An Introduction to
Ethics
Week Four – Criticisms of Kant
Kant
 Quick recap
Kant
 Quick recap
 The Good Will
 Motive of Duty
 Categorical Imperative
 Absolute Value of Humanity
 Autonomy
Kant
 Autonomy
 ‘Slave to desire’? ‘Reason is the slave of the passions’
(Hume)
 Distinction between first and second order desires
Kant
 Positive Vs. Negative Liberty (Isaiah Berlin)
 Negative Liberty:
What is the area within which the subject — a person or
group of persons — is or should be left to do or be what
he is able to do or be, without interference by other
persons.
 I am free if nobody hinders me in getting what I want.
Kant
 Positive Vs. Negative Liberty (Isaiah Berlin)
 Positive Liberty
The ‘positive’ sense of the word ‘liberty’ derives from the wish
on the part of the individual to be his own master. I wish my life
and decisions to depend on myself, not on external forces of
whatever kind. […] I wish, above all, to be conscious of myself
as a thinking, willing, active being, bearing responsibility for my
choices and able to explain them by references to my own
ideas and purposes. I feel free to the degree that I belive this
to be true, and enslaved to the degree that I am made to reaize
that it is not.
Kant
 Positive Liberty
 Who is the master of ‘me’?
 Who controls my future?
 Self-determination.
 Attractive View?
free?
Should we want to be ‘positively’
Kant
 The Paradox of Positive Liberty
 Drug Addict example (the drug addict who wants to
quit).
 First order desire for some heroine
 Second order desire to not want to desire the heroin.
Kant
 Self control – I decide that I do not want to take heroin
anymore and flush my remaining supply down the toilet. We
are free because we are choosing which desires to satisfy.
 Paternalism – In virtue of being somewhat weak-willed, my
endeavour to control my habit is obtained with,
unfortunately, limited success. I ask a friend/parent (or
whoever) to stop me from going out and scoring some
heroin. I ask you to exercise some control over me, and I do
so in my own interests (like a child who is forced to take
some beneficial, but unpleasant, medicine). In ‘liberating
me’ from my worst self and freeing me from temptation, my
freedom is promoted.
Kant
 Social Control – Realizing that the threat of social
constraints (e.g. punishments) is a good way to keep
me on the straight and narrow path to sobriety, I join
‘drug-addicts anonymous’. I place myself under the
authority of the ‘group’ to force me to be free. I
voluntarily submit to the higher power of a state (or
quasi state). (think of AA, churches, reading groups,
weight watchers, Facebook…)
Kant
 Totalitarian State (servitude) – I accept that my ability
to reason in any situation is hampered by my
inadequacy as a human being – I am weak and,
therefore, often unable to see what the right thing to do
is. The state can step in and take control of my entire
life – promising to always make me act according to my
own interests and thus morally improving me as an
agent.
Kant
 Berlin’s missing link?
Kant
 Berlin’s missing link?
 Anarchy? Citizen becomes improved to the degree
that she/he ‘intuits’ (learns and feels) the correct way to
act. No longer needs the state, or any state.
 Does this help? Is this desirable?
Kant
 Advocates the ‘miserable sinner’?
 The most moral agent is one who always acts from
duty – never from inclination. Imagine someone who
desires nothing but atrocious things but never acts on
these desires, instead only ever acting in accordance
with duty. Is this the most moral agent? Perhaps the
most miserable too…
Kant
 Advocates the ‘miserable sinner’?
 The most moral agent is one who always acts from
duty – never from inclination. Imagine someone who
desires nothing but atrocious things but never acts on
these desires, instead only ever acting in accordance
with duty. Is this the most moral agent? Perhaps the
most miserable too…
 Mixed motivation? I want to do x, duty tells me to do x,
so I do x from duty, gladly?
Kant
 The axe-wielding maniac…
Kant
 The problem of freedom…
 Laws of nature, laws of thought? (determinism)
 ‘Ought implies can’ (assumes free will)
 Kant’s answer – we cannot help but think we are free,
therefore we cannot help but think we are bound by the
Categorical Imperative.
 Transcendental Idealism and the possibility of
freedom…
 Satisfying?
Kant
 Who places you under an obligation?
Kant
 Who places you under an obligation?
 You place yourself under an obligation (you are both
subject and author of the moral law).
 Problems…
Kant
 Anscombe (again):
“Kant introduces the idea of ‘legislating for oneself’, which is as
absurd as if in these days, when majority votes command great
respect, one were to call each reflective decision a man made
a vote resulting in a majority, which as a matter of proportion is
overwhelming, for it is always 1- 0. The concept of the
legislation requires superior power in the legislator.”
 If you can place yourself under an obligation – you can take
yourself out again. Source of obligation cannot be ‘you’.
Kant
 Anscombe leaves us with a dilemma – either we accept
a ‘divine command’ theory of obligation (God, not I, is
the source of obligation), or we revert to Aristotle (who,
according to Anscombe, does away with talk of
‘obligation’ (in the moral sense)).
 Anscombe’s answer:
Kant
 Anscombe leaves us with a dilemma – either we accept
a ‘divine command’ theory of obligation (God, not I, is
the source of obligation), or we revert to Aristotle (who,
according to Anscombe, does away with talk of
‘obligation’ (in the moral sense)).
 Anscombe’s answer: Aristotle!