IMMANUEL KANT (1724 -1804)
Kant’s philosophy is critical since he suggests that anything that is public must be scrutinized by our reason. Fundamental principles of our life must not be merely from scriptures or religion. Accept the principles through the faculty of reason. Universality and absolute necessity were his principles of morality.
Fundamental Condition: Exercise Reason.
Copernican Revolution: Kant initiated a Copernican Revolution in his theoretical philosophy. “Objects must conform to our knowledge”. In the early philosophies object determined the nature of knowledge. But Kant says that subject/Moral agent/ Reason determines the nature of knowledge. Our reason must be the unique authority to validate our actions and not the church or state.
Discussion on Groundwork
Kant introduces and argues for the categorical imperative. He identifies the Good will as the unqualified good. The “Common human reason” is the compass with the help of which human beings navigate in this life. Our reason should be critically examined. Then the moral principle will be clearly articulated.
Good things Contrasted to Good Will:
Good things are attributes, which individuals may possess. Good things have a common feature. They are all gifts either gifts of nature or gifts of fortune. The characteristic of gift is that it is given. They are not produced by us.
Gifts:
Kant distinguishes three types
1. Talents of the mind:
They are the intellectual virtues. They seem to be wholly beyond one’s powers we can improve it or may allow it to rust.
E.g.: Intelligence, wit etc.
2. Personality Traits: They are given rather than acquired through personal effort.
E.g.: Courage, Magnanimity.
3. Fortuitous gifts (Gifts of Fortune)
They result from chance. They depend on conditions and circumstances over which an individual has little or no control.
E.g.: Power, wealth, Good health etc.
Good Will:
Though personally possessed, the Good Will is personally authored and not is given. Good Will is the basic principle from which all moral actions come forth. It is impossible to conceive anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except a good will. A good will seems to constitute the indispensable condition for our every worthiness to be happy.
Difference between good will and other goods:
Good will is self-made whereas other goods are given to a certain extent. All other goods are judged good or bad according as they succeed in realizing a good end or bad end. Their goodness is derived in relation with something else. Good will is the only good without qualification.
Paton Writes
All Kant means is that a good will alone must be good in whatever context it may be found. It is not good in one context and bad in another. Its goodness is not conditioned by its relation to a context or to and end or to a desire. It is unconditional and absolute good.
Absolute Value to Good Will: Willing is the source of moral acts. Even if the will takes the power to carry out its intentions, and accomplishes nothing through its utmost efforts, according to Kant, the good will would shine like a jewel for its own sake as something which has its full value in itself.
Kant’s Moral Revolution:
Willing is the Centre:
Willing is the source which matters in being and becoming. Good will as the source of morality is the basis of humanity. Man, as such can never lose all his disposition to the Good. The will is rational and thereby law abiding.
Imperative: Good will is a power to choose only that which reason, independently of inclinations, recognizes to be practically necessary, that is , to be good. This necessitating principle is called an imperative. An imperative should come from our reason or will.
Order of nature and Moral order
Order of nature – We follow inclinations – Leads to EUDAEMONISM
Moral order – We act with the freedom of the Good will – Leads to ELEUTHERONOMY
If we do not maintain the distinction between order of nature and Moral order and follow moral order the effect would be EUTHANASIA (painless death) of all morals.
Maxim: A maxim is a subjective principle. The subjective principle becomes moral principle when it qualifies to be universalized.
Good and Evil in Action: Good and evil have a direct relation to man’s will. Good and evil are properly referred to actions, and not to sensible state of the person. It could not be a thing but only the manner of acting, the maxim of the will.
Man, the final end of Creation: Nature has designated man as the final end of all creation. For this he has to transcend his nature by rejecting inclinations.
Kant: Categorical Imperative
Imperative are objective principles. It means that they are not mere maims. It has got both objective content and universal application for rational beings. As they are derived from impersonal reasons they are valid for the whole rational beings. Inclinations do not have any influence on it.
Prudential and Moral Maxims.
Prudential maxims represent an action as a means to an effect eg. If you want to be popular don’t hurt others. Moral maxims represent a possible action good in itself without reference to any further end. It is a universalizable maxim. It is free from all conditions. No choice is present here. Moral maxim necessitates the will universally.
Hypothetical and Categorical Imperative
If the principle presupposes some conditions of the subject, like inclination or an empirical interest, then its universality is limited and the corresponding imperative is hypothetical in nature. It originates in inclination. It is a conditional one both by reason and subjective desires in the case of realization of an end and the mean.
Eg. Cheating the customers to gain more profit. When one follows Hypothetical Imperative he/she is placed under heteronymous legislation.
While Hypothetical Imperative tells us what we ought to do given that we have a particular end, Categorical Imperative tells us what we ought to do without any regard to the particular end. Hypothetical Imperative are dependent Imperatives – dependant on the ends.
Hypothetical Imperative
A hypothetical Imperative is a formula containing an expression of what is good for an imperfectly rational agent to do given the ends he has adopted and it is presented to the agent in the form of a command because an imperfectly rational agent will not always want to do what is good for him to do.
Three Requirements for Hypothetical Imperative
1. It should contain an end as an agent has adopted and continues to be affirmed.
2. The course of action is possible for the agent.
3. The propose actions are means to the agent’s ends.
Categorical Imperative
It is the objective law of reason and the source of all moral commands having as its characteristics universality and necessity. It should be applied universally, unconditionally to all agents, independently of their empirical interest.
In Kantian sense, only those commandments, which have got their source in reason, is genuine imperative. The categorical imperative is a moral principle for all human being. Its fulfillment is independent of and unconditioned by anything whatsoever.
Categorical Imperative as compass
CI provides us the direction for an individual moral agent. It distinguishes between right and wrong; good and evil. C I is the primary criterion in deciding the course of action. It assists in selecting the right maxims.
Human beings are partially rational – they do not spontaneously act as fully rational beings. So in the case of human being, CI represents an action as objectively necessary.
Formula – I (The formula of the Universal Law)
“Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”.
This is from the point of view of the acting individual. He should make sure that the underlying maxim of the action should be an objective one – can be willed universally. In other words anyone is said to be moral if he/she falls in line with the general will. No exception from the general wills is allowed here for anyone because exceptions are due to inclinations. This points to a necessary community matrix in which morally worthy actions can be realized.
Moral > universal > objective.
Immoral > particular > subjective.
Autonomy of any agent is not taken away. It is safe guarded in the First formulation. Morality is the universal disposition to act according to the categorical Imperative which is necessitated by reason.
Variant formula
“Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature”
Formula II – The formula of the end-in-itself
“Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of others, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.
(GW.AK.iv, 429)
Humanity is to be treated as the unconditional end of morality ie, being moral being human for Kant, the end of humanity is the rational end. It is the a priori end, those functions independent of inclinations. The end of humanity is already present as an end-in-itself. For Kant, humanity is the Absolute value.
Rational beings are called persons because we are capable of treating our own humanity and that of others as an end in itself. We can uphold our own human nature only by recognizing and respectively other rational agents. It also includes acknowledging that all are endowed with a good will and that they are end-in-themselves.
When formula I and II are put together we arrive in a combined formula as, adopt only those maxims which have an end of treating the humanity of oneself and others not as a mere mean but as an end in itself universally.
Formula III
Along with the universal application (form) and the fundamental content (matter), in the third formula, Kant proposes the Obligating Aspect.
“So act that your will can regard itself at the same time as making universal law through its maxims”. “So act that the maxim of your will could always hold at the same time as a principle establishing universal law”.
Its implied principle is: the moral agent gives himself or herself the universal law. Universal legislation is universally binding.
The universal legislation of moral law is said to be a legislation effected by Each for all and all for each. Rational is Relational.
Variation of Formula III: Kingdom of Ends
“So act as if you were always through your maxims a law-making member in a universal Kingdom of ends”.
Kingdom of ends contains explicit command to practice morality in view of a collective goal or moral community. The moral community is constituted by Ends-In-themselves. That is the Ideal kingdom of persons. The kingdom ensure from (1) The power of legislating for oneself and (2) The imperative to treat everyone else as an end-in-itself.
As every end chosen by a good will is good, the ideal of the totality of all Goods represented in the kingdom of ends must be the Absolute Good.
Kant: Duty Ethics
Motivation by duty is that it consists of bare respect for lawfulness. What it means that rules or laws of some sort create duties. Thus, if we do something because it is our ‘Civic’ duty, and our motivation is respect for the code that makes it our duty. Thinking we are duty bound is simply respecting certain laws pertaining to us.
Kant thinks in acting from duty that we are not all motivated by a prospective outcome or some other extrinsic feature of our conduct. We are motivated by the mere conformity of our will to law as such. Motivation by duty is, motivation by our respect for law whatever law it is that makes our action a duty.
Conditional laws
We can rationally “opt out” of our membership in the city, state, club or any other social arrangement and its laws, for instance, by quitting the club or expatriating. Those laws only apply to us given we don’t rationally decide to pot our. Our respect for the law is qualified in the sense that the thought that the law gives us a duty is compelling only if there is no law we respect more that conflicts with it.
Rational laws
There are laws that apply to us simply as members of the “club” of rational agents, so to speak, as beings who are capable of guiding own behaviour on the bars of directives, principles and laws of rationality. We cannot choose to lay aside our ‘membership’ in the category of such beings. Then we have an idea of a duty that we cannot rationally opt out of duty is resulting from my nature of reason.
When we do something because it is our moral duties, Kant argued, we are motivated by the thought that, insofar as we are rational beings, we must act only as this fundamental law of reason prescribes. My respect for such a law is thus ‘not qualified’. Kant’s analysis of the unique force moral consideration has as reasons to act. Since they retain their reason – giving force under any circumstance, they have universal validity.
Kant writes, “Duty is the necessity to act out of reverence for the law”. The reverence that Kant is referring to is completely an internal state of the mind, ‘which is self produced’ as well as ‘produced solely by reason’. For his respect for the law is not the incentive to morality, it is morality itself.
Duty is a Disposition
The feeling of respect for the moral law is not a one-time act, but it is a law – abiding disposition, to act in accord with the law because it is the law. Duty requires developing a moral disposition; it is this that would constitute moral virtue.
Acting for the sake of Duty vs. Acting from duty
Kant contrasts between acting for the sake of duty and acting from duty. Moral worth results only from Acting from duty. Only on legal principle we act for the sake of duty. Acting for the sake of duty can be externally indentified, as it is done in accordance with an external injunctions. However Acting from duty is quite internal as it primarily and exclusively depends on the motive of action.
Autonomous legislation is the basis for the self-generated obligation; this requires that we act not only according to duty, but from duty. Here the characteristic property of an ethical action is “Making principle of duty itself the sufficient motive of our choice”.
To perform duty one must fulfill the categorical imperative. The principle of duty is contained in the categorical imperative. So act that the maxim of your action becomes a universal law. So we can say, the man who acts from categorical imperative acts from the motive of duty.
The objective necessity to act from obligation is called duty. When we refuse a duty, it proposes to make an exception to the law, which is universally, and unconditionally binding.
Thus a moral agent should not aim at anything other than the mere fulfillment of his duty. What is demanded here is an unceasing attempt to do our action from our duty and duty alone?
Conclusion
Kant’s moral theory can be seen to consist of at least three separate but related doctrinal parts.
1. Categorical Imperative and duties derivable from it.
2. A doctrine of motivation consisting of the incentives arising from those laws.
3. A discipline consisting of “A system of precautions and self-examination” whose function is to “liberate the will from the despotism of desires”.
What Kant helped us to see clearly?
1. The admirable side of acting from duty.
2. The Evenhandedness of morality.
3. Respecting other persons.
Where Kant missed the mark?
1. The neglect of moral integration.
A person of duty can have deep and conflicting inclinations and this does not decrease moral worth, indeed, it seems to increase it in Kant’s eyes.
2. The role of Emotions
3. The place of consequences in the moral life.
Formalism
Because of the formal nature of his ethics, Kant appears to lack interest in the historical and scientific basis of morality. His purpose was not to provide us with specific rules for all situations in life. He set for a methodological formalism. His stress was upon reflective reason and upon the spirit or attitude in which we must control our lives
Kant’s theory has been influential in a great deal of subsequent ethical theorizing, especially in theorizing in which the distinctive status of persons as free and equal participants in the moral order.
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