Successful as in successfully propagating your genes, sure. There are other kinds of success - but it all can be resolved down to surviving and passing on your genes. — Harry Hindu

Damn man, Alexander the Great was so unsuccessful, he died at 32 and his only son died at 14 :D

where in the world does everyone actually have equal rights? Our leaders like to talk the talk, but don't walk the walk. It's nice to say it, but that doesn't make it true. Its one of the biggest lies in Western culture that we are all equal. We all make judgements of others as to how they look, behave, etc., and are attracted to those that look normal and behave as we do.

Surely, you and I both know of one person that treats others as they want to be treated. It only takes one example to demonstrate that, at least once, somebody acted for the end goal of ethics in itself. And even if the moral good was not a real thing, it is at least the perception of a moral good that makes it an end in itself. Side note: I also happen to think it is a real thing.

All three can be reduced to the ends of propagating one's genes. This isn't to say that genes have ends and means. Genes are simply mindless things — Harry Hindu

Great! So we do it to survive, but there's actually no reason to survive. Welcome to the modern world.

Yeah, that's cool with me. I just think that people are the ultimate ends. What else is there, other than you and I and our experiences of life?

Surely, you and I both know of one person that treats others as they want to be treated. It only takes one example to demonstrate that, at least once, somebody acted for the end goal of ethics in itself. And even if the moral good was not a real thing, it is at least the perception of a moral good that makes it an end in itself. Side note: I also happen to think it is a real thing. — Samuel Lacrampe

Ethics and morals are the same thing and I described morals as the rules of the society you find yourself born into. So to say that someone acted for the end goal of ethics in itself, is to say that they acted for the end goal of following those rules. The moral good are those rules that we follow as opposed to not following them. Being that different cultures have different rules, where you will be imprisoned for doing something that is encouraged in another culture (i.e. free speech), there is no moral good in the objective sense. We follow the rules in order to maintain our good standing within our social group so that we don't get imprisoned and that we continue to receive help, if needed, from other members. As a social species we are geared towards seeking out others of our kind for safety and survival. It is a survival strategy to follow the rules of the society your find yourself born into.

Great! So we do it to survive, but there's actually no reason to survive. Welcome to the modern world. — Wayfarer

Reasons and purposes are anthropomorphic but humans exist and are part of the world. So to say that there is no reason to survive would be to say that humans, and their reasons and purposes aren't part of the world. One good reason for my survival is to ensure that my kids grow up into happy adults.

I have heard ethics being called "The three R's": Right Response to Reality, or else, treating things according to their proper values. People are ends because they have a high value, but they are not the only thing. If God exists, then he has the greatest value of all, and is thus the ultimate end. Then comes angels, then humans, then animals, then plants, and so on, if we follow the Great Chain of Being. With regards to ethics, each ought to be treated as ends, proportionally to their proper values.

You may be right about free speech, but it is not a representative example because it is by no means an absolute. Let's look at Justice. Imagining justice to be bad and injustice to be good is impossible, like imagining a square circle. It is thus a moral absolute, independent of cultures. That is not to say that everyone is just, but that everyone understands justice to be morally good and injustice to be morally bad.

If God exists, then he has the greatest value of all, and is thus the ultimate end. — Samuel Lacrampe

I'd rather not think about "value" in relation to God or people. If people are "ends", then that precludes the concept of value, and the same for God. So the hierarchy that exists is one of being, in the sense that God is a supreme being, and we're finite. But that doesn't relate to value. If people had value, what would that value be in relation to? And the same for God. I just think it's a category error. People transcend value, and the same for God. When I hear "God...is thus the ultimate end", it makes me think of the Christian idea that man's purpose to is to glorify God. That makes no sense. In what way would God be an ultimate end? It's a conflation of the supreme nature of the divine with a sense of hierarchical value. Try as we might, we can't remove ourselves from our own experience, so the ultimate end for us has to be something that we can parse within our finite experience, and God as ultimate ends doesn't parse. It's rather that our ultimate end as people is to participate in creation with God. The creative urge is the divine urge. Participation with the divine is the noblest end possible.

If it is true that nothing has a value in itself except as a means to an end, then it follows that the means acquire value because the end must have value, and that if the end has no value, then neither does the means. Therefore, if beings are ends, then they must have value, because the means (like being just to all) has value.

If people had value, what would that value be in relation to? — Noble Dust

In relation to the value of other beings, like God, angels, other people, animals and plants. And the hierarchy of value is in the order shown. Thus we should treat plants as ends (that is, do good to them), as long as it does not conflict with the end of higher beings.

Try as we might, we can't remove ourselves from our own experience, so the ultimate end for us has to be something that we can parse within our finite experience, and God as ultimate ends doesn't parse. — Noble Dust

I agree that 'ought' implies 'can', that is, our end must be achievable. But this does not mean that we cannot achieve the end of treating God as the ultimate end, by obeying his will, such as loving our neighbours as ourselves. Such act is within our reach.