According to Kant we should never act in such a way that we treat Humanity, whether in ourselves or in others, as a means only but always as an end in itself. This is often seen as introducing the idea of "respect" for persons, for whatever it is that is essential to our Humanity. Intuitively, there seems something wrong with treating human beings as mere instruments with no value beyond this. Humanity must at the same time be treated as an end in itself.
'Humanity' in human beings that we must treat as an end in itself. Our 'Humanity' is that collection of features that make us distinctively human, and these include capacities to engage in self-directed rational behavior and to adopt and pursue our own ends, and any other capacities necessarily connected with these.
Kant's humanity formula (also called the end-in-itself formula) is a moral code stating that we should consider all rational creatures to be ends in themselves, rather than merely as a means to some end. This means that we must treat all human beings according to the dignity inherent, says Kant, in the rational nature of man.
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