A basic moral challenge is sorting out how people should be treated. This is often formulated in terms of obligations to others, and the usual question is “what, if anything, do we owe other people?” While some would like to exclude economics from ethics, the burden of proof rests on those claiming the realm of money deserves exemption from ethics. While this could be done, it will be assumed that economic matters fall under morality. But there are many approaches to morality.

While I use virtue theory as my personal ethics, I find aspects of Kant’s ethical theory appealing, so let us see what Kant’s theory might entail for economic justice. In terms of how we should treat others, Kant takes as foundational that “rational nature exists as an end in itself.”

Kant supports his view by asserting that “a man necessarily conceives his own existence as such” and this applies to all rational beings. A rational being sees itself as being an end, rather than a thing to be used as a means to an end.  In my own case, I see myself as a person who is an end and not as a thing that exists to serve the ends of others. But some other people might see me differently.

Of course, the fact that I see myself as an end would not seem to require that I extend this to other rational beings (that is, other people). After all, I could see myself as an end and regard others as means to my ends—to be used for my profit as, for example, underpaid workers.

However, Kant claims that I must regard other rational beings as ends as well. The reason is straightforward and is based on an appeal to consistency: if I am an end rather than a means because I am a rational being, then consistency requires I accept that other rational beings are ends. After all, if being a rational being makes me an end, it would do the same for others. Naturally, it could be argued that there is a relevant difference between myself and other rational beings that would warrant me treating them as means and not as ends. People have, obviously enough, long endeavored to justify treating other people as things. Slavery in America provides an example of this, as do many modern economic practices. However, there seems to be no principled way to insist on my own status as an end while denying the same to other rational beings. Which, one might suspect, is why some people wish to claim that other people are not rational beings. Or are otherwise inferior in some way that makes them suitable as means.

From his view of rational nature, Kant derives his practical imperative: “so act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only.” This imperative does not mean that I must never treat a person as a means—that is allowed, provided I do not treat the person as a means only. So, for example, I would be morally forbidden from using people as mere means of revenue. I would, however, not be forbidden from having someone ring up my purchases at the grocery store—provided I treated the person as a person and not a mere means. One obvious challenge is sorting out what it is to treat a person as an end as opposed to just a means to an end. Some cases are obvious, such as enslaving another person. Other cases are more complex, such as hiring a person as a worker.

Many economic relationships seem to clearly violate Kant’s imperative in that they treat people as mere means and not at all as ends. To use an obvious example, if an employer treats her employees merely as means to profit and does not treat them as ends in themselves, then she is acting immorally by Kant’s standard. After all, being an employee does not rob a person of personhood.

One obvious reply is to question my starting assumption, namely that economics is not exempt from ethics. It could be argued that the relationship between employer and employee is purely economic and only economic considerations matter. That is, the workers are to be regarded as means to profit and treated in accord with this—even if doing so means treating them as things rather than people. The challenge is to show that the economic realm grants a special exemption to ethics. Of course, if it does this, then the exemption would be a general one. So, for example, people who decided to take money from the rich at gunpoint would be exempt from ethics as well. After all, if everyone is a means in economics, then the rich are just as much a means as employees and if economic coercion against people is acceptable, then so too is coercion via firearms. As always, the challenge the rich face in ethics is justifying their economic misdeeds while simultaneously condemning similar actions by the poor.

Another reply is to contend that might makes right. That is, the employer has the power and owes nothing to the employees beyond what they can force him to provide. This would make economics like the state of nature—where, as Hobbes said, “profit is the measure of right.” Of course, this leads to the same problem as the previous reply: if economics is a matter of might making right, then workers have the same right to use might against employers and the poor to use it against the rich.