PURE FORM OF MORAL DUTY AS CATEGORICALLY NECESSARY

PURE FORM OF MORAL DUTY AS CATEGORICALLY NECESSARY


Introduction
Immanuel Kant sought to isolate the pure form of moral duty and to account for its possibility. Since the pure form of moral duty turns out to be identical with the form of pure duty, it makes little difference whether one begins with duties in general or with moral duty. Duty in its pure form is categorically necessary and further that moral duty alone represents duty in its pure form. The moral duty is different in kind from all other types of duty and logically prior to each of them.

Moral duty
Not only are all alleged duties subject to the canons of morality but they have their ultimate foundation in the moral will. This is not to say that every specific duty is a moral duty, it is to assert that since every duty of whatever sort derives ultimately from the will of the individual, even hypothetical duties have a moral significance. There is one and only one will even as there is only one self, it is the source of the necessity of all imperatives .
Kant assumed from the first that duty is essentially a phenomenon of volition. Duty expresses a command and implies a being capable of issuing such a command. From his meticulous analysis of the nature of imperatives Kant became convinced that no command issuing from an external source could be unconditionally binding upon the human will.
The first step in Kant’s argument is to show that duty is the central concept of morality and that moral duty is distinguished from other forms of duty by the fact that
it is categorical. If there were no categorical imperative there would be on Kant’s view no such things as morality.

Duty and Imperative
The language of duty is the language of imperatives. An imperative may be hypothetical or categorical. If hypothetical, the necessity it expresses is only relative; if categorical, it asserts an unconditional necessity. Since duty involves a practical necessity and pertains only to the volition of free subjects. It is fundamentally reflexive in character . It is the essential reflexivity of duty to which Kant appeals in arguing that duty implies autonomy.
Duty can be analyzed in any one or more of the following ways. We might view it: (a) as a command deriving from a source beyond the self or another person, (b) as a demand laid upon the subject through its own act and hence reflexive in character, and (c) as involving the reciprocal demand response of a subject and one or more beings to which it is related. The first alternative (a) would regard duty as essentially heteronomous in point of origin, the second (b) as basically autonomous and the third (c) as a combination of the two. The last alternative would allow for the possibility that moral duty can be based upon contractual relationship.Kant rejects the first alternative and by implication the third in arguing for the unqualifiedly autonomous character of moral duty.

Divine Imperative
Kant’s reasoning seems to be that an imperative can be no stronger than the end to which it is related. If the end is either arbitrary or only contingently necessary, the imperative that enjoins us to promote it cannot be unconditionally binding. He rejected a theocentric ethics for the twofold reason that (a) God’s existence is problematic, (b) the force of a divine imperative depends upon the acceptance of
God’s authority . The second reason is the crucial one since it denies that a categorical imperative could issue from God even if His existence were absolutely certain. A divinely instituted imperative must be regarded as hypothetical rather than categorical.
The divine imperative must be regarded as hypothetical primarily because its validity depends upon our volition. No matter what a possible divine being might decree, so Kant argues in effect it could not give its commands the force of law for our will. Thus, either God’s commandments take effect independently of human volition and hence are natural rather than moral ordinances or they depend for their validity upon human assent. In the former case they are not properly to be regarded as imperatives and surely not as moral imperatives and in the latter case, they are clearly hypothetical.
We must be careful not to confuse the hypothetical status of a possible divine command with the contingency of its recognition. An imperative might be objectively necessary even though its observance were highly problematic and uncertain. Moral law is the validity of the imperative and not its acceptance in actual practice that is at issue.

Validity and Free Response
A divine imperative depends for its validity upon our free response that it cannot be credited with unconditional necessity. Our response to a possible divine command might be optional: (a) it might be our decision whether to acknowledge the sovereignty of God or (b) it might be our option whether or not to honor God’s commands. Since the latter option would hold independently of the first our freedom to repudiate possible divine commands does not in and of itself make their validity problematic. Nor does our acceptance of them necessarily establish this validity .
In referring to the unconditional necessity of the moral imperative it is clear that Kant meant to emphasize its status as an objective limitation on our freedom. The categorical imperative is unconditional in that it is inescapable. It expresses the law of our being as free subjects. To violate the imperative is to set ourselves in opposition to the law of our own freedom. As an a priori condition of our freedom, the law is not itself subject to free choice . As rational and responsible beings we are liable before the moral law as the inexorable demand of our own rationally informed wills.
The categorical imperative must have a metaphysical foundation. As the supreme law of freedom it conditions all choice and thus is objectively necessary. There is more than a tinge of the classical view that rationally is intrinsically good and to be followed for its own sake. Man is a creature under law . All men are subject to the moral law willy-nilly. If this were not so the moral imperative would be hypothetical rather than categorical.

Conclusion
The moral imperative derives its authority from man’s nature as a sensuous though rational being. It is objectively necessary in that it is a condition of man’s existence as a free subject. Moreover, the primary condition of its validity is metaphysical rather than axiological. It is not the case that man should be a rational being but that he is a moral being. Either the moral law is not valid or it is in fact a condition of all human volition. Kant was primarily concerned to delineate the conditions of responsible existence and tended to look upon the moral life as essentially the responsible life, his rationalistic predilections sometimes prompted him to equate responsibility with rationality. The fact that reason is an essential vehicle for the discovery and promulgation of the moral law does not mean that it is the sole author of the law. If the primary requirement of the moral life is to be responsible, rationality is neither the sole nor the decisive ethical category.
BIBLIOGRAPHY


Schrader, George A. “Autonomy, heteronomy, and moral imperatives” in Critical
Essays, ed. Robert Paul Wolff. USA: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1969.
Immanuel, Kant. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Lewis White Beck.
USA: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1969.