ABSTRACT
When Alan Gewirth claims that the Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC) 1 is the supreme principle of morality because its acceptance is dialectically necessary for agents, 2 he assigns it the same status that Kant claims for his Categorical Imperative (KCI)—that it is a synthetic a priori principle. 3 But the PGC and the KCI—as Kant interprets it in his Formula of Humanity (FoH),
So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means
(Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals [GMM] 4:429) 4 —are incompatible principles. This is because, unlike Kant's FoH, the PGC requires an agent (call her ‘Agnes’) to respect (not to interfere with and, in certain circumstances, to protect) the generic conditions of agency (GCAs) of all agents subject to the will of the recipient agent. The PGC prohibits Agnes from voluntarily damaging her own GCAs or permitting others to so harm her only if her doing so would damage the GCAs of other agents disproportionately against their will, whereas Kant's FoH categorically prohibits such actions unless they are necessary to protect Agnes or others from equivalent or greater harm. This difference 5 is due to the fact that Gewirth's argument for the PGC rests on it being dialectically necessary for Agnes to accept the Principle of Hypothetical Imperatives (PHI):‘If doing X or having X is necessary for Agnes to pursue/achieve her chosen purpose E, then Agnes ought to do X or pursue/defend having X, or give up E.’ 6
