Private Law Theory

ABSTRACT
For several decades, Kant scholars, inspired by the Groundwork false-promising example, have constructed consent-based criteria for using another merely as a means. Unfortunately, these consent-based accounts produce assessments that are both counter-intuitive and un-Kantian in relatively simple cases. This article investigates why these consent-based accounts fail and offers an alternative. The Groundwork false-promising example has encouraged a problematically narrow understanding of the conditions for using another merely as a means in virtue of the fact that the example involves a consent-sensitive duty. This article demonstrates that the scope of the prohibition on using another merely as a means includes both consent-sensitive and consent-insensitive duties and offers a duty-based account that reflects this.

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Melissa Seymour Fahmy, Never Merely as a Means: Rethinking the Role and Relevance of Consent, Kantian Review, Volume 28, Issue 1, March 2023, pp 41-62. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S136941542200053X. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 December 2022.