Kant on Duty

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Kant on Duty
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Introduction

• Kant will be the culmination of two themes traced
  over the ages

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Introduction

• Kant will be the culmination of two themes traced
  over the ages
• Will the most important thing for morality

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Introduction

• Kant will be the culmination of two themes traced
  over the ages
• Will the most important thing for morality
• Law morality is a law-like thing

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Introduction

• Kant will be the culmination of two themes traced
  over the ages
• Will the most important thing for morality
• Law morality is a law-like thing
• And a further modern tendency
• God is not a good explanation for rights, morals,
  etc.

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Background

• Age of Reason (17th-18th C)
• Enlightenment (18th C)
• All problems amenable to reason
• God not a reasonable explanation
• Republicanism, democracy, liberalism.
• American Revolution (1776)
• Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence,
  Constitution
• French Revolution (1789)
• Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
  Citizen

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Kant

• Königsberg (Kaliningrad)
• 1724 1804
• Moral texts (all hard)
• Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)
• Metaphysics of Morals
• Critique of Practical Reason

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Kant

• Critique of Practical Reason 5162
• Two things fill the mind with ever new and
  increasing admiration and reverence, the more
  often and the more steadily one reflects on them
  the starry heavens above me and the moral law
  within me. the first view of a countless
  multitude of worlds annihilates, as it were, my
  importance as an animal creature, which after it
  has been for a short time provided with vital
  force (one knows not how) must give back to the
  planet (a mere speck in the universe) the matter
  from which it came. The second, on the contrary,
  infinitely raises my worth as an intelligence by
  my personality, in which the moral law reveals to
  me a life independent of animality

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Normativity
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Types of Theory

• Virtue or aretaic theories
• the character of the morally good person
• Aristotle
• Consequentialist or teleological theories
• the consequence of the moral act
• Mill (next week)
• duty-based or deontological theories
• some moral value in the potential acts themselves
  
• Kant

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The Good Will

• Groundwork 4 393
• Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world,
  or even out of it, which can be called good,
  without qualification, except a good will.
  Intelligence, wit, judgement, and the other
  talents of the mind, however they may be named,
  or courage, resolution, perseverance, as
  qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good
  and desirable in many respects but these gifts
  of nature may also become extremely bad and
  mischievous if the will which is to make use of
  them, and which, therefore constitutes what is
  called character, is not good. Thus a good will
  appears to constitute the indispensable condition
  even of being worthy of happiness.

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The Good Will

• Having a good will means having the right kind of
  intentions or motives
• to have a good will is to act from duty because
  you think it is right
• But it is not enough just to have the right
  feelings they are an unreliable guide to duty
• We need a reliable guide to duty
• Find this in Reason

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The Categorical Imperative

• Imperatives are commands or orders
• Hypothetical Imperatives give reasons
• Shut the door if you want to stay warm!
• The force of an HI depends upon the desire for
  the outcome
• Categorical Imperatives dont give reasons
• Shut the door! is a CI
• The force of a CI depends of being able to derive
  it from a single original CI that any rational
  creature is bound by

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The Categorical Imperative

• Act only according to that maxim by which you
  can at the same time will that it should become a
  universal law
• (Groundwork. 4402)
• In this principle a maxim is the general
  subjective rule of the particular action that you
  are taking

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The Categorical Imperative

• Application how to judge amongst maxims

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The Categorical Imperative

• Application how to judge amongst maxims
• Can I tell a lie?

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The Categorical Imperative

• Application how to judge amongst maxims
• Can I tell a lie?
• What is maxim? I may lie for my advantage

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The Categorical Imperative

• Application how to judge amongst maxims
• Can I tell a lie?
• What is maxim? I may lie for my advantage
• Can it be universalised? everyone may lie

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The Categorical Imperative

• Application how to judge amongst maxims
• Can I tell a lie?
• What is maxim? I may lie for my advantage
• Can it be universalised? everyone may lie
• Can it be a law?

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The Categorical Imperative

• Application how to judge amongst maxims
• Can I tell a lie?
• What is maxim? I may lie for my advantage
• Can it be universalised? everyone may lie
• Can it be a law?
• Lying depends upon a norm of truth-telling
• If Tell lies is the law then truth-telling is
  not the norm
• So there can be no lying ? There is a
  contradiction
• It cant be a law

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The Categorical Imperative

• Application how to judge amongst maxims
• Can I tell a lie?
• What is maxim? I may lie for my advantage
• Can it be universalised? everyone may lie
• Can it be a law?
• Lying depends upon a norm of truth-telling
• If Tell lies is the law then truth-telling is
  not the norm
• So there can be no lying ? There is a
  contradiction
• It cant be a law
• Therefore I cannot tell a lie

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The Principle of Ends

• Values
• Conditional Value is given to the means to an end
• I value diamonds for what I can buy with them
• CV depends upon the desire for the end it is a
  means to
• Unconditional Value is not given to the means to
  an end
• Happiness is an UV
• UV is required to create CV which we know exists

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The Principle of Ends

• 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
• (Groundwork. 4429)
• Compare Augustines Scale of Values and Love
  thy Neighbour argument

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Autonomy

• We rise above animal condition if we are moral
• We are only free (autonomous) if we are moral
• Autonomy is the wills determination of itself
• Heteronomy is the wills determination by
  outsiders
• Social pressures
• Religious pressure
• Refusing to think for ourselves
• Acting on feelings

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Autonomy

• Autonomy is the essence of the Enlightenment
• Through laziness and cowardice a large part of
  mankind, even after nature has freed them from
  alien guidance, gladly remain immature. It is
  because of laziness and cowardice that it is so
  easy for others to usurp the role of guardians.
  It is so comfortable to be a minor! If I have a
  book which provides meaning for me, a pastor who
  has a conscience for me, a doctor who will judged
  my diet for me and so on, then I do not need to
  exert myself. I do not have any need to think if
  I can pay, others will take over this tedious job
  for me.
• Kant, What is Enlightenment?