Can someone please help me with my philosophy homework

Read this.

@BlipBlop forgot to tag you, click on link in prev. post.

Reply to fdrake Thank you! Do you maybe have an opinion on this? I can write more or less what it's all about but can't really figure out what I think about all this

Reply to BlipBlop

Coming up with what you think about it takes longer. Try writing down what you think the quote means, keep doing it until you think you've covered every aspect of it, and how every aspect relates to every other aspect... At some point you'll find things you either don't understand or find weird. If you find something weird, maybe you disagree with it, and at that point you've found a critical opinion of it.

Informed opinions begin with "huh", then you compare "huh" to what's happened before. Find the huh! Then you'll find the comparison.

"What does Kant mean when he claims that:"

First of all that's one of those blatantly illogical, in its literal interpretation, state university questions that propelled me to grab my summa cum and flee their non-thesis masters fellowship for the mundane of Earth's forests. The only source in the Universe for Kant's meaning is Kant.
...a philosophy class .?. So, this is how we "educate" philosophers.?. It feels like programming to destroy literal thinking.

Otherwise, I have nothing, am no help, and am a nobody in that order of grammatical delirium.

Kant is pretty difficult to read. This passage - link below, explains quite well:

"If then there is a supreme practical principle or, in respect of the human will, a categorical imperative, it must be one which, being drawn from the conception of that which is necessarily an end for everyone because it is an end in itself, constitutes an objective principle of will, and can therefore serve as a universal practical law. The foundation of this principle is: rational nature exists as an end in itself."

In short, what he's saying is that human beings are ends in themselves; not a means to an end - because they have a rational nature.

It's like, I go to the supermarket - and there's someone behind the counter. I completely forget they are a human being with feelings - (an end in themselves.) Gimme this, gimme that. I'd rather they had buttons so I could just poke them to get my stuff. (a means to an end.)

Human beings are an end in themselves because they are possessed of a rational nature, and that places a limit on your freedom as to how you act with regard to them. You can't just poke them.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-classicreadings/chapter/immanuel-kant-on-moral-principles/

Sorry I Kant help.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Reply to praxis :rofl: :up:

Reply to BlipBlop
I can remember struggling over a Kant essay. I was writing about the whole issue of means and ends and the topic I chose to focus on for some of the discussion was prostitution. So, that is an example of a life issue which you could think about and discuss.