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Instructions:
Brief Passage of the Week:
Rubric:
Resource Link:
https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/kant1785
https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/kant1785
Immanuel Kant
1724-1804
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For reasons we’ll see as things go on
Kant is the heart of Western morality and politics
Understand Kant and you understand all of Western morality and politics (either directly or by contrast)
And you understand Eastern morality and politics (by contrast)
What is the Good?
What has value intrinsically–in and of itself?
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A good will
A good will is not a necessary and sufficient condition for being good–it is the only thing that can be good, purely, at all
Anything else commonly thought to be good (money, health, even happiness) can be quite bad (in what sense?) if secured by the actions of a will that is bad
What is the will?
Loosely, the motive for one’s actions
More precisely:
The self conscious causal source of one’s actions
What makes a good will good?
It’s intrinsic character
Not in virtue of what it can effect or accomplish (or fail to…)
NB: a standing denial of consequentialism
How is a good will demonstrated?
Note the concern with demonstration and not development
Kant’s concern is with the Metaphysics of Morals, not the development of good moral character (cf. Aristotle)
A good will is demonstraded
By acting from duty
Not just in accord with duty
Parallel case of acting from and in accord with a rule
E.g., stay near to the surface of the Earth
When do we act from duty?
To answer this question, we must introduce and discuss the notion of an imperative
An imperative is a command
It purports to constrain one’s actions or beliefs in a certain way
That is, if one has an imperative to do or not do something, one is under an obligation to either do or not do that
Imperatives are of 2 kinds
Hypothetical: If you want ‘X’ (where X is some other object or reward), then you must (that’s the imperative part) do ‘Y’ (where Y is some action)
The force of a hypothetical imperative derives from the ultimate desire for the object or reward whose attainment is conditioned on the means (the X)
In a hypothetical imperative
The constraint is completely exhausted by the ultimate value
In other words, if one no longer accepts the ultimate value (desires it, etc.), one is completely released from the obligation
One is not obligated to do Y (for example) tout court
Example of a hypothetical imperative
If you want to succeed in this era of globalization, you had better get a college degree
As you can see, this imperative is completely conditional on your acceptance of and desire for the ultimate value: success in this era of globablization
On the other hand
A categorical imperative commands absolutely
Do ‘Y’
Without condition
Absolutely
Example of a categorical imperative (for Kant)
For Kant, the imperative ‘Don’t lie’ is categorical (more on this example later)
The obligation to tell the truth is never conditioned on some other good or value
E.g., ‘Tell the truth unless you think it will hurt their feelings’, etc.
The fundamental question for Kant is whether there are indeed such imperatives
Think of what Mill would say
The position of the will vis-à-vis imperatives
The will lies, as it were, at the nexus of imperatives
That is, the will can be inclined either hypothetically or categorically
So one can have a will to ‘Do Y if X holds’
Or one can have a will to simply ‘Do Y’, come what may
Graphic representation of this
Categorical Hypothetical
The Will
Action
The role of inclinations in the determination of the will
When the will is determined hypothetically, it is inclinations that serve as the psychological source of the will’s state
That is, what makes one obey a hypothetical command (or ignore it) is one’s peculiar and contingent tastes, predispositions, and nature
In sum
Our inclinations are those peculiar facts about us that determine which hypothetical imperatives bind our wills and which do not
When the will is determined categorically
There are no peculiar facts that condition or limit the scope of the imperative
One is bound to ‘Do Y’, no matter what one’s peculiar facts, etc.
In this sense alone, Kant claims that one’s will is determined by duty
Note: one’s will can’t be categorically determined to be bad
In the case of a categorical determination
Only then is the psychological source of the action truly something of moral value
By being categorical, it takes on an objectivity (and hence a value) that no hypothetically determined motive or action can have
Morality cannot be tied to hypothetical motives
No moral credit for inclinations
Graphic representation
Duty Inclination
Categorical
Hypothetical
The Will
Action
Dr. Ruth vs. Dr. Laura
An example of acting from inclination and acting against inclination and from duty
Even though the actions are consequentially identical, only one demonstrates a conscious concern with duty
Acting against inclination as a test
The Kantian moral hero
According to Kant
Whatever the dictates of morality are, they have to be framed as absolute imperatives
Why?
Because if they need not be, then morality would be conditional, but as we’ll see later, this, for Kant, undermines the notions of absolute value, absolute respect, and absolute dignity
For this reason
Only categorical imperatives can serve as ‘expressions’ or ‘reflections’ of duty
That is, only when the will is determined by duty is one acting morally
Kant argues that there is only one categorical imperative
That is, one overarching expression of what is truly your moral duty
It can, however, take many forms
That is, there are several different expressions of the one absolute form of your moral duty, but these are all inter-translatable
Universal law version
Act only on that maxim that you could at the same time will to be a universal law for all rational beings as such
Question: what is a maxim?
A maxim is a rule that one is consciously following as the psychological source of one’s action
Violations of the categorical imperative
Violations of the CI are rational incoherencies
That is, violations of the moral law are irrational
This is how Kant grounds morality in rationality
That is, value, respect, and dignity are founded not on an assertion of some other value, but on the very (non-normative) notion of rationality itself
A digression on this important point
Typically, questions of ‘why be moral?’ are only answerable with a direct appeal to yet more values
But this just supports one kind of value judgment (morality) with another (think of Mill)
But Kant thinks he’s accomplished the breathtaking feat of grounding morality not on more values, but on rationality or coherence itself
So
To be immoral is to be irrational
And one can’t rationally will to be irrational (cf. Mill’s test)
Kant’s examples of CI violations
The violations (i.e., incoherencies) come in two types
Contradiction in the maxim
Lying
Suicide from self love
Contradiction in the will
Homelessness
South Sea islanders
Other formulations: logically equivalent
Ends in themselves
The second version of the categorical imperative
Treat humanity, whether in yourself or in others, always as an end in itself and never as a means only
Violations of this version are violations of dignity
Dignity vs. fancy price
To say something has a price is to say that it’s value is conditional or hypothetical
Once it ceases to serve the purpose for which it was purchased (or some other one since discovered), it no longer has that price
To say that something has a price at all is to place it in the realm of means
To say something has dignity is to say it exists outside the realm of means completely by having no conceivable price
Respect vs. like
To respect something is to treat it with unconditional awe and place it outside the realm of fungible goods
To like something is precisely express one’s valuation of something, where this valuation is wholly owing to one’s inclinations
Respect is wholly independent of inclination, hence conditioned only on duty itself
Hence, something that can be commanded absolutely
So, to use a rational being is to give it a price
But to give it a price is to value it as an object of exchange and not an object of respect
No one could conceivably wish themselves to be viewed or treated that way
Hence any action which did treat others as means only could never pass the universal law version, and vice-versa
Hence the two are equivalent
The third form of the categorical imperative
Formula of autonomy
Only those actions which are justified exclusive of inclination count as actions of which one is the sole author
Auto-nomous: giving the law to oneself; being the origin of the law
Actions as the result of inclination, if they conflict with duty, are heteronomous
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Kant’s notion of the moral self
For Kant, the center of the moral self is in the faculty responsible for the rational appreciation of duty, respect, dignity, etc.
The faculty responsible for the inclinations is, though perhaps psychologically central, morally irrelevant
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The fourth form of the categorical imperative
Kingdom of ends
Act as a legislator in the kingdom of ends
The moral law as not some dogma imposed from without, but rather as the only justifiable system of treatment when analyzed from within
This ties morality to politics as the source of political fairness
So, what is a good will?
A will is good that cannot be bad
That is, a will that cannot fail to pass the tests for duty contained within the categorical imperative
Any will that does not fail that, cannot be bad, and hence, for Kant, must be good
What else would it be?
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