Kanatian ethics
• Kantian ethics is based upon the
teachings of the philosopher, Immanuel
Kant (1724–1804). According to Kant, the
concept of “motive” is the most
important factor in determining what is
ethical. More specifically, Kant argued
that a moral action is one that is
performed out of a “sense of duty” or a
“obligation.”
Kant: Deontological Ethical Theory
• Kant's theory is an example of a deontological or dutybased ethics : it judges morality by examining the nature of
actions and the will of agents rather than goals achieved.
• A deontological theory looks at inputs rather than
outcomes.
• One reason for the shift away from consequences to duties
is that we cannot control the future. We are praised or
blamed for actions within our control, and that includes our
willing, not our achieving.
• This is not to say that Kant did not care about the outcomes
of our actions--we all wish for good things.
• Kant insisted that as far as the moral evaluation of our
actions was concerned, consequences did not matter.
• For Kant, a moral action is not based upon
feelings or pity.
• It is not based on the possibility of reward.
• It is a moral action that is based on a sense of
“This is what I ought to do.”
Example
• Helping an old lady across the street because you
feel pity for her is not a moral act. Helping an old
lady because your coworker will think highly of you is
not a moral act. However, helping an old lady
because you have a sense of duty to help the elderly
is a moral act.
• Because motive is the most important factor in
Kantian ethics, it is possible for an action to have
negative consequences while still being a moral act.
For example, if acting out of a sense of duty or
obligation you attempt to save a drowning child, but
in the process you accidentally drown the child, your
action is still considered a moral one.
Categorical Imperative
• Kant believed that moral requirements are
based on standards of rationality, i.e., logic.
• In other words, conformity to the categorical
imperatives can be shown to be essential to
rational reasoning.
• Categorical imperatives are moral
requirements.
Rational Reasoning
According to Kant rational reasoning is regarded
as autonomous, or free in the sense of being the
author of the law that binds it.
The fundamental principle of morality is the law
of an autonomous will.
You must will to do what you are doing, i.e., do
it intentionally….your intent.
3 Forms of Categorical Imperative
Categorical Imperative: a command which expresses a
general, unavoidable requirement of the moral law. Its
three forms express the requirements of
universalizability, respect and autonomy. Together they
establish that an action is properly called 'morally good'
only if (1) we can will all persons to do it, (2) it enables
us to treat other persons as the purpose for our actions
and not merely as the means to our own selfishness,
and (3) it allows us to see other persons as mutual lawmakers in an ideal way of life.
Universalizability
• According to Kant if the maxim or rule governing
our action is not capable of being universalized,
then it is unacceptable.
• Note that universalizability is not the same as
universality. Kant's point is not that we would all
agree on some rule if it is moral. Instead, we must
be able to will that it be made universal; the idea
is very much like the golden rule --Do unto others
as you would have them do unto you.
• If you cannot will that everyone follow the same
rule, your rule is not a moral one.
Will, Universalizability, and Respect
• A categorical imperative grounding all other ethical
judgments. The imperative would have to be
categorical rather than conditional, since true morality
should not depend on our individual likes and dislikes
or on our abilities and opportunities. They are
absolutes.
• Ultimate principles of ethics can not be relative to a
specific time, place, socio-economic group, gender,
religion, culture, or if-then situation.
• Among the various formulations of the categorical
imperative, two are particularly worth noting:
Will, Universalizability, and Respect
• Always act in such a way that you can also will that the
maxim of your action should become a universal law.
• Act so that you treat humanity, both in your own
person and in that of another, always as an end and
never merely as a means.
• Although ultimately the above are formally equivalent,
the first illustrates the need for moral principles to be
applied universally. The second points to the radical
distinction to be made between things and persons,
and emphasizes the necessity of respect for persons.
Respect for Persons
• Categorical imperative emphasize respect for persons .
Persons, unlike things, ought never to be merely used.
Their value is never merely instrumental; they are ends
in themselves. Of course, a person may be useful, but
must always at the same time be treated with all the
respect due to a person, i.e., also as an end.
• In an ethics of duty, the ends can never justify the
means. Individual human rights are acknowledged and
inviolable.
• We can not let the satisfaction of harmful desires in
our moral deliberations.
Human Worth: Reason for Categorical
Imperative
Humans have "an intrinsic worth" making us valuable
"above all price" which animals lack.
• consequently animals have no moral standing
• we are free to use them as means to our ends
• without considering their ends (desire)
In virtue of which human beings should never be used
as means to ends.
Rational for Human Worth
Only people have:
• conscious desires
• hence intrinsic goals
Only people are:
• rational agents
• free agents capable of making decisions
• setting our own goals
• guiding our conduct by reason
Rationality
Humans are rational beings beyond value
since we are the sources of value:
• the moral law is the law of reason
• rational beings are the embodiment of that
law itself
• moral goodness can exist only insofar as:
–rational agents autonomously and
respectfully reason a universal moral law
–acting from a sense of duty, do it
Respecting Rationality
• A duty of respecting the rationality of others
because to do otherwise would impede choice
and the achievement of goals and manipulate
them.
• Respecting peoples “rational” choices
regardless of their outcome does not mean
that you think their choices are right.
• You also respect the consequences of their
choices.
Rational Consequences
Rational consequence is justified, favorable or
unfavorable, regardless of the outcome…..even if it
increases the sum total of misery over happiness in
the world
Individual deserve the end result of their intended
actions.
Example
Imprisonment for the sake of deterrence uses the
person as means to a (socially desirable) end,
violating the person's dignity. Society has the moral
right to use prison as a place to pay them back for
their crime, i.e., their rational choices.
"Rehabilitation" (manipulation) society tries to
psychologically trick them into accepting the rules
and values the dominant group thinks they should
accept. Society has no right to violate their integrity
by trying to manipulate their personalities.
Rational Consequences
According to Kant The consequence should
"suit" or be proportional to the action.
• slanderers should be defamed
• thieves should be deprived of property
• assault should be repaid with corporeal
punishment
• murder with death (capital punishment)
What determines the seriousness of
the crime?
• It is the selfishness or hubris of the intent
that determines the seriousness of a
transgression/crime.
• It is the selfishness or hubris of the intent
that makes murder worse than the intent
to steal.
• The intent of a murderer is a more
grievous violation than stealing because
it eliminates the victim’s autonomy.
• It is the lack of respect and using the person
as a means to an end that determines the
seriousness of a transgression/crime.
• I someone is murdered they are a means to an
end, not an end.
• It is the lack of universalization that
determines the seriousness of a
transgression/crime.
• We cannot murder everyone we chose to
murder.
Kantian justice holds that the perpetrator is
morally responsible for their misdeeds
• Animals & the mentally incompetent are not
morally responsible because they act from
necessity and not liberty and they can’t
understand the rightness or wrongness of their
acts.
• Rational beings have free will to choose to do
or refrain from doing what they are capable of
understanding to be right or wrong.
Categorical imperative dictate that repaying in
kind we are in effect enforcing the maxim of
their misbehavior as universal law showing them
the consequence(s) of the maxim.
Example
• One can determine whether a maxim of lying
to secure a loan is moral by attempting to
universalize it and applying reason to the
results. If everyone lied to secure loans, the
very practices of promising and lending would
fall apart (sounds rational, look at the housing
situation), and the maxim would then become
impossible. Kant calls such acts examples of a
contradiction in conception because they
undermine the very basis for their existence.
Questioning Necessary To Determine
Respect
Among the main questions about respect that philosophers have
addressed are these: (1) How should respect in general be
understood? (a) What category of thing is it? Philosophers have
variously identified it as a mode of behavior, a form of
treatment, a kind of valuing, a type of attention, a motive, an
attitude, a feeling, a tribute, a principle, a duty, an entitlement, a
moral virtue, an epistemic virtue: are any of these categories
more central than others? (b) What are the distinctive elements
of respect? (c) To what other attitudes, actions, values, duties,
etc. is respect similar, and with what does it contrast? (d) What
beliefs, attitudes, emotions, motives, and conduct does respect
involve, and with what is it incompatible?
Respect
(2) What are the appropriate objects of respect, i.e.,
the sorts of things that can be reasonably said to
warrant respect? (3) What are the bases or grounds for
respect, i.e., the features of or facts about objects in
virtue of which it is reasonable and perhaps obligatory
to respect them? (4) What ways of acting and
forbearing to act express or constitute or are regulated
by respect? (5) What moral requirements, if any, are
there to respect certain types of objects, and what is
the scope and theoretical status of such requirements?
Respect
• (6) Are there different levels or degrees of respect? Can
an object come to deserve less or no respect? (7) Why
is respect morally important? What, if anything, does it
add to morality over and above the conduct, attitudes,
and character traits required or encouraged by various
moral principles or virtues? (8) What are the
implications of respect for problematic moral and
sociopolitical issues such as racism and sexism,
pornography, privacy, punishment, responses to
terrorism, paternalism in health care contexts, cultural
diversity, affirmative action, abortion, and so on?
Questioning Universalization as a
Global Citizen
• How much of our universalization is culturally
relative? How much do we know about the
global experience? Do humans name what
they are familiar with normal? Do humans
habituate life and like things repetitive? How
do we develop our premises that lead to our
conclusions?
Questioning Will/Intent
• Is a persons intent always good even when
they think it is good? Do persons know
enough to will for another? Can willing for
another limit their autonomy? Can willing for
another cause them to form beliefs (norms
and patterns)?
Criticism of Kant
• Kantian ethics has been criticized on several points. First,
some say Kant’s approach gives little aid for complex
situations. For example, what if there are conflicts of duty?
Suppose you decide that two duties are (1) telling the
truth; and (2) protecting your friends. But what if a
madman with an axe asked you where your best friend was
so he could murder him or her? Do you tell the truth and
thus lead the murderer to your friend? Or do you lie and
save your friend’s life? Interestingly, Kant believed telling a
lie was always wrong even if a vicious murderer asked you
where your friend was so he could murder him.
• Second, some say Kant dismisses emotions
such as pity and compassion as irrelevant to
morality. But many think these are “moral”
emotions that cannot be separated from
morality. Why should helping an old lady
across the street out of compassion not be
considered moral? What is wrong with
compassion and pity?
• Third, some say Kant’s approach does not take
the consequences of actions seriously enough.
What if a well-intentioned person with a good
motive causes a number of deaths? He would
be morally blameless according to Kant’s view.
• What if a well-intentioned babysitter dries
your cat in a microwave oven? Would you say,
“That’s okay, her motive was good.”