Kantian Ethics

• Immanuel Kant: 1724-1804

  • Prussian Philosopher
  • lived in a time of great crisis + despair
  • foremost thinkers of the Enlightenment
  • work out how humans can be good
  • not alot of money growing up
  • family was deeply religious
  • social
• Immanuel Kant and ethics:

  • the enlightenment was growing secularism -> great age of discovery
  • believed we are prone to evil and corruption
  • Authority of Reason -> need to promote ethics
  • categorical imperative -> do unto others what you want to do with you ==> replacement -> his own version
  • shift in our perspective
  • The Critique of Judgement
  • secularism -> less religious society
  • struggle between duty and pleasure
• Kantian Ethics is Deontological
• Kant's Philosophy -> 4 questions

  1. What can I know? -> (through reason) I know the framework of human thought and all that is discoverable within the framework
  2. What should I do? -> I can act as an autonomous person -> self regulating using practical reason rather than being a slave to human desire and work for happiness
  3. What may I hope for? -> to bring about greater happiness
  4. What is a human being? -> offers us experiences of beauty and organisation and is the source of moral law
• Kant was scared of secularisation. He believed that enlightenment and scientific advancements were undermining religious beliefs of the time. This is seen with a new Newtonian understanding of the world rather than looking at religion or superstitions for a greater understanding. He had a fear that people would lose their morality, as religion had been the basis for ethics
• Summon Bonum -> the supreme good where good actions and duty unite
• Kant's Dilemma:

  • if religious influence continued to reduce from then deciding what was the "right thing to do" would get harder
  • we might be tempted to build our ethics on what gives us the most favourable outcome -> Kant wasn't keen on being outcome driven as its too unpredictable
  • Kant thought it would be great if there was a fixed rule that anyone in any situation could apply and be happy to have applied to them
  • his ethical theory was based on intention not outcome
• What was Kant's solution:

  • he came up with the Moral Law
  • set if binding moral obligations that we should follow freely out of our desire to be moral
  • act morally we needed to agree on universal laws and obey Maxims
  • Maxims -> word for moral rules determined by reason
  • morals cannot be based on mere physical pleasures because that makes us no better than animals
  • humans have the ability to reason allowing us to act independently of pleasure
• Reason and Freedom:

  • Kant attaches great importance to man's ability to reason
  • reason is available to everyone
  • if reason is universal, then what the right thing is will be universal and applicable to everyone
  • Moral law known through reason alone must be free of emotion which can cloud judgement
  • reason should lead us to the intention of doing the right thing -> honesty and truthfulness
  • to be able to do the right thing we must be free to do it -> we must choose it
• Goodwill and Duty:

  • Kant -> "if it is impossible to conceive anything in the world, or indeed out of it, which can be called good without qualification, save only good will"
  • the only right thing that is good is the right thing to do
  • good will => driven to do the right thing
  • something is good only when someone carries out their duty to do it
  • action must arise out of duty
  • act out of sympathy for others
  • did not believe in good character traits -> Good will i s at the very centre of ethics
• Kant's Specific Duty:

  • strive for self perfection and the well being others
  • pursue the greater good, not one's own happiness
  • innate right to freedom
  • duty not to destroy ourselves
  • duty not to make false promises
  • avoid drunkenness as this compromises our freedom
  • right to private property and ownership
• Moral knowledge is known through reason not experience or emotion
• Good will is our desire to follow the moral law by doing our duty only this leads to a moral action.
• knowledge from sense perception and experience -> quite easy to think about

  knowledge before sense perception and experience -> not particular to one physical object
• 'Morality must not lower herself' 


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• 'The autonomy of the will is the sole principle of all moral laws@


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• How we perceive the moral law:

  • we might want to weigh up consequences of actions
  • the way we decide what is right and wrong is linked to how we make sense of the world
  • Or perhaps we will trust our gut instinct
  • Moral knowledge -> known through reason not experience or emotion
• Duty and Good Will:

  • goodwill is held by a person who has the right intention when performing their duty
  • once we figure out our duty, we should act purely out of a sense of duty
  • we should leave out personal feelings/desires
  • we should act in accordance with duty but it would bot be acting out of duty
  • the only morally valid motivation for an action is respect for the moral law
• Knowledge arising from sense perception and experience:

  • Kant thinks that we can separate knowledge into two groups
  • gained through our sense perception from the empirical world around us
  • this is a posteriori knowledge
• Knowledge at first hand, before sense perception and experience:

  • a priori knowledge
  • knowledge is not particular to one physical object but is a necessary or universal feature of all objects
• Synthetic propositions: those in which the predicate is outside the subject
• Analytic propositions: where the predicate belongs to the subject
• The Hypothetical Imperative:

  • hypothetical knowledge (IF statements) are conditional
  • Hypothetical Imperative -> commands behaviour FOR an end
  • This belief is wrong -> Kant says we should look to the moral law which binds us unconditionally
• All imperatives command either hypothetically or categorically. The former present the practical necessity of a possible action as a means to achieving something else which one desires … The categorical imperative would be one which presented an action as of itself objectively necessary, without regard to any other end


  Kant -> Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
• The Categorical Imperative:

  • moral knowledge to Kant is categorical
  • an example is that we should always tell the truth
  • exercise our free will in a certain way, irrespective of any end —> deontological
  • truth must always be told
  • moral law is categorical
  • actions must always be universalised
  • It is an absolute, moral action that must be followed by all persons regardless of their own desires or circumstances -> end in itself
• How can a maxim become a categorical imperative:

  1. Universalisation: People should act only on a maxim that could be universalised and applied to everyone
  2. Humans as Ends: one should always act in such a way as to treat fellow beings as an end in themselves and not a means to achieving an end
  3. The Kingdom of Ends: a desired world which we are obligated to bring about a world where everyone does good universaL actions which enable all people to get what they want - which is to be happy.
• Universalisation:

  • “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal laws” —> Kant
  • our moral behaviour must be consistent
  • our action must be something that we can always do
  • maxims that can’t be universalised would be self-defecting
  • Kant’s moral law is a universal law that binds us
  • truth is seen as a universal law -> lying in any circumstance is seen as wrong
  • There can’t be any contradictions in the laws conception or will
  • Benjamin Constant -> duty to always tell the truth would make society impossible as we do lie sometimes
• Every action is right if it or its maxim allows person’s freedom of choice to co-exist with the freedom of everyone in accordance with a universal law


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• Humans as ends:

  • human beings are rational agents capable of free will
  • have to take peoples future life into consideration
  • intrinsic quality of human life
  • influenced Catholic moral thought
  • we should treat people as ends in themselves and not to use them for selfish reasons
• Rational nature exists as an end in itself … Act in such a way you always treat humanity


  Kant -> Humans as an end
• Anyone who treats a person as the means to an end does violence to the very essence of the other, to what constitutes it natural rights … Nobody can use a person as a means towards an end, no human being, nor yet God the Creator 


  Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II) Love and Responsibility
• Kingdom of Ends:

  • Kant forbids us from making a moral law that presumes others will not treat others as ends in themselves
  • ”I will take all I can as everyone else takes all they can” -> Kant
  • We should not base our universal rules on uniform degradation
  • Kant said we must consider what world we want to live in to create the categorical imperative
  • We need to act as if we were a rule maker in the kingdom of ends
  • we are obligated but we can’t bring this world into reality -> the world is too corrupt
• ’Ought implies can’ and the kingdom of ends:

  • Kant believed that following the moral law was the only reasonable thing to do
  • he said we ought to do something implies we can do it
  • we can’t bring the Kingdom of Ends as our world is too corrupt
  • subsequently, the question of how the highest good or the summon monument is achieved remains
• The three postulates:

  1. Freedom
  2. Immorality
  3. God
• 1. Freedom

  • It is the core of Kantian ethics
  • autonomous
  • freedom to chose
  • rational creations have to freely chose to do their duty
  • if we don’t chose it freely, you can’t be held accountable
• 2. Immortality

  • the souls must be immortal as following the moral law and or our duty doesn’t guarantee happiness or safety
  • a persons untimely death
  • an immortal soul gives opportunity for endless improvement
• 3. God

  • Kant argued that the existence of a universal moral law was the only indisputable fact
  • Although Kantian ethics could be seen as an attempt to step away from the theological starting point
  • some parts of his belief imply a God -> idea of an eternal law, humans beings being created as rational creatures, an immortal soul
  • God is their to make things more fair
  • God recognises the striving that human beings have undertaken
  • Kant was apart Apart of Lutheran Christianity
• Strengths of Kantian Ethics:

  • Kant doesn’t focus on emotions which is a strength as emotions are unreliable
  • it is selfless -> beneficial to society
  • we are responsible for our actions
  • recognition of moral equality
  • doesn’t assumes there’s consequences
  • accessible for everyone
  • all people deserve to be treated as an end which means that people are less likely to be used for personal gain
• Weaknesses of Kantian ethics:

  • sometimes emotions are needed -> Bernard Williams argues that this ethical theory is too narrow
  • Consequences do have moral value
  • bad outcomes take us further away from the KoFE
  • intrinsic favouritism
  • B.Constant criticised Kant with the murderer at the door
  • duties can clash and or aren’t clear
• Act as if you are, through your maxims, a law-making member of the Kingdom of ends 


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