Kantian ethics

Question 1

Introduction to Kantian ethics

Answer 1

o Kant’s ethics promotes one to perform good acts, however not for pleasing a ‘God’ like in all religions.
o Kant believed moral knowledge is found through reason, not experience or emotion.
o Kant believed moral law are universal maxims- fixed rules that must always apply. Moral laws must treat people as human beings with their own interests, not just to be used for the interest of others, and they must as if the world is a place where people followed universal rules.
o For Kant, good people always follow the moral law as they have a good will and do their duty. Also in the ultimate end, possibly after this life we will experience the good life.
o Kant thought that if our morality is driven by desire for pleasure then we are slaves to animal instinct. Goodness becomes whatever we desire, we act just like animals. But humans differ from animals as our rationality allows us to be able to act independently of instinct or desire for pleasure.

Question 2

Describe moral law, duty and good will

Answer 2

o Kant thinks there’s an objective moral law which is beyond personal opinion, preference or desire. It actually exists and it’s knowable through reason.
o Objective moral law is independent of all individual opinion or preference. It demands all to obey it in its own right, not because it promotes individual happiness or helps achieve person desires. It tells us what we ought to do, irrespective of consequences.
o Kant is a deontological thinker, so he is focused on the wrongness or rightness of actions in themselves.

Question 3

What is duty and good will?

Answer 3

What is the best motivation we can have for doing good? Kant argues “It is impossible to conceive of anything in the world, or indeed out of it, which can be called good qualification, save only a good will”.
E.g. if I text a charity to donate money as I can help and know I must, then my purity of motive is good in and of itself. But doing it for a selfish reason to impress someone means I’m not virtuous, good is still done but I get no credit.
Kant gives some examples of what our duty is. ‘To do good for others, where one can, is a duty’, but he also argues that those who do good as they get a sense of inner pleasure by spreading joy aren’t truly moral. It’s right but not virtuous.

Question 4

What is knowledge arising from sense perception and experience?

Answer 4

Kant thinks we can separate knowledge into two groups. There is the knowledge that we gain by our sense perception form the empirical world around us; what we can see and hear, touch and smell and etc.
This knowledge comes to us out of experience of particular objects and is a Posteriori.

Question 5

What is knowledge at first hand, before sense perception and experience?

Answer 5

Kant argues that there’s a knowledge that isn’t dependent on experience- its knowledge we have at first hand, ‘a priori’, prior to relying on experience.
Kant wrote ‘though all our knowledge begins with experience, it doesn’t follow that it all rises out of experience’. Moral knowledge comes from within and is a priori, perceivable at first sight.

Question 6

What is synthetic and analytic propositions and judgements?

Answer 6

• -An analytic judgement is one where a predicate (base) belongs to the subject. E.g. ‘all bachelors are unmarried’. ‘Bachelor’ is the subject and ‘unmarried’ is the predicate (base). Analytic judgements are ‘judgments of clarification’ as they clarify what is already found in concepts.
• -Synthetic propositions are those in which the predicate is outside the subject, and therefore must be made certain with reference to something other than the meanings of terms and laws of logic. E.g. ‘the table in the kitchen is round’. ‘Table’ is the subject and ‘round’ is the predicate’.
• -Analytic judgements are a priori as we don’t need experience of external objects to know them. E.g. we don’t need to check every bachelor if they’re unmarried.
• -Many synthetic propositions can only be known through a posteriori. E.g. if a sports car bumps into my estate car, I need to see this happen to know the statement is true.
• -In the case of moral knowledge, looking at what someone does, doesn’t tell you if their behaviour is correct. They might be doing a bad thing that they shouldn’t do, or a good thing that they should do.
• -This is why Kant thinks moral propositions must be synthetic. Kant thinks that moral knowledge comes from reason at first hand, it’s a priori synthetic.

Question 7

What is the hypothetical imperative?

Answer 7

Hypothetical knowledge (‘If’ statements) are conditional (always true). E.g. if it’s raining today, I will be wet. The hypothetical imperative commands behaviour for an end. It only commands us if we have accepted the desired end, if we haven’t then we need not act.
This is wrong says Kant, explaining we should look to the moral law that binds us unconditionally.

Question 8

What is the categorical imperative?

Answer 8

• -For Kant, moral knowledge is categorical if telling the truth is morally right, then we should always tell the truth.
• -The categorical imperative commands us to exercise our will in a certain way irrespective of any end. The moral rules and act reside in themselves alone (deontological), not in circumstances or whether they bring personal happiness.
• -Kant offers 3 principles for formulas in the categorical imperative; our actions must be good for people and all situations; we should never treat people only as a mean to end; we should act as if we live in a kingdom of ends. Kant believes these formulas must inform all laws.

Question 9

What is the formula of the universal law of nature?

Answer 9

• -“Act only according to that maxims by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”.
• -When we act morally, our actions must be something that we could always do. It can’t be an exceptional act that only applies in this situation or that culture. Our moral behaviour must be consistent throughout our life.
• -Kant argued that maxims that couldn’t be universalised would be contradictory. E.g. If I cheat on my wife, then it should be fine for everyone else in the world to commit adultery as it wouldn’t be fair if only you could do it.
• -We tell the truth as it’s the foundations of society (we build relationships on it, businesses, we learn through it and base our beliefs around it), so undermining truth telling undermines society.
• -Philosopher Benjamin Constant argued that the duty of telling the truth could make any society impossible. We need to tell white lies or lies for good motives.
• -He replies that ‘no one has a right to a truth that harms others’. Kant responds by saying a lie always harms someone. Once a lie is told, the person is responsible for all the consequences that result.

Question 10

What is the formula of the end in itself?

Answer 10

Humans are rational and have free will, so we can’t be used as an end because it would mean we’re being taken advantaged off.
Meaning we can’t treat people without regard for their own future life, integrity and ability to make a free choice.

Question 11

What is the formula of the kingdom of ends?

Answer 11

The kingdom of ends is a world which Kant tells us to imagine where no-one uses others as an end. It’s a world where everyone is acting morally and treating others as creatures who have worth.
Kant forbids us from making a moral rule that assumes others won’t treat people as ends in themselves.
But, Kant’s thinking on the significance of the human person as a rational lawmaker makes this impossible as a moral maxim.

Question 12

What are three postulates?

Answer 12

freedom, immortality and God

Question 13

What is freedom and summum bonum?

Answer 13

The postulate of freedom (autonomy), is at the core of Kant’s ethics. It means that human beings are free. For Kant, we must postulate freedom- it’s ‘the highest degree of life’ and the ‘inner worth of the world’.
Freedom means being able to choose the moral law over our instinct or desire. We act consistently according to universal rules rather than momentary impulses. Our reason grasp these rules.
Moral choices are only possible if we are free to make them. Autonomy of the will lies at the foundation of Kant’s philosophy. If we are restricted and our actions are controlled by another or we simply can’t act, then we don’t have moral responsibility.

Question 14

What is immortality?

Answer 14

Kantian ethics look towards a perfect future. This isn’t a future of individual desire fulfilments, but a greater future, a summum bonum. There our duty is united with things that give happiness.
Some people believe that in the life after this one we achieve this Summum Bonum. Kant thought that humans had the opportunity for endless improvement, or endless striving for improvement beyond death. Human beings are immortal, they live on beyond this life in Heaven and so sacrificial acts of duty are possible.

Question 15

What is God?

Answer 15

Kant’s ethics could be seen as an attempt to step away from a theological starting point, he wanted to make an ethical theory without God.
But, some elements of his ethics seem to imply God- such as the idea of an eternal law, the idea that humans are created rational creatures, and the idea that’s sometimes doing the right thing doesn’t lead to the greatest happiness in the world.
But, many Christians think that Kant places too much moral authority on the power of human reason, rather than biblical revelation for instance.

Question 16

Is Kantian ethics a helpful method of moral decision-making?

Answer 16

–Kant’s system of the categorical imperative is to prevent bad moral maxims being made. If we try to make lying a promise with
the maxims, ‘whenever I need money, I should make a lying promise while borrowing the money’. In universalising this we get, ‘Whenever anyone needs money, that person should make a lying promise while borrowing the money’.
–But, something is wrong with this- I could will the lie, but if it became a universal law there would be no promises. In making maxim universal it destroys itself. So nobody would make promises as it won’t be fulfilled.
–The maxim of the lying promise fails the universality test, and therefore, is immoral. Take the alternative maxim, ‘whenever I need money, I should make a sincere promise while borrowing it’. This can be universalised to become ‘whenever anyone needs money, that person should make a sincere promise while borrowing it’.
–Kant argues his imperative would prohibit suicide as he thinks you can’t 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’ (‘Ethics: Discovering right and wrong’, 2012). Pojman concludes that while Kant opposes suicide, his categorical imperative doesn’t.
–Kant’s attempt at a system for creating moral rules has many advantages. It seeks to raise the status of human beings and to avoid selfish rule-making.
–But, it isn’t clear how successful overall it is in achieving what Kant hoped it would. It might be that we need to build in exceptions and qualifications- then the categorical nature of his system seems to be undermined.
–Finally, it’s not clear how we should respond to situations where there is a conflict between helping one person or another. How would we decide how to act then?

Question 17

Should an ethical judgement about something being good, bad, right or wrong be based on the extent to which duty is served?

Answer 17

• -Kant’s theory has a strong emphasis on what’s going on inside the person making a moral decision. For Kant this is important as morality isn’t something that’s determined by emotions, and not determined by judgements about the results. Moral behaviour is about human improvement as well as the actions themselves. By acting properly we become happier and society becomes happier.
• -But perhaps it’s a little too idealised. It’s possible to act for all sorts of reasons that apply in the difficult circumstances life presents. It’s not always clear what our duty might be. We may feel torn by different pressures or may have to choose between two undesirable alternatives we are imperfect and prone to all sorts of influences in their inner motivations.
• -Kant has little time for these factors. Finally we might question whether it could be our duty to consider the consequences of our actions. Pojman is critical of Kant’s attempt to make moral law exceptionalness and holy, and duty something that should always be followed.

Question 18

Are Kantian ethics to abstract to be applicable to practical moral decision making?

Answer 18

• -Moral decisions are often made in challenging circumstances when we are under pressure, Kant might be accused of being unrealistic about the expectations he places on people as it requires a particular approach to life where a person had learned to separate themselves from their emotions and focus on certain principles where trying to decide what to do.
• -Humans are imperfect and the moral law may feel like a problem. But Kant requires us to focus to principle. Kant wants us to remember the principle of the universal laws of nature and the kingdom of ends. Kant also wants us to think about treating a person with respect as an end and it only a means. This is an idealised view of life.
• -E.g. there may be too few emergency relief supplies for the natural disaster hit country. When faced with no win situations, such as the decisions to save some lives at the expense of a few, Kant seems unhelpful.
• -Moral theories that simply provide rules and not systems for making rules are less useful as new unexpected situations may present themselves. Moral theories that aren’t interested in the development of the moral person may be less effective at creating a better society. Kant sees ethics as the development of a better world, not just better individual decisions, and that means better people.

Question 19

Is Kantian ethics so reliant on reason that it’s unduly rejects the importance of other factors?

Answer 19

• -Emotions are a fundamental part of human experience and emotional connections with loved ones, they seem to be among the most valuable things in life.
• -However Kant seems a little removed from this emotional importance. When faced with a great threat we might want to save our own child first but it’s not clear form Kant’s theory that there would be any moral ground for trying to save those closest to us over and above any other person.
• -Feelings often motivate responses (e.g. a concern for the poor). We might find ourselves with impure or mixed motivations, such as moral situations involving family members or friends.
• -However we could become corrupt by favouring those we like. Perhaps our feelings for someone could lead us astray. If everyone simply followed their emotions, then perhaps the world would become a worst place. So maybe Kant is right.