Reading -- Kant -- The Categorical Imperative

Question 1

Kant – The Categorical Imperative

Answer 1

SUPREME PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY – Groundwork is … the search for and establishment of the supreme principle of morality, which constitutes by itself a business that in its purpose is complete and to be kept apart from every other moral investigation.

• It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a GOOD WILL.
• Qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable for many purposes, but they can also be extremely evil and harmful if the will which is to make use of these gifts of nature,… is not good.
• It is the same with gifts of fortune.
• Without the basic principles of a good will they can become extremely evil, and the coolness of a scoundrel makes him not only far more dangerous but also immediately more abominable in our eyes than we would have taken him to be without it.
• A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes,…but only because…it is good in itself.
• Thus the moral worth of an action does not lie in the effect.
• Nothing other than the REPRESENTATION of the LAW in itself, which can of course occur only in a rational being,…can constitute the preeminent good we call moral.

IMPERATIVES – HYPOTHETICALLY** or **CATEGORICALLY – The practical necessity of a possible action as a means to achieving something else that one wills.

CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE – That which represented an action as objectively necessary of itself, without reference to another end.

• If the action would be good merely as a means to something else the imperative is hypothetical;
• If the action is represented as in itself good,…in itself conforming to reason,…then it is categorical.
• When I think of a hypothetical imperative in general I do not know beforehand what it will contain; I do not know this until I am given the condition. But when I think of a categorical imperative I know at once what it contains.

THERE IS Only a Single Categorical Imperative – ct only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.

• Universal imperative of duty can also go as follows:
  
  • Act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a UNIVERSAL LAW OF NATURE.
• DUTIES – Duties to ourselves, to other human beings… perfect …imperfect.
• 1) Someone feels sick of life because of a series of troubles that has grown to the point of despair, but is still so far in possession of his reason that he can ask himself whether it would not be contrary to his DUTY TO HIMSELF to take his own life.
• Now he inquires whether the maxim of his action could indeed become a universal law of nature.
• His maxim, however, is: from self-love I make it my principle to shorten my life when its longer duration threatens more troubles than it promises agreeableness.
• The only further question is whether this principle of self-love could become a universal law of nature.
• It is then seen at once that a nature whose law it would be to destroy life itself by means of the same feeling whose destination is to impel toward the furtherance of life would contradict itself and would therefore not subsist as nature; thus that maxim could not possibly be a law of nature and, accordingly, altogether opposes the supreme principle of all duty.
• His maxim of action would go as follows: when I believe myself to be in need of money I shall borrow money and promise to repay it, even though I know that this will never happen.
• Now this principle of self-love or personal advantage is … consistent with my whole future welfare, but the question now is whether it is right.
• I therefore turn the demand of self-love into a universal law and put the question as follows: how would it be if my maxim became a universal law?
• I then see at once that it could never hold as a universal law of nature and be consistent with itself, but must necessarily contradict itself. For, the universality of a law that everyone, when he believes himself to be in need, could promise whatever he pleases with the intention of not keeping it would make the promise and the end one might have in it itself impossible, since no one would believe what was promised him but would laugh at all such expressions as vain pretenses.

Neglecting His Natural Gifts…

Rational Nature Exists as an End in Itself.

• First, as regards the concept of necessary duty to oneself, someone who has suicide in mind will ask himself whether his action can be consistent with the idea of humanity as an end in itself.
• If he destroys himself in order to escape from a trying condition he makes use of a person merely as a means to maintain a tolerable condition up to the end of life.
• A human being, however, is not a thing and hence not something that can be used merely as a means, but must in all his actions always be regarded as an end in itself.
• I cannot, therefore, dispose of a human being in my own person by maiming, damaging or killing him.
• Second, as regards Necessary Duty to Others or duty owed them, he who has it in mind to make a false promise to others sees at once that he wants to make use of another human being merely as a means.
• Examples of assaults on the freedom and property of others are brought forward. For then it is obvious that he who transgresses the rights of human beings intends to make use of the person of others merely as means, without taking into consideration that, as rational beings, they are always to be valued at the same time as ends.

Contingent (Meritorious) Duty to Oneself – It is not enough that the action does not conflict with humanity in our person as an end in itself, it must also harmonize with it.

• Now there are in humanity predispositions to greater perfection, which belong to the end of nature with respect to humanity.

Meritorious Duty to Others – Now, humanity might indeed subsist if no one contributed to the happiness of others but yet did not intentionally withdraw anything from it; but there is still only a negative and not a positive agreement with humanity as an end in itself unless everyone also tries, as far as he can, to further the ends of others.

KINGDOM OF ENDS – The concept of every rational being as one who must regard himself as giving universal law through all the maxims of his will, so as to appraise himself and his actions from this point of view.

• All rational beings stand under the law that each of them is to treat himself and all others never merely as means but always at the same time as ends in themselves.
• But from this there arises a systematic union of rational beings through common objective laws, that is, a kingdom, which can be called a KINGDOM OF ENDS.

A rational being belongs as a _MEMBER t_o the kingdom of ends when he gives universal laws in it but is also himself subject to these laws. He belongs to it as _SOVEREIGN_ when, as lawgiving, he is not subject to the will of any other.

• Morality consists…of all action to the lawgiving by which alone a kingdom of ends is possible.
• This lawgiving must, however, be found in every rational being himself and be able to arise from his will, the principle of which is, accordingly:
  
  • Do no action on any other maxim than one such that it would be consistent with it to be a universal law, and hence to act only so that the will could regard itself as at the same time giving universal law through its maxim.

PRACTICAL NECESSITATION** – The necessity of an action in accordance with this objective principle of rational beings as givers of universal law, the necessity of an action in accordance with this principle is called **PRACTICAL NECESSAITATION…Duty.

• That will is absolutely good which cannot be evil, hence whose maxim, if made a universal law, can never conflict with itself.
• This principle is, accordingly, also its supreme law: act always on that maxim whose universality as a law you can at the same time will; this is the sole condition under which a will can never be in conflict with itself, and such an imperative is categorical.

Categorical Imperative Can Also Be Expressed Thus – Act in accordance with maxims that can at the same time have as their object themselves as universal laws of nature.

• In this way, then, the formula of an absolutely good will is provided.