Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong

1
Chapter Eight Kant and Deontological Theories
For Deontological theories it is not the
consequences that determines the rightness or
wrongness of an act but certain features in the
act itself or in the rule of which the act is a
token
2
Immanuel Kant

• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
• Absolutist and a Rationalist
• Influenced by
• His Parents Pietism
• Jean-Jacques Rousseaus work on human freedom
• The debate between rationalism and empiricism
• Natural law intuitionist theories

3
Rationalism and Empiricism

• Rationalism pure reason could tell us how the
  world is, independent of experience.
• Empiricism denied that we have any innate ideas
  and argued that all knowledge comes from
  experience. Our minds are a tabula rasa, an
  empty slate, upon which experience writes her
  lessons

4
Act- and Rule-Intuitionism

• Act-intuitionism each act as a unique ethical
  occasion and holds that we must decide what is
  right or wrong in each situation by consulting
  our conscience or our intuitions or by making a
  choice apart from any rules

5
Act- and Rule-Intuitionism

• Rule-intuitionism must decide what is right or
  wrong in each situation by consulting moral rules
  that we receive through intuition.

6
The Categorical Imperative

• A command to perform actions that are necessary
  of themselves without reference to other ends.
• It contrasts with Hypothetical Imperatives which
  command actions not for their own sake, but for
  some other good.
• Moral duties command categorically.
• Actions are only morally valuable if done by a
  good will.

7
The Principle of the Law of Nature

• Act as though the maxim of your action were by
  your will to become a universal law of nature.

8
The Principle of Ends

• So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own
  person or in that of any other, in every case as
  an end and never as merely a means

9
The Principle of Autonomy

• So act that your will can regard itself at the
  same time as making universal law through its
  maxims

10
The Principle of the Law of Nature Four Examples

• Making a Lying Promise
• Committing Suicide
• Neglecting One's Talent
• Refraining from Helping Others

11
Counterexamples to the Principle of the Law of
Nature

• Counterexample 1 Mandating Trivial Actions
• Counterexample 2 Endorsing Cheating
• Counterexample 3 Prohibiting Permissible Actions
• Counterexample 4 Mandating Genocide

12
The Problem of Exceptionless Rules

• Kant's categorical imperative yields unqualified
  absolutes. The rules it generates are universal
  and exceptionless
• Ross and Prima Facie Duties
• Kant and the Prima Facie Solution

13
The Problem of Posterity

• Kant with his strong emphasis on particular
  rational people would have a particularly
  difficult time generating principles that would
  require duties to future agents
• Kant seems to require identifiable people as the
  objects of our duties