Kingdom of ends
Kant's thought-picture of a community of rational beings systematically united under common laws — each at once legislator and subject.
The kingdom of ends is an imagined order in which the ends of all rational beings form a whole in systematic connection. Every rational being belongs to it as a member and plays a double role there: as a legislator who brings the common laws forth through reason, and as a subject who is himself bound by them.
The formula fuses autonomy and the humanity formula into a social ideal: act as if you were, through your maxims, a law-giving member of a kingdom of ends. Not a condition ever finally achieved — but the standard against which every real community must be measured.
Where it appears
- Ethics — The categorical imperative
- Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals — Structure & key ideas
Source: Wikipedia: Kingdom of ends