Today’s Lecture
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Grade spreadsheet
Turnitin.com
Study session on Monday 18th
Final Exam and office hours
Immanuel Kant
Grade spreadsheet
• I will be placing an undated grade spreadsheet on
the course website some time on Wednesday. Please
check to ensure that the data matches what you have
(this will be the last chance to do so before the
exam).
• If there are any discrepancies, come and see me.
Turnitin.com
• Remember that if your assignments are not
in Turnitin.com by Friday you will receive a
zero on the relevant assignment.
• There is no negotiation on this one, so don’t
leave this task to the last minute.
Study session on Monday 18th
• There will be a study session on Monday the 18th,
from 1100-1300 (or 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.). This
will be held in Talbot College room 310. You don’t
have to stay for the whole period, if you come at all.
Attendance is strictly voluntary. But you may be
able to help each other out.
• Bring ideas and talk stuff over. I won’t be able to
give you any substantive answers, as that would
defeat the purpose of the exam. But I can referee
your discussion (i.e. if you need a referee).
Final Exam and office hours
• Don’t forget that the final exam is on Tuesday, the 19th, at
9:00 a.m.
• The location, remember, is TC 343.
• Also, I will choose the exam questions from the first fifteen
questions on your original handout of possible exam
questions (unfortunately we will not be getting to either
Rawls or hooks - so drop questions 16 and 17).
• My final office hours for this course are this week. I will be
submitting your final grades on Friday the 22nd, so if you
have any questions about grades, seek me out before the
22nd.
First Section: Intrinsic versus
extrinsic goodness or value
• You can understand the beginning of this
section as assuming that the moral life is
good. This is suggested by the status
accorded those who would live morally (see
FP, p.643). The question is, Is it
extrinsically or intrinsically good?
First Section: The good will
• Under the influence of something like this
consideration, Kant introduces the notion of the
good will.
• It is his contention that “[n]othing in the world indeed nothing beyond the world - can possibly be
conceived which could be called good without
qualification except a good will” (FP, p.642).
• As he implies in this claim, he will include God
here.
First Section: The good will
• Kant considers candidates for unconditional goods (i.e.
unqualified goods) among those personal traits associated
with valuers, and with those environmental contingencies
that inform the quality of their lives. He seems to treat this
as exhaustive in its scope.
• Neither the “talents of mind” (FP, p.642) nor the “qualities
of temperament” (FP, p.642) can be taken to be
unconditionally good.
• If it were not for the goodness of will, or character, such
qualities as intelligence or perseverance could do great
harm. Their goodness, then, is derivative (FP, p.643).
First Section: The good will
• “[G]ifts of fortune” (FP, p.643) by which he means
“[p]ower, riches, honor, ... health, general well-being and
the contentment with one’s condition” (FP, p.643) are also
derivatively good. Without a good will, or character, such
‘gifts’ could do great harm (FP, p.643).
• This does not yet give what Kant wants, after all the good
will could be extrinsically good.
• But it is Kant’s contention that the will is not good because
of what it accomplishes or because of its causal potency (i.e.
it is not good for something else, or achieving something
else). Indeed its goodness would not be diminished if it
were to lack causal potency. “[I]t is good only because of its
willing (i.e., it is good in itself)” (FP, p.643).
First Section: An(other) argument for
the intrinsic goodness of the will
• (1) Every organ has a purpose.
• (2) Every organ is best fitted or adapted for its
purpose.
• (3) The more a person tries to use her reason to
secure her own happiness the more she fails.
• (4) What’s more, those who live ‘closer to instinct’
are happier than those who live according to their
reason.
• (5) Reason, therefore, is ill-equipped to secure an
individual’s happiness.
First Section: An(other) argument for
the intrinsic goodness of the will
• (6) Given (5), the purpose of reason cannot be a rational
being’s happiness.
• (7) Reason is a practical faculty (or power)...that is, reason
is a faculty (or power) for influencing the will.
• (8) If reason’s goodness (or value) lies in its purpose, then it
lies in its influence on the will.
• (9) Given (3) through (6), reason’s goodness (or value) isn’t
in its power to yield an extrinsically good will.
• (10) Therefore, reason’s goodness (or value) must lie in its
power to yield an intrinsically good will (FP, pp.643-44).
First Section: Developing the
notion of an intrinsically good
will
• It is at this point that Kant begins his
discussion of duty. The reason for this is
that the notion of duty implies a good will.
I.e. to act from duty is to exhibit a good will
(FP, p.644).
• He hopes, then, by developing the notion of
what it is to act from duty, he will, ipso
facto, develop the notion of a good will (FP,
p.644).
First Section: The first proposition
• The moral worth of an action lies in the intentions of the
agent. If the agent acts because duty requires her to so act,
then her action has moral worth (FP, pp.644-45, 646).
• An action motivated by self-interest, self-preservation or
even feelings of warmth towards another lack moral worth,
according to Kant (FP, pp.644-45).
• This may seem strange at first, but Kant notes that the
(albeit meager) moral worth of such actions only arises
when they accord with our duties. But since such
inclinations do not always so arise, they are not
unconditionally good, and only what is unconditionally
good has moral worth (FP, p.645).
First Section: The first proposition
• “It is in this way, undoubtedly, that we should
understand those passages of Scripture which
command us to love our neighbor and even our
enemy, for love as an inclination cannot be
commanded. But beneficence from duty, even when
no inclination impels it and even when it is opposed
by a natural and unconquerable aversion, is practical
love, not pathological love - it resides in the will and
not in the propensities of felling, in principles of
action not in tender sympathy; and it is alone can be
commanded” (FP, p.646).
First Section: The second proposition
• “An action done from duty does not have its moral worth in
the purpose which is to be achieved through it but in the
maxim whereby it is determined” (FP, p.646).
• This seems to follow from Kant’s earlier rejection of the
view that an action’s moral worth arises from the purposes
or ends of said action. Though an action’s
effects/consequences or purposes may conform to what is
right, the wrong motivation for said action can undermine
its worth. What ensures the proper connection between an
action and what’s right is the principle of the will that gives
rise to the action (FP, p.646).
First Section: The second
proposition
• Interestingly, the success or failure of the willed
action is irrelevant to its moral worth (on this
account). Whether it succeeds or fails is largely
out of the hands of the person willing the action.
The goodness of a person’s choice can only be
reasonably ascribed, then, on other grounds,
grounds over which the person has control. Thus
the choice itself is the source of the moral worth of
an act (if it has any moral worth at all) (FP,
p.646).
First Section: The third proposition
• “Duty is the necessity to do an action from respect
for law” (FP, p.646).
• You have three elements in the notion of ‘acting
from duty’: (1) An objective principle (or
practical law), (2) a subjective maxim which
accords with, or follows from, said objective
principle and (3) respect for the law (without any
regard for the consequences of acting in accord with
said law) (FP, p.647).
First Section: practical laws, objective principles and
maxims
• An objective principle is that which all rational beings
(human or otherwise) could act upon if their reason has
control over their desires.
• A maxim is a subjective principle of the will...that is, a
principle with which an agent wills herself to act (i.e. a
psychological principle of action).
• An objective principle is a practical law (see FP, pp.634,
637 and also the author’s footnote on page 647 of your FP).
• Note that, due to the abstract nature of duty and the moral
law, only a rational being can be moral (FP, p.647). This
will exclude children by the way (they are still too bound to
contingencies and lack the ability to reflect without recourse
to experience).
First Section: The first
categorical imperative
• The supreme categorical imperative is
proffered as a way of discovering what
counts as an objective principle (or
practical law).
• Also, what he identifies as the supreme
categorical imperative, of which there are at
least three complementary versions, is to be
imagined as lying at the foundation of our
moral system.
First Section: The first categorical
imperative
• Those imperatives that we use (or pretend to use) in
our moral lives are derived from the supreme
categorical imperative (FP, p.647).
• “The common sense of mankind in its practical
judgments is in perfect agreement with this and has
this principle constantly in view” (FP, p.647)
• The derivation of lower order imperatives from the
supreme categorical imperative is thought to
preserve the necessity enjoyed by the supreme
categorical imperative.
First Section: The first categorical
imperative
• The first categorical imperative is: “I ought never to
act in such a way that I could not also will that my
maxim should be a universal law” (FP, p.647).
• This falls out of Kant’s move to strip “the will of all
impulses which could come to it from obedience to
any law, nothing remains to serve as a principle of
the will except universal conformity to law as such”
(FP, p.647).
First Section: The first categorical imperative
• Consider Kant’s test case: “May I, when in distress, make a
promise with the intention not to keep it?” (FP, p.647).
• Kant suggests we can distinguish a prudential and strictly
moral approach to answering this question.
• Prudentially, we can go either way (FP, p.648).
• Morally, however, we can only go in the direction of not
making such a promise (at least according to Kant) (FP,
p.648).
• After all, if we imagine such a maxim holding as a universal
law, no promises could subsequently exist. No one would
trust me, nor could I trust them, so promises would be of no
effect. Since I cannot so will my maxim to be a universal
law, I ought not to follow it myself (FP, p.648).
First Section: The first categorical imperative
• Note that, for Kant, his account thus far accords, or purports
to accord, with our common moral knowledge (FP, pp.64849).
• Kant does not view the discussion thus far as innovative, he
has merely highlighted what is already at work in our moral
reasoning (FP, p.648).
• We have an imperative that yields maxims which hold
universally.
• We have an imperative that yields maxims which hold
impartially.
• We also have a method of discovering our duty which does
not require theoretical knowledge, a wealth of experience or
intellectual expertise (FP, p.648).
Second Section
• In this Second Section, Kant will move
from a critical examination of our common
moral knowledge, to a metaphysics that will
explain or make sense of this knowledge.
Second Section: Kant’s
pessimism
• Kant opens the second section up with the
admission that “[i]t is, in fact, absolutely
impossible by experience to discern with
complete certainty a single case in which
the maxim of an action, however much it
might conform to duty, rested solely on
moral grounds and on the conception of
one’s duty” (FP, p.650).
Second Section: Kant’s pessimism
• This is primarily to indicate that Kant’s notion of
duty is not an empirical notion. That is, Kant didn’t
merely glean his theory of duty from what can be
observed in common moral practice (FP, p.650).
• It also indicates that, for Kant, the success or failure
of his theory does not depend on whether we can
successfully implement it (see page 650 of your FP).
• Is this a problem?
Second Section: Kant’s pessimism
• “Our concern is with actions of which perhaps the
world has never had an example, with actions whose
feasibility might be seriously doubted by those who
base everything on experience [i.e. empiricists], and
yet with actions inexorably commanded by reason.
For example, pure sincerity in friendship can be
demanded of every man, and this demand is not in
the least diminished if a sincere friend has never
existed, because this duty, as duty in general, prior
to all experience lies in the idea of reason which
determines the will on a priori grounds” (FP, p.650).
Second Section: Kant’s
pessimism
• Think of this another way: Kant is committed to
the view that the a priori demands of reason are
there to be discovered, but this does not mean that
all or any rational beings will do so.
• Isn’t something like this readily conceded by
anyone who believes that there is an objective
ground to morality, and that there is a distinction
to be made between what we do and what we
ought to do?
Second Section: Against the situatedness of moral
principles
• (1) Moral laws must be valid universally. (This Kant takes
to be fundamental to an understanding of the nature of
morality).
• (2) From this it follows that, where there is a moral agent,
s/he or it ought to act in accord with the moral laws.
• (3) From this it follows that the moral laws are not grounded
in those properties that make a particular moral agent
human or nonhuman.
• (4) It must also be the case, then, that the moral laws are not
grounded in particular (or localized) circumstances or
cultures.
• (5) Therefore, no set of experiences, no set of empirical
facts, can ground or entail the moral laws (FP, p.651).
Second Section: Against the
situatedness of moral principles
• For Kant, if we try to ground our moral
principles/laws on our nature, or in our moral
practice, we may focus on principles or laws that
only sensibly hold for humans, rather than for all
moral agents.
• However, if our moral principles or laws ought to
hold for all moral agents, then we cannot ground our
moral principles on our nature or moral practice
(FP, pp.651, 653).
• This leaves nowhere else to go than pure reason,
according to Kant (FP, p.651).
Second Section: Against the
situatedness of moral principles
• “But a completely isolated metaphysics of morals,
mixed with no anthropology, no theology, no
physics, or hyperphysics, and even less with occult
qualities (which might be called hypophysical), is
not only an indispensable substrate of all
theoretically sound and definite knowledge of
duties; it is also a desideratum of the highest
importance to the actual fulfillment of its precepts”
(FP, p.652).
Second Section: categorical and
hypothetical imperatives
• Hypothetical imperatives are conditionally
necessary. Given a certain end (whether it is
currently willed or not), one should act according to
a certain principle (which will enable one to achieve
that end) (FP, p.654).
• Think of a hypothetical imperative as an if...then
proposition. E.g. if you want to drive to university
this morning, then you need to make sure there is
enough gas in the car.
Second Section: categorical and
hypothetical imperatives
• Categorical imperatives are unconditionally
necessary. That is, the imperative is not
conditional on a certain end being willed (FP,
p.654).
• It is clear from what has already been covered
that moral laws, under Kant’s account, are
categorical imperatives (see FP, p.655).
Second Section: categorical and
hypothetical imperatives
• Kant will also contend that the content of the
supreme categorical imperative from which our
moral laws follow, can be deduced from the “mere
concept of a categorical imperative” (page 658 of
your FP).
• This, of course, must be the case if the supreme
categorical imperative is to hold for all rational
beings (be they human or nonhuman, in our solar
system or elsewhere)...right?
Second Section: categorical and
hypothetical imperatives
• “But if I think of a categorical imperative, I know
immediately what it will contain. For since the
imperative contains, besides the law, only the
necessity of the maxim of acting in accordance with
the law, while the law contains no condition to
which it is restricted, nothing remains except the
universality of law as such to which the maxim of
the action should conform; and this conformity
alone is what is represented as necessary by the
imperative” (FP, p.658).
Second Section: the supreme
categorical imperative
• Since the supreme categorical imperative requires
that all rational beings act in accord with it, without
restrictions, the content of this imperative must be
universal in scope.
• There is also only one categorical imperative.
• Thus: “Act only according to that maxim by which
you can at the same time will that it should become
a universal law” (FP, p.658).
• All other moral imperatives are derived from this
principle (FP, p.658).
Second Section: the second version of the categorical
imperative
• “Act as though the maxim of your action were by your will
to become a universal law of nature” (FP, p.658).
• This, for Kant, captures the necessity attached to the
supreme categorical imperative (FP, p.658). Understand it
as a way of imagining a universe in which all rational agents
perfectly follow the dictates of their reason.
• Also note how he is more explicitly introducing the notion
of autonomy (or self rule).
• So understood such a law seemed to nicely mirror, in Kant’s
view, the relationship between natural objects and the laws
of nature (FP, p.658).
Second Section: the second categorical
imperative
• Note in Kant’s examples of how to apply his procedure of
deciding our duty there are two different ways in which we
appear to run into trouble if we depart from what can be
willed as a universal law.
• (1) What we propose to do may, if universalized, ‘selfdestruct’ (examples 1 and 2 [FP, pp.658-59]).
• (2) Even if what we propose to do does not ‘self-destruct’, it
may be the case that we still cannot sincerely will it to be a
universal law (examples 3 and 4 [FP, p.659]).
Second Section: the second categorical imperative
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Example 1: The Suicide Candidate (FP, pp658-69).
Example 2: The False Promise Maker (FP, p.659).
Example 3: The Talented (But Lazy) Person (FP, p.659).
Example 4: Selfish, and Unscrupulous, Rich Person (FP,
p.659).
• What do you think of his examples? Does his fourth
example deal with Glaucon’s concerns in our previous
readings?
• What of his earlier claim, in connection to false promising,
that “[i]mmediately I see that I could will the lie but not a
universal law to lie” (FP, p.648)?
• Are there counter-examples of morally acceptable lies?
Second Section: the second
categorical imperative
• Note that in all of his examples, Kant seeks
to infer our moral duties from the Supreme
Categorical Imperative (FP, p.659).
• “The foregoing are a few of the many actual
duties, or at least of duties we hold to be
actual, whose derivation form the one stated
principle is clear” (FP, p.659).
Second Section: on transgression
• Kant suggests that when we shirk our moral
duty we do not do so by not willing that our
maxims become universal laws. Rather, we
take the liberty of viewing ourselves as the
exception, even if only ‘momentarily’ (FP,
p.660).
• Is he right?
Second Section: Rational beings as ends in themselves
• The third version of the supreme categorical imperative
rests on a recognition that each of us, when we will an
action, treat ourselves as ends in ourselves ... not merely as
means. Since we could not (without contradiction) will
ourselves to be regarded as means only, we ought not to
treat other rational beings in this way (FP, p.662).
• This is true whether we talk of hypothetical or categorical
imperatives (FP, pp.661-62).
• This Kant contends, is a duty of every rational agent (FP,
p.662).
• The ‘third version’ reads: “Act so that you treat humanity,
whether in your own person or in that of another, always as
an end and never as a means only” (FP, p.662).