Human means cannot be treated as pure instruments because man is himself an end.
Evidence
However, what distinguishes war and politics from all other techniques is that the material that is employed is a human material. Now human efforts and lives can no more be treated as blind instruments than human work can be treated as simple merchandise; at the same time as he is a means for attaining an end, man is himself an end. The word useful requires a complement, and there can be only one: man himself. And the most disciplined soldier would mutiny if skillful propaganda did not persuade him that he is dedicating himself to the cause of man: to his cause. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 110
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- DEEPTHINKING: The argument that ‘useful’ requires a complement — man himself — is the hinge that later grounds the claim that serving Man means serving particular men.
Related
- Acting for a cause is inseparable from acting for oneself (similarity 0.79)
- Serving abstract Man and serving this particular man do not overlap. (similarity 0.78)