At first look, one may presume that German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, does not directly address his opinion regarding animal ethics. However, by understanding and further interpreting Kant’s theory and principal values, his outlook on human relations with animals becomes lucid. First, it is essential to know and comprehend the most basic components of Kant’s view. According to Kantian ethics, the rightness or wrongness of a behavior depends on whether it fulfills moral duty and the intent that perpetuates the behavior, in contrast to John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism which is judged based on what action yields the least harm and/or most good. An action can only be considered morally worthy if morality was the sole motivation behind the action, rather than personal feelings or aspirations. More simply put, you would do something because it is your moral duty, regardless of whether you want to or not. Kant (1959) repeatedly refers to what is known as the “Categorical Imperative," which constitutes that humans should “Act only on a maxim that you can will as a universal law”(p.429). This basically means that an act is immoral if you cannot will the act as an absolute law that applies to all people, and is fundamentally the same as the popular Biblical proverb “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Another complex concept that is often alluded to by Kant is the view of people as “ends in or of themselves” versus using people as “mere means." Kant (1959) explains “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means but always at the same time as an end” (p.43). For every action taken, there is an end game in mind and the people or objects used to achieve that end goal are called means. Kant does not condemn using people as means, but rather using them as mere means. The main difference between using someone as means versus mere means is the other person’s informed consent. An example Kant used to illustrate this is false promising. If someone has the goal of obtaining a loan of one thousand dollars and succeeds by borrowing from a friend and promising to repay them within one month’s time, but has no true intention of paying the money back, then they have used false promising as a way to deceive their friend, thus using the friend as mere means. If the friend had known that the lender did not intend on repaying the loan, they most likely would not have consented the transaction. Just as an animal would not be likely to willingly consent to being painfully experimented on by a cosmetic research company. All of the aforementioned principles of Kantian ethics can be related