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Kant ian Ethics. In this lecture…. Our moral duty Categorical i mperative Universal law Dignity and respect. Our moral duty.
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In this lecture… • Our moral duty • Categorical imperative • Universal law • Dignity and respect
Our moral duty • Suppose you have promised your friend that you will help her with her homework at 3:00pm. As you are on your way to meet her, you see an accident victim lying on the side of the road who desperately needs help. There is no one else around to helpthe injured victim.
Our moral duty • What should you do: keep your promise to meet your friend, or break your promise so that you can help the injured person? Do you think that we must always keep our promises? Can promise breaking be morally justified in some specific situations?
Our moral duty • Deontological ethics, or duty-based ethics, holds that we have a duty to perform or refrain from certain types of actions. • The most famous deontological theory is the one put forward by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.
Our moral duty For Immanuel Kant (1724-1804),wehave a moral duty to do what is right for its own sake. Morality, in his view, consists of principles of action that can be discovered through reason.
Our moral duty • According to Kant, we are rational persons living in a moral community populated by other rational persons. • The fundamental question of morality concerns how we ought to behave based on an understanding of our duties to each other.
Our moral duty • For Kant, morality is not something we learn from our parents or teachers. Nor do we learn to distinguish right from wrong by observing other people’s actions. • Rather, reason (i.e. our ability to think logically) tells us what we ought or ought not to do.
Our moral duty • Reason enables us to understand our relationships with other people as well as the moral duties we have to each other . • In Kantian ethics, ‘duty’ can be understood as what we ought to do as ‘persons’ or ‘rational moral agents’.
Our moral duty • It is through reason that we come to know our duties, i.e. what each and every person ought to do. • Since morality is founded on reason, everyone, except the very young and the severely mentally disabled, has the ability to distinguish right from wrong.
Our moral duty • Utilitarianism, as you remember, holds that happiness or pleasure is the only thing that is intrinsically good. • Thus, according to utilitarian reasoning, any act that maximizes overall happiness is the morally right thing to do.
Our moral duty • Kant rejects utilitarian reasoning by drawing attention to the fact that some pleasures (e.g. that of the rapist or torturer) are immoral and therefore bad.
Our moral duty • Kant dismisses the idea that happiness is the ultimate good or ultimate value. Happiness is no goodat all if it comes as a result of wrongdoing. • The same goes for other good things such as wealth, knowledge or power, all of which can be misused for bad purposes.
Our moral duty • Kant claims that the only thing that is always good, or good in itself, is a person’s ‘good will’ (i.e. good intention). • ‘Good will’ can be understood as the intention to perform one’s moral duty for its own sake. It is, in Kant’s view, a necessary element of any morally good action.
Our moral duty • We act with a good will when we perform an action simply because we knowthat it is the right thingto do (i.e. when we are motivated by a sense of duty to do so).
Our moral duty • For Kant, a good will is what makes an action ‘moral’. Only when we act from good will does our action have moral worth. • In other words, an action does not have moral worth unless it is motivated by the intention to perform one’s duty for its own sake.
Our moral duty • Brushing your teeth may be the right thing to do, but it has no moral worth because it has nothing to do with ‘good will’ or ‘duty’. • Offering help to others, on the other hand, is an act that has moral worth if and only if you are motivated to do so by good will or a sense of duty.
Our moral duty • Consider the following examples: ‘I like helping people because I expect them to return the favor.’ ‘I like helping people because it makes me feel good about myself.’
Our moral duty • In these examples, although helping others is right, the actionshave no moral worthbecause they are not done with the right intention or motive. • From the standpoint of Kantian ethics, it is not enough that we do the right thing; we must do the right thing for the right reason.
Our moral duty • In Kant’s view, actions motivated by desireor self-interesthave no moral worth because desire and self-interest often lead us to do bad or wrong things. • For Kant, only when we act from duty do our actions have moral worth.
Our moral duty • Kant has us imagine two shopkeepers, each of whom does his duty by giving his customers the correct change (i.e. not overcharging them). But the first does this only because he fears that if he were to cheat them, word would get out and he would lose business in the long run.
Our moral duty • The second store owner does the very same thing, but for completely different reasons. He treats his customers fairly because he thinks that cheating people is wrong, and he is committed to living up to the highest moral standards.
Our moral duty • Although the first shopkeeper does his duty, his action cannot be described as ‘moral’ because it has nothing to do with morality. • The second shopkeeper does his duty for its own sake and, as such, his action can be described as ‘moral’ (i.e. his action has moral worth).
Our moral duty • Morality, in Kant’s view, has nothing to do with selfish motives, but everything to do with duty and good intention. • Right actions are those done out of a sense of duty. An action that has moral worth is one that is done for the sake of duty.
Our moral duty • Do the following actions have moral worth? • I build a school for poor children because I want the school to be named after me. • I build a school for poor children because this is the best thing I can do to help them.
Our moral duty • For Kant, morality has nothing to do with producing good consequences. If an action is right, we have a duty to do it no matter the consequences. • Consequences, in his view, are irrelevant when we make moral judgments or decisions.
Our moral duty • From the standpoint of Kantian ethics, some types of actions (such as truth telling or promise keeping) are always right or always wrong (such as lying or promise breaking) irrespective of the consequences that follow from them.
Our moral duty • According to Kant, we have a duty to perform or refrain from certain types of actions, and this duty is derived from the nature of the actions themselves, not from the consequences produced by these actions.
Categorical imperative • For Kant, reason is the source of moral principles.As rational moral agents, we impose moral duties on ourselves.We act upon the moral law (i.e. a set of moral principles) that we give ourselves through reason.
Categorical imperative • Kant maintainsthat there are moral principles that all persons, as rational moral agents, have a duty to follow. • We can use reason to work out a set of universal moral principles. To do so, we should begin with the question: ‘What ought I to do?’
Categorical imperative • Kant suggests that ideas of duties can be translated into the language of ‘imperatives’ (i.e. principles of reason that specify what we ought to do in various situations).
Categorical imperative • However, Kant notices that the meaning of the word ‘ought’can be confusing in everyday language. • It is therefore necessary to distinguish between hypothetical ‘ought’(which is non-moral) and categorical ‘ought’(which is moral).
Categorical imperative • A ‘hypothetical imperative’ tells us what we ought to do to get what we want: e.g. ‘If you want a good job, you ought to get a good education’; ‘If you want to arrive on time, you ought to leave early.’
Categorical imperative • The ‘Categorical Imperative’, on the other hand, tells us what we ought to do as rational moral agents, e.g. ‘You ought to keep your promise,’‘You ought not to torture innocent people.’
Categorical imperative • To sum up, a hypothetical imperative • specifies a means to an end • is always expressed in the form of a conditional sentence • is about satisfying a goal or desire • has nothing to do with ‘morality’
Categorical imperative • In contrast, theCategorical Imperative • specifies what everyone has a duty to do as a moral person • is not expressed in the form of a conditional sentence (moral duty is ‘unconditional’) • has nothing to do with satisfying goals or desires • is the basis of the moral law
Categorical imperative • It is important to note that the Categorical Imperative is discovered within ourselves through reason alone; it is not discovered from experience (e.g. not through observing other people’s behavior).
Categorical imperative • There are two formulations of the Categorical Imperative: • the Formula of Universal Law • the Formula of Humanity as an End in Itself
Universal law • At the heart of Kantian ethics is a system of universal moral principles, i.e. the moral law that everyone has a duty to obey. • For Kant, the moral law is binding on all persons at all times. Every rational person is expected to follow the same moral principles.
Universal law • The Formula of Universal Law: ‘Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.’
Universal law • When we are considering whether an action is morally right or wrong, we must ask ourselves whether we would rationally want and expect everyone to act in that way.
Universal law • In Kant’s view, beneath every action there is a ‘maxim’, i.e. a subjective principle of action that we employ to decide what we should do. • A ‘maxim’, in other words, can be understood as a personal rule that reflects the underlying reason or intention for action.
Universal law • For an action to be moral, its underlying maxim must be one that can be universalized (i.e. applicable to everyone). • An action is morally right only if it is based on a rule or principle that we can apply not only to ourselvesbut also to other rational moral agents.
Universal law • If the maxim can be universalized, then we accept it, and its corresponding action is seen as moral. • If the maxim cannot be universalized, then we reject it, and its corresponding action is seen as immoral.
Universal law • Suppose I need some money and I am considering whether it would be moral to borrow the money from you and promise to repay it without ever intending to do so.
Universal law • In this example, the underlying maxim of my action is: M: Whenever I need money, I should make a lying promise while borrowing the money.
Universal law • Is it possible for me to universalize the maxim (M) of my act? When I try to do so, I get following principle: P: Whenever anyone needs money, that person should make a lying promise while borrowing the money.
Universal law • It is easy to see that the principle (P) is self-defeating or contradictory to reason. • Why? Because no one in his right mind would take promises as promises if they were meant to be broken (i.e. no one would be willing to lend money to others).
Universal law • Now let us consider the opposite maxim (M1), one based on keeping one’s promise: M1: Whenever I need money, I should make a sincere promise while borrowing it.
Universal law • Is it possible for me to universalize the new maxim? P1: Whenever anyone needs money, that person should make a sincere promise while borrowing it.
