Ethics and Critical Thinking: Deontological Theory: Kant

Ethics and Critical Thinking: Deontological Theory: Kant Descriptions and Definitions

Overview • Deontological Theories—Slides 3 to 5 • Answering Hume & Doing What Reason Demands—Slides 6 to 9 • Kant’s Derivation of the Good Will—Slides 10 to 13 • Acting for the sake of duty—Slides 14 to 20 • Imperatives-Hypothetical & Categorical—Slides 21 to 23 • Perfect and imperfect duties—Slides 24 to 29 • Moral laws as Categorical Imperatives—Slides 30 to 36 • Absolutes rules and the duty not to lie—Slide 37 • Kant, Respect for Persons and Retributivism—Slides 38 to 40 • Kant Criticisms—Slides 41 to 43

Nonconsequentialist (Deontological) Theories • The second major tradition in philosophical ethics is a deontological approach. • This outlook is based on an idea that consequentialist or teleological thinkers deny—that actions have intrinsic moral value. Some actions are considered inherently good (truth-telling, keeping promises, respecting the rights of others): other actions are bad (dishonesty, coercion, theft, manipulation). • For example, a deontological thinker argues that no matter how much good comes from lying the action will never be considered right.

Nonconsequentialist (Deontological) Theories • Deontologists believe that there are certain sorts of acts that are wrong in themselves and thus morally unacceptable means to the pursuit of any ends, even ends that are morally admirable or morally obligatory. Deontology comes from the Greek deon (duty) and logos (science)—science of duty. (compare telos goal). • Divided into rule deontology (morality of actions is determined by moral rules—Kant) and act deontology (morality of actions is determined by intuition—Sidgwick, Ross). We will not discuss act deontology.

Nonconsequentialist(Deontological) Theories • A deontologist might argue that a promise ought to be kept simply because it is right to keep a promise, not because doing so will serve our needs. • Contrasts with consequentialist or teleological theories. The goodness of the consequences does not guarantee the rightness of the actions that produced them. The right and the good are not only distinct, but the right is prior to the good. • Emphasis is on not doingwrong. Lies are wrong because of what they are even when they produce good consequences.

Immanuel Kant (1724 -1804) • Kant lived and died within 40 miles of Königsberg East Prussia. He focused on the moral issues related to our ideas about duty and reason. • Kant's moral theory has had a tremendous influence on modern ethical discussion. • The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)—(Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten) Kant aims to show the foundations of genuine morality. • Critique of Practical Reason (1788)—Kant investigates the implications of morality for religion.

Kant’s Ethics: Answering Hume & Doing Right • Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to another office than to serve and obey them. DAVID HUME • You may not do evil that good may come. St. Paul • Kant argued both that man is not enslaved by passions but guided by reason and that we are morally obligated to perform those actions that accord with our moralduty whose fundamental demand is that we should treat others, and ourselves, in a manner that is consistent with dignity and worth. The focus is on doing right, which Kant determines is what reason demands.

Kant’s Ethics: Answering Hume & Doing Right • Kant sought moral principles that neither rest on contingencies of experience (consequentialism) nor are clouded by the passions (Hume’s view). • He wanted moral principles that define actions as inherently right or wrong apart from particular circumstances. He believed that moral rules can, in principle, be known solely as a result of reason, which by itself can reveal the fundamental principles of morality. • Morality cannot be founded on happiness since happiness depends on things beyond our control. Moreover, happiness is not good without qualification. Only a good will is good without qualification.

Pure Moral Philosophy-What Reason Demands • “...every empirical element is not only quite incapable of being an aid to the principle of morality, but is highly prejudicial to the purity of morals, for the proper and inestimable worth of an absolutely good will consists just in this, that the principle of action is free from all influence of contingent grounds, which alone experience can furnish...To behold virtue in her proper form is nothing else but to contemplate morality stripped of all admixture of sensible things and of every spurious ornament of reward or self-love. How much she eclipses everything else that appears charming to the affections, everyone may readily perceive with the least exertion of his reason, if he be not wholly spoiled for abstraction."

Kant’s Ethics & the Good Will • Intelligence, wit, courage, wealth, and health are qualified goods in Kant’s estimation. We value them only to the extent that they contribute to other things that we value. Moreover, all of these qualities can be put to a bad use—intelligence, wit, and courage can be used to rob and murder. Pleasure, the absence of pain, and happiness are good only with qualification and only if they are deserved. With the exception of a good will, nothing in or out of this world is good without qualification. Kant says a good will shines like a jewel for its own sake.

Kant on the Good Will • Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will. Intelligence, wit, judgement, and the other talents of the mind, however they may be named, or courage, resolution, perseverance, as qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects; but these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them, and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good. It is the same with the gifts of fortune. Power, riches, honour, even health, and the general well-being and contentment with one's condition which is called happiness, inspire pride, and often presumption, if there is not a good will to correct the influence of these on the mind, and with this also to rectify the whole principle of acting and adapt it to its end. The sight of a being who is not adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will, enjoying unbroken prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial rational spectator. Thus a good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness. [Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals[G393]]

Kant’s Notion: The Good Will-1 • A good will is a self-conscious disposition to choose courses of action (or inaction) in a morally commendable way. A person having such a will acts or chooses for the sake of duty. A good will is simply the will to obey moral laws or to do one’s duty. Der Wille is a rational will, so anyone who rationally wills to do his duty would be inconsistent if he made choices not conforming to this will. For Kant, the good will is the only thing unconditionally good in itself. Remember, the will is not good because it achieves good results. • Kant thinks moral requirements are requirements of reason, specifically practical reason. Practical reason has to do with one capacity to deliberate and make free choices. Principles of practical reason set forth requirements for deliberating and choosing rationally that are valid for every rational agent. Thus Kant explains rational requirements on choice and action for all rational agents.

Kant’s Notion: The Good Will-2 • “It is impossible to conceive of anything in the world, or even out of it, that can be considered good without qualification, except a good will” (G393). • Kant assesses the moral character of actions by focusing on the internal, particularly the rational aspect of human conduct. When Kant claims that the only thing inherently good is a good will, he is talking about a will that follows reason's guidance and acts from a sense of duty. A good will chooses what it does simply and purely because it is the right thing to do, not because it is inclined to do some deed nor because a deed has some positive consequences. • Actions have true moral worth only when they spring from a recognition of duty and a choice to discharge it. To get moral credit, we must do an act because it is right.

Acting For the Sake of Duty-1 • Kant thinks consequences are irrelevant to determining what is moral or not. A more important question to ask is: What if everybody did that? Use a universalization test. • Acting with a sense of duty vs. acting in accordance with duty: Acting in accordance with duty (BAD) = when you act in a way that is consistent with your duty, but for the wrong reasons. Acting with a sense of duty (GOOD) = to choose an action only or primarily because it is one's duty. When Kant's talks about acting for the sake of duty he means acting with a sense of duty. To repeat, Kant believes that actions or choices are morally commendable, when and only when, they are done or made for the sake of duty. Since the goodness of people's wills are shown by the choices they make, anyone whose will is morally good will be disposed to act (or choose) for the sake of duty.

Acting For the Sake of Duty-2 • An action has moral value just when it is done for the sake of duty. Actions that result from inclination or self-interest may be praiseworthy if they happen, for whatever reason, to accord with duty, but they have no inner worth. • Duty is the necessity of an action executed from respect for the law—doing what is right because it is right—only respect for duty gives an action inner worth. The moral worth of actions depends on the reason for performing the actions.

Acting For the Sake of Duty-3 & CI 1: • “But what sort of law can that be, the conception of which must determine the will, even without paying any regard to the effect expected from it, in order that this will be called good absolutely and without qualification? As I have deprived the will of any impulse which would arise to it from obedience to any law, there remains nothing but the universal conformity of its actions to law in general [emphasis added], which alone is to serve the will as its principle, i.e., I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will my maxim should become a universal law.” For an action to have moral worth, we must determine that its maxim can be a law for everyone.

Kant’s—Categorical Imperative-1 • Kant claims that that in moral matters reason dictates that the principle according to which one is willing (what Kant calls an action's "maxim") should be able to become a universal law. When a maxim ( a subjective principle of action) satisfies a universally valid condition, it can be called a practical law. The supreme principle or law of morality that the good person must follow is the “categorical imperative.” • “ Act as though the maxim of your action were by your will to become a universal law of nature .” (63) (CI-#1) • Kant's initial formulation of the categorical imperative reflects the belief that since ethics is essentially a rational enterprise, ethical principles should have the same character as such rational activities as logic and mathematics. For example, they should be internally consistent and universally valid. If one can will the maxim of one's action as a universal law, the principle on which one's deed is based meets these requirements and thereby conforms to a sense of duty. Rational beings, to the extent that they act rationally, will always be guided by ethical principles or maxims which can be adopted by everyone else without generating any contradiction. Maxims which fail this test are, by contrast, self-defeating and contradictory.

Duty and the CI Test-1 • The moral value of an action is owing to the maxim on which it’s based rather than its success in satisfying or realizing some desired end or purpose. This makes Kantianism Nonconsequentialist. • An act done from duty derives its moral value, not from the results it produces, but from the principle by which it is determined, i.e. the maxim from which it is done. • Morality is permeated with rationality because it deals with intentional or purposive behavior (intentions) i.e., acts done for a reason. Maxims connect reasons or motives with decisions to act. Maxims express a volitional or willing attitude toward doing something that satisfies some contingent interest the agent possesses.

Duty and the CI Test-2 • Duty is the necessity of an action executed from respect for the law. You must always act in ways that everyone could act. “ Act as though the maxim of your action were by your will to become a universal law of nature .” (63) (CI-#1). Some maxims cannot be universalized and fail the CI test. [I will enrich myself at all costs—not everyone could act on this without contradiction]. For a person to act on such a maxim is to treat themselves as an exception or a special case. This would be wrong. • A maxim that passes CI: • [I will never break a promise for reasons of self-interest]. • There might be reasons such as saving a life that could make it permissible or obligatory to break some promise. Kant would not use a matter of convenience for a decision of such significance.

Test Morality of CI: another example • Formulate the maxim of the action: In situations of sort S, I will do A. [In situations in which I am thirsty and there is water available, I will drink it. This is a subjective principle of a particular agent.] • Universalize the maxim: In situations of sort S, everyone will do A. [In situations in which anyone is thirsty and there is water available, that person will drink it.] • Determine whether the universalized maxim could be a universal law. Is it possible for everyone to act as the universalized maxim requires? or Could we will that the maxim become universal law? • See perfect and imperfect duties.

Imperatives as Commands of Reason • All imperatives command eitherhypothetically or categorically...If the action is good only as a means to something else, then the imperative is hypothetical; but if it [the action] is thought of as good in itself, and hence as necessary in a will which of itself conforms to reason as the principle of this will, the imperative is categorical (62). • Actions are obligatory because reason demands them. • Hypothetical imperatives advise us what to do to obtain a particular objective. “ If you want to avoid failing the test, study the readings and Power Points.

Categorical vs. Hypothetical Imperative • A hypothetical prescription tells us what to do if we desire a particular outcome or have a specific goal. If you wish to become a doctor, you must study biology and physiology. Hypothetical "oughts" are possible because we have desires. But moral obligations do not depend on our desires. • When Kant insists that moral rules be universalizable, he is saying that moral rules prescribe categorically (or unconditionally), not hypothetically. Categorical "oughts" are possible because we have reason. Categorical "oughts" are derived from a principle that everyone must accept because he or she is rational. • Each person, through his or own acts of will, legislates the moral law. Moral law is valid for all rational beings and is known by reason not experience.

Hypothetical/Categorical Imperatives • A hypothetical imperative is dependent on our desires or preferences. Not universally applicable. • If you want to do well on the test, study the book carefully. If you want to jump off this bridge without injury, tie the bungee cord securely. • Categorical imperative: • I ought to keep promises. This is true irrespective of our desires or preferences. To will otherwise is inconsistent or irrational.

Duties: Perfect/Imperfect • A distinction that marks the difference between an obligation that allows leeway in determining how to achieve it (imperfect) and one that does not (perfect). • Perfect Duties—duties that do not admit to various courses of action, i.e., the duty to tell the truth, to keep promises, to not commit suicide, to not murder, or to not steal. Perfect duties never conflict and over-ride imperfect duties. • Imperfect Duties—duties that may be achieved in more than one way, i.e., the duty not to lie is imperfect since it admits of the possibility of saying nothing. The duty to help others does not specify whom to help, or how often, or the degree of sacrifice. The duty to develop your talents. If helping others and developing talents conflict prudence demands that you develop your talents.

Kant's Four Examples of Perfect & Imperfect Duties • Perfect duty to oneself: the duty not to commit suicide • Perfect duty to others: the duty not to make a lying promise to others. • Imperfect duty to oneself: a duty to develop one's talents • Imperfect duty to others: a duty of beneficence

Kant's First Example • #1 Perfect duty to oneself: the duty not to commit suicide. Moral obligations arise even when others are not involved. Consider a world (or system of nature) in which everyone acted on the following maxim: From self-love (whose purpose is to make us keep going) I could make it my principle to shorten my life if staying alive threatens more evil than happiness. Can we consistently imagine a world in which self-love could lead you to destroy yourself? Kant says no to the maxim. Could genuine self-love counsel suicide and still exist in a system of nature? Can you imagine a world without self-preservation? Violates CI. Interferes with one’s future freedom of choice by one’s own present choice.

Kant's Second Example • Perfect duty to others: the duty not to make a lying promise to others. To adopt a maxim that says "to get money, I will make a false promise" means conceiving of a system of nature where everyone would make a false promise to get money. However, in that world, false promises would not get you money since ceteris paribus (all else being equal) making false promises that get would you money would be impossible. Such a law of nature would be contradictory. Violates CI.

Kant's Third Example • Imperfect duty to oneself: a duty to develop one's talents. Because our talents are given to us for a purpose, it would be irrational to ignore this purpose. A system of nature could exist where like South Sea Islanders we would allow our talents to "rust" and devote our lives to pleasure, but we could not without contradiction will this to become a universal law in a system of nature. "For, as a rational being, he necessarily wills that all his faculties should be developed, inasmuch as they are given to him for all sorts of possible purposes"(84). We could not universalize the negation—we have no duty to develop ourtalents—without contradicting another belief. But we can't spend all of our time developing our talents, so we can only fulfill this obligation to an extent. Violates CI.

Kant's Fourth Example • Imperfect duty to others: a duty of beneficence. Propose the maxim "to be happy I will not help anyone else." A world in which self-reliance reigns is certainly possible, but no rational being would ever will to live in such a world for we recognize rationally that if we were in need we would want others to help us. (See 84). A will that ignored beneficence would be in conflict with itself. • Given the duty to help those in hardship, can you will its negation: I will it that people will never help those in hardship? The promise is contradicted by your belief that if you are in hardship, you want someone to help you. It is inconsistent to will this because you might be in hardship and need help. Violates CI.

Kant and the Nature of Moral Laws • To determine the morality of an act, ask the following: would an act be acceptable to all rational beings acting rationally, whether they were doers or receivers of the action? • Morality is not dependent on God’s will or our feelings but a priori (independent of our sense experience) and based on pure reason. • A law that is entirely objective—independent of the ‘contingent conditions of humanity’ and in its own right binding on human beings in general—can motivate us to act simply because of our awareness of it; and no rational being can be aware of it without recognizing it as a reason for acting. (Like modus ponens and other rules of inference—a rule with no exceptions).

Kant’s Categorical Imperative 1 • Categorical Imperative (version 1)—universal law formulation highlights the principle of consistency [Act only in accordance with such a maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law]. • All moral judgments must be derivable from it. • No reference to the good—we are not told to promote the good of anyone, either ourselves or others. Unlike the Ten Commandments, whose authority is external, CI's authority is internal to us. • If we are motivated to follow this principle, we will in fact be cultivating the only thing that is good in itself, a good will, because we will be trying to do what is right because it is right.

Kant’s Categorical Imperative 2 • Categorical Imperative (version 2)—principle of humanity • "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”(66). • Don’t use or manipulate people. Don’t treat them as a mere means. • Kant writes: "he who is thinking of making a lying promise to others will see at once that he would be using another man merely as a means, without the latter containing at the same time the end in himself. For he whom I propose such a promise for use for my own purposes cannot possibly assent to my mode of acting towards him, and therefore cannot himself contain the end of this action." Informed consent?

Kant’s Categorical Imperative 3 • Categorical Imperative (version 3)—principle of autonomy—source of dignity and value. (not in text) • “Act only so that the will through its maxims could regard itself as universally lawgiving.” • Conform your actions to the universal law freely legislated by rational beings. (self-imposed) • “....a rational being must always be regarded as making universal law, because otherwise he could not be conceived as an end in itself.” We and all rational beings have autonomy of will—The will is a kind of causality that belongs to human beings as far as they are rational; freedom would be the property of this causality that makes it independent of any determination of alien causes. [That is, independent of any factors extraneous to the will itself, including the merely empirical desires and inclinations of the agent in question]. Moral law as self-legislated. Practical reason in each of us determines the universal maxims we must all obey.

Imperatives Reviewed • Hypothetical—limited—based on desires • Categorical—universal—based on reason • Kant constructs the basic principle of morality with formulations emphasizing: • Consistency: CI# 1— “I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will my maxim should become a universal law.” • Humanity: CI# 2—“Act in such a way that you 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.” • Autonomy: CI# 3—“Act only so that the will through its maxims could regard itself as universally lawgiving.”

Kant Highlights 1 • The good will is discharging it’s duty out of respect for the moral law. Acts are seen as good because they are done for the right reason. (To refrain from murder because of fear of punishment is not morally correct but doing so out of respect for others as fellow rational beings is morally correct). • Duties are divided into two kinds: perfect and imperfect. Perfect duties are duties that we must comply with including not to kill, coerce, steal, or break promises. Imperfect duties are ones we are free to decide how and when to apply.

Kant Highlights 2 • Moral judgments ought to be backed by good reasons and are binding on people in the sense that "if you accept any considerations as reasons in one case, you must also accept them in other cases." (134). Consistency and universalization are still important. • We accept Kant's implication that people cannot regard themselves as special from a moral point of view. • Much of what Kant said is extremely valuable in a scheme without absolute, and exceptionless rules. • However, for Kant, animals have no moral importance.

Absolute Rules and the Duty Not to Lie • According to Kant, lying in any circumstances is the "obliteration of one's dignity as a human being." He claimed that there could be no universal law to lie that's not self-defeating. According to Rachels, Kant overlooked a formulation such as "It is permissible to lie when doing so would save another's life." Moreover, Kant assumes we would be responsible for the bad consequences of lying, but "we would not be responsible for any bad consequences of telling the truth." (132). This rule and the Case of the Inquiring Murderer indicate that there is a serious flaw in Kant's use of the Categorical Imperative and his insistence on the use of exceptionless rules. • Rachels' also discusses a case where absolute rules conflict—see the Dutch fisherman example on pages 133. • Kant push toward absolute rules with no exceptions is unnecessary—You can lie when it is necessary to save the life of another.

Kant, Respect for Persons and Retributivism • CI#2 "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.”(137) • Humans have a special dignity because they are "free agents capable of making their own decisions, setting their own goals, and guiding their conduct by reason." (138). • The difference between treating your friend as a means and an end is a profound one even if the distinction is not always clear in every case. (See 138). Taking human dignity seriously. Treating people as an end means treating them with respect.

Kant’sRetributivism-1 • An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. • Punishment can be imposed only for the commission of a crime. Retribution increases suffering—anti-utilitarian. Utilitarians punish people to prevent crime and rehabilitate wrong-doers. Create correctional facilities, not prisons. However, this is to use people simply as a means and to violate their autonomy to decide what sort of people they want to be. • For Kant, these actions are incompatible with human dignity. The kind and degree of punishment cannot be determined by utilitarian considerations but only by the principle of equality illustrated by the pointer on the scales of justice. "Only the Law of retribution (jus talionis) can determine exactly the kind and degree of punishment..."MM • Kant believes that the criminal deserves punishment proportional to the crime committed. But proportionality can be understood in various ways. Some retributivists would say that the severity of the punishment should be proportional to the seriousness of the offense; others would say that the effect of the punishment should be proportional to the harmful effect of the offense. (Kant's view) (See 142) • The principle of equality reflected in the "eye for an eye" maxim is "the only principle which...can definitely assign both the quality and the quality of a just penalty" (142). Hence, Kant endorses capital punishment as a punishment with proportional harm.

Kant’s Retributivism-2 • If the guilty are not punished then justice is not done. • Criminals are responsible for their behavior as rational agents and they should be held accountable for what they do. We punish those who have freely chosen their evil deeds. • Following CI #1—"When we decide what to do, we in effect proclaim our wish that our conduct be made into a "universal law." Therefore, when a rational being decides to treat people in a certain way, he decrees that in his judgment this is the way people are to be treated." (139). Just what sorts of punishments can we serve up and avoid the cruel and unusual when we consider today's criminals? Should we stoop to the level of the criminal’s thinking? • Are criminals rational beings who should be held accountable for all of their actions or disorganized personalities who are driven to wild and impulsive actions or an admixture of both? • How do we treat serious offenses such as robbery, rape, or murder attempts in which no serious actual harm has yet occurred? How about a reckless, but unintentional act, that causes great harm?

Criticisms of Kant 1 • What has moral worth? Can't we act morally from instinct, sympathy, or habit (see Aristotle), not just duty. • Adequacy of CI—could have rules with exceptions although Kant would not want this. The predicament of lying to a potential murderer. • What about the bad thing that happens because you don’t lie? • What does it mean to treat people as means? The distinction is not easily drawn.

Criticisms of Kant 2 • How am I to decide what is the correct description, and hence the maxim, of an act or proposed action? Kant gives little guidance and few examples. • Couldn’t the perfect duty to keep a promise be outweighed by an imperfect duty to render aid to someone in need? • We have the freedom to obey our own reason, but how does practical reason compel or motivate action? • What about the ability of our passions to sway us? Maybe all imperatives are hypothetical?

Kant Final Highlights • The focus of moral philosophy shifts from considering the happiness of all and the consequences of actions to the individual legislator of morality whose reason and good will guide actions done for the sake of duty and the moral law. Reason assures moral correctness. • Treat someone as an ‘end’ not a ‘means.’ • Use categorical imperative to resolve moral dilemmas. • Legislate acceptable moral rules that are universalizable and without exception.

Ethics and Critical Thinking: Deontological Theory: Kant