Kantian ethics

• introduction to Kant

  -absolutist and doesn't rely directly upon belief in God

  -Kant's approach is deontological as opposed to teleological; interested in right actions rather than right outcomes
• personal background

  -Immanuel Kant born in 18th century in eastern Prussia

  -philosopher with an interest in many intellectual field including maths & science as well as philosophy & ethics in later life

  -gifted child but not robustly healthy

  -born Konisberg and went Konisberg university at 16 and remained there rest of life

  -never married and loved routine, walking around campus same time every day

  -uni given name Immanuel Kant State University in Russia in 2005
• the Enlightenment

  -rational approach and simple rules

  -age of Reason 1700-1800s

  -Newton's physics, Darwin 'Origin of the species', Copernican Revolution (earth revolves around sun)

  -Rousseau's 'The Social Contract' - the French Revolution

  -Kant wanted to find a rational basis for the metaphysics of morals which he called 'practical reason'

  -his own intellectual discovery was that there are objective moral laws which exist and they're outside of our experience and influence
• Plato's Idealism

  -perfect World of Forms

  -in the world of perfect Forms (noumenal world), a perfect 'ideal' morality exists

  -however, it's obscured by the real (phenomenal) world we live in so we must use 'practical reason' to discover it
• Protestant faith

  -Kant had a strong Protestant faith but morality was based on rationalism not revelation

  -described as an empirical sceptic
• animals

  -follow their desires and inclinations only

  -have no reason, so behave according to the empirical laws of cause and effect, led by their appetites and instincts

  -phenomenal world
• God/ angels

  -God and angels are perfectly rational beings, without appetites and desires to lead them astray from following reason and objective moral laws

  -noumenal realm
• human beings

  -human nature experiences the tension of desires and inclinations (their animal self) versus the voice of reason (their God-like self)

  -phenomenal and noumenal realm
• good will

  -the desire to do 'duty for duty's sake'

  -good will "shines forth like a precious jewel" (Kant)

  -nothing is better than a 'willingness' to do the right thing

  -the intention or aim to act is everything

  -if you recognise that there's a right thing to do in a situation you must act on it

  --> ignoring that willingness is immoral

  -we shouldn't base our views of right/ wrong on consequences as these aren't within our control

  -we should also not base our decisions on inclinations as our emotions change on a regular basis
• Kant quote analysis

  -"Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will"

  --> 'Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals'

  -shows that goodness has a starting point, which is good will, and intention is the only important thing (consequences don't matter)
• duty

  The action that is morally required, regardless of consequences.
• good will

  The only truly intrinsically good thing, having good motives and intentions.
• duty is not...

  -doing the right thing out of self-interest or because of possible consequences e.g. charging customers fairly solely as it is good for business

  -doing the right thing out of inclination e.g. giving to charity one day and not the next
• maxim

  The rule that we are following when we perform an action.
• hypothetical imperative

  A command that is followed to achieve a desired result.
• categorical imperative

  A command that is good in itself regardless of consequences.
• the hypothetical imperative

  -'if..' commands

  -e.g. a personal trainer saying 'don't eat more cake' means 'don't eat more cake if you want to lose weight'
• the categorical imperative

  -no 'if' about them and they are absolute

  -e.g. 'do not kill'

  -it is our duty to act on anything that is a categorical imperative

  -based on objective reason and not emotional responses to the phenomenal world

  -bind all people at all times
• the first formulation

  -known as the universalisation/ universal law or the formula of the law of nature

  -"act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law"

  --> 'Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant'

  -saying we should ask ourselves 'would it make sense if everyone did this?'

  -e.g. wouldn't make sense to universalise stealing. Stealing is taking someone else's property. If everyone stole, no one would really own anything, which leads to an illogical conclusion: if everyone were always stealing, there would be no stealing
• autonomy

  -literally 'self-ruling'

  -the belief that we are free and able to make our own decisions
• perfect duty

  -making a promise: a 'binding commitment' to do something

  -to break a promise would be a logical contradiction

  -can also be seen as a contradiction in conception

  -when there are clashing duties, the perfect duty must be obeyed

  -perfect duties must be followed all the time

  -e.g. stealing or telling the truth
• imperfect duty

  -deciding not to help someone

  -it cannot be 'willed' by any rational person

  -also known as a contradiction in the will

  -do not need to be followed at all times

  -e.g. giving lottery winnings to charity or helping someone
• the 4 main categorical imperatives

  -that it is wrong to make a lying promise

  -that it is wrong to commit suicide

  -that it is wrong to neglect one's talent

  -that it is wrong to refrain from helping others
• persons as ends

  -also known as the formula of the law of humanity

  -the second formulation

  -"Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means, but always at the same time as an end"

  --> 'Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals'

  -Kant believes that humans are rational and autonomous

  -we should treat each other as persons and not objects

  -using someone could be exploitation, slavery, torture etc.
• Kingdom of ends

  -the third/ final formulation

  -a combination of the other two perhaps

  -Kant asks us to imagine we're part of the law-making council in a hypothetical perfect Kingdom of ends

  -if we were to live here where everyone always treated others as ends, would our maxim be something that could be permitted?
• the three postulates

  -three assumptions that have to be in place for morality to function:

  -that we have free will

  --> without no moral responsibility

  -that there is an afterlife, we are immortal

  --> morality requires the summum bonum (highest good) to be achieved. This is where perfect virtue (good deeds) is rewarded by perfect happiness. This occurs in the next life

  -that God exists

  --> He ensures the justice of the universe
• compassion

  -Jesus in the New Testament

  --> often appealed to compassion as a moral guide, he made people aware of the need for charity e.g. the rich man and Lazarus, you feel compassion for Lazarus as he has nothing and the rich man has everything.

  -in contrast to Kant who suggests we give to charity because it is the right thing to do but we must not feel good about it or do it out of compassion for others
• human nature weakness

  -other religious theologians such as Augustine and Barth believed our human nature's are corrupt due to the 'fall' (Adam and Eve cast out of the garden of Eden) by God

  -to rely on our reason alone which is a feature of our corrupted nature would be mistaken
• dispassionate weakness

  -Carol Gilligan

  --> Kant's ethics can leave people feeling cold hearted. His ethics mean you should never take into consideration any special commitments to others e.g. your family and friends. You cannot prioritise saving your beloved sister above saving a stranger

  -it's a very 'dispassionate ethic' according to Carol Gilligan

  -she also sees Kant's preoccupation with rights and autonomy as a very male-centric ethic with little consideration of important ethical considerations of care, and protection of the vulnerable
• universalisation weakness

  -can't universalise everything

  --> e.g. my maxim is: I want to be in the top 10% of exam grades. It is not possible for everyone to do this

  --> e.g. my maxim is: I want to help the poor. If everyone helped the poor the poor would disappear (contradiction) so I can't do it. But surely helping the poor is a good thing
• too negative weakness

  -too negative

  --> Kant's categorical imperative makes us reason what is morally wrong (lying, cheating, stealing) but not what is morally good. Not how to live a good life and aim for the positive

  -the Agent-centred approaches like Aristotle's Virtue ethics where you aim to be the best person you can be are more useful
• intuition/ emotion weakness

  -if a person told the truth (as Kant would have them do) to a would be killer and then the victim was killed, you would feel guilty and responsible, not elated that you were morally right and absolved of guilt

  -many people would find it impossible to do, because it goes against their moral intuition (this is connected to the issue of conflict of duties)
• competing duties weakness

  -Sartre used his own personal example to prove the case that Kant cannot solve competing duties

  --> join the resistance movement to defeat the Nazis or stay to look after my sick mother who has lost other sons? 2 imperfect duties competing: Kant offers no real guidance as to how to solve this other than that they both make rational sense, so you must do both. But you can't do both-it's impossible to be in both places at the same time

  -Sartre believes this means we will rely on moral intuition to help us understand what the best way forward is, not just duty
• Heaven weakness

  -Kant claims to be a secular theory: you do not have to believe in God to be moral (you rely on your rationality)

  -however, he claims the summum bonum or Heaven is the reward for a moral life lived which is delivered by God. This makes Kant consequentialist & dependent on God
• impossible impartiality weakness

  -Bernard Williams attacks Kantian ethics for its 'impossible impartiality'

  -by taking away the personal aspect of a situation, we become inhumane, and lose all self-respect

  -who could walk away from a situation where you told the truth to an SS officer about the whereabouts of thousands of Jewish children hiding and not be ashamed or affected by their deaths which would be on your hands?
• criticising Kant

  -Phillipa Foot challenges whether morality should be based on categorical imperatives

  --key interest is why we should be moral (also interested Plato)

  --> in her 1995 essay 'Morality as a System of Hypothetical imperatives' she argues Kant is missing an adequate explanation for our motives and desires

  -only hypothetical imperatives give us a reason to act

  -influenced by Aristotle virtue ethics

  -many virtues of human action are things we must freely choose

  --> but we might not desire them
• prior knowledge

  -relies on a prior knowledge of morality

  --> have to know that you are dealing with a moral duty

  -knowing difference between moral duty and other social/ cultural codes means we must be relying on another source of info (not just Kant's categorical imperative) so his system isn't universal itself
• competing duties issue further

  W. D. Ross deontological intuitionist who tries to solve issue of competing duties by saying the prima facie, intuitive duty of gratitude means you will choose to be by your mother's side rather than make her suffer the loss of another son.
• duty weakness

  -duty is better than depending on our inclinations , as inclinations are led by emotions which change

  -we are less prone to personal bias if duty is our key principle

  --> there is clarity, BUT as with any absolutist ethical system there is inflexibility to the situation. For example, Kant thinks lying is morally wrong, even to lie to a murderer seeking his next victim. Idea that you must still do your duty and that it's the potential murderer whose actions are immoral, will not be of much comfort to the victim
• rationality weakness

  -Kant's ethics are rational

  --> gives humans the responsibility for making decisions & believes humanity's ability to reason & work things out will enable us to reach the right answers

  --> BUT the outcome of a situation is ignored. Outcome not within our control, but can be foreseeable or predictable. To choose to do something that obeys a moral rule but will almost certainly lead to increased misery or suffering seems like the wrong decision