Kant's Moral Theory: Analyzing Moral Arguments and Human Happiness

1. Standard Form 1. State your position 2. 1st Premise (Fact 1: State fact and source) 3. 2nd Premise (Fact 2: State fact and source) 4. 3rd Premise (Fact 3: State fact and source) 5. 4th Premise (Fact 4: State fact and source) 6. Counter Argument 7. Response to Counter Argument 8. Conclusion

2. Evaluating Moral Arguments Structure of a Moral Argument about Actions (1) Action A has feature F. (2) It is morally good/bad to do actions that have feature F. Therefore, (3) You should/should not do A.

3. Consequentialist Moral Argument Form (1) Some action causes a particular effect (a consequence) (2) Causing this particular effect is right or wrong Therefore (3) People should / should not do the action in question

4. Deontological Moral Arguments (1) Action A has intrinsic feature F. (2) It is morally good/bad to do actions with intrinsic feature F. Therefore, (3) H should/should not do A.

5. Kant’s Moral Theory

6. Immanuel Kant 1724-1804 German Wrote on many subjects Critique of Pure Reason

7. Requirements for Morality Free Will Rationality Moral Autonomy

8. Happiness? We are not here to be Happy But To be Worthy of Happiness

9. If happiness were the goal of human life Then we would be controlled by our instincts not reason The more you know the more pain and suffering you experience

10. Good Will Only thing in the world that cannot be perverted Although we might not always be able to do the right thing We must always want to do the right thing

11. Categorical Imperative Absolute Command of Moral reason

12. Deontological Ethics Morality based upon duty It is our duty to follow the Categorical Imperative

13. Hypothetical Imperative • Possible Command

14. Moral Worth of an Action Based Upon Our Intentions Not The Consequences of the Action

15. Why? 1. Because doing what is right has intrinsic value 2. Since we are not God, we cannot guarantee that what we intent to happen will actually happen

16. Therefore We are only responsible for what we have complete control over OUR INTENTIONS

17. Wallet Example

18. 1st Formulation Act only on the maxim that you could will to be a universal law of nature without contradiction

19. What is a Maxim? An Intention Or Reason for doing something

20. What is a Universal Law of Nature? Something that must happen whether or not we want it to Example: Gravity

21. Without Contradiction? Every time we are going to act We are to think about why we want to take that action Then imagine how we might write out a statement expressing our reasons for action

22. If the action we are thinking about taking is morally wrong Then we will see a contradiction in the sentence stating our intentions

23. Example We want to borrow money from a bank But we have no intention of paying the money back to the bank What would a statement look like expressing this intention?

24. It is morally acceptable to sign a promissory note to pay back the money when I have no intention of keeping my promise to pay the money back

25. Contradiction? I make a promise with no intention of keeping the promise

26. 2nd Formulation Always treat people as ends in themselves never as means to an end

27. Don’t use people Why? Because human beings have intrinsic value Rationality Free Will Moral Autonomy

28. We use objects not people Pornography?

29. Conscience? • We might think of the Categorical Imperative as our conscience • The sense of what is right or wrong in our behavior and motives

30. Copernican Revolution Synthetic A Priori Knowledge

31. “Although all knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all knowledge arises out of experience”

32. Transcendental Structure of Mind Our minds have a structure that we impose upon all the information we receive thru experience

33. Space Time Causality Moral Law

34. Synthetic A Priori Knowledge We know a priori that all our experiences will include Space Time Causality Moral Law

35. Conscience? • We might think of the Categorical Imperative as our conscience • The sense of what is right or wrong in our behavior and motives