kantian ethics Flashcards
INTRO
Susan Neiman - kant sees ethics as a development of a better world, as bridging the gap between the way the world is and the way it ought to be.
part of the European enlightenment movement - focus on reason
what it means to be human is to be a ‘rational agent
formula of nature
Kant says ‘Act only according to that maxim by which you could at the same time will it become a universal law’
Maxim = subjective principle of volition
Circumstances do matter - being a diabetic, one might have to have an insulin injection everyday - this for them is right, however to universalise this outcome would have an undesirable outcome
similarly, alistair macintyre brings up the point that ‘it is very easy to see that many immoral and trivial non-moral maxims are vindicated by kants test’, for example ‘always eat mussels on mondays in march’.
followers of kantian ethics would argue that he made ut very clear that this universalisation test is aimed at specifically moral decisions.
however, now we come an impasse where, when confronted with a decision, it is not possible to know where to draw the line between moral decisions and trivial decisions.
reason vs emotion
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’
reason = pure and practical, and can be used as a distinct faculty that is somehow independent of human experience and emotions
Bernard Williams claims it is inhuman and ethically wrong to suggest that moral judgement should be free from emotion + ‘requires one thought too many’
For example, giving money to charity because you feel empathy for suffering people seems like a moral act, but Kant would regard it as non-moral
Hume - Arguably it is actually impossible in practice to act without any influence of emotion on your moral motivation.
Reason is a ‘slave’ to the passions, because its sole purpose is to help our passions or desires get what they want. Its role is purely instrumental, guiding us to achieve the outcomes we desire.
simon blackburn
Simon blackburn - ‘the kantian self is nothing but the sublimation of a patriarchal, authoritarian fantasy’ - our reasoning and our emotions are means to understand the world around us, but either one by itself is incomplete - seeming to suppress a fundamental part of human nature
Hinman = Kantian ethics is entirely impartial treating each individual as a morally valuable being + There is no flexibility which can enter the individual’s thought process.
Hegel - The ‘rigorist’ critique stated that Kant’s radical - deontology is absurdly impersonal and inhumane + ambiguous concept of duty
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’.
formula of humanity
‘Always treat persons, whether others or in yourself, always as an end, never as a means’
riverbank drowning - this example, there would be no definitive solution. If you are saving one person, you are effectively using the other as a means, rather than an end in themself, and so are not acting morally
“ought implies can”, meaning that if something is our duty then we must be capable of doing it.
when faced with no win situations, kant seems unhelpful and unrealistic
Nietzsche criticised Kant for being contradictory. Kant tries to establish a view of the world independent of God, however he then assumes that the existence of a moral law points towards, even if it does not prove, the existence of a moral law giver.
Kant suggests that as life on earth might not be long enough to reach the summum bonum, we must possess an immortal soul which will allow us to do so.
conflicting duties
strength of ethical clarity - Kant’s precise rules and method for figuring them out is available to all rational beings
Ross identified that there is a possibility for a situation where both actions or outcomes would be contradictory - ax murderer and lying/keeping promises
Sartre created a classic illustration of a soldier trying to decide whether to go to war to defend their country, or stay home and look after his sick parent. They cannot do both, but both are universalizable and neither involve treating people as a mere means. It follows that both are their duty, and so there are clashing duties.
This is a problem for Kant’s ethics because he claims that our reason can figure out what our actual objective duty is.
if Kant’s method of universalisibility and treating people as ends produces maxims that clash, then his method doesn’t actually discover our duty
+HUMES IS OUGHT GAP
