History of Ethics: Exploring Kantian Morality PDF

Self-control can be seen as either good or bad. For instance, imagine a killer who suppresses his impulse to flee and instead carries out an assassination with complete self-discipline. Do we praise his ability to control himself? Generally, we consider self-control a virtue, but in this case, it en...

Self-control can be seen as either good or bad. For instance, imagine a killer who suppresses his impulse to flee and instead carries out an assassination with complete self-discipline. Do we praise his ability to control himself? Generally, we consider self-control a virtue, but in this case, it enables him to commit a terrible act. Kant would argue that this kind of self-control is actually bad, not because self-control itself is inherently wrong, but because it serves an immoral purpose. However, why not simply say that the killer’s purpose is bad, rather than labeling his self-control as bad? The issue Kant identifies is that the discipline he exercises allows him to be more effective in doing something evil. In this sense, self-control is not neutral—it becomes a tool that enables wrongdoing. This is related to the concept of moral worth in Kantian ethics: a trait or virtue only has moral value when it is directed by a good will. If self-control is used to commit evil, then it lacks moral worth. Some might argue that Kant’s view is too rigid. Aristotle, for example, might suggest that self-control is not inherently bad or good but depends on the context and the moral character of the person using it. Not everyone who exercises self-control is necessarily virtuous or vicious—it depends on the purpose and the circumstances. Aristotle’s view allows for more nuance, recognizing that virtues must be understood in relation to particular actions and contexts. Kant, on the other hand, is concerned with the fundamental nature of morality itself. He might respond by saying that a bad person can indeed exhibit self-control, but because their will is not aligned with moral law, their self-control does not make them morally praiseworthy. Ultimately, Kant emphasizes that what matters is not just the trait itself, but whether it is guided by moral duty. Professor: If you have a good will and act out of a sense of duty, then the effects of your actions—whether they turn out as intended or not—are irrelevant. What matters is the good will itself. Student 1: I was confused about a basic tension here. It seems like a will, by definition, involves striving toward something—volition directed at a goal. A will always references something beyond itself, right? So if Kant says the good will is good in itself, that seems to contradict the idea that a will necessarily involves some external goal. Professor: Good question. But remember, for Kant, "will" is essentially equivalent to "choice." It doesn't have to be directed toward some ultimate goal. A person can choose not to act, for example, and that choice still reflects their will. What makes the good will good is not its effects but the moral worth of the choice itself. Now, many of you have heard the saying: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." How many of you haven't heard it? (Pauses) Okay, so does this idea contradict Kant’s view? Student 2: It seems like it does, because that phrase suggests that good intentions alone aren’t enough—you actually have to follow through with good actions. But Kant, I think, would say that you must do the right thing regardless of the consequences. Professor: Yes, but you need to be more precise. Why not simply say that if you had good intentions but the results were bad, then your action was still morally wrong, even if your internal state was good? Would Kant agree with that? Student 3: Well, one problem is that people can be mistaken about what’s good. They may believe they are acting morally, but they could be wrong in their judgment. Professor: That’s getting closer, but what in Kant’s own words suggests that he can accept the idea behind "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"? (Silence) Let me read from Kant: "Even if it should happen that, owing to special disfavor of fortune, or the provision of stepmotherly nature, this will should wholly lack power to accomplish its aim..." Now, how does this show that Kant can allow for the idea that the road to hell is paved with good intentions? Student 4: Maybe he means that good intentions, if they don’t summon all the necessary means to act morally, are just empty wishes? Professor: Exactly! A mere wish to do good is not enough. Kant differentiates between a genuine good will—one that acts out of duty—and mere good intentions that do not follow through. Someone with a good will must summon all the means in their power to act morally. If they fail to do so, then it is just a mere intention, not true moral action. So, Kant can accept that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"—but only when those intentions lack the full moral commitment to act. Professor: Kant’s idea suggests that if you summon all the means in your power to achieve what you believe is morally right, then the goodness of your action is not diminished by failure. Even if you don’t achieve the intended good outcome, your moral worth remains intact. Let me give you an example. In the 19th century, doctors widely believed that bloodletting with leeches was necessary to save lives. In reality, of course, this was completely wrong. But imagine a wife is told by a doctor, “You must apply leeches to your husband to save him.” She follows the doctor’s instructions with full conviction. Now, here’s the question: Do we honor her moral action in the same way regardless of the outcome? If the husband survives, we’d likely praise her without hesitation. But if he dies, does that change the level of admiration we have for her actions? Think carefully before answering. Would anyone say that her husband's death does qualify our admiration for her actions? Student 1: Well, we certainly wouldn’t celebrate if her husband died. I mean, we wouldn’t openly say, “Oh, she’s so wonderful” while ignoring the fact that he didn’t make it. Professor: Right, but the real question is—would we praise her as much as we would if he had survived and miraculously recovered thanks to the leeches? Student 2: I think people would react differently depending on the situation. Professor: That’s true, but if we wouldn’t praise her as much, then that suggests we believe moral worth is tied to outcomes. And if you believe that, then you’re contradicting Kant’s view. So, do I sense some hesitation in your silence? If you truly believe moral worth is only in the will, then you have to accept that her actions are just as praiseworthy regardless of the outcome. But if you hesitate, then you might be acknowledging that outcomes do play some role in how we evaluate moral actions. Imagine you're driving on a quiet country road—a small two-lane road with no one around, just empty fields stretching far into the distance. You're not paying much attention, and at some point, you accidentally swerve into the opposite lane. Fortunately, there's no car coming, so you quickly correct yourself and continue driving without any consequences. Now, consider a second scenario: everything is the same, except this time, when you swerve into the other lane, there is a car coming. Tragically, you collide with it, killing both the driver and the passenger. From a moral perspective, we tend not to harshly judge the person in the first scenario—after all, no harm was done. However, we strongly blame the person in the second scenario, despite the fact that their initial action (swerving due to inattention) was identical in both cases. This discrepancy in moral judgment, based on the outcome rather than the intent, is what philosophers call moral luck. Kant, however, would argue against this notion. According to his moral philosophy, what matters is the intent behind an action, not its consequences. Since both drivers acted negligently in the same way, Kant would say they are equally morally blameworthy, regardless of the outcome. However, our intuitive judgments often contradict this, showing how moral luck influences the way we assess responsibility in real-world situations. Professor: To be benevolent when we can is a duty. However, when you act out of benevolence, you’re not necessarily acting from a sense of duty. Beyond this, there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that, without any other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find pleasure in spreading joy and take delight in the satisfaction of others, especially when it is the result of their own work. But in such cases, however proper the action may be, however amiable the will behind it, the action itself has no true moral worth if it is not done from duty. Now, this is the kind of argument Kant is making. How could we criticize this? There’s something deeply wrong here—what is it? I’m about to do the same thing with you that I did before. I’m going to read the passage again, and I want someone to shout out when they recognize the key word or phrase that Kant is relying on to make his point—or that, if invalidated, would undermine his argument entirely. Alright, let’s go. "To be beneficent when we can is a duty. Besides this, there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that, without any other motive of vanity or self-interest—" Now, what is he talking about here? The motive—he’s distinguishing between acting from duty and acting from self-interest. If an action is done out of emotion rather than duty, then it is merely an inclination. There’s a single word I want you to call out when you hear it. Ready? "To be beneficent when we can is a duty. Besides this, there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that, without any other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find pleasure in spreading joy around them and can take delight in the satisfaction of others, so far as it is their own work." Now—what’s the key word? Student: Inclination? Professor: Yes! Exactly! Kant is trying to distinguish moral worth from mere inclination. But let’s make sure we fully understand this. The idea that acting benevolently can be reduced to self-interest was already challenged long before Kant. Bishop Butler, for example, argued 50 or 60 years earlier that there’s no reason to think of benevolence as purely self-interested. Consider this argument from his critics: Whenever you act to help another person, you’re acting from one of your own desires. You desire to satisfy that desire. So, anytime you seek to satisfy one of your own desires, that’s selfish. That’s an argument I cooked up years ago, but you can see how someone could use it to challenge Kant’s view. Now, let’s take it a step further. Imagine someone who actively seeks to harm another person and takes pleasure in doing so. That pleasure is still a desire within them, but the object of their desire is external—the destruction of the other person. The same logic applies to benevolence. Yes, the desire to help is within you, but the object of the desire is someone else’s well-being. So, while you might experience pleasure from helping others, you don’t help others in order to experience pleasure. That’s the crucial distinction. Professor: Butler made this point long before Kant. Essentially, Butler argues that Kant wants moral motivation to come from pure duty—he doesn’t want to allow anything that occurs in the empirical world to influence moral worth. Instead, he believes that duty comes from the noumenal world—a realm beyond our direct experience—where moral law originates, independent of human desires or inclinations. Now, Kant doesn’t explicitly state this argument here, but he develops it in a later work. And it’s an argument that some of his modern followers have used to challenge the moral admirability of benevolent actions. Here’s the argument: If you act from conscience, it’s no accident that you do the right thing—assuming your conscience is well-formed and reliable. But if you act from benevolence or mere sympathy, there’s no guarantee that you will do the right thing. Consider the case of a judge presiding over a criminal trial. The defendant has just been convicted of first-degree murder. The judge sees the criminal trembling before him. After passing the sentence, he notices the terror on the faces of the criminal’s family. Out of sheer sympathy for them, he imposes a very light sentence—five years in prison. Now, we recognize that this is the wrong decision. Everyone would agree that sympathy, in this case, has led to an unjust outcome. This shows that sympathy alone is not a reliable moral guide—it’s only accidental if it happens to result in the right action. But what would an opponent of Kant say in response? Well, there’s an obvious counterargument—though it’s one that Kant himself would never endorse. The problem with the judge’s sympathy is that it is blinkered—it’s narrow and selective. Think of a horse wearing blinders—the judge’s sympathy is focused only on the criminal and his family, but what about the victims? ​ What about the people the criminal harmed? ​ What about the future victims he might harm if released after only five years? ​ What about respect for the law?  ​ What about the precedent this would set—encouraging others to think, “Five years in prison is worth it to get rid of someone I hate.” If the judge had a broader, more rational sympathy, he might have seen that the just action was to impose the appropriate sentence, not a lighter one. So, is it really an accident that duty leads to the right action, while sympathy does not? Kant would argue yes, but even this case suggests that a more enlightened or expanded form of sympathy could align with moral duty. Now, moving along—this brings us to Aristotle. Unlike Kant, Aristotle doesn’t seem to draw such a strict distinction between self-interest and concern for others… Professor: And this is a point I got from Julia Annas in her book The Morality of Happiness. Unlike modern moral philosophers, Aristotle believes it is ignoble to deprive oneself of necessary pleasures—such as sexual or other repetitive (habitual) pleasures. If you refuse to engage in these pleasures entirely, Aristotle would see you as a prude or a Puritan. However, Aristotle doesn’t believe in indulging too much either. The right action, according to him, involves moderation—not taking too much but also not taking too little. If someone were to reject sex completely for their entire life, Aristotle would argue that there is something ignoble about that choice. This is part of his larger ethical view, where self-interest and concern for others are balanced in a way that modern moral frameworks wouldn’t necessarily accept. That said, there is one major exception, and Aristotle struggles with it—justice. We've talked about this before: can a person be unjust to themselves? Aristotle recognizes that, in common sense terms, it’s very difficult to understand what it would mean to be unjust to yourself. Yet, within his ethical system, he seems committed to the idea that it must be possible. Because of this, he wavers and seems to weasel around the issue in his discussions on the subject. But my main point is that Aristotle’s overall commitment is to a balance between self-concern and concern for others. Now, let’s contrast this with Kant. In the next passage, Kant takes an approach that is much more in line with modern moral thinking. He states: "To secure one’s own happiness is at least indirectly a duty." Does everyone see that passage? Kant is careful with his wording—he doesn’t say that securing your own happiness is a direct duty, only that it is an indirect one. Why is it a duty at all, according to Kant? Because if you neglect your own well-being—if you waste away, become bitter, or are constantly miserable—then you will be less capable of fulfilling your moral duties to others. In other words, you have an obligation to maintain a basic level of happiness, not for your own sake, but because otherwise, you won’t be able to fulfill your duties toward others. So, Kant’s reasoning is fundamentally duty-driven: your happiness matters only as a means to moral action, not as an end in itself. Now, compare this to utilitarianism, which argues that you have just as much of a duty to promote your own happiness as you do to promote the happiness of others. Kant rejects this view—he does not see happiness as a basic moral duty but rather as something that is instrumentally important for carrying out duty. Student: I was just thinking—how is it possible for Kant to make a distinction between oneself and others, if morality is supposed to be universal? If rationality is the basis of moral worth, and I myself am a rational agent just like everyone else, then shouldn’t I have the same duty to promote my own happiness as I do to promote others’? It seems strange to separate oneself from others in a moral system that is supposed to apply universally to all rational beings. Shouldn’t self-care be as much of a duty as caring for others? The part that confused me is that it seems like he's talking about suffering in relation to others—that’s how we tend to think about it unconsciously. So, what exactly is the point? I was thinking about the idea of promoting your own happiness. Saying "your own" implies something very specific, rather than something universal. That’s why I found it difficult to frame it as a moral law. Well, you know, there are a lot of people who believe you have duties that don’t necessarily bring happiness. Now, here he’s arguing against that—at least in regard to happiness. He’s assuming that happiness is what we generally assume in ordinary thinking. But sure, you could say that this idea is too narrow. Here’s another example: Think about the idea that you have an obligation to help your mother. That’s a very narrow duty, right? But you could still argue that you have a greater duty to your own mother than to someone else’s mother. Now, what would a utilitarian say? A utilitarian would say that every mother counts equally. That’s also what some ancient Chinese philosophers believed. So, any utilitarian or consequentialist has to hold that position. But Kant is not a consequentialist, and his ideas do reflect that to some extent. The connection does not lie in the expected effect of an action, nor in any principle of action based on expected effects. If these effects could have been produced by other causes, then there would be no need for the will of a rational being. Kant argues that we could have had an instinct for securing happiness, meaning that reason would not be necessary for this purpose. But I don’t quite understand his argument. Even if we had an instinct that led us to happiness, we would still need reason for things like building bridges. Why does Kant assume that rationality is only necessary for moral purposes? We could be rational for practical purposes as well, like engineering. I don’t think Kant would accept that, though. He argues that if happiness could be achieved through instinct alone, then rational will wouldn’t be necessary. He says that the will of a rational being must be determined by something beyond just producing effects in the world. He assumes that morality is worthy of our admiration and that it must come from reason rather than mere inclination. In fact, Kant famously said that there are only two things in the universe that fill him with awe: "the starry sky above me and the moral law within me." This tells us that he saw morality as something exalted, almost transcendent. Now, setting aside the question of whether benevolence itself is virtuous, we should ask: Should a moral person aim to help others simply because they have a duty to do so? Kant argues that morality cannot be based on achieving external goals. If morality were tied to producing results in the world, it would not be truly moral. Instead, he believes that morality must be grounded in something formal—something universal. He inherits the distinction between material and formal causes from Aristotelian philosophy. Material causes are things in the world, whereas formal causes are the principles behind them. So, morality cannot be about achieving material ends; it must be formal. And what is the formal aspect of morality? The moral law itself. From this, Kant concludes that obedience to the moral law must be the ultimate aim. Acting morally means acting from respect for the law itself. He states that a good will is one that acts according to a universal principle, regardless of expected outcomes. This is one of the most difficult passages in Kant’s philosophy. What does it mean to act only on maxims that could become universal laws? A maxim, in Kantian terms, is a personal policy of action. For example, imagine a shopkeeper who charges a fair price to children—not because he believes it is morally right, but because overcharging them might ruin his business when their parents find out. His maxim is self-interested: "I should do nothing that would harm my business." However, if he charges children fairly because he believes it is simply the right thing to do, then his maxim is a moral one. Kant argues that we should only act according to maxims that we could will to become universal laws. This is the first formulation of his categorical imperative: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." He believes this follows necessarily from everything he has argued so far. However, this is only one version of the categorical imperative. There is another version that states: "Act only on maxims that you can consistently will to become universal laws." While they sound similar, Kant himself later acknowledges that they are not exactly the same. Beyond these formulations, Kant also introduces the idea of the "Kingdom of Ends." This is a moral community where rational beings act according to universal moral laws. However, unlike the first two versions of the categorical imperative, the Kingdom of Ends formulation involves the collective—an imagined society in which everyone follows the moral law. Some later philosophers, such as T.M. Scanlon and Derek Parfit, reinterpret this idea, arguing that moral rules are those that all rational people could agree upon as principles for governing behavior. But Kant never made this argument. He did not claim that morality arises from mutual agreement. He saw the moral law as something that individuals must recognize independently, rather than something created by a social contract. Scanlon and Parfit’s approach, while inspired by Kant, moves beyond his original framework. This reinterpretation also leads to potential contradictions. Kant argues that we do not have a fundamental duty to take care of our own health unless it is necessary for fulfilling our moral duties. But modern adaptations of his theory suggest that everyone has an obligation to maintain their own health simply because we would want everyone to do so. This introduces a duty of self-care that Kant himself would likely reject. In the end, while Kant’s ideas have inspired later moral philosophy, some of these developments stray from his original principles. His categorical imperative remains a cornerstone of deontological ethics, but interpretations that extend his theory beyond individual moral reasoning introduce complexities that he himself never addressed.