kant review

8/7/2019 Kant Review

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Kantian Ethics Reviewby Matthew Mosdell

Immanuel Kant is one of the the most sophisticated thinkers in the history of philoso-phy. His sophistication, however, often makes him difficult to understand. In this review,I want to try to clear up some potential areas of confusion while retaining the profoundinsight Kant brought to moral philosophy. To do this, were going to proceed much as wedid with our discussion of utilitarianism. First, however, I want to get some terminologyout on the table. (Ill be using these concepts below, so you might want to take a momentto familiarize yourself with them.)

Maxim: A rule or principle for living. For example, I might hold the maxim that whenit is in my best interest, I will lie.

Hypothetical Imperative: Conditional ought statements. In other words, a hypo-thetical imperative tells the individual what they should do if they want somethingelse. For example, if I want to be a chef, then I ought to go to culinary school.

Categorical Imperative: Unconditional ought statements. In other words, a categor-ical imperative tells the individual what they should do categoricallythat is, in allcases. For example, one ought not lie is a categorical imperative.

Will: the aspect of a mind capable of forming an intention.

Volition: the act of willing.

Now that we have these terminological points in hand, we can begin the task of tryingto understand Kant. As I mentioned above, Im going to sketch the basics of Kantsideas much as I did those of utilitarianism. Hence, Ill start by offering a brief thoughtexperiment that will help you (hopefully) get hold of the distinction between deontologyand consequentialism. Once thats out of the way, well then proceed to the descriptiveaspect of Kants moral philosophy. Next we will turn to the prescriptive component, andnally, Ill briey sketch one formidable criticism that has been leveled against Kantianmoral philosophy.

First, lets look at a thought experiment. Suppose you are walking through the junglesof Panama (for example, the Dorian Gap) and stumble across a prison camp. The prison-

ers are a group of twenty nuns who were captured during a humanitarian-aid mission tolocal childrenthat is, the prisoners are innocent, they havent done anything to deservepunishment. Unfortunately for the prisoners, however, the leader of the camp is a viciousman who gets pleasure out of seeing people die, and on the day you stumble into camp hejust happens to be looking for entertainment. Of course, once youre spotted wanderingthrough the camp, he immediately captures you, and due to his twisted mind, presentsyou with the following problem. After lining the nuns up against a wall he tells you thatyou have two options. On the rst option, you dont have to do anything. However, on

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this option, your abstaining from action means he will kill all twenty nuns, after whichhe will let you go free. On the second option, you have to do something you dont wantto do. Specically, you have to kill one of the nuns. If you take this option and kill oneof the nuns yourself, he will let you and the remaining nineteen nuns go free. So whatshould you do? More specically, what are you morally obligated to do, or what is theright ethical choice?

If you think you are morally obligated to kill one of the nuns so you and the othernineteen can go free, then youre thinking like a consequentialist. If you think youremorally obligated to refrain from action, even though that means all twenty nuns willdie, then youre thinking like a deontologistthat is, youre thinking as Kant would haveyou think. So whats the difference? Well, the consequentialist thinks we are morallyobligated to do whatever leads to the best consequences, and clearly killing one nun leadsto the best consequences. On the other hand, the deontologist thinks we are morallyobligated to do (or avoid doing, as the case may be) whatever we have a duty to do, andsince most people think they have a duty not to kill innocent people, moral obligation

demands they not kill the innocent nun. So the question we need to ask is, How dodeontologists go about guring out what they have a duty to do/avoid doing?To answer that question, were best off turning to Kants moral philosophy. Recall

that moral propositions need something to make them true. For example, the moralproposition, It is wrong to kill innocent children, needs something by which it is madetrue. For the consequentialist, the thing that makes that proposition true is its conse-quences, but Kant rejects consequentialism. Hence, he needs something that can makemoral propositions true, but does not rest on consequences. In other words, Kant needsto nd something which is good in itselfthat is, he needs something by which TheGood is constituted. Looking around at possibilities, Kant settles on the Will; for Kant,the only thing capable of being good in itself is a Good Will, the goodness of everything else seems to rest on how the will is exercised. Heres that argument: 1

1. The will is the only thing that can impart value. (P)

2. We value things. (P)

3. The value of all these things depends on the will. (1, 2)

4. If x depends for its goodness on y, then y is more basically good than x. (P)

5. The goodness of the will is more basic than the sundry things we value. (3, 4)

Central to this argument is the notion of a Will. Recall from above that the Will is anaspect of the mind by which intentions are formed. This means that a Good Will is goingto be the ability of a mind to form good intentions. But how do we know what makes anintention good? To answer this question, we need to understand Kants commitment to

1 In the argument, the parenthetical Ps mean premise (something for which we are not ar-guing). The parenthetical numbers tell you from where that step was derived. So, for example,step 3 in this argument was derived from steps 1 and 2.

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reason. For Kant, morality is a function of reason, and this means that it is by the powersof reason that one determines what is and is not good. So to determine if an intention isgood, we need to investigate the powers of reason. Doing so is going to move us into theprescriptive aspect of Kants moral philosophy.

Because Kant thinks the dictates of morality can be derived strictly from reason, heneeds to gure out what moral obligations one is committed to in virtue of being a rationalcreature. To put this point a bit differently, Kant thinks that it is only creatures with thepower to reason that have the capacity to understand abstract concepts like the conceptGood. If thats right, then guring out what the concept Good is will need to be doneby our faculty of reason. Moreover, since only rational creatures will be able to reasonto the Good, it is only to these kinds of creatures that morality will apply. And thismeans that anything that is capable of having a Good Intention is something that has thecapacity to reason. Notice that this move by Kant to the level of shared reasons moves usout of the domain of subjective reason and into the domain of reasons as such. In otherwords, we move to a domain of thinking where we are looking at what would count as a

reason for anything that is a rational creature.Lets pause for a moment and think about where we are in Kants thinking. So farweve denied that consequences can be good in themselves and looked at an argumentfor why we should locate the goodness of right actions in the Will. Next, we wonderedwhat it is that makes a Will good, and saw that it must be some principle of reason. Nowwe need to look at different principles of reason and see which, if any, of those principlesapply across the boardthat is, which principles of reason are categorical.

When we start to think about the reasons for action, we notice that some reasons arehypothetical. In other words, we notice that some of our reasons for action depend on theends we want to achieve. These reasons take the form of conditional ought statementsand are known as hypothetical imperatives . For example, if I want to be a philosopher, Ishould read a bunch of philosophy books and take some courses. Or, again, if I want toget my car working, I should take it to a good mechanic. Of course, many of our actionsare going to be governed by reasons of this hypothetical kind, but some of our actionswill be governed by reasons based on categorical principles. The idea here is that someof our actions will be in accord with specic principles of livingthat is, maximswhichare not motivated by any specic end. For example, I might have the fun maximthatis, a principle of living that tells me to have fun. This principle is not directed to someother end, but is, rather, an end in itself. This means that how I live is going to beinuenced by the categorical imperatives I adopt. Again, theres going to be a lot of different maxims for a lot of different people (both of the hypothetical and categorical

variety), but what Kant is interested in is seeing if there are any principles of action thatapply to rational creatures as such. What Im suggesting, then, is that Kant is going totry guring out if there are categorical imperativesthat is, principles of living that areends in themselvesthat everyone should adopt because theyre rational.

To gure out if there are any such principles, Kant designs a universalizability test.Take any maxim that you think is of the categorical variety, apply the universalizabilitytest to the maxim, and if it passes the test, you can be sure that you have a principle of living that applies to all rational creatures. In order to see how the universalizability test

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works, lets step our way through it.

Take any maxim and ask yourself the following two questions, in order:

1. Can I conceive of my maxim as a universal law?This is conceptual test. What were looking for is to see if making the maxima universal law creates a contradiction. For example, take the maxim Whenconvenient, I will make false promises. In this case, the answer is that sucha maxim is conceptually contradictory; we cant make lying a universal law of action without creating a contradiction. So, because of that fact, we have aperfect duty not to lie. If there is no conceptual contradiction, then we moveon to question 2.

2. Can I will my maxim to be universal law?This is a volitional test. What were looking for here is to see if willing suchan action to be universal law would cause the will to contradict itself. For

example, take the maxim I will be lazy. In this case, such a maxim isvolitionally contradictory. This is so because the very act of willing to be lazyrequires one to not be lazy. So, because of this fact, we have an imperfect dutynot to be lazy.

If we can think of a maxim that passes both of these tests, then we have a principleof living that can be universally applied. So, for example, take the maxim, Tellthe truth. Will such a maxim lead to a conceptual contradiction? No. Will sucha maxim lead to a volitional contradiction? No. This means that the maxim, Tellthe truth, is a universal principle of livingthat is, its a principle of living thatwe have a moral obligation to live by.

What we see, then, is that applying the universalizability test gives us a means of guring out what principles of living apply to all rational creatures. And from this wecan tell what we are morally obligated to do. If a maxim forces us to go against ourown rationality or our own volition as rational creatures, then we are morally required toabstain from that maxim. On the other hand, if a maxim is consistent with our nature asboth rational and volitional creatures, then it is acceptable to live in accord with such amaxim. What Kant assumes is that we are rational creatures, and what he shows is thatour conception of The Good is what creatures of our kind nd to be rational.

Now, we can generalize the ideas characteristic of the universalizability test to formu-late a general principle that can serve to govern all other principles of living: this generalprinciple is known as The Categorical Imperative. Let me explain. We have rst-orderprinciples of living that tell us, as individuals, what to do on any particular occasion.Once we think of those principles categorically, as applying to all rational creaturesthatis, once we run our principles of living through the universalizability testthese principlesserve to govern all our rst-order maxims. The idea here can be generalized to capture thecontent of any maxim applied categorically, and this generalization just is the CategoricalImperative. In its most familiar form, the Categorical Imperative says, Act only on that

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maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it would become a universal law.In other words, the Categorical Imperative is a second-order principle of reason designedto govern all rst-order principles of reason. What Kant thinks, then, is that any rationalprinciple by which all rational agents must act will conform to the Categorical Imperative.

Alright, so lets again step back and trace the picture that is before us. Instead of reiterating what Ive already said, let me start the sketch in a different place. Kantassumes human beings to be rational creatures with the power to form intentionsthatis, with the power of volition. From this assumption, Kant then looks to the kinds of rational principles that motivate us to act. Another way of putting this is to say thatKant looks to see what kinds of reasons are given for action. Sometimes these reasonsturn out to be of the hypothetical imperative variety: these are reasons for action directedtoward some end. Other reasons for action, however, are not directed towards satisfyingany particular ends, but are, instead, adopted as general principles of living: these areends in themselves and apply categorically. Of these general principles of living, Kantthinks the only rational onesthe only ones a rational person will take on board as

principles to govern his actionsmust be conformable to the universalizability test. Of course, if the maxims are consistent with such a test, then we can be sure that they willresult in a proper exercise of the willthat is, they will result in a good will. Now, inorder to guarantee a maxims goodness by its conformity to reason, Kant formulates theCategorical Imperative, which is a principle to govern all other principles. If a maxim isconsistent with the Categorical Imperative, then we can be sure that it is good, and thus,in acting from such maxims, the individual can be sure that his will is good. To restate,then, moral obligation is derived from principled reasons for acting only if those reasonsfor acting are consistent with the Categorical Imperative.

Now I know thats a lot to digest, so lets return to our thought experiment and seewhat Kant thinks in that context. Recall that we are confronted with two options, eitherkill one nun or do nothing. If we do nothing they all die and we go free. Now, we knowthat Kant thinks that of these two options, we should choose to do nothing. Why? Well,lets take the maxim Dont kill innocent people. Is that maxim conceptually univer-salizable? Yes. Is that maxim volitionally universalizable? Yes. So all rational creatureshave a duty as rational creatures not to kill innocent people. Again, recall that it is onlythe Will that can make the consequences of action good, and that to have a Good Willis to have a Will that conforms to the dictates of reason. Moreover, reason dictates thatyou dont kill innocent people, so if you are to act morally (good) in this situation, youcant kill any of the innocent nuns.

Finally, let me just quickly give you one argument against the Kantian project. Heresthe argument:

1. When thinking about reasons for action, I cannot abstract away from the I of mydeliberations. (P)

2. Deliberations that are essentially rst-personal do not need to consider the reasonsothers have for acting. (P)

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3. When thinking about reasons for action, I dont need to consider the reasons othershave for acting. (1, 2)

4. If other peoples deliberations dont matter to my reasons for acting, then theresno reason to think the results of my practical deliberations will be consistent withtheirs. (P)

5. Theres no reason to think the results of my practical reasoningthat is, reasoningabout what to dowill be consistent with the reasoning of others regarding whatto do. (3, 4)

6. But Kants entire project of morality rested on the idea that the results of mypractical reasoning and the results of another rational agents practical reasoningwill be consistent. (P)

7. Kant got things wrong. (5, 6)

This line of thinking is taken from another great philosopher, Bernard Williams. Imnot sure if Im fully convinced that Williams has successfully undermined Kantian think-ing, but it is certainly a good objection, one worth taking seriously. Particularly worri-some in the argument above are premises 3 and 4. The reason we should be worried aboutthem is because they dont seem obviously true, and since we havent seen an argumentfor them, we dont have any reason to believe them. If thats right, then Williamss ob-jection doesnt go through. That being said, Williams devotes a lot of time arguing forthose two steps in the argument and if youd like to see how he does that, I encourageyou to read his book Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy .

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