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    Kant's Formula of Humanity prohibits treating persons mer... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→Persons can be differentially evaluated and valued for their particular qualities, accomplishments, merit, or usefulness.

    Kant's Formula of Humanity prohibits treating persons merely as means, but differential valuation by merit structurally reduces persons to their instrumental properties.

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    1 reason for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.Merit-based systems concentrate benefits on instrumental capacities (productivity, credentials), making those lacking such capacities invisible to moral consideration.
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    • 2.When institutions value persons primarily for measurable outputs, they logically discard individuals whose worth cannot be quantified or instrumentally leveraged.
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    • 3.Kant's Formula requires treating persons as ends-in-themselves; merit systems treat persons as conditional ends, contingent on performance.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
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    • 1.Valuing merit does not reduce persons to instrumental properties; it recognizes that exercising capacities is constitutive of human dignity and flourishing.
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    • 2.Differential reward based on merit can coexist with unconditional respect for human worth—one concerns distributive justice, the other concerns basic dignity.
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    • 3.Rejecting merit-based evaluation doesn't prevent treating people as means; poorly-designed egalitarian systems often ignore individual agency and choice.
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    Connections

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    Virtue Ethics1 linkedMoral Responsibility1 linked

    Related

    Differential reward based on merit can coexist with unconditional respect for hu...Kant's Formula requires treating persons as ends-in-themselves; merit systems tr...Merit-based systems concentrate benefits on instrumental capacities (productivit...Persons can be differentially evaluated and valued for their particular qualitie...
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    Rejecting merit-based evaluation doesn't prevent treating people as means; poorl...Valuing merit does not reduce persons to instrumental properties; it recognizes ...When institutions value persons primarily for measurable outputs, they logically...

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    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
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