Kantian Ethics

Kantian Ethics

Background
1. A good action is only one drawn from the right motive/intention
2. The only true good motive = duty
3. Action is good if we OUGHT to do it, no other reason.
4. KANT = believed knowledge begins with the experience, practical reason
5. (like Plato) defines human nature in terms of reason and freedom that reason makes possible
6. (resisted) Aristotle’s prescriptive definition of what it means to be fulfilled and the detailed laws that hang on definition.
7. Influenced by science and the gathering and assessment of empirical evidence
8. The force behind his Copernican revolution was the attempt to reconcile the ambiguity in empirical (of the senses)
Copernican Revolution
1. Found that his observations made sense once he had realised that the earth moved around the sun rather than the other way around
2. -> THEREFORE Kant argued that we experienced the world as we do because that is the way our sense function. We do not know things as they are in themselves but only as they appear to us.
Reason
1. Reason = highest facility to Kant
2. Every human being has the capacity to use reason
3. A human being is essentially a rational being, and it is this that constitutes to his intrinsic dignity
4. If reason is universal; the moral community generated by reason will be universal and applied to all men.
5. KANT = reason is innate (intellectual power existing more or less equally in all men)
Duty
1. Reason for putting good will into action with a sense of duty
2. Good will + duty = moral decision
3. Kant = duty should never be forced
4. Any other action, not out of duty introduces a motive
Freedom/Autonomy of Free Will
1. If everyone acted morally, we would be able to exercise freedom
2. Opposite of this -> heteronomy (right act of desire)
3. Reason must not follow, even if it causes happiness for the majority
The Good Will
1. Kant didn’t believe that any outcome was intuitively good – pleasure and happiness could result from an extremely evil act
2. Didn’t believe in ‘good’ traits, as ingenuity, intelligence, courage, etc. (could all be used for evil)
3. He used the term good to describe the GOOD WILL, which is the will to act purely in accordance with one’s duty.
4. Uses reason to work out duty
5. Good will + duty = moral action
The Imperatives
1. Purity of a motive depends upon the rational commitment to a universal moral law which is binding on everyone
2. Laws are expressed as commands are imperatives and, for Kant, there are the kinds of imperatives:
3. Hypothetical Imperative
  1. To get to ‘y’ you ought to do ‘x’
  2. To use in situations that don’t require the ‘universal’ ideas of the categorical imperative
4. Categorical Imperative
  1. Universal Law Principle:
    1. Apply any decision universally -> no suicide/lies/borrowing money etc.
    2. Action - (wrong if applied universally) - negative impact
    3. “Act only on a maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it become a universal law”
  2. Treat people as an end; not a means:
    1. Selfish
  3. Universal Kingdom of Ends:
    1. When all members of a society desire the same good (common ends)
    2. All conflict removed, humans have common aims
    3. Kant – humans prefer morality
      1. Not possible in this life, but it must be attempted.
Summum Bonum
1. Teleological
2. It’s the highest good, only achievable in the moral community
3. Virtue and happiness is together
4. OUGHT IMPLIES CAN: an obligation to do something implies the possibility that the good can be achieved, otherwise there can be no obligation
5. Kant: Summum bonum can only be achieved in the next life
Pros and Cons of Kant
1. Cons:
  1. Problem of capitalism
  2. No place for love/relationships
  3. Consequences are ignored
  4. Do a priori moral laws actually exist?
  5. Are moral laws essentially products of environment and culture
  6. Issue of moral luck
  7. Law of double effect
2. Pros:
  1. Straightforward, based on reason
  2. Clear criteria to assess what is moral
  3. Emphasis on human dignity/worth
  4. Pressure on an individual to act morally
  5. Eradicates bias of family etc.
  6. Universalisable
  7. Each human has the ability to act morally (autonomous individuals)

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