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Good afternoon, everyone. Today I have the honor and pleasure of presenting my thesis,

entitled A Real Horrorshow Raskazz in Kantian Morality: The Conflation of Ethik and Recht in

Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange. My task here is to present to all of you the main points

and contentions of my thesis, in as far as I can do so in the time allotted me.

Before we go into the nitty-gritty of Kantian morality, however, let me first tell you the

story of a young man named Alex, him being the lead star, as it were, of Burgess novel. His is a

story of ultraviolence, being that he is utterly delighted in any activities that involve

punchipunching, slashing, brawling, and the occasional in-out, in-out. This fourteen-year-old is a

particularly vile specimen of hooliganism, although a particularly quirky one, in that his interests

outside of violence include, among other things, sweet confections and classical music, most

particularly Beethovens Ninth. In any case, aesthetically redeeming though his tastes might be,

it remains that he is, through and through, what we might call a very, very, very bad boy.

Alas, Alex finds, through the treachery and deceit of his droogies, that is, his gang, thatviolence often begets violence. And so he finds himself in the not-so-loving arms of the prison

system, subject under the watchful eyes and heavy hands of the law. When he takes part in the

breaking-in of a new cellmate, they inadvertently kill the man. Hardened criminals that his

fellow inmates are, they immediately pin the blame on Alex to avoid the inevitable falling

hammer themselves. Because of this, Alex is signed up to be the pilot subject of what the

government calls the new way of dealing with criminality. It is called Ludovicos Technique.

Essentially, this technique is an application of conditioning (of the Pavlovian variety) to a

human being. It consists of forcing an association between movies that portray the acts Alex

finds so particularly pleasant, that is, acts of ultra-violence, and extremely negative physicalsensations, portrayed in the novel as some sort of cross between severe nausea and stressinduced

pain. The mere ideation of an act conditioned against by the technique will induce in its subject

the very same psychosomatic trauma that had been programmed into that subjects response

pattern; in effect, since that trauma is a particularly debilitating one, the subjects freedom to

perform those particular actions is completely obliterated. The net result is explained in summary

by a Dr. Brodsky, the scientist heading the Ludovico Technique project.

"Our subject is, you see, impelled towards the good by, paradoxically, being impelled towards

evil. The intention to act violently is accompanied by strong feelings of physical distress. To

counter these the subject has to switch to a diametrically opposed attitude.

Thus does the technique enforce a particular programmed action upon the individual on

which it is performed.

It is at this point that we need to recall that the topic is about the conflation of Kants

conception of Ethik and Recht. Without going into the details in the meantime, the main

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contention of the thesis is this: certain characters in Burgess novel seem to say that with

Ludovicos Technique, they are going to be able to change Alex: from being a bad boy, they are

going to turn him into a good boy. Viewed from a Kantian perspective, this position is

completely untenable: this would be because, in the relationship betweenEthikandRecht, there

is the inherent fact that the two occupy completely separate realms of application.

The realm ofEthikis the realm of the intrapersonal. It is concerned with the goodness of

actions in accordance with their performance out of the sole motivation of duty. The

formulations of the categorical imperative provide means by which one can identify whether an

action was or is being performed out of duty or not. In particular, the formulation of autonomy

seeks to establish that acts that are done out of duty must have been legislated by an author that

is none other than the self.

The realm ofRecht, on the other hand, is one that has as its application the interpersonal

sphere. Its main concern is the relation of the actions of one individual with the actions ofanother, the ideal state being that they coexist in accordance with a universal law of freedom. In

the realm ofRecht, it is allowable to enforce an action upon another individual so long as this

enforcement of action is as a hindering of a hindrance to your freedom.

Thus, the problematic appears. There seems to be a problem regarding reconcilability

betweenEthikandRecht, with particular regard to three things. Firstly, the realm ofEthikis the

intrapersonal, meaning that if it goes out of the individual, it is no longer capable of being talked

about asEthik. On the other hand, the realm ofRechtis interpersonal, and it is just as stringent

about its delimitations, particularly one that states that internal motivations have no bearing in a

discussion ofRecht.

Secondly, in the realm ofEthik, actions lose their moral worth if the obligation is

otherwise than duty, showing quite clearly that the motivation that compels an action is

important to its status as ethical. On the other hand,Rechtcares not for the motivations of an

action, but focuses more on the action itself as external, as capable of affecting other individuals.

Finally, the realm ofEthikwill brook no interference with the autonomy of the individual

to legislate an act; should this autonomy be interfered with, the action that comes from such

interference will have no moral worth.Recht, however, provides an allowance for affecting other

individuals externally so long as the action of one respects the freedom of another to act; that is

to say, as long as an act does not hinder the freedom of another, it can still be talked about as

belonging inRecht.

This is the framework from which the thesis approaches the problem of the conflation in

Ludovicos Technique. The reason that this particular concept in the novel is singled out is

because it is an illustration of a way by which a discussion of what is ethical is inserted in what is

properly a matter of what is right.

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Before moving on into a discussion of this conflation, however, it would be best to

provide a summary of what it is exactly that is being conflated.

The realm of Ethik is the more familiar of the two realms in this discussion, as far as a

discussion of Kantian morality goes. We have an understanding that in the realm of Ethik