Mere and Partial Means: The Full Range of the Objectification of Women

Abstract

Kant discussed the moral wrong of treating people as mere means or as a means only. To treat people as means is to treat them as objects for our use. It is to objectify them. To treat people as a mere means is to treat them wholly as objects, rather than partially so. It is to have an objectifying manner that is absolute or unmitigated. Whether Kant meant to suggest that we commit a moral wrong only when we treat people as means absolutely, rather than partially, is debatable. My concern is with how feminist theorists writing on the objectification of women have followed Kant in emphasizing the extreme case of the mere means. These feminists have implied that the moral wrong of objectification occurs only with absolute objectification, as though between it and respecting someone's autonomy there were no degrees of objectification that are morally suspect. The relevant feminist work centres on such topics as women's reproductive freedom, their sexual freedom, and gender equity in employment.

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