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Abstract Kants
writings on ethics are the most important since antiquity. Kant argues that our moral
obligations in the final analysis derive from reason by recognition of the moral law, and
not from neither God, nor from communities, nor from inclinations or desires. But being a
practical realist, Kant differentiates several levels of operation of the behavioral
rules. This article summarizes and explains Kants system of ethics which the author
discussed in a previous publication within a broader context of the universal ethics.[i] Introduction
Kant's work written in 1785, Foundations
of the Metaphysics of Morals,[ii]
is one of the most important in the history of ethical philosophy. Kant begins with
the classification of our rational knowledge (Table
1). Kant was not interested in constructing a system or writing a casuistry of
morals, but searched for an axiom which might be used for building a general system of laws of freedom (in contrast to the
laws of nature, concerned with the nature), the science of which he called ethics or
theory of morals. Just as natural philosophy
(physics) has its empirical part so does moral philosophy because it has to determine the
human will as it is affected by nature. Kant
calls this anthropology. Thus the laws of
moral philosophy are those according to which everything should happen, allowing for
conditions under which what should happen often does not.
Though the title contains the word metaphysics it is not about the
understanding of ultimate reality, or metaphysics of nature, but a rigorous search for an
establishment of the supreme principle of a possible pure will which cannot be derived
from observations of actual behavior of men but can be established by reason. PART I A. Condition of
morality
Kant starts his considerations with analysis of the conditions for attaining
happiness -- namely of being worthy to be happy i.e. of having a good will. Our moral obligation in the Greek and Judaic
traditions is to achieve this "purity of heart" or "kingdom of God,"
which means good will. "Nothing in the
world -- indeed nothing even beyond the world -- can possibly be conceived which could be
called good without qualification except a good will."
The function of reason is the establishment of this good will. The good will is good because of its willing,
that is, it is good in itself without regard
to anything else. In saying this Kant
describes nothing other than the common moral
consciousness and derives the principle for moral action. He insists that in deciding what we ought to do our variable desires are not important -- for an action to be truly moral it has to be done in the belief and because of the belief that it is right, i.e., out of respect for moral law. For the true moral value of our action it is not sufficient that it arise from some good inclination, disposition or temperament even according to duty -- it has to arise from the sense of duty, or good will. Whether the action succeeds in its purpose or not, if it is done with a good will, it is morally acceptable. The consequences which we consider in passing moral judgment are those intended consequences, implicated in the motive of the action. Many actions, even if they produce good results, that are done in accordance with the law are not moral in this strict sense if they are done with some ulterior motives. Thus truly morally good action will not only be in accord with the law but also because the law is acknowledged as absolutely and universally binding. Kant formulated thus the condition of morality in three propositions (Table 2) : "... the first proposition of morality is that to have moral worth an action must be done from duty. The second proposition is: An action performed from duty does not have its moral worth in the purpose which is to be achieved through it but in the maxim by which it is determined. Its moral value, ... depends on the principle of volition by which the action is done ... The third principle: ... Duty is the necessity of an action executed from the respect for law." Respect is understood to be the consciousness of the submission of the will to a law. Maxim means the subjective principle of volition whereas the practical law is the objective principle that would serve all rational beings also subjectively if reason had full power over the faculty of desire.
Table 1 Logic (no empirical part) With definite object Deals with laws of nature Deals with laws of freedom Physics (theory of nature)
Ethics (theory of morals) Empirical
part Deals with laws of nature
Deals with laws of morals
concerning Pure
part Laws of how everything happen.
Table 2
1. Done from duty. 2. Moral
value in the maxim by which action 3. Duty is a
necessity of an action from the respect MAXIM:
PRACTICAL
LAW:
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A.
HYPOTHETICAL (Conditional)
Principles of volition
Rules of skill (as in science)
Technical
Counsels
of prudence
Pragmatic (for happiness as an end)
B.
CATEGORICAL (Unconditional)
Laws
Commands of morality
Unconditional
Objective
Universally valid
Binding even against inclinations
Belonging to free conduct
Absolutely necessary
end for all others. Thus Kant formulates the principle of humanity: "Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only." This principle of humanity is the supreme limiting condition on freedom of the action of each man.
3.
The principle of harmony with universal practical reason.
Moreover, we should act in harmony with the idea of the will of every
rational being as making universal laws, therefore should endeavor to further the ends of
others: "For the ends of any person, who is an
end in himself, must as far as possible also be my end, if that conception for an end in
itself is to have its full effect on me and hence the third principle of the
will as the supreme condition of its harmony
with universal practical reason can be formulated as:
the idea of the will of every rational being as making universal law. Thus the
principles of universality and of humanity constitute the grounds for all practical
judgment.
D. Autonomy of the will, the
dignity of man and harmony.
From the moral law Kant derives a conception of the autonomy of the will, the dignity of man and harmony. The will is not only subject to the law but also the lawgiver. The moral law can obligate unconditionally only if it is a law given by man as sovereign in the realm of ends to himself as a subject in this realm. Man thus has a dignity of a lawgiver -- the laws he obeys are the laws he gives himself. The being that gives the laws to himself is not merely bound to the law but is freely bound by his own lawgiving activity. This is why Kant calls moral law autonomous (from the Greek word for law nomos). The necessity of acting according to that principle is a duty which pertains to each member in the realm of ends (a systematic union of different rational beings through common laws). This duty rests on the relation of rational beings to one another and reason therefore relates every maxim of the will as giving laws to every other will and also to every action toward itself. The imperative form of this principle of autonomy is: "Act by a maxim which involves its own universal validity for every rational being." A being that takes the law from another lawgiver -- God, a tyrant, his own cupidity -- must be led to obedience by fear or hope. He is not then free but heteronomous. He is not truly moral because all his maxims are hypothetical and he cannot act out of respect for a universal law which takes no account of the contingent and divisive interests of individuals.
The three
formulations of the imperative represent three aspects of one moral law that brings the
action to intuition as much as possible. The
will is unconditionally good which follows this maxim of the moral law. But a rational being cannot expect that every
rational being be true to it; so Kant reformulates the law into still another, practical version: "Act according to the maxim of a
universally legislative member of an only potential realm of ends." But still it commands categorically and Kant
emphasizes that it suffices that the dignity of humanity as rational nature and respect
for the idea should serve as the inflexible
precept of the will. Moreover, the worthiness
of every rational subject to be a legislative member consists in independence of the
maxims from such incentives. Hence morality
is the relation of actions of possible universal lawgiving by maxims of the will. Action
compatible with the authority of the will is permitted.
The will whose maxims necessarily are in harmony with the laws of autonomy
is an absolutely good will. The dependence
of a will not absolutely good on the principle of autonomy is obligation. And the objective necessity of an action
from obligation Kant calls duty.
In the concept of duty we usually think of subjection, yet there is dignity in it so far as the person who fulfills his/her duties is a legislator of the law and subject to it for that reason. Also no fear or inclination to the law may give a moral sanction in the strict sense of the word to action. Thus autonomy of the will is the supreme condition of morality: "Never choose except in such a way that the maxims of the choice are comprehended in the same volition as a universal law." If the will seeks the determination of the law outside itself in the property of any of its objects, heteronomy results and becomes the source of the spurious principles of morality based on hypothetical imperatives in the terminology of Kant (see the list below). An example will illustrate this. According to the rule of heteronomy and hypothetical imperative -- "I should not lie if I wish to keep my reputation. According to the rule of autonomy and categorical imperative -- "I should not lie even though it would not cause me the least injury."
But Kant, being a realistic man, admits that among all spurious principles he would admit as most tolerable the principle derived from the concept of moral sense because it preserves the idea of a will good in itself. He defines this moral sense as "The subjective effect which the law [his moral law of categorical imperative] has upon the will to which reason alone gives objective grounds."
Table 4
Kant's List of Conditional (or Spurious)
Principles of Morality from the Principle of Heteronomy
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Empirical |
Rational |
|
| a. from principle of happiness based on physical or moral feeling; b. as concept
of moral sense,
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from principle of perfection a. ontological concept of perfection as a possible result; b. theological concept of |
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PART III
F. Possibility of the Categorical Imperative
So far
Kant dealt with the question: "What is morality, such that we could say that an
action with such and such characteristics would be moral?" Now Kant has to deal with
another question: "Can such an action
actually take place?" Answers to both
questions cannot be given by citing examples, they have to be answered by reason. The key to the answer to the second question lies
in the freedom of the will -- otherwise morality is impossible, because something else
would determine it and the categorical imperative would become hypothetical imperative. Thus freedom cannot be a law of nature, rather
an autonomy of the will that is the property of the will to be law to itself. For reason must regard itself as the author of its
principles and thus practical reason or the will of a rational being must regard itself
free, independent of foreign influences. Kant,
following in principle Aristotle's reasoning, explains this freedom through his theory of
knowledge that there is something else in man behind the appearance of man, namely the ego
or consciousness in itself or the pure activity of reason which is free from causal
determination in the world of appearance i.e., things which we perceive. Thus man can be apart from nature and free from
its laws, when reason exclusively determines his action, but also is a part of the world
of sense under the laws of nature and as such not free.
Freedom is expressed by the categorical imperative and the hypothetical
imperative expresses inclinations in the world of sense.
Kant summarizes this by saying: "As
a rational being and thus as belonging to the intelligible world, man cannot think of the
causality of his own will except under the idea of freedom, for independence from the
determining causes of the world of sense (an independence which reason must always ascribe
to itself) is freedom. The concept of
autonomy is inseparably connected with the idea of freedom, and with the former there is
inseparably bound the universal principle of morality, which ideally is the ground of all actions of rational beings, just as
natural law is the ground of all appearances."
Categorical imperatives are possible because the idea of freedom makes man a
member of the intelligible world. If one were a member only of this intelligible world,
all actions would be always in accordance with the autonomy of the will. But since man is
at the same time a member of the world of sense, his actions ought to conform to the
autonomy of the will as belonging to the intelligible world, which according to reason
should dominate the sensuously affected will. Anyone
who is accustomed to using his reason is conscious of the good will which constitutes the
law for his bad will as a member of the world of sense and acknowledges the authority of
this law even while transgressing it. The
moral "ought" is one's own volition as a member of the intelligible world. It is conceived as an "ought" only in so
far as one regards himself at the same time as a member of the world of sense.
Kant next asserts, however, that philosophy has no knowledge of this
supersensible world, it only can indicate its possibility and thus defends foundations of
morality.
To summarize briefly Kant's foundations of morals:
Kant
believed that ethics not only can but has to be validated without appeal to God's will or
God's orders. Otherwise it would not be moral
law in the proper sense, that is, ethics would not be autonomous and thus would not be
ethics properly so called. He believed that
moral law was to be validated not only independently of utility, pleasure, happiness,
natural desires, or positive law, but independently of God's will as well. This is a specification of Kant's general concept
of moral actions: if we were acting in
conformity with moral law not because it is moral law but because God wants us to do so,
or because we risk divine retribution in the afterlife, we would not act morally in the
strict sense. This principle of autonomy is
so conceived that it excludes from moral motivations in the strict sense not only the fear
of hell and purgatory, but even the pure readiness to
subordinate one's will to God's orders; the motive for doing God's will is not a moral
motive. Kant states that only the good will
is good in a moral sense of the word, the strict sense.
More, he says, there is only one motive which is morally good and this is
the will to act according to duty as expressed in a general principle. Thus an act is morally praiseworthy if it is done
out of a sense of duty as such, and not, for instance, from mere inclination or
compassion. If what is my duty happens to
coincide with what I will spontaneously, my act is morally empty (in the strict sense); a
duty should be performed merely because it is duty and not for any other reason. Kant also
realized that people being what they are may act from various motives. Thus the rational act performed out of a sense of
moral duty is the supreme ideal of moral acts.
It is the task of modern investigation into the evolution of human psyche to illuminate ultimately he co-ordination between the nature and freedom, between human being as part of natural world and a free agent, between the moral and natural ends of mankind.[iii]
Kantian morality has a supreme normative principle, the Categorical Imperative, recommending us to act in such a way that we would wish the particular rule governing a given action to become a universal law. This principle has a formal character and it states the condition on which any particular moral rule may claim to be valid.
Table 5
FORMULATIONS
OF THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE
From the principle of universality:
Act
only according to the maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a
universal law
From concept of nature:
Act
as though maxim of your action were by your will to become a universal law of nature
From the principle of humanity (human a
rational being as an end in itself):
Act
so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an
end and never as a means only
From the principle of autonomy of the
will:
Act by a maxim which involves its own universal validity for every rational being
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Table 6
LEVELS OF BEHAVIORAL RULES
I.
INSTINCTIVE
e.g. food,
procreation, fear of the unknown
social
life in social animals
(governed by genes and epigenetic rules
only)
II.
HETERONOMOUS
A. Empirical: From
principle of happiness
From concept of moral sense
(based on inclinations; all inclinations summed up in the idea
of happiness)
B. Rational: From
concept of perfection
Transcendental, theological
III.
AUTONOMOUS
Categorical
Imperative (Autonomous moral law)
A law for the will of every rational being
It only can have as its subject itself considered
giving universal law.
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[i] Author previously discussed Kants ethics in the context of the possibility of developing a universal moral code: Marian Hillar, Is a Universal ethics Possible? A Humanist Proposition. In The Philosophy of Humanism and the Issues of Today. American Humanist Association, Houston, 1995, pp. 127-148.
[ii] Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Mataphysics of Morals and What is Enlightenment? Translated, with Introduction, by Lewis White beck. (New York: London: Macmillan Publishing Company, Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1988).
Onora ONeill, Kantian Ethics. In A Companion to Ethics. Peter Singer, ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), pp. 175-185.
[iii] Robert Wright, The Moral Animal. Evolutionary Psychology of Everyday Life. (New York: Vintage Books, 1995).
Mary Midgley, The Evolution of Ethics. In P. Singer, op. cit., pp. 3-13.
Michael Ruse, The Significance pof Evolution. In P. Singer, op. cit., pp. 500-510.