Kant - Ethics

Question 1

The ‘Good Will’

Answer 1

The only truly good thing in the world

The right intention held when performing duty

Question 2

Duty

Answer 2

Kant thinks we should act out of duty, using the good will, and leave out our personal feelings

Acting in accordance with duty i.e doing a good thing but not for the reason of duty is not morally right - not morally wrong either

Question 3

The First Formulation of the Categorical Imperative

Answer 3

‘Act only according to that maxim by which you could at the same time will it become a universal law’. – Kant.

Basically: only do what you would wish done unto yourself and everyone you know

Question 4

Contradiction in conception

Answer 4

We should only act on an ethical principle if it’s logically possible for everyone to do this - the test of universality

For First Formulation, this means we can’t tell lies as it can’t be universalised - if everyone were to lie there would be no such thing as truth

Question 5

Contradiction in will

Answer 5

A maxim like ‘always refuse help from others’ doesn’t lead to a contradiction in concept, as it’s technically possible for everyone to act on it

However, Kant thought maxims like this couldn’t be universalised because they contradicted our rational will to achieve ends - we require help from others to achieve our ends and we contradict our rational will if we attempt to universalise such maxims

Question 6

Second Formulation of the Categorical Imperative

Answer 6

“Always treat persons, whether others or in yourself, always as an end, never merely as a means.” – Kant

Don’t use people, but acknowledge and help them with achieving their ends as well as your ends - acceptable to be used as a means so long as you treat them also as an end

Question 7

Three Postulates

Answer 7

The things required to be true for Kant’s reason based ethics

1. God
2. The afterlife
3. Free will (without free will, we couldn’t be responsible for our actions and so ethics would be pointless)

Question 8

Why does an afterlife need to exist for Kant

Answer 8

Because good people aren’t always rewarded in life and sometimes bad people are, which is unjust.

Justice is required for ethics, so Kant thought there must be a God who lets us into the afterlife, where good people are rewarded with happiness

Kant called this the “summum bonum”, meaning the highest good

Question 9

Strength of Kant: Ethical clarity

Answer 9

His precise rules and methods for figuring out ethics is available to all rational beings

Doesn’t assert rules from an external authority, which is primitive and how children are raised, and people can recognise the rationalists of moral rules through their own reason

This engages the autonomy of the individual in a way required for a civilised democratic society

Question 10

The issue of clashing duties

Answer 10

‘Ought implies can’ - we must be capable of doing something for it to be our duty; if they clash and can’t be done, it’s not our duty.

However, if those duties were obtained through Kant’s formula of the categorical imperative, Kant’s ethical theory cannot tell us our duty

Sartre, a proponent of this idea, suggested a thought: a soldier trying to decide whether to go to war to defend their country, or stay home and look after their sick parent - both cannot be done but are both fulfilling 1st and 2nd Categorical Imperatives.

Question 11

Evaluation defending Kant from Sartre

Answer 11

If we have clashing duties, we haven’t used our reason properly

Distinguished between perfect duties (1 way of filling) and imperfect duties (multiple ways of filling)

E.g we have a perfect duty to tell the truth

In Sartre’s example, he’d suggest they are imperfect duties: you could pay someone to look after your parent or could stay home and help the war effort by working a factory

It is possible to fulfil both duties because they have multiple options to solves them

Question 12

Evaluation criticising Kant’s perfect vs imperfect duties

Answer 12

We can press the objection further where there are surely situations where one duty cannot be fulfilled

The soldier’s life circumstances, like having no money and being press ganged into army, might mean they can only fulfil one imperfect duty

Question 13

Kant’s response to B. Constant’s axe murder

Answer 13

Constant thought we should lie if an axe murderer asked where our family were, which fits most’s moral intuitions. Telling the truth, therefore, cannot be an absolute duty and seems to depend on the consequences

Kant presents the issue of calculation as a strength of his deontological approach We cannot control consequences, so we cannot be responsible for them. So, they cannot be relevant to our moral decision-making.

Question 14

Weakness of Kant in terms of disregard to consequence

Answer 14

Kant’s justification about consequences being uncontrollable seems flawed; it seems we can predict and control consequences to some degree, contrary to Kant. So it could follow we are responsible for them to that degree

This is what Consequentialist theories like Utilitarianism claim where moral obligation is to act on the ‘tendency’ (Bentham) certain actions have to produce pleasure

Singer says we ought to act on a ‘reasonable expectation’ regarding what will maximise utility - we should take consequences into account to the degree we have knowledge and control of them

Question 15

Evaluation defending Kant from consequentialists

Answer 15

Each person is, as a rational agent, responsible for their actions - you are responsible for what you do and thus should not lie

It may seem unsatisfying but allowing bad actions for the ‘greater good’ corrupts people. Abandoning our duty because of consequences is a slippery slope. It might be better to die than become immoral

Question 16

Evaluation criticising Kant from consequentialists

Answer 16

Kant pictures a human being as a rational agent who is ultimately an individual, responsible only for what they do.

Hegel criticised Kant’s understanding of the self for overlooking the fact we exist in complex webs of social influence. Part of who we are depends on our interactions with others

Applying Hegel’s insight to Kant’s ethics, we exist in deep connection to other people and thus to that extent are in fact responsible for each other’s actions

Intuitively, this is how social life actually functions. We are not the atomised radically individual people Kant imagined us to be.

Question 17

Kant’s view on emotions

Answer 17

Kant argues emotions are unreliable because they are transient and fickle; Reason’s ability to produce respect for the moral law is more stable

For Kant, acting on emotion isn’t morally wrong but is not morally good - if we help others because we feel like it, then we aren’t helping others because it is good. Only acting out of duty can be morally good

Barbara Herman’s interpretation of Kant is that emotions can only lead to right action by luck - when acting out of duty, we will the moral rightness of our action; it is the forefront of our concern

But emotions can’t be moral motives because they do not provide the agent with a moral interest in the rightness of their action.

Question 18

Criticism of Kant’s emotionless ethic

Answer 18

Bernard Williams (Aristotelian) argues Kantian morality is too narrow, distinguishing it from ethics as a broader account of how a person comes to be virtuous due to their emotional habits and personal relationships

Michael Stocker agrees. He asks us to imagine being ill in hospital and a friend visiting us, but saying they only came because it was their duty. Clearly, acting solely on duty is ‘implausible and baffling’.

Williams argues Kantian morality is unnatural and was ‘one thought too many’. A virtuous person doesn’t have to be thinking about moral laws, but can do good out of habit

Stocker argues acting out of duty is incompatible with cultivated virtuous habits like love and friendship. The nature of love is that it wills the other’s good for its own sake, not the sake of anything else like duty

Question 19

Evaluation defending Kant from virtue ethicists

Answer 19

They are missing the point - Kant is concerned with more explicitly moral action; so long as we treat others as ends, we can by motivated by as much or little emotion as we like, it’s not an issue

In fact Kant said we should cultivate relationships to make acting out of duty easier - he studied as an Anthropologist

Question 20

Evaluation from virtue ethicists critiquing Kant

Answer 20

Stocker’s critique is successful because it shows how emotions leading to right action can be more than just luck. We can act out of intentionally cultivated feelings of friendliness and love when visiting a friend in hospital. So, emotions can and do have moral value in an objective ethics

Question 21

Phillipa Foot’s critique of hypothetical imperatives

Answer 21

Argues it’s not irrational to violate the categorical imperatives and their power over us derived from social conditioning, not reasoning

She concludes it’s only irrational to act against our own ends. Moral judgements are only rationally binding if we accept them as our end, which makes them invariably hypothetical.

Therefore, lying is only irrational if it undermines our ends

Kantian ethics seems to be without justification for its claim that objective universal morality can be derived reason.

Question 22

Evaluation defending Kant from Foot

Answer 22

If I treated others as a mere means to my ends (as Foot suggests), I would have to think my ends more important than others.

Yet, reason tells us that other people are rational beings like us who seek their own ends. In that regard, reason tells us we are all equal.

There is no rational way to privilege my ends above others. To be rational requires treating all ends as equal.

Question 23

Evaluation criticising Kant from Foot

Answer 23

Kant thought if we do not act out of duty, we will act out of a hypothetical imperative that involved our personal desires, which he seemed to think could only involve self-interest. People will only do what suits them, which would be a disaster for society.

Kant’s mistake is accepting a false dichotomy. He thought we could be motivated either out of duty or emotional self-interest.

Foot is right to point out how, drawing on Aristotelian virtue ethics, humans can cultivate being motivated by love and the classical virtues. This provides a foundation for morality in place of Kant’s failed attempt.

Question 24

McIntyre’s absurdity check

Answer 24

“It is very easy to see that many immoral and trivial non-moral maxims are vindicated by Kant’s test” – Alasdair McIntyre

McIntyre gives the example of “Always eat mussels on Mondays in March” and “Keep all your promises throughout your entire life except one”. No contradiction arises in conception or will when conceiving of everyone acting on these maxims. It seems Kant could not have intended us to think they are our moral duty, however.

What if someone decided they wanted to steal but used the maxim ‘it’s acceptable for people born on February 29th to steal’. This could be universalised because if only a minority of people steal, the concept of property on which stealing depends would not be undermined by only a few people stealing.

Question 25

Kant’s response to McIntyre

Answer 25

Breaking promises treats others as a mere means. Eating mussels in march does not involve treating people (or yourself) as ends, so it is non-moral (trivial).

Treating people as ends involves clear moral content. This excludes trivial or immoral maxims.