An Introduction to
Ethics
Week Three: Deontology and Kant
Kant: A (very quick) Biog
 Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804)
 *Perhaps* the most influential philosopher.
 Scottish grandfather. Born in Konigsberg – never travelled
further than 10 miles from the city.
 People used to set their clocks by Kant’s daily walk. Highly
predictable, very keen on routine. Never married.
 Aimed to resolve disputes between rationalists and
empiricists. In doing so, Kant provides an answer to the
problem of free will (important for later).
Kant: A (very quick) Biog
 “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight
thing was ever made”
(Idea for a General History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose )
 Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder
and awe, the more often and the more intensely the
mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens
above me and the moral law within me.
(Critique of Practical Reason)
Kant: A (very quick) Biog
 Few debates in modern moral philosophy make no
reference to Kant (eventually). Kant wrote the books
on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Aesthetics, and (of
course) Ethics.
 Most attention given to four works:
1. Critique of Pure Reason
2. Critique of Practical Reason
3. Critique of Judgment
4. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Kant’s Major Works
Kant’s Major Works
Kant – Quick Intro
 Moral worth determined by consequences?
Kant – Quick Intro
 Moral worth determined by consequences?
 Motivation of agent determines moral worth (first big
difference with Utilitarianism).
 What’s the ‘right sort’ of motivation? Hatred? Pursuit of
power?
 The aim of the Groundwork is to establish the ‘moral
law’ (the principle we should use to guide our
actions)…
Kant
 “It is impossible to conceive anything at all in the world,
or even out of it, which can be taken as good without
qualification, except a good will. Intelligence, wit,
judgment, and any other talents of the mind we may
care to name, or courage, resolution, and constancy of
purpose, as qualities of temperament, are without
doubt good and desirable in many respects; but the
can also be extremely bad and hurtful when the will is
not good which has to make use of these gifts of nature
[…]”
Kant
 What does it mean to be ‘good without qualification’?
 What is meant by a ‘good will’?
Kant
 What does it mean to be ‘good without qualification’?
Meaning: Good without needing to be related to anything
else. Context independent. Intrinsic goodness.
Contrast with prima facie goods. Goodness as a means
(utility?). Gifts of nature (intelligence, wit), gifts of
temperament (courage, resolution), gifts of fortune
(wealth, power).
‘The good chess player’
Kant
“Moderation in affections and passions, self-control, and sober
reflexion are not only good in many respects: they may even
seem to constitute part of the inner worth of a person. Yet they
are far from being properly described as good without
qualification (however unconditionally they have been
commended by the ancients). For without the principles of a
good will they may become exceedingly bad; and the very
coolness of a scoundrel makes him, not merely more
dangerous, but also immediately more abominable in our eyes
than we should have taken him to be without it.”
 What is meant by a ‘good will’?
Kant
 What is meant by a ‘good will’?
Two things to note straight away:
1. Good in any circumstances in which it is found.
2. Only a good will is good without qualification.
Counterintuitive to think that some goods are good
independent of context?
‘aim at doing good’. (will = volition/striving)
Kant
 H.J. Paton on Kant’s ‘good will’:
“[…] the harm done by a stupid good man was due to his
stupidity and not to his goodness: he [Kant] certainly seems to
hold that a good will as such cannot issue in wrong actions. […]
If the goodness of a good will is not derived from the goodness
of the ends at which it aims, still less can it be derived from
success in attaining these ends”
(The Categorical Imperative, Pg. 40 – 41, 43)
To paraphrase: ‘The road to hell is not paved with good
intentions.’ Contra St Bernard de Clairveaux (L'enfer est plein
de bonnes volontés et désirs) (Hell is full of good wishes and
desires).
Kant
 Quick distinctions
Immediate inclinations vs duty
Hypothetical imperatives vs categorical imperatives
 Kant’s ‘fair’ shopkeeper
1. Charges a fair price to guarantee future business
2. Charges a fair price because he loves his customers
3. Charges a fair price because duty demands it.
Kant
 Moral content derived from motivation – one has to act
from the motive of duty.
 Not enough to act in conformity with duty (think of
donating to the homeless to win approval from a love
interest &c.).
 “Yet I maintain that in such a case an action of this
kind, however right and however amiable it may be,
has still no genuinely moral worth.”
Kant
 All very well and good, but what is duty?
“Duty is the necessity to act out of reverence for the law”
 Obedience to the law, because it is the law. The action
ought to be done – whether you want to or not.
 Bindingness of morality.
 Reason on its own is motivating? (Hume doesn’t think so…)
 Back to the good will – the good will is one which acts
from the motive of duty, not self-interest or inclination.
Kant
 Reverence for the law, but what is the law?
“But what kind of law can this be the thought of which,
even without regard to the results expected from it, has to
determine the will if this is to be called good absolutely
and without qualification?”
Kant
 The Categorical Imperative
“I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also
will that my maxim should become a universal law.”
“Act only on that maxim through which you can at the
same time will that it should become a universal law”
 Lying promise example. Self undermining. Internally
contradictory.
Kant
 The Categorical Imperative
 Tests prospective actions. I am planning to do x for
reason y – can I will that I should x for reason y as a
universal law?
 Permitted Vs. Required.
 CI on its own only gives you what is permitted?
 What duty requires is derived from reason alone. To
act rationally is to act morally.
Kant
 ‘An end in itself’…
 Means vs ends
 Hypothetical imperatives take the form: ‘if you want G,
do x.
 Categorical Imperatives take the form: ‘Do x’. There is
no instrumental function here.
Kant
 The absolute value of humanity.
“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”
 Do not treat other as instrumental in obtaining your
goals. (Kant contra prostitution and pornography? Kant
on war?)
 Promote the development of others (as persons). (Kant
on war (again)?)
Kant
 Kant’s ‘illustrations’ (examples)
 Suicide
 False promises
Kant
 The Formula of Autonomy
 “The will is not merely subject to the law, but is so
subject that it must be considered as also making the
law for itself and precisely on this account as first of all
subject to the law (of which it can regard itself as the
author).