Chapter 12: The Kantian Perspective PDF

LIST OF KEY TERMS absolute amoralist categorical imperative golden rule hypothetical imperatives maxim principle of universalizability self-regarding actions universalizable 323 C H A PTE R 1 2 The Kantian Perspective Autonomy, Free Will, and Resp...

LIST OF KEY TERMS absolute amoralist categorical imperative golden rule hypothetical imperatives maxim principle of universalizability self-regarding actions universalizable 323 C H A PTE R 1 2 The Kantian Perspective Autonomy, Free Will, and Respect Russ Shafer-Landau University of Wisconsin-Madison Is there anything wrong with slavery? This probably sounds like an idiotic question. Of course slavery is wrong. So let me rephrase my question. Is there anything wrong, in and of itself, with enslaving other people? In practice, slavery has always created much more harm than good. But what if that were not the case? What if the members of a slave society— slaves as well as masters—were, on the whole, wealthier, better educated, healthier, and more satisfied with their lives than most members of a free society? And what if the abolition of slavery was sure to undercut these greater benefits? In those circumstances, would slavery still be wrong? This thought experiment was put to readers by an important twentieth- century moral philosopher, Richard Hare. In his article “What Is Wrong with Slavery,”1 Hare defended the utilitarian view that denied that slavery is intrinsically wrong. Everything depends on the actual results of a slave system; in the imagined example, Hare had to admit that the slave society, since it created greater overall benefits, was the morally superior option. This despite the fact that Hare was once a slave himself. As a 324 British soldier in World War II, he was captured by Japanese forces and interned in a camp that enslaved its inmates. Hare emphasized that his views did not permit any slave system as actually practiced. He presented the story as a way to show that there is nothing wrong, in itself, with slavery. The utilitarian says that the morality of slavery, like that of any other practice, depends entirely on its results. In the picture Hare paints, slavery can be morally acceptable. You might be outraged at such a view, convinced that slavery can never be morally right, because it grossly violates people’s autonomy. Slavery allows people to be treated as mere things—as objects without any rights, of no intrinsic importance. This is precisely the Kantian objection to slavery. Morality requires us always to treat human beings with the dignity they deserve. Slavery is inherently disrespectful. No one deserves such treatment. That is what explains why slavery is wrong. Intuitively, this makes good sense. But it requires a bit of work to unpack it. We need to better understand why treating people as they deserve is so important, and what it means, specifically, to say that we deserve dignity and respect. 1. Philosophy and Public Affairs 8 (1979): 103–121. 325 12.1 The Principle of Humanity In the course of his work, Kant identified a number of different candidates for the role of ultimate moral principle. Although the principle of universalizability clearly emphasizes the moral importance of fairness, another of Kant’s formulations directs our attention to the respect and dignity that serve as the basis of morality. This formulation is widely known as the principle of humanity: Always treat a human being (yourself included) as an end, and never as a mere means. To understand this principle, we need to get clear about three things: humanity, ends, and means. When Kant spoke of humanity, he wasn’t thinking necessarily of Homo sapiens. Rather, he was referring to all rational and autonomous beings, no matter their species. Perhaps there are aliens, or some nonhuman animals, who are rational and autonomous. If so, then they count as human beings for purposes of Kant’s principle. Treating someone as an end is treating her with the respect she deserves. Treating someone as a means is dealing with her so that she helps you achieve one of your goals. This may be perfectly okay. I do this, for instance, when I hire a plumber to fix a broken water pipe in my kitchen. In an innocent sense, I am using him—he is needed to get me what I want (a functioning sink, in this case). Yet if I greet him at the door, give him any help he asks for, and then pay him as he leaves, I am also treating him with respect, and so, in Kantian terms, I am also treating him as an end. But what if, while the plumber is checking the leak, I remove a wrench from his tool kit and whack him over the head with it? He’s out cold— excellent. I then snugly fit his head into the space where the pipe has 326 corroded, thus plugging the leak. While he’s unconscious, I rush off to the hardware store and buy a cheap bit of PVC pipe. The plumber wakes up just as I am returning from the store. I scold him for falling asleep on the job and usher him out the door with a curt good riddance. Then I proceed to fix the leak myself, saving a hefty fee. What has happened in this ridiculous scenario is that I’ve used the plumber literally as a thing, as if he were a piece of pipe. He might as well have been an inanimate object. I failed to treat him in a way that recognized any of his distinctively human features. That’s why I have treated him as a mere means. Although it often happens that people do treat one another both as an end and as a means, one can’t treat people both as an end and as a mere means. Treating someone as an end implies a degree of respect that is absent when treating someone as a mere means. Most of us think that there is something about humanity that lends us dignity and makes us worthy of respect. Most of us also think that human beings are worthy of greater respect than anything else in creation. Humans are more important than monkeys or sharks or daffodils or amoebas. Is this a defensible position, or is it just a self-interested prejudice? Kant had an answer. He claimed that we are each rational and autonomous, and that these traits are what justify our special moral status. These two powers make us worthy of respect. Being rational, as we have seen, involves using our reason to tell us how to achieve our goals and to determine whether we can pursue them in a morally acceptable way. It takes a lot of brainpower to be able to formulate your goals, to imagine a world where everyone pursues them as you do, and then to ask about the consistency of your actions. Humans are the only beings on earth who can engage in such complex reasoning. Being autonomous literally means being a self-legislator. Autonomous people are those who decide for themselves which principles are going to 327 govern their life. Specifically, being autonomous is a matter of making free choices that determine how you behave. So long as your free choices are dictating your actions, you are autonomous. You are an autonomous person. You possess the ultimate responsibility for the choices you make, the goals you aim for, and the manner in which you pursue them. You are not a slave to your passions; you can resist temptation, check your animal urges, and decide for yourself whether to indulge them. You are not forced to act as you do, but are free to choose your own path. Kant thought that our rationality and autonomy made each of us literally priceless. Despite the work of actuaries, and juries in wrongful death suits, you can’t really put a dollar figure on a human life. The assumption that we are infinitely valuable explains the agony we feel at the death of a loved one. If we had to choose between the destruction of the most beautiful art object in the world and the killing of a human being, we should choose the former. No matter how valuable the object, the value of a human life exceeds it by an infinite amount. 328 12.2 The Importance of Rationality and Autonomy Kant argues that rationality and autonomy support the dignity of each human being, and that everyone is owed a level of respect because of these traits. This makes excellent sense of a number of deeply held moral beliefs. Here are the most important of them. 1. It explains, in the first place, the immorality of a fanatic’s actions. Such people don’t regard human life as infinitely precious, but rather treat their despised opponents as mere obstacles to the achievement of their goals. The principle of humanity forbids such behavior, even when it is consistently undertaken, and thus allows us to address the most severe problem facing the principle of universalizability. 2. The importance of autonomy explains why slavery and rape are always immoral. Slavery treats the oppressed without regard for their own goals and hopes. Rape is treating another human being solely as a source of one’s own gratification, as if the victim had no legitimate say in the matter. These are the most extreme examples of duress and coercion. They are immoral because of their complete denial of the victim’s autonomy. As such, these crimes are perhaps the clearest cases of treating other people as mere means. 3. The principle of humanity easily explains our outrage at paternalism. To be paternalistic is to assume the rights and privileges of a parent— toward another adult. Paternalism has us limit the liberty of others, for their own good, against their will. It is treating autonomous individuals as children, as if we, and not they, were best suited to making the crucial decisions of their lives. 329 It is paternalistic, for instance, if a roommate sells your TV set because he is worried about your spending too much time watching Seinfeld reruns and too little time on your homework. Or imagine a classmate who thinks that your boyfriend is bad for you, and so writes him a nasty note and forges your signature, hoping that he’ll break off your relationship. Anyone who has experienced paternalistic treatment knows how infuriating it can be. And the reason is simple: we are autonomous and rational, and the ability to create our own life plan entitles us to do so. We ought to be free to make a life for ourselves, even if we sometimes make a mess of things. 4. Our autonomy is what justifies the attitude of never abandoning hope in people. The chances that a very hard-hearted man will change his ways may be very small, but the probability never reduces to zero. No matter how badly he was raised, or how badly he has lived his life, he is still autonomous, and so can always choose to better himself. It is usually naïve to expect such a transformation. Changing your character and habits is hardly easy. But the possibility of redemption is always there, and that is only because we are free to set our own course in life. 5. Many people believe in universal human rights. These are moral rights that protect human beings from certain kinds of treatment and entitle each of us to a minimum of respect, just because we are human. Kant can explain why we have such rights. We have them because of our rationality and autonomy. These two traits are the basis for living a meaningful life. If you doubt this, just imagine a life without them. It is a life fit for an insect, or a plant. What endows our life with preciousness is our ability to reason and choose for ourselves how we are going to live it. Every person is rational and autonomous to some degree, and every person needs these powers protected in order to have the sorts of experiences, engage in the kinds of activities, and support the sorts of relationships that make life worth living. Human rights protect these powers at a very fundamental level. 330 6. Our autonomy is what explains our practices of holding one another accountable for our deeds and misdeeds. Because we are not robots, but rather free and rational human beings, we are morally responsible for our choices and actions. We are fit for praise and blame, and that is because our conduct is up to us. We don’t blame sharks or falcons for killing their prey; neither do we condemn a wilted orchid or a nasty-smelling ginkgo tree. Plants and animals deserve neither moral credit nor blame, and this is because their lives are not autonomous ones. 7. Relatedly, most people believe that punishment, rather than conditioning, is the appropriate response to serious wrongdoers. When dogs “misbehave,” we don’t try to reason with them. We try to condition them to change their behavior through a set of rewards and punishments. They don’t deserve to be punished when they break our rules, and that is because they lack the power to change their behavior by reasoning about it. By contrast, humans do sometimes deserve to be punished, precisely because they could have chosen to act well, but decided to act badly instead. People also deserve not to be manipulated into becoming obedient citizens. If we want criminals to behave differently, we must still respect their autonomy. The importance of autonomy explains why it is so objectionable to brainwash people, or to drug or torture them into doing what we want. 331 12.3 The Problem of Free Will The seven features we’ve just reviewed reveal the deep importance we attach to autonomy. And as we’ve already seen, and will continue to note below, Kant’s principle of humanity is intended to express this commitment to autonomy as the very heart of morality. But there is a worry, and I bet you’ve already thought of it: what if we aren’t autonomous after all? Recall that autonomy requires two things. First, it requires an ability to make free choices—philosophers call this free will. To have a will that is free is to be capable of making decisions that are genuinely your own, decisions that you author, ones that you originate and are responsible for. Second, autonomy requires that those free choices control your actions. You are autonomous just when your free will determines your behavior. Given this analysis, it follows that there are two ways to fail to be autonomous. First, our choices may not govern our actions: there is some disconnect between what we decide to do and what we actually do. That’s usually bad, and sometimes really terrible, but such cases are not the ones I’ll focus on here. Instead, I’m concerned with the second way that our autonomy can be compromised. This occurs when our choices are themselves unfree. What if we don’t have free will in the first place? To get a sense of the concern, suppose that your choices actually do control your actions. But suppose that those choices are not free—you’ve been brainwashed, say, and are effectively programmed to choose as you do. This would be bad. Really bad. Now suppose that this isn’t just a one- off episode in your life, but a fact about all of your choices. And all of mine. And all of everyone’s. Suppose, in other words, that no one has free will. Because free will is a necessary condition of autonomy, it would 332 follow that no one is autonomous. That would mean that Kant’s ethical system would no longer have any relevance to our lives, since we would not be autonomous. I do believe that I have free will. And so do you. We all do. When you reflect and ask whether, for instance, you could choose to stop reading this right now, the answer seems clear—of course you can. Whether you do so is up to you—it’s your choice, not just in the sense that you are entitled to make that decision, but also in the sense, relevant here, that it’s entirely within your control to choose to keep reading or to stop. But our confidence in such freedom may be misplaced. The Argument Against Free Will explains why: 1. Either our choices are necessitated or they are not. 2. If they are necessitated, then we do not control them, and so we lack free will. 3. If they are not necessitated, then they are random, and so we lack free will. 4. Therefore, we lack free will. Suppose our choices are necessitated. In other words, imagine that every choice we make is the only one we could have made in the circumstances. But how could that be? After all, don’t you at this very moment have a choice about whether to put this book down or to continue reading? The choice is up to you. While we may not always be free to act in the ways we want—external obstacles may stand in our way—we are free to choose how we respond to the circumstances of our life. But consider this: is anything influencing your choice? Of course. You choose to continue reading at least partly because you want to, because you believe you are able to, because you have no more appealing options, and because no one is forcing you to choose something else. Given all of these influences (and others, no doubt), it seems that you were bound to choose as you did. 333 True, it’s not as if you are fated to keep reading no matter what. Rather, the idea is that you are destined to keep reading given your circumstances and your mindset (your beliefs, desires, aims, etc.). But the causes of your choice (your beliefs, desires, etc.) are also caused. These further causes don’t spring up from nothing. You chose to keep reading partly because you wanted to. And you wanted to keep reading because (perhaps) you have been assigned this chapter and want to do well in the course you are taking. But your desire to do well in the course also has an explanation. It was caused by other desires and beliefs of yours, which, in turn, were caused by other factors, and so on, and so on. Ultimately, our choices can be traced to causes over which we lack control —causes such as our genetic inheritance, our upbringing, and a variety of social influences. If we choose as we do because of factors that ultimately are out of our control, then our choices are ultimately out of our control. And so, if our choices are necessitated to be what they are, then we are not autonomous. That is what premise 2 says. Now assume that our choices are not necessitated. Suppose that nothing determined that you would choose to continue reading, for instance. You just chose to do so. If that were the case, wouldn’t that show that you chose freely? No. If nothing causes us to choose as we do, then our choices seem completely random. Randomness undermines control, and hence undercuts free will. Suppose I’m walking down the hall and see someone thrust out her arm and hit a bystander. Did she choose to hit him? Yes. Why? No reason. No cause. No explanation. It was just one of those things, completely out of the blue, unaccountable. But if that is really so—if nothing at all is causing her choice—then it seems that she isn’t in command of her choices. They are something that happen to her, a passing fit of some sort, rather than something we can credit or blame her for. Her choices are out of her control. And that is what premise 3 says. 334 Thus, either way we go—whether our choices are necessitated or not—it seems that we lack autonomy. If that is so, then the Kantian basis of our dignity, and the source of our duty to respect others, is undermined. Of course many philosophers (and almost all non-philosophers) think that something is wrong with this argument. Its logic is watertight, so if there is an error, it must be in one of the three premises. Premise 1 is pretty clearly true. So the problem, if there is one, must lie in premise 2 or 3. Philosophers who think that we really do have free will and autonomy have split on which premise to attack. Their work has been fruitful. (It has certainly multiplied—the issues of freedom and determinism nowadays form an entire subfield within philosophy.) So perhaps the pessimistic conclusion of this argument is false. But only a great deal more philosophy could show it so. 335 12.4 Four Problems with the Principle of Humanity Despite its many attractions, the principle of humanity, with its emphasis on rationality and autonomy, is not trouble-free. In addition to the worry we’ve just discussed—that we may lack free will, and so not be autonomous after all—there are four especially serious concerns about the principle: 1. The notion of treating someone as an end is vague, and so the principle is difficult to apply. 2. The principle fails to give us good advice about how to determine what people deserve. 3. The principle assumes that the morality of our actions depends only on what we can autonomously control, but the existence of moral luck calls this into question. 4. The principle cannot explain why those who lack rationality and autonomy are deserving of respect. Let’s consider each of these problems in turn. Vagueness Unlike the three-step process used to apply the principle of universalizability, there is no straightforward test that tells us how to apply the principle of humanity. It tells us to treat humanity as an end—in other words, with the respect that people deserve. It’s sometimes crystal clear whether the principle is being honored. No one doubts, for instance, that the principle is violated by treating a plumber as a piece of pipe or by 336 shooting a trespasser for trampling the lawn. But the vagueness of the notion of treating someone as an end often makes it difficult to know whether our actions are morally acceptable. Do we respect celebrities by telling the truth about their private lives—even when this is damaging to their reputations? Is it disrespectful to enemy soldiers to set land mines at our borders? Are we failing to give due respect to famine victims if we spend money on a new computer rather than donating it to an aid agency? We can’t know the answer to these questions without a better understanding of what it is to treat someone as an end. Without a more precise test of when we are respecting others and treating them as they deserve (i.e., as their rationality and autonomy demand), the principle of humanity fails to give us the guidance that we expect from an ultimate moral principle. Determining Just Deserts The second concern is about whether it is always appropriate to give people what they deserve. Kant certainly thought so. Recall his thinking, from the last chapter, about the prime importance of doing justice. Doing justice involves giving people their just deserts—even if this is not going to benefit anyone. Sometimes this seems clearly right. A murderer ought to be punished, even if a governor’s pardon will make more people happier. An employee ought to get paid for her work, even if her employer could do more good by giving her salary to charity. But there are also problems, as we’ll see. Kant has a partial reply to the problem of vagueness, mentioned just above. He offers us a test for what wrongdoers deserve. That isn’t the whole story, of course, since we also want to know how to apply the principle of humanity in cases where blame and punishment are not an issue. But even in contexts of condemnation, Kant’s test—the famous lex 337 talionis, or eye-for-an-eye principle—is fraught with difficulties. And so we are left with problems. In some cases, we don’t know how to apply the principle of humanity, because it is unclear what treating a person as an end really amounts to. In other cases, it is clear—but also pretty clearly mistaken. Lex talionis (the law of retaliation) tells us to treat criminals as they have treated their victims. Kant claimed that such punishment treats a criminal as an end, and thus with the respect he deserves, because it treats him as a rational and autonomous person. Punishment is justified, for Kant, only if criminals are autonomous, and so able to freely choose their maxims. Those who are insane, for instance, are not fit for punishment. Punishment also presupposes that criminals are rational, in the sense of trying to act on principles that they can consistently intend everyone else to act on. A criminal’s rationality permits us to turn his principles back on him, and do to him what he did to his victim. That is just what lex talionis requires. Punishment that is administered as lex advises can be deeply satisfying. It can get criminals to see things from their victims’ perspective, and so open their eyes to the true nature of the damage they have done. Further, punishment in line with lex seems perfectly just, since the criminal can’t rightly complain of being mistreated. As Kant says, we would laugh at a criminal who protested against a punishment that harmed him exactly as he harmed his victim. Lastly, in the difficult matter of determining how to punish criminals, lex often gives us concrete, practical advice. What to do with a murderer, for instance? Kant counsels us to avoid the “serpent- windings” of utilitarianism and banish all thoughts of whether the death penalty is going to reduce the murder rate. A murderer deserves to die— lex says so. Therefore, morality requires his execution. These attractions account for lex’s broad appeal. Despite the widespread enthusiasm, however, lex talionis is fatally flawed. Three reasons explain its failure. 338 First, lex cannot explain why criminals who intentionally hurt their victims should be punished more than those who accidentally cause the same harm. Lex tells us to set the punishment by reference to the suffering of the victim. But victims can suffer the same harm, whether the perpetrator has carefully planned to cause it or has caused it by accident. If I am recklessly practicing archery in my backyard and unintentionally skewer my neighbor, I deserve less punishment than a cold-blooded murderer. Or so we think. Lex does not allow for that, since the victims in both cases have suffered the same harm. We could say that what criminals deserve is determined not only by the harm they have done, but also by how blameworthy they are in bringing it about. So a hired killer should be punished more than a reckless archer, because the murderer displays a kind of moral corruption that the archer lacks. This does give us the right answer—the callous killer should be punished more. But it comes at the cost of abandoning lex. That’s because we are no longer required to treat the criminal as he treated his victim. If an assassin deserves to be executed, then those who kill, but are less guilty than an assassin, should receive a lighter sentence than death. That undermines the letter and spirit of lex talionis, since these less-guilty killers will not be harmed just as they have harmed their victims. And it also removes one of the great virtues of lex talionis—that of offering precise guidance on how much criminals should be punished. Second, lex cannot tell us what many criminals deserve. This is most obvious in crimes that lack victims. Suppose an assassin attempts (but fails) to kill his victim, and the victim never discovers this. No harm, no foul? Suppose that someone leaves a bar well and truly drunk, and then manages to drive home without hurting anyone. Still, she deserves to be punished, but since there is no victim, lex offers no basis for punishment. Other crimes may have victims, and yet lex offers no advice about their punishment. What to do with a hijacker or a counterfeiter? A kidnapper? Someone who transports stolen mattresses across state lines? The idea of treating these people just as they’ve treated their victims makes little sense. 339 Third, the guidance that lex provides, when it does prescribe a punishment, is sometimes deeply immoral. It’s a sad truth: any horror you can imagine people doing to one another has probably already been done. People have burned whole families as they slept in their homes, have severed their limbs, tossed acid in their faces, and thrown handcuffed victims out of airplanes and helicopters. Does morality really require that we do these things to the criminals who committed such deeds? We don’t want official torturers and arsonists on the state payroll. Legal punishment is the state’s business, and we insist that the state meet certain minimum moral standards. A state that rapes its rapists is failing, miserably. These three problems show that lex cannot be the whole story about justice, because lex sometimes fails to give advice when it is needed, and sometimes gives bad advice. That means that when lex gets it right, it does so because its recommendations agree with those given by some more basic principle of justice. Homework: discover that basic principle. In any event, most of us think that giving people the punishment they deserve sometimes has to take a backseat to other moral concerns. Our practice of allowing for parole, plea bargains, executive clemency, pardons, and suspended sentences attests to that. Each of these can be seen as an exercise in mercy—in treating people more kindly than they deserve. And mercy is a virtue. Kant’s position requires that we never indulge in merciful treatment of criminals. Suppose that maintaining a system of punishment required so much money that we had to drastically sacrifice funds for schooling, for health programs, and for national defense. In that case, perhaps we should punish criminals a bit less than they deserve, so as to save resources to meet these other social needs. Suppose that punishing criminals as they deserve were to increase the crime rate rather than reduce it. Most would think this an excellent reason to lighten punishments. 340 Justice is very important. But these considerations should make us wonder whether Kant was right to think that justice must always be done, no matter its costs. Moral Luck Perhaps there is a flaw in the Argument Against Free Will that we considered earlier. I hope so. Let’s indulge this hope for now and assume that we really do possess free will, and so are genuinely autonomous. Still, there are reasons to doubt that the morality of actions really depends on our autonomous choice. Kant believes that we are rightly praised or blamed only for what we can control. That’s why autonomy is so important. Autonomy is control—over our choices, and over our actions. Yet factors outside of our control apparently affect the morality of our conduct. If that is true, then autonomy may not play the central role in morality that Kant thinks it does. The results of our actions are not fully within our control. And therefore they are morally irrelevant, from Kant’s point of view. That is one of the main reasons that he so strongly opposes utilitarianism. And yet the results of our actions often do seem to make a moral difference. I sometimes find myself effectively driving on autopilot. I’ve drifted over into the oncoming lane; I’ve failed to see a pedestrian at a crosswalk; I’ve missed a passing car in my side mirror. In each case it was pure luck that my inattention didn’t cause a (possibly fatal) accident. Many people are not so lucky. When their negligence results in someone’s death, they are blamed far more than I have ever been. Yet they may be no worse a driver (or a person) than I am. This is an example of moral luck—a case in which the morality of an action or a decision depends on factors outside of our control. If Kant is 341 right, moral luck cannot exist. And he may be right. But if he is, then we have to revise our moral views in each of these cases, and many others. A drag race down country lanes is fondly remembered—unless it leads to a paralyzing accident. The risky investment is harshly condemned if it forces bankruptcy, but celebrated if it establishes a family fortune. A revolutionary is a hero if his side wins, a despised traitor if it doesn’t. There is a tension at the heart of our moral thinking. We don’t blame babies for any harm they cause. Adults who have been hypnotized or those who have been slipped an LSD tab are also immune from blame. Kant explained this perfectly: such people lack autonomy. They aren’t in full control of their actions. But if Kant is right, and control is essential for moral responsibility, then we must abandon all of the moral judgments recorded in the previous paragraphs. It isn’t an easy choice to make. The Scope of the Moral Community The final concern has to do with membership in the moral community. Kant’s emphasis on rationality and autonomy forces us to draw the lines of this community very narrowly. We are in. Infants aren’t. Those with severe mental illness or intellectual disability are out. So too are all nonhuman animals, and all plants and ecosystems. They all lack rationality and autonomy. By Kant’s lights, they therefore have no intrinsic moral importance. We owe them no moral concern, and so, it seems, we can treat them any way we want. We can express this worry in the Argument Against Animals: 1. If the principle of humanity is true, then animals have no rights. 2. If animals have no rights, then it is morally acceptable to torture them. 3. Therefore, if the principle of humanity is true, then it is morally acceptable to torture animals. 342  4. It isn’t. 5. Therefore, the principle of humanity is false. Though this argument focuses on nonhuman animals, we could easily amend it to apply to infants, those with severe dementia, and so on. Kant’s views exclude all of them from the moral community. But since Kant himself focused only on the case of animals, let’s follow his lead. We can discuss the other cases as needed. Kant thought that it is wrong to torture or otherwise mistreat animals. So he accepts the fourth premise of the argument. He also accepts its first premise. He thought that rights require autonomy, that animals lack it, and that they therefore lack rights. As he saw it, the second premise is the one that has to go. Kant offered two arguments for rejecting the second premise. Both of them fail. He first claimed that harming animals will harden our hearts, and so make it likely that we will mistreat our fellow human beings. Since that really would be immoral, we must not harm animals. Kant’s predictions about how we might be led to harm our fellow human beings are quite shaky. Most of us are easily able to make distinctions in our treatment of members of different groups. Abusive bosses usually treat their superiors with respect. Ruthless prison guards can be loving parents. Doctors who are condescending to their patients and nurses are often quite decent to their fellow doctors. So mistreating one group needn’t lead to mistreating others. Further, if Kant is right, we humans really do possess infinitely greater moral importance than animals. Anyone who takes that message to heart would resist harming his fellow humans—even if he felt comfortable hurting animals. 343 Kant faces a problem even if his predictions are right. For this argument is a classic instance of slippery slope reasoning, which depends for its plausibility on the truth of consequentialism.2 Kant forbids us from mistreating animals just because doing so will have terrible results (it will lead to the mistreatment of humans). But as we have seen, Kant bases his theory on the view that results are irrelevant to the morality of actions. So this reply will not do. He has a second. I own a desk. It obviously isn’t rational or autonomous. And yet no matter how much someone wanted to take a hammer to it, it would be wrong to do so. Not because the vandal would be wronging the desk, but because he would be wronging me. The desk has no rights. But I do. And these must be honored. And so, even though my cat Oscar, for instance, has no rights, it would be immoral to hurt him, since in doing so, my rights (as his owner) would be violated. There are two basic difficulties with this view. First, it offers no moral protections to wild animals. And second, domesticated animals will have no moral protection against their owners. If I decided to destroy my desk, just for the fun of it, I’d be doing nothing wrong. And since the Kantian view sees animals as morally on a par with my possessions, it can’t explain why it would be wrong of me to destroy my animals simply because I wanted to. That isn’t the only bad news. Remember, this problem applies not only to animals but also to all human beings who lack rationality and autonomy. True, most of them (infants, the temporarily comatose, etc.) are loved by others. And so Kant might be able to claim that our rights (i.e., the rights of those who love such human beings) would be violated if anyone were to harm them. But what of the most piteous of humanity—the unloved, abandoned human beings who lack autonomy? Kant’s theory gives them the same status as an unowned desk or animal. They are disposable and may be treated as we like. Kant thus excludes the most vulnerable among us from membership in the moral community. 344 2. See the discussion “Slippery Slope Arguments” in chapter 9. 345 12.5 The Good Will and Moral Worth Kant’s insistence on the importance of rationality and autonomy led him to a view of intrinsic value that is very different from that of consequentialists. The structure of consequentialist thought is simple. Identify what is worth pursuing for its own sake; your moral duty is to maximize this value. Kant rejected this picture in every way. Kant rejected the idea that happiness (or well-being in any form) is the ultimate value. Happiness has no value, he said, if it comes as a result of wrongdoing. (The enjoyment that a sadistic criminal brings to his task does not add value to his crime, but only makes it worse.) And the same goes for other possible values. Wealth can be misused; so can power, and health, and understanding, and bravery. None of these is always valuable. There is only one thing that is valuable, no matter what—only one thing whose presence in any situation is bound to add value to it. That one thing is the good will. The good will has two parts. It is the ability to reliably know what your duty is, and a steady commitment to doing your duty for its own sake. The good will works in a familiar way: we see what we are morally required to do, and we do it for that very reason. No calculations of costs and benefits, no worries about what impression we might be making, what enemies we might be gaining, what riches might be in store for us. Once we understand where our duty lies, we do it straightaway. Kant had some very interesting ideas about how the good will worked. Two of these ideas are especially important. He thought, first, that acting from the good will is the only way that actions can be truly praiseworthy. (Kant referred to such actions as those that possessed moral worth.) He 346 also thought that acting from such a motive is entirely an exercise of reason. Consider the first point. Kant has us imagine two shopkeepers, each of whom does his duty by giving his customers the correct change. But the first does this only because he fears that if he were to cheat them, word would get out and he would lose business in the long run. He does his duty, but there is nothing morally worthy about his behavior. The second store owner does the very same thing, but for completely different reasons. He treats his customers fairly because he thinks that cheating people is wrong, and he is committed to living up to the highest moral standards. This motivation earns the second shopkeeper the greatest praise. According to Kant, his actions and character display a worth that (like the value of humanity) is literally priceless. He is not for sale; he cannot be bought. Kant’s second point, about the importance of reason in motivating worthy conduct, is fairly complex. He thought that reason, operating alone and in the absence of any desires or emotions, could do double duty. It could reveal your moral duty, and it could motivate you to obey it. To have a good will is, first of all, to know where your duty lies. According to Kant, reason alone can tell you this. We can know what is morally required of us without the help of our feelings and emotions. When we determine whether a maxim is universalizable or think about whether a proposed action will respect the humanity in others, we don’t need to want or feel anything at all. We just need to carefully follow the three-step test for a maxim’s universalizability, or to reflect on the importance of autonomy. We can reason our way to moral knowledge. Indeed, for Kant, neither our wants nor our emotions play any essential role in moral discovery. We must be able to determine what is right and wrong by rational thinking alone, without the aid of desires or feelings. That’s because Kant saw these as unreliable moral guides. Compassion can lead you to wrongly help an escaping criminal; the courage of a 347 terrorist can make his actions worse; anger can cloud impartial judgment. Our emotions often lead us astray, says Kant. They need to be guided by sound principles before we can trust them. Without such guidance, we might end up doing our duty, but that would be just a matter of luck.3 Further, and importantly, Kant thought that moral wisdom should be available to everyone, regardless of their emotional makeup. All of us are rational. We each have the power to reason well, even if we often fail to use this power as we should. But our emotions are not always under our control, and they will differ from person to person. If a specific emotional makeup is needed to gain moral wisdom, then such wisdom might be out of reach for many of us. Kant thought that such a view is elitist and a denial of the fundamental equality of all human beings. Knowing what you are required to do is one thing; actually doing it is another. Here Kant also downgraded desires and emotions in favor of reason. He denied the claim, made famous by David Hume, that our motivations always depend on our desires. Hume thought that beliefs alone could never move us, and that we must want something before we will ever act. By contrast, Kant thought that we could do things even if we didn’t want to do them, and even if we didn’t think they’d get us anything we wanted. When acting from the good will, we are acting solely from an understanding of what is morally required of us, not from any desire or emotion. If our action is to have moral worth, then this understanding, all by itself, must be enough to motivate us. Anticipating Freud by a hundred years, Kant argued that our motivations are hardly transparent. In fact, we can never be sure that we have ever acted from a good will. Still, even if we can’t be certain that our actions have ever earned moral worth, we can know what standard we should aim for. Kant went so far as to write that dutiful actions motivated by emotions or desires lack any moral worth. Those whose generous nature causes them to lend a helping hand are to receive no credit. Aid workers motivated by 348 compassion or sympathy are not to be praised for their good deeds. But those who overcome a complete lack of interest and nonetheless offer help, not because they want to but just because it is their duty to do so, will receive full moral credit. There are two ways to interpret Kant’s message here. The first says that the presence of emotions is enough to rob an action of moral worth. The second is more charitable. It says that actions done solely from desire or emotion cannot possess moral worth, but that some cases of mixed motives—cases in which the good will moves us to act, though helped along by an emotional push—can yet have moral worth. Kant scholars are still conflicted as to which interpretation best captures his intentions. 3. This thought is perfectly illustrated by a catty remark quoted in a biography of Napoleon’s sister, Pauline. She was notoriously pampered and unfaithful, an irresponsible spendthrift with a full sense of entitlement. She was sometimes capable of bravery and generosity. But this was unpredictable, and for the most part she behaved very badly. Later in life, a former acquaintance gave the following account: “Although she was the most beautiful person one could imagine, she was also the most unreasonable…. [T]alking inconsequentially, laughing at nothing and at everything, she contradicted the most serious people and put out her tongue at her sister-in-law when Josephine wasn’t looking…. [S]he had no principles and was likely to do the right thing only by caprice.” (My italics.) As quoted in Flora Fraser, Pauline Bonaparte: Venus of Empire (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), p. 25. 349 12.6 Conclusion Kant’s ethical views are rich and suggestive. They are extremely important in their own right, but it can also be quite helpful to contrast them with the consequentialist outlook that is so popular in political and economic circles these days. As we have seen, Kant’s opposition to consequentialism was deep and thorough. These are the main points of disagreement: 1. Kant denied that benevolence is the central moral virtue, and thought instead that justice and integrity occupied that role. 2. Kant regarded many of the basic moral rules as absolute, and so insisted that it was never acceptable to break them—even if breaking them led to better results. 3. Kant denied that the morality of actions could depend on results or other factors outside of one’s control, and claimed instead that they depend solely on what we can be held responsible for—our maxims and our free actions. 4. In a related point, Kant rejected the exclusive emphasis on the future and an action’s results in determining what is right and wrong, and instead made past actions, and their just deserts, a central basis for moral evaluation. 5. According to utilitarians, all it takes to be a member of the moral community is a capacity to experience pleasure and pain; Kant thought instead that autonomy and rationality determined moral status. 6. Kant denied that happiness or well-being is always valuable in its own right, and instead believed that the good will—the steady commitment to do one’s duty for its own sake—is the only thing that is valuable in all situations. 350 Many of the shortcomings of consequentialism are nicely handled by the Kantian theory. But consequentialists are pleased to return the favor: the Kantian theory isn’t without its own problems, and many of those are neatly addressed by consequentialism. Let’s now have a look at another important contender, the social contract theory, whose defenders hope to secure many of the benefits of these two ethical outlooks, while escaping the problems that confront them. 351 1 2. 7 D I S C U S S I O N Q U E S TI O N S 1. What is the relationship between Kant’s principle of universalizability and the principle of humanity? Do the two ever give conflicting advice? If so, which do you think is a better guide to our moral obligations? 2. According to Kant, what is the source of human rights? What does his account imply about the rights of animals and disabled humans? Do you find his views on this subject plausible? 3. What does Kant mean by “the good will”? How is it possible for someone to do the right thing, but still lack a good will? Do you agree that actions are praiseworthy only if they are performed from the good will? 4. Kant endorsed the principle of lex talionis, which states that that we should treat criminals as they treated their victims. What do you think is the strongest objection to such a view? Can this objection be overcome? 5. Analyze this argument. If there is such a thing as moral luck, then we can be responsible for things that we cannot control. But we cannot be responsible for such things. So there is no moral luck. 6. What is autonomy? Do you think people have it? Why or why not? 7. If rationality and autonomy explain why we are as important as we are, how (if at all) can we explain the moral importance of infants and nonhuman animals? 352 Chapter 12 Self-Quiz [Please note: You must be using an online, browser-based eReader in order to view this content.] Chapter 12 Flashcards [Please note: You must be using an online, browser-based eReader in order to view this content.] 353 1 2. 8 C A S E S F O R C R I T I CA L R E F L E C T I O N Plagiarism Consider the following thought experiment. Edward is a college student taking his first philosophy course, and the semester is soon coming to an end. Edward realizes that after weeks of slacking off, and hitting the bar most nights, he is in danger of failing the class. Further, his final essay on Immanuel Kant’s moral theory is due in just a few days. Edward hasn’t bothered to do the reading assignment, which looks like it will be difficult to understand. He asks his friend Debra if he can read her essay to help him understand the theory, and she happily agrees. Debra is an excellent student, and Edward has no doubt that her essay will receive a passing grade. Edward considers submitting Debra’s essay instead of writing his own. Since Debra is taking the class with a different professor, Edward feels reasonably confident he would not get caught. Questions 1. According to the golden rule, would it be wrong for Edward to submit Debra’s essay as his own? Why or why not? 2. According to Kant’s principle of humanity, would it be wrong for Edward plagiarize Debra’s essay? Why or why not? 3. According to Kant’s principle of universalizability, would it be wrong for Edward to plagiarize Debra’s essay? Why or why not? 4. Suppose that Edward asked Debra for permission to plagiarize her essay, and Debra said she didn’t mind. Would that change your answers to any of the previous questions? 354 Puffery In the advertising business, there is a line drawn between stretching the truth and outright deception. It is against federal law in the United States for an advertisement to mislead consumers or make false statements about a product.1 However, there is no law against “puffery,” which means that marketers can exaggerate about a product as long as no reasonable person would take it literally. For example, advertisements for Axe Body Spray frequently suggest that any man wearing the body spray will become miraculously bombarded by beautiful women.2 Even though Axe Body Spray has no such miraculous magnetizing effect, these advertisements are not considered misleading, since no one would take the suggestion literally. It’s just a bit of puffery. Some believe that the use of puffery in advertising wrongfully manipulates consumers. Imagine a motorcycle advertisement that appeals to a consumer’s sense of adventure, displaying a motorcyclist driving through various exotic locations. The purchase of the motorcycle is certainly no guarantee of adventure, and most consumers wouldn’t interpret the advertisement as providing such a guarantee. However, suppose someone watching the advertisement now finds herself interested, imagining the grand adventures she may take one day, even though she didn’t previously desire a new motorcycle. Questions 1. Do advertisements manipulate consumers? Can our autonomy be undermined by an exaggerated advertisement? 2. According to Kant’s principle of universalizability, is there anything morally wrong with using puffery in advertising? Why or why not? 355  3. According to Kant’s principle of humanity, is there anything morally wrong with using puffery in advertising? Why or why not? Hooking Up In a 2015 article in Vanity Fair, Nancy Jo Sales warned of a “dating apocalypse” among young people, brought on by hook-up culture and the dating app Tinder. The dating app shows users pictures of other nearby users, with the choice of swiping right for yes and left for no. Users who are matched can begin chatting with each other. Some Tinder users are looking for love. Others prefer to skip the traditional dating rituals and are instead looking for a casual hook up. One Tinder user, a marketing executive in New York, said, “Sex has become so easy. I can go on my phone right now and no doubt I can find someone I can have sex with this evening, probably before midnight.” Several women interviewed by Sales complained of hook- up dating culture: “New York guys, they’re not really looking for girlfriends. They’re just looking for hit-it-and-quit-it on Tinder.” Another woman said, “They start out with ‘Send me nudes.’ Or they say something like ‘I’m looking for something quick within the next 10 or 20 minutes—are you available?’ … It’s straight efficiency.” Sales warns that committed relationships are perhaps becoming rare, asking, “Can men and women ever find true intimacy in a world where communication is mediated by screens; or trust, when they know their partner has an array of other, easily accessible options?”1 Questions 1. Do you think there is anything morally dubious about hook- up culture? Why or why not? 2. According to the golden rule, is there anything morally wrong with casual sex? Why or why not? 356  3. According to Kant’s principle of universalizability, is there anything morally wrong with casual sex? Why or why not? 4. Do casual hook ups involve treating someone as an object or as a mere means? According to Kant’s principle of humanity, is there anything wrong with casual sex? Why or why not? 1. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/media-resources/truth-advertising. 2. https://www.theloop.ca/the-surprising-and-arguably-bizarre-evolution-of-axe- body-spray-ads/. 1. https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/08/tinder-hook-up-culture-end-of- dating. 357 LIST OF KEY TERMS free will good will lex talionis moral luck moral worth principle of humanity 358