2.2A- Kantian Ethics Flashcards
Duty and goodwill
-Kantian Ethics are deontological, meaning that they focus on the idea of duty.
-Kant thought there is objective and absolute moral law. Morality is not just personal prefernce or invented by society.
-Moral law can be known through reason.
-Kant thought the only thing that can be called good without any qualification is the good will. Purity of motive is important for Kant- an action is good id it is done for the right reasons, but the same action is not virtuous if it is done to impress others or for some other kind of personal gain.
-Morality should not be driven by emotion. We should do the right thing because it is the right thing, not because we feel sorry for someone or loyal to them, or for any other emotional reason.
-Kant gives examples of duties such as pursuing the greater good, not destroying ourselves, not destorying or limiting other human beings, not making false promises, but being truthful, avoiding drunkenness, recognising the right to private proerty, and doing good to others.
Kant’s understanding of moral knowledge
Kant thought knowledge can be divided into two kinds:
-Knowledge that comes from sense experience, ‘a posteriori’ knowledge
-Knowledge that we at first hand, ‘apriori’ knowledge.
-Kant argued that moral knowledge is apriori:
we do not need experience to know what is right and wrong
moral knowledge comes from within.
-He also thought knowledge is synthetic rather than analytic:
We cannot tell whether something is right or wrong by looking at it. We bring additional information, from our knowledge of right and wrong.
Because we bring additional knowledge when we are making judgements, Kant thought moral knowledge must be synthetic.
Imperatives
Kant understood moral law in terms of the hypothetical imperative and the categorical imperative. He thought that moral law, which is good in itself, is categorical, not hypothetical.
The hypothetical imperative
-The term ‘hypothetical imperative’ refers to rules we must follow if we want to achieve particular results. If I want to achieve ‘X’, then I must do ‘Y’. If I don’t want to achieve ‘X’ then it doesn’t matter whether I do ‘Y’ or not.
The categorical imperative
-The term ‘categorical imperative’ refers to rules that must be followed with no ‘ifs’. Moral rules are categorical imperatives. They must be followed, regardless of what we hope to achieve in the end results and regardless of our emotions or personal preferences.
Kant’s 3 principles for the categorical imperative
The unversial law of nature, our moral rules must be capable of being universal (they should be universalisable). They should be rules that apply to everyone at all times and in all cultures. We should not mkae rules where we expect to be allowed to break them when it suits us. Truth-telling is Kant’s major example of this- we should always tell the truth.
The end in itself, people should not use others as a means to an end. They should treat others as people, not as tools to get what they want.
The kingdom of ends, people should act as if their behaviour is setting the laws in an ideal kingdom. Imagine we live in an ideal society of rational people. Which laws would we have to govern behaviour? Always behave as if you are following those rules.
Kant’s 3 postulates
Kant makes three assumptions (postulates) which underpin his ethics:
Freedom, we are all free to make moral decisions. If we were not free to choose then we could not be praised or blamed for what we do as we would have no choice. We must assume we are free to do our duty.
Immortality, good people should be rewarded with ultimate happiness. This is the highest good (summum bonum). In this life we can see that it does not always happen that good people are rewarded with happiness. We must assume there is an afterlife in which justice is done in the end.
God, it seems that Kant assumes there must be a God to bring about the afterlife and to ensure that juatice is done. Kant thought that human reason could not know God, but his ethics imply God.
Strengths of Kantian Ethics
-Kant’s ideas of moral absolutes can be appealing. Morality is not changeable depending on fashionable opinion; there are some things whcih are always absolutely right or wrong.
-Kant emphasises human moral reaosning, giving autonomy to people to act thoughtfully rather blindly following commands.
-The categorical imperative as a quality of morality does not leave people wasting time wondering whether, in this circumstance, they still need to tell the truth. Rules are rules, which can make them easy to know and apply.
-Kant recognises the dingity and worth of other human beings, whatever their status in society.
Weaknesses of Kantian Ethics
-Kantian Ethics can be seen as cold and lacking in compassion for people’s individual circumstances.
-Some argue that Kant fails to recognise the importance of human emotion in moral decision-making.
-Sometimes Kant seems to be recommending sticking to rules even when it is clear that such actions will lead to terrible consequences.
-Kant does not tell us what to do when duties conflict. He does not give guidance about how to make a choice.
-Religious believers might think that Kant seems to give human reason a more important place in morality that he gives to God.
An alternative view on Kantian Ethics: Louis Pojman
-He finds that some examples of practising Kantian Ethics are not so successful. Kant argues his imperative would prohibit suicide as he thinks you cannot universalise: ‘whenever it looks like one will experience more pain than pleasure, one ought to kill oneself’, because it contradicts survival, on which the principle is based.
But Pojman suggests it would be possible to universalise. ‘whenever the pain of suffering of existence erodes the quality of life in such a way as to make non-existence a preference to suffering existence, one is permitted to commit suicide’.
-Pojman concludes that while Kant opposed suicide, his categorical imperative does not.
