Week 8 - Kant's Categorical Imperative

Question 1

Kant

Moral Rights are grounded in Pure Reason

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily reflection is occupied with them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within me. I have not to search for them and conjecture them as though they were veiled in darkness or were in the transcendent region beyond my horizon; I see them before me and connect them directly with the consciousness of my existence.”
(Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (1788))

Both, the laws of nature and the laws of morality are grounded in “pure Reason”

– The laws of nature govern the phenomenal world.
– Moral laws prescribe actions, i.e. tell us what we ought to do.

Metaethical views:

– Realism: Goodness and badness are mind-independent properties (of actions or character traits (virtues/vices))

– Objectivism: Moral claims are either true or false.
– Non-Naturalism: Goodness and badness are not explained
empirically.
– Constructivism: Moral statements are true or false by virtue of what agents would agree to under idealised conditions of choice.

Answer 1

• Aristotle: Moral statements are true or false by virtue of what virtuous agents would agree to
• Kant: Moral statements are true or false by virtue of what rational agents would agree to

Kant:
Being done with a good will is a necessary and sufficient condition for an action’s being good.

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

“The good will is good not through what it effects or accomplishes, not through its efficacy for attaining any intended end, but only through its willing, i.e., good in itself … Even if through the peculiar disfavour of fate, or through the meagre endowment of a step-motherly nature, this will were entirely lacking in the resources to carry out its aim, if with its greatest effort nothing of it were accomplished, and only the good will were left over … then it would shine like a jewel for itself, as something that has its full worth in itself.”
(Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals)

Question 2

A deontological account (deon = duty):
• One’s act is good if one wills thereby to do one’s moral duty

(if one acts “out of the motive of moral duty”).

• One’s act is bad if one wills thereby to do something that one has a moral duty not to do.
• Acting in accord with the moral law but not out of the motive of duty (e.g. in order to be appreciated) does not merit moral praise.
• The existence of moral duties implies the existence of moral rights.

Hypothetical vs. Categorical Imperatives

Consider the Imperative: “Don’t kill!” Why not?

• The Moral Egoist reply:

Because if everyone is to be able to pursue their interests as much as possible, then no-one should kill.

• The Utilitarian reply:
Because if the world is to be as happy as possible, then no-one should kill.

• Kant’s reply:
Because that’s your duty! There are no “if’s” here.

Answer 2

Kant’s Categorical Imperative

• The question What is my duty to do? (that is, at a given situation) is answered by the “Categorical Imperative” (Five “equivalent versions”)
• The Categorical Imperative is a principle of “pure Reason”. It is non-instrumentally irrational not to abide by it.

“Versions” of the categorical imperative :

i) Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law

(= An act is right if you can consent to everyone’s adopting the moral rule presupposed by the action.)