Question

1. What is the difference between seeing a being as “a means to an end” and seeing a being as “an end within themselves”? Which one of these applied to humans, according to Kant, and why?

Answer 1

Kant has always advocated that one should act so that you always treat people as an end in themselves and never only as a means to an end. For instance lying to someone about borrowing money for books when in reality it's for an xbox is using that person merely as a means because you used them only for your own benefit and didn't take them into consideration.We have different kinds of duties in life:
a. Strong Duties: Refrains from treating humanity as a mere means
b. Weak Duties: Treat humanity only as an end in themselves and never as just merely an end

Kant understands weak duties differ from strong ones but still recognizes it as a duty and being kind as a duty;
We can be kind to the famine stricken, and it's not impossible to make their ends our ends.We have a weak duty to give to famine relief, meaning we're still morally required to help them as it allows us to see them as an end within themselves and not just as end in general