Prohibition of instrumentalization

According to an ethical theorem first formulated by Immanuel Kant (1785), the complete instrumentalization of people as a violation of their dignity is always ethically prohibited. A complete instrumentalization is present when a person is used solely as a means of realizing purposes  (not his own) and is not respected as an end in itself. This idea is not least reflected in Article 1, paragraph 1 of the Basic Law. 

Kant, I. (1785): Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. Herausgegeben von Karl Vorländer. Hamburg: Meiner, 1994 (Philosophische Bibliothek 41). (German)

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