| | William, Kant's use of that phrase -- that men are always ends, and never a mere means (to an end) -- is illegitimate. His ethics would praise actions (duties) that are, psychologically, unbeneficial to the acting agent. Actions are more moral if they don't also make you happy (actions that make you happy are less moral, or even amoral). The rub is that a man (the acting agent) has just been treated as a means to an end -- and not as an end in himself.
For Rand, the phrase applies universally (it is even true of the moral agent, for no other reason than because he's a man); but for Kant, the phrase only, operationally, applies to "other" men, men besides the acting moral agent -- and that is contradictory and, therefore, illegitimate.
Kant said it first, but Rand was the first to legitimately state it in a legitimate context including all acting agents -- ie. as a noncontradictory moral principle.
Ed
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