Kant (Part 1) - PHLA11 Slides PDF

PHL A11 Introduction to Ethics September 19 Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant An 18th-century German philosopher who argues that morality is about strict observance of rules. 2 ● Meet Kant Lecture plan ● Idea 1: a good will ● Idea 2: the categorical imperative 3 ● Recap of ideas 1 and 2 On Thu...

PHL A11 Introduction to Ethics September 19 Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant An 18th-century German philosopher who argues that morality is about strict observance of rules. 2 ● Meet Kant Lecture plan ● Idea 1: a good will ● Idea 2: the categorical imperative 3 ● Recap of ideas 1 and 2 On Thursday… ● Idea 3: never lie ○ First AI-based writing exercise 4 ● Kant lived from to 1724-1804. He had a religious upbringing (though he hated his school’s emphasis on religious emotion rather than reasoned argument). ● He is one of the major figures of the European Enlightenment, or the “Age of Reason.” ● He published on physics, astronomy, mathematics, anthropology, theology, law, and more. But he is most famous for his philosophy. ● He was a creature of habit. He never left the city Königsberg, and he went on the same walk around the city every day. 5 Kant’s philosophical system Kant’s philosophy is organised around the structure and limits of human reason. ● In The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant argues that “space,” “time,” and “cause and effect” are concepts that we, as humans, impose on the world. We don’t know if these concepts apply to “things-in-themselves.” ● In his moral philosophy, Kant argues that morality is based solely in reason (rather than learned from experience or given to us by God). Kant argues that moral rules are categorical: they are strict with no exceptions. 6 Kant’s big idea 1: A good will 7 Kant v. Aristotle Last week, we discussed Aristotle’s ethics of virtue. For Aristotle: ● Ethics is about having virtue (or good judgment), which is about finding the mean between excess and deficiency. ● Living an ethical life is the same as living a happy life: we flourish by becoming virtuous. Kant presents quite a different picture: ● Ethics is about following strict rules that apply to all situations. ● Doing our moral duty—following the rules—can run counter to our own or others’ happiness. 8 This is the first paragraph of Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (and the first part of your reading this week) 9 Let’s break this down… Your will is your intention behind your actions, or the reasons why you do something. Kant thinks of the will in terms of the rules a person follows in deciding how to act. ➔ Do you follow a rule of doing whatever serves your own interests? Or do you follow a rule of doing what is fair to everyone? This is the kind of difference Kant is talking about in evaluating the goodness of the will. For Kant, a will is only good when it is brought “into conformity with universal ends”—something we’ll come back to in considering his categorical imperative. A good will is unconditionally good. It’s always a good thing for someone to have a good will, no matter the situation. 10 Kant thinks these things are conditionally good: they are good only when guided by a good will. Talents of mind: understanding, wit, judgment Temperaments: courage, perseverance, moderation Gifts of fortune: power, riches, honor, health Happiness: “complete well-being and satisfaction” These things can be “extremely evil and harmful,” or lead to “boldness” and “arrogance,” when guided by a bad will. Only people with a good will are “worthy” of happiness. (Kant isn’t denying that evil people can be happy. He’s saying it’s bad when evil people are happy.) 11 On the next page, Kant adds: “A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes… but only because of its volitions” (50). Here, Kant is adopting a deontological (or nonconsequentialist) ethic: he is saying that the morality of an action doesn’t depend on the consequences that result from the action but instead on the intentions or “volitions” behind it. In contrast, a consequentialist ethic (for example, utilitarianism) says that what matters is the results of your actions. The ends justify the means. If we achieve little but have a good will, then “like a jewel, [our good will] would still shine by itself, as something that has its full worth in itself” (50). But if we have a bad will, everything we achieve is morally problematic. 12 Consider a variation on the Trolley Problem known as “the fat man.” In this scenario, the only way to stop a runaway trolley from killing five people is to push another person (the fat man) onto the tracks. A consequentialist would say: push the fat man! One person dying is less bad than five people dying. A Kantian (or deontologist, or nonconsequentialist) would say: you can’t push the fat man! That’s killing the fat man, which isn’t consistent with a good will. (Why not? We need to understand Kant’s categorical imperative.) 13 A good will: study questions Interpretative questions (about what the author means): What does Kant mean when he says that only a good will is “unconditionally” good? What kinds of things does he think are merely “conditionally” good, and why? Kant has a “nonconsequentialist” ethic. What does that mean? Critical questions (about whether the author makes a good argument): Is Kant right that the only unconditionally good thing is a good will? Is everything else (courage, understanding, happiness, etc.) good only when paired with a good will, and bad when paired with an evil will? 14 Kant’s big idea 2: The categorical imperative 15 Imperatives Imperatives are commands or rules: “do this,” “don’t do that” (or “thou shalt,” “thou shalt not”). Kant distinguishes between two kinds of imperatives: ● Hypothetical imperatives are rules that apply to you if you have a certain goal. “Brush your teeth if you don’t want tooth decay.” “Do the course readings if you want to learn philosophy.” “Value your friends if you want to be happy.” ● Categorical imperatives are rules that apply to you regardless of your goals. “Tell the truth.” “Keep your promises.” “Do things for the good of others.” Kant’s view: the rules of morality are categorical imperatives. We should do what is morally required no matter what our goals are and no matter the situation. 16 The Categorical Imperative Kant thinks we can derive all the rules of morality from a single “categorical imperative”: “act only accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law” (73). A maxim is the rule or intention you are following in your own head: “I will brush my teeth to avoid tooth decay.” “I will study hard to learn ethics.” “I will lie to get what I want.” Kant’s test for determining whether any action is moral is to ask what would happen if everyone acted in the same way: if the maxim of the action became a universal law. ➔ “I am thinking of doing X, but what if everyone did X in similar circumstances?” ➔ If you wouldn’t (or couldn’t, without contradicting yourself) will (want) everyone to do X, don’t do X! 17 The categorical imperative is Kant’s test for the goodness of the will. We can think of it as a thought experiment. ➔ Imagine you have this power: however you act—whichever “maxim” or rule you follow in your actions—everyone in the world will start following the same maxim. ◆ ➔ If you litter, so will everyone else. If you cheat on your tests, so will everyone else. You therefore cannot just think about whether your maxim serves your own interests. You have to think about whether it would still serve your interests if everyone followed your lead. 18 The Categorical Imperative Kant gives four examples to illustrate the categorical imperative: 1. Someone considers taking his own life. 2. Someone considers making a promise he knows he won’t keep. 3. Someone considers slacking off rather than developing his talents and making himself useful to others. 4. Someone considers doing nothing to help people in greater need than himself. Kant thinks all of these “maxims” violate the categorical imperative, so must not be done. 19 The Categorical Imperative Here is Kant’s second example: the lying promise “[A person] finds himself urged by need to borrow money. He well knows that he will not be able to repay it but sees also that nothing will be lent him unless he promises firmly to repay it within a determinate time. He would like to make such a promise, but he still has enough conscience to ask himself: is it not forbidden and contrary to duty to help oneself out of need in such a way? Supposing that he still decided to do so, his maxim of action would go as follows: when I believe myself to be in need of money I shall borrow money and promise to repay it, even though I know that this will never happen” (74). 20 The Categorical Imperative Here is Kant’s explanation for why that maxim contradicts the categorical imperative: “Now this principle of self-love or personal advantage is perhaps quite consistent with my whole future welfare, but the question now is whether it is right. I therefore turn the demand of self-love into a universal law and put the question as follows: how would it be if my maxim became a universal law? I then see at once that it could never hold as a universal law of nature and be consistent with itself, but must necessarily contradict itself. For, the universality of a law that everyone, when he believes himself to be in need, could promise whatever he pleases with the intention of not keeping it would make the promise and the end one might have in it itself impossible, since no one would believe what was promised him but would laugh at all such expressions as vain pretenses” (74). The lying promise can only succeed if people generally keep their promises. If everyone broke their promises whenever it suited them, no one would believe this person’s promise. 21 The underlying idea seems to be: don’t make an exception of yourself. For Kant, it’s immoral to do something if you can’t will that everyone does the same thing. A good will values everyone equally by holding everyone (including yourself) to the same standards. Kant compares the categorical imperative to the Golden Rule: treat others as you want them to treat you. 22 Kant offers a second way of thinking about the categorical imperative: respect people as ends, don’t use then as means. Don’t deceive or manipulate people in order to get what you want. Instead, respect people as individuals who matter for their own sake. People are entitled to make their own decisions without relevant information being kept from them. 23 Consider a variation on the Trolley Problem known as “the fat man.” In this scenario, the only way to stop a runaway trolley from killing five people is to push another person (the fat man) onto the tracks. Can you see why Kant would say that we must not push the fat man? Think about it, and we’ll discuss on Thursday! 24 The categorical imperative: study questions Interpretative questions (about what the author means): What is Kant’s categorical imperative? Explain with an example. How does Kant’s ethics reflect the idea that one ought not make an exception for oneself? Critical questions (about whether the author makes a good argument): Can you think of your own examples of actions that would be prohibited under Kant’s categorical imperative (because you cannot wish that everyone acts in this way)? Do you think it is right that all such actions are morally wrong? Explain your answer. 25