a baby's body is treating the baby with disrespect since he has not given his
consent, and this is treating him purely as a means to an end.

In the GroundworkKant talks of persons mainly as rational beings as ends-in-themselves, but in
Lectures on Ethics,he speaks of persons as opposed to things and of the essential ends of
"humanity". Man, Kant says, is "a person, not a thing and therefore not a means" and we must revere
humanity. We have human duties towards ourselves, of self-preservation and self-esteem and "we
may treat our body as we please, provided our motives are those of self-preservation". Passing cells
from one person to another is not motivated by self-preservation, but in an adult person who knows
what he is doing the ends of reverence for humanity and self-esteem are present, and so long as the
loss of cells does not cause harm, there is no violation of the self-preservation principle.

In the case of the baby, it seems to be a case of treating him as a "thing" and a mere means.
Furthermore, Kant says that humanity, honour and the moral life are more important than life itself. It
would seem that if life is not to be prized in itself then it shouldn't matter if the little girl dies of
leukaemia! But on the assumption that the little girl is honourable, or "worthy to live", and only if she is
worthy does she have a duty of self-preservation, then it is her moral duty to receive the cells. The
answer is probably that consent is not necessary when taking cells from a baby if this is not harmful
as long as we are sure that if the baby could give his consent he would do so. As a moral person he
would not let his sister die, but would consent. If he was willing to let his sister die when he could
help, he would not be a worthy person and could be treated as such and his cells could be taken
without his consent.

Further support that Kant would find this acceptable is his comment "a person can serve as a means
for others (e.g. by his work) but only in a way whereby he does not cease to be a person and an end."
While the baby is not a worker, he does not cease to be a person in the sense that he loses no
honour through this donation because he has done no wrong.

Rachel Browne

I think that your analysis is right, provided that fertilized eggs are regarded as humans. In this case,
not one but many humans were used as means to an end.

However, a Kantian might not have to agree with this. For Kant, humans were special solely because
they are (finite) rational beings. Animals do not receive protection under this version of the
Categorical Imperative because they are not rational beings. If you say that a fertilized egg is also not
a rational being (as it is as yet incapable of rationality), then you can escape the analysis you put
forward.

Tim Sprod