Kant

1
Kant

• Are there absolute moral laws that we have to
  follow regardless of consequences?
• First we want to know what Kant has to say about
  what moral rule we ought to follow.

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2 Types of Commands or Imperatives

• Hypothetical Imperatives If you desire Y, then
  you ought to do X
• Hypothetical imperatives are conditioned on your
  actually desiring some outcome.
• The imperative only has motivational force if you
  do desire the outcome that the action promises.

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• Categorical Imperatives You ought to do X
• Morality does not depend on our having certain
  desires.
• Categorical imperatives are commands that we
  follow regardless of our personal end or desires.

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Fundamental Principle of Morality is a
Categorical Imperative

• 1. Act only according to that maxim by which you
  can at the same time will that it should become a
  universal law.
• 2. Act as though the maxim of your action were by
  your will to become a universal law of nature.
• 3. Act so that you treat humanity, whether in
  your own person or that of another, always as an
  end and never as a means only.

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Application of the C.I.

• Application of the categorical imperative results
  in moral rules that are absolute, i.e., admit of
  no exceptions
• Applied to the judgment of specific actions If
  action could become universal law, then it is
  morally correct.
• Examples suicide borrow money knowing you cant
  repay it charity indolent man

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Justification of the Categorical Imperative

• 1. Nothing is intrinsically good but a good will
  all other goods, such as happiness, intellectual
  eminence are worthless or positively evil when
  not combined with a good will.
• 2. A good will is one that habitually wills
  rightly.
• 3. The rightness or wrongness of a volition
  depends wholly on its motive.

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Implication of the C. I.

• Does not depend on consequences.
• To do something right requires that we do it for
  the right reason.
• An action can have a proper outcome with out it
  being moral. (Amoral, Immoral, Moral actions)
• Any action which is right or wrong in a given
  situation must be wrong for any rational being.

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Primacy of Rationality in Kants Theory

• Because people have desires and goals, other
  things have value for them we give other things
  value.
• Human beings are valuable in and of themselves.
• They have their own intrinsic worth i.e.,
  dignity that is above all price
• Value of human beings stems from the fact that
  they are rational agents free agents capable of
  making their own decisions, setting goals and
  guiding their conduct by reason.
• We cannot treat individuals as things because
  they are the source of moral goodness.
• To treat a person as an end in themselves means
  respecting their rationality.

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Problems with the Kantian Approach

• Anscomb proper way to construct moral maxims.
• Conflicts between absolute moral rules Dutch
  fisherman example.
• Are all categorical imperatives actually
  hypothetical.
• Mills criticism of Kantian ethics Kant himself
  is appealing to consequences in evaluating which
  maxims to accept.

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Kant on Retributive Justice

• Utilitarianism
• Punishment increases the amount of suffering in
  the world.
• Punishment may be justified if it
• Helps prevent crime
• Well designed punishment may help rehabilitate
  criminals
• Utilitarian rationale is close to our current
  notions of crime and punishment
• prison correctional facility
• guard corrections officer
• educational programs/counseling/work

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• Kantianism
• Punishment is acceptable because it is what the
  criminal deserves.
• Punishing prisoners as a way of preventing crime
  is using people as a means to an end.
• Rehabilitation is a violation of the autonomy
  rights of the individual to choose what sort
  person they want to be.
• People should be punished simply because they
  have committed a crime.
• Punishment for crime should be proportional
  seriousness of the crime determines the penalty.

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Justification of Punishment

• 1. We must treat people as an end-in-themselves
• 2. To treat someone as an end is to treat them as
  a rational being
• 3. To treat someone as a rational being is to
  treat a person as capable of reasoning about his
  or her conduct and freely deciding what he or she
  will do.
• 4. When we decide what to do to those who do
  wrong to us we look to the categorical imperative
  they have endorsed by their own actions.