TOPIC: Philosophy 1000 Lecture Introduction to Kant s deontology of Categorical Imperatives. KEY TERMS/ GOALS: Conformity with duty vs. motive from duty. Deontology. Kant s focus on agent s motives rather than consequences of actions. Categorical Imperative vs. Hypothetical Imperatives. Maxim. Four maxims that fail the Categorical Imperative Test. READING: Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (Perry p. 504-520). Focus on p. 504-512. Trolley Problems in Perry (823-824) Optional: O Niell, Kantian approaches to some famine problems. (Perry p. 504-520) Download: Two clips from Star Trek. The needs of the many and The needs of the one found in Course Content Kant folder. CONTENT: Immanuel Kant Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785) Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is considered one of the most influential philosophers. In addition to his work in ethics, he is said to have solved a debate between empiricism and rationalism by offering a way to think about concepts which are justified a priori but learned via experience (called synthetic a priori concepts). We will only discuss one part of his enormous work in ethics, namely his idea of the Categorical Imperatives, as a method of deciding whether actions are morally right or wrong.
KANT AGAINST CONSEQUENTIALISM. Recall that consequentialism is the notion that the worth of an action should be judged by the consequences of that action. For Utilitarians, who value happiness, an action is considered morally right if the consequence of that action brings happiness to people. Kant, however, thinks that the value of an action does not come from the consequences produced. Rather, the value of actions have more to do with the motives of the agents. One reason is that consequentialism has a problem it implies that agents can forsee the consequences of the action. But, since people cannot forsee consequences, then the consequences should not be the determining factor of the action s worth. Take the example of Smith helping the old lady across the street. Smith does not know whether the old lady will be happy or sad by being helped, nor does he know if the action will inadvertently facilitate the lady robbing a bank. A Utilitarian says that the action is right only if it produces pleasure, but if the lady ends up robbing a bank, then the action is wrong. Kant, however, says that the action is always right (because it passes the Categorical Imperative, which will be discussed later). Smith s motive was to help the old lady. This is a good motive and so it is a good action, whether or not it actually leads to bad consequences. As another example, assume that you give money to a charity. The action of giving to charity is considered either good or bad by a consequentialist, depending on whether the money goes to people who need help (a good consequence) or if the money ends up supporting guns for terrorists (a bad consequence). For Kant, however, the action is always good even if the money is used in a bad way. The motives of the agent play a greater role than consequences in deciding whether the action is morally good or bad. For Kant, an action is morally right if it passes the Categorical Imperative. Before I discuss this idea, it is important to know what Kant means by imperatives and duty. Imperatives means rules or laws that you must follow. For example, if I say that it is imperative that you read the required readings for this lecture, that means that you must do so. There are two kinds of imperatives, hypothetical and categorical. Hypothetical imperatives presents an action as a means for some other end. It is a hypothetical imperative that you go to class (a means to the end) in order to get a college degree (the end goal). A categorical imperative presents an action as an end in itself. Categorical imperatives are objectively necessary without reference to any purpose. Examples of categorical imperatives are things that you do for its own sake. To know the difference, ask yourself, IF I was in X situation, what would I do? If you do P in order to get Q then you are using hypothetical reasoning (I.e. I should go to class to get a college degree, or I should stop smoking if I want to protect my health). If you do P for P s sake alone, then that is categorical reasoning (i.e. I should go to class or I should stop smoking ). The Ten Commandments are often thought to be using categorical reasoning, since they dictate something you should do for its own sake (i.e. do not steal, or do not murder ). Another way you can think of the difference is by considering that consequentialists use hypothetical reasoning to figure out how to do things in order to get a goal (for Utilitarians, the ultimate goal is pleasure or happiness for society). But Kant uses Categorical imperatives to consider which actions are good in themselves. Kant uses the difference between hypothetical and categorical reasoning to point out that Utilitarians measure the worth of an action by using hypothetical reasoning. Smith considers it a good action to help the old lady across the street because it will cause happiness. If going to school is a good means to get a degree, and getting a degree is a good means to eventually give you happiness, then going to school is a good action. But, Kant points out, it is better to treat actions as worthy in themselves, rather than treating an action as only good if it gets you something else. This idea works well when you consider interactions with other people. Consider whether it is right to go on a date where you will receive dinner. Using hypothetical reasoning, you might think it is a good action because you will receive dinner. But Kant would point out that you are using the person as a means to an end (namely to get dinner). Kant says Act in such a way that you always treat humanity... never simply as a
means, but always at the same time as an end. In other words you should never treat a person as a means to an end. Kant focuses on moral duty. DEONTOLOGY means of the law or of duty. The method of the Categorical Imperative will tell you what your moral duties are, but basically it means that you should do X for the sake of X, not as a means to some other end. An action is good if you do X OUT OF DUTY, rather than IN ACCORDANCE WITH DUTY. For Kant, a person should act out of duty, which means that your motive is to do X for duty s sake. If you do the same action, but it is for the purpose of gaining some other end, then you have not acted out of duty, but rather in accordance with duty. Kant s example is the Shopkeeper who treats his customers fairly. Kant points out that you should always treat a person as an end, not as a means. So, if the shopkeeper treats his customers fairly because he wants them to give him money, then it is a wrong action. The motive of the shopkeeper is to use the customer as a means to an end, namely to get more money from the customer. However, if the shopkeeper treats the customer fairly out of the duty to treat people as an ends in themselves, then the action is morally right. Even though the action of both scenarios is the same, the motive of the shopkeeper must be to act out of duty. The action cannot accidentally be in accordance with the right thing to do the agent must do the right thing in order to do the right thing. In other words, you judge an action by the agent s MOTIVES, not the CONSEQUENCES of the action. CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE. Kant is a moral realist. He thinks that there are universal laws that apply to everyone at any time. Deontological ethics mean that you act to follow these universal laws. Deontology means of the law or of duty. The duties he is talking about are ethical duties which we can know by using our reasoning faculties. He privileges our ability to reason and use rational faculties in order to know what these laws are. He has devised a method that we can use to determine which actions are morally right or wrong. The way you discover which actions are morally right is by seeing if they pass the Categorical Imperative. The first step is translate the action in question into a maxim that can be universally applied to anyone at any time. Maxims are simply rules of conduct or principles of action. For example, you might ask should I help an old lady across the street, should I park in a handicap parking spot should I use the gas attendant to get gas should I eat a doughnut before taking a test, should I steal this wallet or should I have an abortion. Maxims are things like thou shalt not steal, don t cheat on a test, or drive on the right side of the road. Maxims should be formulated as principles that can apply to everyone, not just yourself or to specific circumstances. An action of eating a doughnut before taking your philosophy exam is too specific. Formulate the maxim instead as do not eat sugar before a test. Take for example, the maxim Go to class every day. You can see that for Mill this maxim is good if you want the goal of getting a degree. Again, using hypothetical reasoning, Utilitarians consider going to class as a good means to an end goal of getting a degree. For Kant, the maxim might be a good thing to do, as long as it is treated as an action that you do for its own sake. The maxim is simply go to class and you do the action as an ends in its own right. This might make more sense if you consider that you might die tomorrow. If you die tomorrow, then going to class as a means to get a degree is a somewhat worthless action because it did not achieve your goal of getting a degree. However, for Kant, going to class today is good in its own right, whether or not you might die tomorrow. The next part of Kant s method is to test to see whether that maxim will pass the Categorical Imperative. The Categorical Imperative is this: Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law (510). (Memorize this quote!). This may seem like a complicated idea, but it
basically means that you should consider whether the action in question can be used by anyone at any time without contradiction. You are supposed to take your maxim and consider whether it can be a universal ethical law that everyone should follow. For example take the Golden rule, treat everyone as you would have them treat you. This seems to be a good maxim, because it applies to everyone without exception. To universalize a maxim, you might consider that you are dictating an ethical system to everyone, at any time, from any culture, without any exceptions. The reason this is done is that ethical laws, to an ethical realist like Kant, will apply to everyone. They are good ethical laws because they apply to human beings and humanity as a whole, not just to individuals or to certain cultures in certain time periods. If there are real moral ethics, an ethical realist believes, then they are ethical laws because they apply to everyone. So, if a maxim said, Treat everyone kindly, unless they stole your radishes, then the maxim has exceptions to the rule, and it is not a good maxim. It would never turn out to be a real absolute ethical law if there are such exceptions. A real ethical law would not have inherent contradictions in it either. Take for example, a maxim that I saw on an episode of Seinfield. The characters Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer are driving in George s dad s car to get a gift at the mall. George is driving around the busy parking lot and is typically frustrated at not being able to find a parking spot. Kramer suggests parking in the handicap parking spot next to the door. The question is, is it morally right/wrong to park in a handicap parking spot? To formulate the maxim, we consider whether it can become a universal law that anyone can park in a handicap parking spot. The maxim is: Everyone can park in a handicap parking spot. You might add that you can park there if you re in a hurry, or if there are no other parking spots, but the maxim must not be too specific to the circumstance. The maxim will fail because it contains an inherent contradiction. We know by reason that the maxim contradicts what our concept of a handicap parking spot is. What it means to be a handicap parking spot is that it is reserved for the handicap. If it was not reserved for the handicap, then it wouldn t be a handicap parking spot. This means that not anyone can use the spot, only people with handicaps can use the spot. So the maxim of parking in a handicap parking spot fails because it is inherently contradictory. We can know that this maxim will not pass the Categorical Imperative (CI) test because we can use our reason to determine whether there are contradictions or exceptions. We can also know that using a handicap parking spot is taking advantage of something to use as a means to an end. If we parked in a spot that is reserved for some group of people, then we are treating that group of people as a means to use their spot. This will never fly, since we should always treat people as an end, never as a means. Let s take another example of using a gas station attendant to get gas. Now, obviously, we go to the gas station as a means to get gas. But it does not mean that we can treat the people who work there as if they were machines placed there to give us gas. They are human beings, and, Kant would insist, we should treat them kindly. Why? Consider the maxim treat people as if they were machines. Could we universalize that? I think not, because then we would have to treat ourselves as machines, too. But that goes against our nature. Our reason tells us that we have inherent worth and we are not just machines to be used to fill up gas or work. So, if we cannot treat ourselves as machines, then neither could we, without contradiction, treat others as machines. We cannot make ourselves the exception. If we are humans with value, then so is everyone else. If you keep the Golden Rule in mind (treat others as you would treat yourself) then you ll have no trouble deciding which maxims will pass or fail the CI. I must mention again that Kant is NOT a consequentialist. It is very tempting to see bad consequences in a maxim and then think it fails because it has bad consequences. But you should resist that temptation. The reason that maxims fail is because they have inherent contradictions, or exceptions to the rule, NOT because they lead to bad consequences. Consider whether the maxim it is okay to steal could become a universal law. Now, you
might think that the maxim will fail because if everyone stole, then people would be less trusting, and if they are less trusting then they would not do business with others that required trust like loans and banks, and if those business crashed, then the economy would crash and our society would fail. That is a bad consequence indeed, and it is a reason why a Utilitarian would say stealing is bad. But the bad consequence is not the reason why stealing is bad for Kantian reasons. Stealing is bad, rather, because it uses other people as a means to get money or possessions from them. More important, the maxim you can steal contains an inherent contradiction. The very concept of having possessions means that you alone are entitled to those possessions. But if everyone stole your possessions for themselves, then there would be no such thing as owning possessions that you alone are entitled to. So the maxim of stealing fails because it uses people, and it violates the concept of possession. Below is a representation of the Categorical Imperative method by which you can test your maxim to see if it is morally right. Once you formulate your maxim, you can see if it can become a universal law that can apply to anyone at any time without contradiction. CI#2 and #3 are different ways of formulating the Categorical Imperative, which Kant talks about. The CI procedure Form a Maxim CI#1 CI#2 CI#3 Could it become Universal Law? Does it treat people as an End not merely as a Means? Could the maxim be willed by you and agreed upon by everyone to as moral law for the community? P A S S E S No No No Fails the Categorical Imperative: IT IS NOT MORALLY RIGHT! These three ways of formulating the Categorical Imperative are supposed to be ways of formulating the same idea. The idea that you should will the maxim to become a universal law ( The formula of Universal Law ) simply means that your maxim should apply to everyone without exception. If your maxim passes this test, then it is an ethical principle which everyone should follow. You can also formulate the maxim as if it might be a natural law ( The formula of the Law of Nature p. 510), such as the law of gravity. This means that everyone is obliged to do it in principle, just as every physical object obeys gravity. The other formulation is in terms of treating a person as an end in themselves because humans have inherent worth and should not be treated as a means to get some goal. Importantly, if your maxim passes the CI test, then it will have no inherent contradictions. If the maxim fails on any of these levels, then the action is morally wrong.
KANT S FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS. Philosophy 1000 Lecture Kant considers four maxims and asks whether they can pass the CI test. The first is about whether suicide can be considered a morally right action. A man is despairing over his life and wonders if he should kill himself. The maxim is From self-love I make it my principle to shorten my life if its continuance threatens more evil than it promises pleasure (511). You might formulate the maxim as It is okay to commit suicide if life sucks. Will that maxim pass the CI test? Kant says no, that maxim could never be willed to be a universal law. There are a couple reasons. The first is that it treats a person (yourself) as a means to an end (happiness). There is also an inherent contradiction. Notice that the man is considering killing himself because he is unhappy and wants to be happy. But how can ending a life result in happiness? Kant says that our reason tells us that the very same feeling whose function is to stimulate the furtherance of life should actually destroy life would contradict itself and consequently could not subsist as a system of nature (511). In other words, the man s motivations are to improve his life. He has a feeling that he wants to be happy and improve life. But it is contradictory to be happy and improve life by destroying his life and killing off that feeling of wanting happiness that motivates him in the first place. The contradiction is to have a system of nature (a system where suicide is okay) which would destroy life by means of the same feeling that promotes life (a feeling of improving life and being happy). So, suicide would never pass the CI test. The second illustration is about lying. A man considers borrowing money but he knows he cannot pay it back. Any time you borrow money, from credit card companies or your bank or your friend, you are making a promise that you will pay it back (otherwise it is not borrowing, it is just taking). The maxim is: Whenever I believe myself short of money, I will borrow money and promise to pay it back, though I know that this will never be done (511). There are two problems to this maxim. First, it is certainly a case of treating a person as a means to an end, namely to get money from him. Second, there is an inherent contradiction: If everyone did this, there would be no basis for promise-keeping. The very concept of promise involves keeping your word, at least as much as possible. But if you enter into a contract knowing that you won t keep your promise, then you are violating the idea of keeping a promise. Again, do not look at the consequences of violating the promise. Certainly there are bad consequences if no one kept a promise then no one would trust others and we would not have institutions such as banks that loan money or credit card companies or even a verbal agreement. Human communication would look very different if we couldn t trust anyone to keep their word. But the bad consequences are not Kant s reason for thinking that violating promises fail the CI. Rather, it is the fact that the very concept of promisekeeping is tainted that makes the action of breaking a promise morally wrong. The third illustration is about a man who is in comfortable circumstances and prefers to squander his natural talents. The maxim is to neglect cultivating talents. Say that the man has a natural talent for music but prefers to watch tv all day (for the purpose of being happy) instead of practicing his violin. Could we will this maxim to be a universal law? Kant says no: as a rational being he necessarily wills that all his faculties should be developed as much as they can be (511). Notice that Kant thinks that the consequences might not be bad. He gives an example of a society where everyone let his talents rust and they devote their life to idleness. But Kant still thinks that it is morally wrong. The motive behind the man who wants to indulge in pleasure or idleness is to gain happiness. But Kant notes that his talents would serve him to give him happiness as well as all sorts of other possible ends. So the man is essentially saying that he will not do something that will give him happiness, in order to seek out a happy life style. This is contradictory. Consider, too, that if EVERYONE squandered their talents, then no one would become doctors or lawyers or entertainers or musicians. But if we ourselves are out to seek pleasure, then we would find none, since no one else cultivates their talents enough to provide pleasure. Doctors provide medical knowledge that provide pleasure, and actors and musicians provide entertainment that
give pleasure. Again, this is not to illustrate that neglecting talents would be a bad consequence. Rather, if your goal is to find pleasure, then it would be contradictory for you (and for everyone) not to cultivate things that bring pleasure. The fourth illustration is about a guy who is flourishing and sees others who are in hardship. Is it morally right to help others? The maxim is Though things are going well for me, I won t help others who are less fortunate (511) or in other words, you can help yourself but not help others. In this case, you are not using others as a means to an end, so the maxim doesn t fail on the formulation that you should treat others as an ends. But there is a contradiction: a will which resolved in this way would contradict itself, inasmuch as cases might often arise in which one would have need of the love and sympathy of others and in which he would deprive himself of all hope of the aid he wants for himself (511). Here Kant is imagining that a person who wants to flourish would also sometimes need others to help him. But if the maxim was universal, then it would state that no one has a duty to help others. And if no one helped others, then flourishing would not be possible. Kant thinks that a situation might arise where the man needed help, but he would rob himself of this help since his maxim is essentially to not help others. Incidently, the maxim of giving to charity to help others is considered to be our moral duty to Peter Singer and Onora O Niell, but for very different reasons. Singer is a Utilitarian and he argues that we have a moral duty to increase the happiness of people. O Niell is a Kantian. She points out that Kant focuses on the inherent value of autonomy the ability of a person to take care of themselves, rather than depending on others. She argues that people in third world countries are desperately dependent on food and medicine that mostly comes from other countries. They are prevented from being autonomous. Importantly, since first world countries are contributing to this plight (by hogging resources, monopolizing economies, etc) then it is actually our duty to help third world countries by giving to charity. It is a contradiction to demand autonomy for ourselves only because this is not universal to everyone, including starving people in third-world countries. These four illustrations demonstrate how you formulate maxims, test them through the Categorical Imperative procedure, and see if the maxims contain inherent contradictions. KANT VS. MILL. The last thing I want to do is compare and contrast Kant s ethical system with Mill s Utilitarianism. The first big comparison of Mill and Kant is on deciding whether an action is good or bad according to the motives of the agent (Kant), versus the consequences of the action (Mill). I go back and forth between Mill s and Kant s reasons for why certain actions are right or wrong. If I had to choose, I would say that I am a Utilitarian. But I often find myself focusing on agent s motives, rather than the action s consequences, which would make me a Kantian. Consider an action that happened a few months ago during the Haiti Earthquake where people were forming their own coalitions in order to help Haitians. One group of missionaries went to Haiti and collected some orphan children in order to bring them to America and find them homes. They were arrested because they didn t have sufficient evidence that the children were in fact orphans. Now, on the one hand, these missionaries motives were pure they just wanted to help children. But on the other hand, the consequences of their actions could turn out to be very bad. If it turned out that some of the children s real parents were alive and trying to find their kids, then it would be a horrible action to take away those children. I leave it up to you to decide whether the action of helping orphan children was morally right or wrong.
Another thing that I want to caution you about is to keep in mind that the question is about whether actions are morally right or wrong, not about whether you would do them in real life. Consider the Trolley problems in Perry s book. A famous Trolley problem involves a train that will kill five people. Imagine you are standing on a bridge with a fat man. If you push the fat man off the bridge, it will stop the train from killing five people, although it will kill the fat man. The question is about whether the action of pushing the fat man off the bridge is morally right or wrong, not about whether you would actually do it. Most of us when faced with that situation might be cowards and do nothing or freeze up, even if we thought that it might be morally right to help people. For example, if you were on a plane and someone hijacks the plane intending to crash it, where 200 passengers will die. Assume that the only way to stop the hijacker is to kill him. In real life, we might not be brave enough to do anything. But the question is about whether it is the morally right thing to do to kill the hijacker in order to save 200 people. What would your answer be? Play around with the thought experiments (without changing the thought experiment itself). Would it make a difference if you had to kill someone in order to save 100,000 lives? A million lives? In the Fat Man on the Bridge example, would it make a difference if the fat man was the president of the US, and the people tied to the tracks are homeless people? Would it make a difference if there was a child involved (either as the fat man or a person tied to the tracks)? Would it make a difference if the Fat Man was a saboteur who actually was responsible for damaging the train s breaks and tying the people to the track? If your answer changed to any of these scenarios, then explain why it matters. I uploaded two clips of Star Trek which you can find under the Kant folder on Course Reserves. Watch The needs of the many and then the needs of the one. As you can see, Spock is a Utilitarian since he risks his life to save the crew of the Enterprise. (Mr. Spock: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. ) In the second clip, Mr. Spock s body was sent to a planet which could regenerate people back to life (Spock s cells were used to spawn a child who grew up to be Spock). Captian Kirk takes the Enterprise crew (who gave their consent) on a dangerous mission to find Mr. Spock again. I m thinking that Kirk is a Kantian because he values the life of one person (any and every individual). He explains to Spock s father that the price for letting Spock die would be his soul. That sounds Kantian to me. What do you think? ASSESSMENT: I included a thought experiment called The land of good motives, versus the land of good consequences in the discussion board. Write your responses. Indicate in the class poll on the discussion board whether you are a Utilitarian or a Deontologist (Kantian). DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Write your responses to the Trolley Problems in Perry. Do you think it is morally right to push a fat man off a bridge if it will stop a train from killing five people? Think of your own maxims and test them with the CI procedure to see if those maxims are morally right or wrong.
Consider the thought experiment I gave in the Mill lecture about the Sherriff who is considering framing a lonesome stranger for murdering a townsperson. What would Kant say about this scenario? Is there in inherent contradiction in framing someone for murder, even if the consequences would make a lot of people happy? Would it make a difference if the lonesome stranger gave his consent to be framed? Would you frame the lonesome stranger if it would help a million people? Look on the internet for more Trolley problems. There are tons and tons of really juicy fun thought experiments. Share them on the discussion board.