Is Humanity an End In Itself?

Is humanity an end in itself? The question might well seem trivial. After all, Kant seems to answer the question of what end has absolute worth and is therefore a categorical duty to make our own with the unequivocal answer “Humanity!” In- deed, in the English literature the second formula of the categorical imperative is usually called the formula of humanity. No less significantly, Korsgaard’s most influential reading of it claims that the very possession of humanity, the capacity to set ends and act in pursuit of them, entails commitment to the moral law – thus offering a powerful explanation of why Kant would assert that humanity is an end in itself: Humanity is the capacity that makes us subject to the moral law and members of the kingdom of ends.