四畳半神話大系 EP6, I encountered this sentence:
「ラブドールを性欲処理の道具にしか見ていない輩には分からないだろうが これは高尚な趣味である。」
In which the protagonist is introducing a love doll he has been engaging with romantically for some time.
I understand the gist of the sentence but I find the structure of the subject 「ラブドールを性欲処理の道具にしか見ていない輩」 weird. I've never noticed 見る used in this way. In the structure 「N1 を N2 に見る」, is N2 acting as an indirect object? Can you say this is equivalent to「N1 を N2 と判断する」?
As @Karl Knechtel points out, you just need to get accustomed to those slightly unusual usages of particles and the Aを道具に見る is one of those cases (Basically the same thing as English prepositions cannot be explained by a fixed set of clearly defined meanings.)
That said, AをBに見る appears much more normal if B is a location (and に as a location marker). For example, 東京タワーを右に見て進む means you go down with (looking at) Tokyo tower at your right.
As for ラ���ドールを性欲処理の道具にしか見ていない, 道具としか見ていない works as well, and perhaps better, meaning seeing as nothing more than a tool for.... I guess use of に is possible because 道具 is as a kind of status/position, which is (by stretch) a kind of location.
