kantian ethics Flashcards
who created the theory ?
the theory was created/formulated by german philosopher, immanuel kant.
kantian ethics introduction
kant was part of the european enlightenment movement. an important goal kant shared with other enlightenment thinkers was to bring religion and ethics within the boundary of reason, not of faith. religious warfare had been greatly destructive in europe. the problem was that those of different faiths could never come to agreement. reason is universal, however. countries never went to war because of disagreements about whether 1+1 was equal to 2, because everyone agrees or at least can agree on questions of reason. if ethics could be based on reason, kant conceived that a harmonious society of rationality would be established. everyone would either agree or there would at least be the hope and possibility of coming to agreement through rational discussion.
aquinas’ natural law had claimed that reason can discover the natural moral law in our nature. kant, however, thought that reason could discover a moral law in reason itself. he claims that what it means to be human is to be a ‘rational agent’, which means to have reason and be able to make choices towards ends (goals).
reason tells us that other people are also rational agents, so in that regard we are all equal. it seems to follow from this that if i did an action that couldn’t be done by everyone, then i would have to think that i was somehow special or better than others. however, reason tells us we are all equal. so, reason tells us that we should only act on principles that can be followed by everyone.
kant called this the categorical imperative, something we have a duty to always do (you should do X). a hypothetical imperative is a moral action that a rational will adopts for reasons other than duty (you should do X if you want Y). as rational beings we may adopt ends that are not categorical, which makes them hypothetical. however, we have a moral duty to follow the universal moral law categorically, i.e., regardless of our desires.
kant’s universal absolutist ethics was very influential on our current theory of human rights. he even thought of the idea of the united nations.
the first formulation of the categorical imperative
this is the first claim that we should only do something if everyone can do it. kant says ‘act only according to that maxim by which you could at the same time will it become a universal law’. this is the test of universalizability. the maxim of your will is the moral statement of what you want to do. the test if whether you can rationally will that everyone do what you want to do. e.g lying – kant thinks lying cannot be universalised because if everyone were to lie, there would be no such thing as truth anymore. however lying depends on truth, therefore by willing everyone to lie, we would be willing the undermining of the concept on which lying depends for its existence in the first place. that is inconsistent and therefore irrational and therefore a maxim advocating lying cannot be rationally willed into a universal law.
the second formulation of the categorical imperative
kant says ‘always treat persons, whether others or in yourself, always as an end, never as a means’. this essentially means ‘don’t use people, or abuse yourself’. our reason makes us a rational agent and thereby no better or worse than anyone else inasmuch as they are also rational agents. rational agents have and seek goals which kant called ‘ends’. to treat a person as if they were a mere means to an end is irrational as it contradicts the fact that they have their own end. your treating them as a means is dependent on your viewing yourself as a rational agent who adopts means to achieve ends, but denying that another rational agent has their own ends is to contradict the basis on which you attempted to use them in the first place; that you are a rational agent who adopts means to achieve ends. it’s like suggesting that denying the intrinsic value of another human being amounts to denying your own. kant claimed that all rational agents are therefore ends in themselves.
the third formulation of the categorical imperative
kant argues that if everyone followed hiss ethics we would live in harmonious society, a ‘kingdom of ends’. kant argued we should behave as if we did.
duty and good will
for kant, a good will is one which has the right intention when performing moral actions. once we have used our reason to figure out our duty, we should then just do it out of a sense of duty because it is our duty. we should leave out personal feelings/desires and just do ‘duty for duty’s sake’. for example, if it is our duty to give money to charity, we should do it because it is our duty, not because we want to or because we feel empathy. the only morally good motivation for doing an action is out of a sense of duty.
the three postulates
kant argues that reason can figure out this basis for ethics. however, he doesn’t think that ethics makes sense without three postulates. a postulate is something you have to assume to be true in order to have a basis for reasoning about something. kant thought that there were three postulates we have to assume to be true if ethics is to be based on reason.
1 - god.
2 - immortality (of the soul in an afterlife).
3 - free will. kant thought that without free will, we could not be responsible for our actions and thus surely ethics would be pointless.
kant pointed out that good people are not always rewarded in life, and some times bad people do seem to be rewarded. this was unjust. for ethics to work, there needs to be justice. so, kant thought that there must be a god who lets us in to an afterlife where good people are rewarded with happiness. kant called this the ‘summum bonum’, meaning the highest good.
