Do I Have to Do What I Know Is Right? (Part 2)

Preamble

     Lets do a quick and dirty summary of where we are so far in Kant's argument regarding obligations to act morally when we know what the correct moral action is.  When we left off Kant had made the case that some things are ends in themselves; in ordinary language we say that some things have intrinsic value.  An example might be "love".   We don't seek love as a means to some other end, but we seek love because it has a value in itself.  In Kant-speak, it is an end in itself.  Another thing that is an end in itself is a human.  Because a human has intrinsic value they are an end in themselves and thus ought not to be treated as a means to another's end.  In other words, every person has their own private ends and it is morally wrong for another to interfere with their ends by using them as a means to some end that is not their own.  If we want to oversimplify we can simply say, it is wrong to use people as a means to your ends.

Argument from Badassery?

     But why should we accept that I cannot use other people as means to my ends?  What if I'm just that much more of a badass?  Or maybe I'm really sneaky and am good at tricking people into doing my bidding (at an auction)?  Here comes the tricky part! Who needs the rational part! (Kant) I doooooooooooooo!  The reason why we ought to respect others as ends in themselves is because this is exactly what every rational person would want for themselves.  Suppose I decide that since I'm such a badass that I'm going to treat all the gehly men as means to my end of being king of the wooooooooooooooooorld!  If I am acting rationally then I must admit that my actions should be a law: whoever is the baddest badass can treat others as means.  The problem is if another badass comes along who is an even bigger badass than me..I now become a means to his ends.  This makes me saaaaad.  "But I don't want to pursue your means", I might lament, "I want to pursue mine!" 

Argument from Mutually Assured Freedom

     So you see, a rational creature can only guarantee his/her long-term ability to freely pursue their own ends if they advocate that others have the freedom (USA! USA! USA!) to pursue their own.  In fact, I might even want to ensure that the freedom (USA! USA! USA!) of others is protected to ensure my own is also protected.  Because every rational creature will want to ensure their ability to be treated as ends in themselves, it becomes a universal maxim, on practical grounds, that persons should be treated as ends in themselves and never as means to an end.  It is interesting that we not only derive our freedom from this idea but it is also the "supreme limiting condition of every [person's] freedom of action".  Kant formulates the law this way:

Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.

2nd Formulation of the CI

     Its important to note that this law of ends, when we apply it to determining a moral action (should) yield exactly the same law as the Categorical Imperative (Principle of Universalization); thus this "ends" law is referred to as "the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative".   Lets apply it to the now familiar money lending situation and see what results.

    Recall that for this situation you are in need of a loan and the only way you know you can secure the loan is to promise that you'll pay it back in x amount of time.  The thing is you know that you'll never be able to pay the loan back.  If we employ the 2nd formulation of CI, is it moral for you to make a "lying promise"?  Your ends are to obtain the money for whatever reason.  But the lender has ends too and he is an end in himself (he's got his own plans/hopes/dreams).  If you make a lying promise you are using him as a means to your ends which the lender does not share.  The man whom you are using for your own means certainly would not agree to lending you money if he had full information of your intentions.  Again, you are using him as a means to an end which he does not share and to which he does not consent.  So in this simple example we see that the second formulation of the CI produces the same conclusions that we'd find if we'd used the 1st formulation.

Yay!

Do I Have to Do What I Know Is Right? (Part 1)

Intro Ramble: The Purpose of Philosophy in Morality

     It's funny how things work sometimes.  After making my last post--"What Philosophy Is and Isn't"--I encountered the following passage in Kant regarding the role of philosophy (in ethics, anyway):

    

It is here that she [i.e., philosophy] has to show her purity as the authoress of her own laws--not

as the mouthpiece of laws whispered to her by some implanted sense [i.e., intuition] or by who      knows what tutelary nature [divine inspiration], all of which laws together, though they may          always be better than nothing, can never furnish us with principles dictated by reason.

     Now it is quite obvious that everything happens for a reason and god made Kant insert this passage back in the Enlightenment so that one day I would read it at just the right time.  There are no coincidences people!  Ok, all metaphysics aside, lets take a quick lookie-loo at what this passage is talking about.  Hopefully my use of the handy dandy parentheses have already made the meaning clear.  Basically, Kant wants to show that morality stems from reason, and reason alone.  Morality cannot come from some person claiming to have intuition about what is right.  If this were the case we'd quickly descend into a moral relativism of the worst kind.  Nor can morality come from someone claiming divine inspiration.  If this were the case we would have no rational reason to follow the laws, we'd only follow them out of fear of sanction.  Moral laws must come from reason because the fact that they come from reason gives them authority.

     Think about it for a second.  Suppose you are not sure how you should act in a particular situation.  Your faculty of reason--that is, rationality--tells you to act one way but you have inclinations toward a different course of action.  Suppose you choose to act on your inclinations: does it make any sense to say you acted in a morally correct way because "it felt right" even though you have a perfectly rational reason to act the other way?  Basically you are admitting that, in this case, acting irrationally is the moral thing to do.  This is a very tough case to make!

     Now if we take your method as a general principle for er'body to make moral decisions willy nilly (this is a technical term) based on how they feel, we're going to get into some trouble.  Now decisions are based on feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings but feelings aren't consistent but ephemeral; no universal laws could ever be derived from this method.  This method of making moral decisions and rules cannot work...nope.  (But I just feel it in my bones, I know I'm right!...I have a really good sense for these things!) Shut up.  (No, but my psychic told me I have a gift!  I'm speeeeeeeeeeecial!)

      I can't help it.  I have to share what Kant says about what happens when we appeal to intuition and such, it's way too good not to share:

     [...]for human reason in its weariness is fain to rest upon this pillow and in a dream of sweet illusions (which lead it to embrace a cloud in mistake of Juno) to foist into the place of morality some misbegotten mongrel patched up from limbs of very varied ancestry and looking like anything you please, only not like virtue, to him who has once beheld her in her true shape.

Oh! Snap! Wicka! Wicka! Wicka! Wut?  I'd give my left testicle to write half as well as that! (Ok, you could argue his sentences are a little long...)

The Relationship Between Duty, Morality, and Reason

     So, up until now Kant has focused on showing that we can determine the universal principle of morality by asking whether a particular action we will is universalizable.  Whatever passes this test qualifies as a universal moral maxim according to which we ought to act.  Now that we know what we ought to do, the next question is, it is a necessary law for all rational beings to act on what we ought to do?  In other words if we know what the morally correct action is, are we, as rational agents, obligated to act on it?

      Before we answer this problem it might be helpful to quickly review, by example, how we can determine the moral law.  Suppose I'm in a tough financial situation and I want to borrow some money.  I know that I'm not going to be able to repay the money, but the only way I'm going to get a loan is if I say (falsely) that I will repay the loan.  How do I determine if this is morally permissible? Well, we run our maxim (not the magazine!) through the universalization test (AKA the Categorical Imperative).  I ask, what would happen if I willed my behaviour to be a universal law for all?  If I make it a universal rule that everybody who needs to borrow money can lie about repaying the money what will happen?

     What will happen is that people who lend money will cease to lend money based on promises to repay.  The notion of a promise will have no meaning.  People making promises in this situation will receive only laughter in response to their request.  For people to lend money there has to be a norm (standard behaviour) or truth telling in the culture.  If you universalized your particular behaviour, no one would be able to borrow money with just a promise to repay.  Your behaviour is not universalizable and so we must universalize the opposite maxim, that people who borrow money must keep their promises to repay.

The Will...Vas is Das?

     Ok, so now we know what the moral thing to do is.  As rational creatures, do we have to do it?  Kant says yes, and here's his argument:  First we begin with a definition of will.  A will is the power/faculty by which we self-determine our actions according to notions of laws.  In plain English I think this means the will is my motivation for action; however it should be viewed as distinct from inclinations, instinct, and physiological urges.  The will is somehow above all that, not to say it can't sometimes be inline with those other elements that bring about appetite-driven behaviour.  The key notion it seems is that through the will we can "self-will" behaviour and overcome instincts, character, etc....  For example, take someone who really wants to eat ice cream.  Their inclination is to eat it, but they are not captive to this impulse; they can exercise their will to not eat the ice cream.

     Our will is always directed at some end.  Our will is not necessarily good, it can be directed at both good and bad actions.  However, when the end at which our will is directed comes about through reason, it must be equally valid for all rational things, viz, it has equal moral merit.  Hold on a second!  Couldn't we argue that I could use my reason to direct my will toward nefarious ends?  Would these wicked ends have equal validity too?  Kant would say that any nefarious ends did not come about through reason, but inclination and/or self-interest.  Of course we can use our reason to achieve evil ends but reason cannot choose evil ends.  Reason operates according to the categorical imperative, and evil ends are not universalizable.

      Where are we so far?  We know that the will gives us the power of self-determination; the will is always directed at some end; and when the will is directed at an end which came about through reason, that end is equally valid for all rational beings.  This last point is central to Kant's ethics.  We must give equal weight to the rational ends of any rational creature.  Simply put, er'body on this planet has an equal right to pursue their personal ends so long as they are universalizable.  As we have seen, an end is not universalizable if it prevents others from pursuing their ends.

     To illustrate lets quickly revisit the money borrowing scenario.  If you lie and say that you will pay the money back but don't and then will this norm to be universalized, nobody else will be able to borrow money (because lenders no longer take people at their word).  Your action has interfered with other people whose end might require they borrow money based on a promise, but now they can't.  Why do you have to be so selfish? Sheesh! Now look what you've done!

     Of course some actions won't have an effect either way on interfering with other people attaining their ends.  In cases such as these all we can say is that they are not the subject matter of morality.  So, if you're struggling to determine whether you should watch Jersey Shore or Big Brother, this has no bearing on somebody else attaining their ends;  you can do whatever you want--Kant doesn't care.   The moral content of these actions is as vacuous as the intellectual content of the shows I mentioned.

  

Humans as Ends in Themselves

     The next step in Kants argument is to (pretty much) assert that if we suppose there is an entity whose existence has intrinsic absolute value then from this entity, which is an end in itself we can derive determinate laws.  This is a little tricky so let me restate it.  Take for example "compassion".  Compassion has value in itself.  We don't display compassion as means to an end; we don't seek to be compassionate to achieve any further goal.  Compassion is an end in itself.  Because it is an end itself it has value "built into" it.

     From the idea of something having intrinsic value (i.e., it is an end in itself) Kant argues that it can be the ground of a possible categorical imperative--something like, "we should endeavor to be compassionate".  We don't endeavor to be compassionate to fulfill some other end, we simply ought to pursue being compassionate because it is a (good) end in itself.

     Humans are also ends in themselves.  They have intrinsic value.  They ought not be used for arbitrary means to achieving someone else's ends (without consent).  Anytime my actions affect another person I have to consider them as ends in themselves.  This doesn't mean that another person can never help another attain some goal, only that the helper has to have full information and grant consent to helping.  I can't use power to force people to do things that I want (my ends) because I am not treating them as ends in themselves but as means to my ends.   A significant part of our modern ethical ideas comes from this Kantian notion of treating all people equally as ends in themselves.

Up to hear we've talked about the relationship between morality and reason.  We still haven't finished talking about how Kant moves from saying morality springs from reason to it is our duty to do what reason dictates.  This seems as good a place as any to take a break.  I'll address the other part tomorrow.  It's 4am and I should get some rest.  Stop using me as a means to your end of philosophical knowledge!  Oh, wait.  Knowledge is a good in itself and I have a duty to make it available...

Good night!

Is it Always Immoral to Commit Suicide?

This is a short reflection I wrote for my Kant Seminar:    

 

     Kant argues that making false promises and committing suicide are both contrary to the Categorical Imperative because they are non-universalizable. To demonstrate both acts are immoral he employs to both acts an argument strategy which I will call the Argument from Unintelligibility. Essentially the argument is that when universalization leads to the unintelligibility of a concept, the maxim that produced the unintelligibility cannot be universalized. The argument seems to work better in regards to false promises than on the prohibition of suicide. First, I will examine his arguments against false promises and suicide; then I will examine its weaknesses when applied to suicide.

To demonstrate that we should not act on a maxim that permits false promises Kant presents the Argument from Unintelligibility. The main argument is:

1. The utility and intelligibility of false promises rely on the existence of true promises.
2. If the notion of a false promise is rendered unintelligible, it cannot achieve the end for which it is intended (to deceive/extricate oneself from an obligation).
3. If we universalize the maxim that it is permissible to make false promises in order to extricate oneself from and uncomfortable situation/obligation then the notion of a false promise will be rendered unintelligible.
4. Therefore universalizing this maxim will create a world in which our maxim prevents us from the achieving the very end we seek to accomplish by means of a false promise.

The basic idea is that by universalizing the norm of false promises we end up with a contradiction: a promise to comply with a future obligation only has weight in a society were it is the norm to uphold promises. If the norm is that people to do not uphold promises, then a promise is devoid of its common sense meaning. A false promise only functions in a society where there is a norm to uphold promises. So, if we universalize the norm of not upholding promises, promises become meaningless.

In 397-8 Kant makes the assertion that we have a moral duty to preserve our own lives. Later, in 422 he offers an argument that resembles the Argument from Unintelligibility to support his assertion. To set up the argument Kant asks us to suppose there is a person who's life is full of so much misfortune and misery that out of self-love they decide it is best to end their life. Is this person duty bound to continue living? In order to answer this we need to see if we can universalized the maxim “from self-love I make it my principle to shorten my life if its continuance threatens more evil than it promises pleasure”.

In universalizing this principle Kant recapitulates something similar to the Argument from Unintelligibility with the addition of a requirement that this principle of self-love should also be a principle of nature.

1. The function of self-love is to keep us living.
2. If we universalized the principle of “self-love allows suicide” then self-love would not keep us living.
3. If self-love did not keep up living then this would contradict (1).
4. The laws of nature cannot lead to contradictions.
5. Therefore, we cannot commit suicide out of self-love because it cannot be universalized.
6. Therefore, committing suicide out of self-love is not inline with the categorical imperative.

The main problem with applying the Argument from Unintelligibility to a prohibition on suicide is the assumption that the function of self-love is to “stimulate the furtherance of life”. It is not clear that (1) is true. It is equally plausible to say that the function of self-love commits us to a life of dignity. In this interpretation we can envision situations where there is no prospect of a life of dignity thus self-love might serve to compel us to end our life. Consider someone who has been in a horrible accident and as a consequence is completely paralyzed, cannot live apart from on life support, has difficulty communicating, is in and out of consciousness, and is in constant pain. It is difficult to see how this might be considered a life of dignity. Self-love, interpreted as a life of dignity might compel us to say that this person's duty is to end their life, or at the very least, it is an option for them.

Kant's possible reply could be that such a conception of the function of self-love is not actually self-love. This is not a particularly strong reply because in some sense it becomes a semantic argument. The key problem for Kant is that he has not demonstrated that a concept of self-love cannot preclude the notion of life with dignity.

Is It Ever OK To Lie?

Kant on Lying

Preamble

     Recall that in Kant's moral philosophy acting morally is a matter of acting out of duty to the moral law.  Let's break that down.  First, the moral law (AKA the Categorical Imperative) as I'm sure you all recall is "I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law".  In everyday language we would say that I should only act in a way that the principle according to which I acted could be willed as a universal law for er'body.  Second, we encounter the concept of duty.  As Kant conceives it, an action out of duty is one that is devoid of considerations of personal interest (will I gain from this?) and inclination (is my action guided by an emotion such as  sympathy?).  An action out of duty also doesn't take into consideration desired outcomes; action out of duty is action that is only concerned with abiding by what is morally correct--regardless of circumstance.  If your intentions are good then you will act out of duty to the moral law, and thus your action is morally praiseworthy.  The only consideration we make when judging the moral worth of an action if its intent was good (i.e. in line with the Categorical Imperative).

The Categorical Imperative (CI) and Not Keeping Promises

     The next step in Kant's project is to go from a general principle of action--the CI--and try to derive particular rules of action.  One of the examples he uses as a derivation is a prohibition on making promises you don't intend to keep.  The intent of this section is two-fold:  The first is to give an example of a particular moral law, and second it to demonstrate why and how we should make moral decisions.  Lets see how it works:

     Suppose you're at someone's party...a friend of a friend.  You're not particularly fond of this person because they won't cater to your Bieber Fever and like a lot of people they are oblivious to your dislike of them.  Er'body's been sippin' on juice and gin and feeling quite jovial.  After listening to this person go off on some tangent that smacks of Dualism they say, "my dear, you absolutely must bring your girlfriend/boyfriend over for dinner some time, my husband Laurence is a smashing good cook. Is that all right, what?"  Now aside from the fact that they used a grammatical form that irks you and speak with a really annoying British accent, you really have no desire to go over for dinner.  Social convention might dictate that you agree to the dinner date even though you have not intention of actually going. Is it ok to make a promise without the intention of keeping it?  Do you really want to kill this person's buzz?

     Kant distinguishes two ways to consider the dilemma: prudence and duty.  The first is to consider whether it is prudent to make a false promise.  To do this we have to consider if my making the false promise might in the end cause for you a more uncomfortable situation.  Maybe a few months later you bump into the hostess and she demands to know why you haven't kept the dinner plans, and proceeds to "put it on blast" on facebook that you are a false promiser!

     So maybe you have calculate that the outcome of making a false promise might put you in a more uncomfortable situation that the one you're already in.  Based on this calculation you decide it is more prudent to act on the maxim that "one should not make a promise unless one intends to keep it".   The problem with this conclusion is that you have based your action and maxim on fear of consequences--not on what is moral.  You are only declining the invite because in your calculations the consequences of not making a promise that you won't keep now are less severe than the consequences in the future of not keeping the promise.  Essentially your decision is based on the outcome that is most convenient to you:  If in the future you were in a similar situation but predicted that making the false promise would extricate you from the inconvenience of the situation and lead to fewer inconveniences then you would choose to make the false promise.  If this is the case your maxim is actually: whenever telling a false promise will get me out of a pickle I should do so.
     The other point that Kant is trying to elucidate here is that reasoning in such a way depends upon a shaky prediction about future outcomes.  There are thousands of ways we can go wrong in predicting what might happen.

     In the case of acting out of duty you suppose there is a moral law:  you should not make promises you don't intend to keep.  In this case when you act counter the law it is never good because the goodness of your action isn't attached to the (potential) outcomes but to your acting for the sake your duty (to follow the law).

     Lets return to the first case where we chose our action based on outcome.  What happens if we apply the CI to cases where it is more prudent to make a false promise?  That is to say, what happens when we universalize this behaviour...what result do we get?  We get a law that says, "er'body can make promises they don't intend to keep if it will get them out of a pickle".   The problem that arises when we universalize the maxim is that now I have eliminated the possibility of promises. 

     Wicka! Wicka! Rewind!  Basically, if er'body in the house gettin' tipsy knows that when people are asked to make a promise, they will not keep it if they think they can get out of it with less inconvenience than keeping it.  Now, anytime someone promises to do something, the promisee will assume the promiser isn't going to do it.  This renders useless the concept of a promise and leads to a world where no one keeps promises and no one  believes anyone who makes a promise.  Did I just explain that 3 different ways?  I must be getting sleepy.  Accordion to Kant this demonstrates that we should base our behavioural decisions on what is consistent with the CI, not what is prudent.  
     His other point is that prudential reasoning depends on us knowing future events.  Because not er'body is sweet baby jesus this is not going to be possible.  The consequences of our actions are not discernible or if they are it is only in a very limited sense. 

Counter Example

     It all sounds good and dandy until we consider a counter example.  Because I'm fading in and out of consciousness I will confine myself to the one that is most commonly brought up.  Suppose you live in Nazi Germany and are harbouring Jews (with horns).  The gestapo knocks on your door and says "eef ve ask you ver is ze jew, do you promees to tell?".  According to Kant's rules we can't consider consequences of our actions when we act out of duty to the moral law.  To act morally is to act according to the moral law regardless of circumstances.  We are obligated to follow the particular maxim of not making false promises.  Kant might reply that although you have turned the Jews (with the horns) over to the Gestapo you didn't harm them (assuming the Jews meet their most likely fate).  You are not morally responsible for what the Gestapo does to them--that moral judgment is on the Gestapo agents.

     The natural response to this situation is to say that Kant's system leads us to a position that is morally repugnant for most people.  Maybe we need to consider more than just adherence to the CI and intentions in calculating the morality of an action.  Maybe we need to consider the circumstances under which we make our decisions.  Or maybe we need to calculate the moral worth of an action based on the amount of pain and suffering it avoids or on the amount of happiness it produces.  All of these solutions have their own problems which I won't go into.

     Anyway, can you think of a way out for Kant without giving up the CI and his idea that moral actions arise out of the intent of an action not its consequences?

By the By, is it wrong to tell people that a blog entry with be the greatest thing they'll ever read and then it isn't?  But what if it's to get them to learn philosophy?

If You Were Purely Rational, How Would You Behave?

Chapter 2

How Can We Discover A Moral Law?

     One of the overarching goals of Kant's Metaphysic of Morals is that there is a moral law that all rational beings ought to follow--even when they are tempted to do otherwise.  The problem is, how do we discover such a law, if one even exists?  One possible way is to observe behaviour: we put on our lab coats, get out our beakers and Bunsen burners and start making observations.  But this method will not get us far because observing what people actually do doesn't tell us what they ought to do.  As Hume famously wrote (prior to Kant), "you can't derive an ought from an is".  

What Makes an Action Moral?

     Even if the subjects in our experiments are acting according to the moral law, there is no way for us to know if it is purely by chance or if their motives are selfish or pure, and thus if their actions are moral.  Let me elaborate.  For Kant an action is only moral if it is done out of duty.  If we act because of self-interest or "inclination" (emotional impulse like sympathy or character) this is not a moral act even if it happens to be in accordance with the moral law.  An act is only moral so long as it is done out of duty.  Also, recall back in Chapter 1 Kant begins by asserting that the only unconditional good is the intention to do good.  I'm not quite sure exactly how this ties into this but it seems related.  
     So back to our moral observations...When observing people in action there is no way for us to know if they are acting out of self-interest or inclination or duty--i.e., their intent.  It just might be that the course of action dictated by the hypothetical moral law is also in the best interest of a subject.  

     For example, I'm driving down the road and I see Warren Buffet pulled over at the side with a flat tire.  I pull over and help him.  Maybe I helped him because I sought a reward, and having recognized Warren for who he is I pulled over to help--anticipating a nice reward.  On the other hand, maybe it's in my character to feel sympathy for those who appear to be suffering misfortune--perhaps it was this feeling that compelled me to pull over.  On the third hand, maybe I am aware of a moral law that dictates I help those in need.  It is a huge inconvenience for me to pull over but I am compelled out of duty to do so.   For Kant, it is only moral in the third case, when (as a rational agent) I act out of duty.

    How could an observer possibly untangle the many possible of motives?  So it seems that even if an individual is following a moral law we cannot discern from their actions if their actions are in fact moral.

     A further problem for us, as moral empirical scientists, is that it is impossible for us to extrapolate what moral law is being followed.  In the flat tire example, maybe I'm acting out of duty to follow a maxim that is "always help old men with flat tires".  Or maybe I'm acting on, "Always help old men with flat tires but not young men".  Or maybe I'm acting on, "Always help heterosexual old men in red cars".  The problem--amongst those previously mentioned--is we cannot derive a general rule from a particular instance.  So in short, we will never be able to discover any general moral laws based on observing what people do.

Recap

     So, if we can't observe the moral law, perhaps we are on a fools errand.  How do we even know there is one to begin with?  Lets recap what we have so far, including the previous posts (cuz my heads starting to swim):

1.  Nature is purposive.  Applied to us that is to say, all organs and faculties function for a specific purpose. 

2.  Nature has endowed us with the faculty of reason, and by (1.) our reason has a purpose.

3.  The purpose of our reason could not be to seek pleasure/happiness because instinct is much better suited to that purpose.

4.   Thus by (3.) the purpose of our reason must be to pursue to moral good; that is to act morally, by discovering and acting on the moral law (as our duty).

5.  It is possible that a moral law exists because it exists in us as an Idea, i.e. we all have a concept of moral law.

6.  This moral law is not discoverable to us though empirical observation.

7.  Therefore, if it exists, it is a priori (i.e., basically means "hardwired into us") and we can only discover it through application of reason.

Phew!  So much going on at once!  It's hard to keep everything straight!

...moving on...

Necessary Conditions For a Moral Law

      Suppose that we know that there is a moral law.  What would it look like?  Kant says that if a purely rational creature followed the moral law, the resulting application of the rule would never lead to a world with contradictions.  Kant uses the example of someone who contemplates lying..and decides to do it.  By applying the categorical imperative we universalize the action into a law.  Remember that we should only act in such a way as though we wished our action should become a universal moral law.  So now we live in a world were everybody ought to lie.  In such a world there is no way to determine truth.  After a while there would be no compelling reason to suspect anyone was telling the truth so if someone was telling the truth you'd assume it was a lie.   If true statements are treated as false statements, there is a contradiction; so, we must reject lying, because universalizing this behaviour as a law with lead to a contradictory state of affairs.

     The standard objection to this is we can narrow the scope of the universal law.  For example I can say "you should never lie unless you are in the situation x".  Kant might reply that this might still eventually lead to a contradictory state of affairs.  Hmmm, I'll have to think about it more.

Hypothetical vs Unconditional Imperatives

     Kant distinguishes between 3 types of imperatives: skill/useful, prudent, and unconditional.  The first 2 are hypothetical.  That is to say they take the form "if x then y".  They are imperatives that are directed at an end.  An example of the first type might be "if I want to have money, I ought to open many philosophy shops".  The second hypothetical, "prudent", is a hypothetical that is aimed at what any rational agent would want by his nature, i.e., happiness.  For example, "if I want happiness I ought to get a job teaching philosophy".  Finally, the third imperative is unconditional.  For example, "don't kill."  The imperative directs us toward an action that is good in itself and not conditional upon an outcome.  Kant says only imperatives of the 3rd kind are binding.

Work for Kant

      Central to all of Kant's philosophy are the notions of analytic and synthetic.  There are several meanings to these words depending on context but for this context Kant tells us that analytic means the predicate is contained in the subject.  In English that means "what we know about the subject is contained the subject", or "true by definition".  To use a war worn example, "All bachelors are unmarried man".  Contained in the subject "bachelors" is the predicate "are unmarried men".  A synthetic statement is one where the predicate is not contained in the subject, e.g., "all bachelors like ice cream".  Nowhere in the concept of the subject "bachelors" is the concept of "like ice cream".  

     So what does all this technical stuff have to do with the categorical imperative and the moral law?  He wants to say of the first 2 types of imperatives (of hypothetical variety) that it is analytic that any rational person who desires an end also desires the means to that end.  Basically, you can't rationally want something and not want the means to achieving it.   I'm not sure I agree with this.  I want to be King of the Wooooooooooooooooooooooooorld, but I don't want to kill all the heads of state (i.e. the means) to accomplish it.  Blood make me woozy.  Maybe I'm misunderstanding him here because this seems like an obvious problem.  But, his categorical imperative doesn't rely on any of this so maybe it doesn't matter.

     So what does matter?  Well he goes on to say that the 3rd type of imperatives, those of the unconditionally variety are synthetic.  That is to say, it is not by definition that all rational agents would necessarily act in a certain way.  This is an important and interesting concession by Kant.  Obviously, he has plans for later to prove that all perfectly rational agent would in fact act according to the same moral laws but for the moment he admits this will take some work.  

     I think it could be convincingly argued that a perfectly rational being would act in his self-interest.  But Kant's done something clever to block this line of argument (if we accept all his premises as true).   Remember that he said a perfectly rational being would never act in such a way that if his/her behaviour were universalized that it would lead to a world with contradiction.  That clever bastard!  I think I just figured out why he put that in there!

    

Problem For Kant?

     I'm not sure but I think there is a weakness with Kant's notion that we should ground all morals in the framework of the categorical imperative.  It think in some cases it provides a good guide to action but I think it's scope is more narrow that Kant anticipates.   

     Here's a counter example I came up with:  Suppose one wants to know how to best raise their children and can't decide whether spanking should be employed as a means of discipline.   According to Kant all moral maxims won't lead to contradictory states of affairs.  A parent can choose either position but no logical contradiction will result so, by Kant's framework he has nothing to say on the matter.  Nevertheless, I think some people might put forward the argument that spanking children is a moral issue.  I suppose Kant can reply that his theory isn't designed to handle every moral issue.  But it seems that I could come up with more examples of moral issues than not for which Kant cannot provide guidance.  As I think about it, the area that falls outside of the purview of Kant's theory has to do with moral decisions that involve value judgments.   

Ok, that only took 2 hours longer than I thought...

It's 5am and I can't even see straight anymore...I'll proof read this later...

Problems With The Golden Rule and Scantily Clad Women

Unfinished Business (Sounds like a bad 80s action movie...)

    Before I continue with Kant I realised I forgot to make an important point in the previous post.  It has to do with Kant's formulation of the "golden rule" (the categorical imperative--in philoso-speak) versus other past formulations, such as "do unto others as you'd have done unto you".   The obvious question that arises is, why is Kant so great if he's just repeating what has been around for thousands of years? 

      There are two main reasons:  First, Kant doesn't just put the idea forward as a naked assertion, he spends a whole book demonstrating, rationally, how he gets to this conclusion.  In philosophy, an argument doesn't stand just because it sounds like a good idea, thereby causing us to stoke our beards in agreement.  The truth of any assertion must be demonstrated through arguments--preferably rational and logical.   The second reason for which the Kantian formulation is an improvement is that is solves the problems inherent in the more common formulations.

     Lets take a look at the typical formulation to uncover the problem.  "Do unto others as you would have done unto you".  The problem is there is an implicit assumption that we all want to be treated the same way.  For example, suppose I like to be flocked by scantily clad women (just a hypothetical example) so in the spirit of the golden rule I send over a group of scantily clad women to my happily married friend's house during a family dinner.  Chances are he isn't going to be too pleased with me.  Lets try another example, this one real.  When I was a competitive wrestler I liked my coach to be really hard on me and demand excellence.  Later when I coached wrestling I found not everyone liked being treated that way.  When I ran my practice the way I liked to be coached some kids left my class crying and didn't come back (crybabys!--jk!...lol!).  So we can see that the problems with the common formulation of the golden rule are that it implies that everyone likes to be treated the same as us and we should formulate our rules based on what we want.

     Now lets look at Kant's formulation and see how it deals with this problem.  "I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law".  What Kant's formulation does is remove the emphasis on what the agent would want in a single act to what would be a good universal law for all.  This change forces the agent to think about if his specific action (or principle by which he acts) would be a good universal law for everyone to follow. 

     Lets look at the wrestling example to see Kant in action.  Under the old formulation when I was deliberating on how I wanted to run my class my line of reasoning went something like this, "I like it when my coach is hard on me, so I'm going to apply that method to everyone else".  Conversely, when I apply the Kantian model to the same situation my reasoning goes like this, "What would be a good universal rule governing how I coach, applicable to everyone, knowing that not everyone is the same as me".  I might not be able to come up with something as specific as in the first case but I would probably come up with something like, "the way I coach will be governed by the principle that I will find and use the approach that best produces excellence from each student".  So maybe I don't end up with a simple obvious rule but who says it should be?  The important thing is now whenever I have a coaching methodology decision to make, for guidance I can refer back to my universalized maxim.    

     So, going back to why Kant is considered so important in the history of ethics we can see that one of the reasons is that he came up with a founding moral principle, or maxim which we can refer back to in all ethical quandaries.  Related to this we see that from his formulation we shift the frame of reference from individual desires to universal good; and we can derive other moral principles to govern more specific situations (eg. how to coach a kids' wrestling class).  Finally, he doesn't just pull this over arching principle from his ass, he spends a book providing arguments for it...which I will address in later posts (when I read them!).