Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? Episode 06:
"MIND YOUR MOTIVE"
Immanuel Kant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rv-4aUbZxQ
Offers a
different account of why we have a categorical duty to respect the dignity of
persons... not to use people as a means, merely, even for good ends.
Groundwork
for the Metaphysics of Morals
What this
book is about:
1)
What the
supreme principle of morality is
2)
Gives an
account of what “freedom” really is
Rejects
utilitarianism – thinks that individual person has a certain dignity that
commands our respect – not descended from the idea that we all own ourselves,
but from the standpoint that we are all rational beings i.e., we are beings
that are capable of reason. We are also autonomous beings – which is to say
that we are capable acting and choosing freely.
This
capacity for reason and freedom is not the only capacity we have – we also have
the capacity for pain and pleasure, for suffering and satisfaction. Kant admits
the utilitarians were half right – of course we seek to avoid pain and we like
pleasure; what Kant denies is Bentham’s claim that pain and pleasure are our
sovereign masters. He thinks that’s wrong. Kant thinks that it’s our rational
capacity that distinguishes us, that’s sets us apart from and above mere animal
existence. It makes us something more than just physical creatures with just
appetites.
We often
think of freedom as simply consisting of doing what we want, or as the absence
of obstacles to getting what we want. But Kant has a more stringent, demanding
notion of what it means to be free. He reasons as follows: When we, like
animals, seek after pleasure or the satisfaction of our desires, we are not
really acting freely. Why not? We are really acting as the slaves of those
appetites and impulses. I didn’t choose this particular hunger or appetite.
Thus, when I strive to satisfy “it,” I’m just acting according to natural
necessity. And for Kant, freedom is the opposite of necessity.
There was
an ad for Sprite that came out a few years ago: “Obey your thirst!” There’s a Kantian insight buried into that slogan –
when you go for a Sprite or Pepsi, you might think that you’re making a
choice for Sprite or Pepsi, but the fact
is that you’re actually obeying something (maybe a thirst or desire
manufactured and massaged by advertising) – you’re obeying a prompting that you
yourself haven’t chosen or created. And here its worth noticing Kant’s
specially demanding idea of freedom – how can my will be determined, if not by
the promptings of nature or my hunger, appetites or desires:
Kant’s Conception of Freedom:
To act freely = to act autonomously
– to act according to a law that I give myself (not according to the laws of
nature or the laws of cause and effect – which include my desire to eat, drink,
or choosing food in a restaurant)
Now,
what is the opposite of autonomy? For Kant, he invents a special term to
describe this:
Heteronomy = To act according to desires that I haven’t chosen
myself
*****************************************
Now, why is autonomy the opposite of the
dictates of nature? Nature is governed by laws, i.e., laws of cause and effect;
… Suppose you drop a billiard ball, it falls --- the ball is not “free,” it is
only following the laws of nature, e.g., gravity.
And just as he has a stringent conception of
freedom, he also has a demanding conception of morality. To act freely is not to
choose the best means to a given end; it’s to choose the end itself – for its
own sake. This is something humans can do, and billiard balls can’t.
In so far as we act on inclination or pursue
pleasure, we act as means to the realization of ends given outside of
ourselves. We are instruments, rather than authors, of the purposes we
pursue. That’s the heteronymous
determination of the will.
On the
other hand, for so long as we act
autonomously, according to a law that we give ourselves, we do something for
its own sake – as an end in itself. When we act autonomously, we cease to
be instruments to purposes given outside us. We can come to think of ourselves
as ends in ourselves.
This capacity to act freely, Kant says, is what
gives life its special dignity. Respecting human dignity means regarding
persons, not just as means, but also as ends in themselves. And this is why
it’s wrong to use people for the sake of other peoples’ well-being or
happiness. This is the real reason that Kant says utilitarianism goes wrong. This is the reason it’s important to
respect the dignity of persons, and to uphold their rights.
So, even if there are cases where human
happiness can be maximized via using some as means to this end
(Mill/Utilitarians), this would be a contingent result – “true” within the realm of cause and
effect.
What
gives an act its moral worth in the first place? If it
can’t be directed at utility or satisfying wants and desires, what gives an
action its moral worth? This leads us from Kant’s demanding idea of freedom, to
his demanding idea of morality.
Kant’s
Conception of Morality
What makes an action morally worthy consists
not in the consequences or in the results that flow from it, rather what makes
an action morally worthy has to do with the motive, with the quality of the will, with the intention
for which the act is done. (Do the right
thing for the right reason.)
“A good will
isn’t good for what it effects or accomplishes, it’s good in itself.”
So for any action to be morally good, it’s not
enough that it should conform to the moral law, it must also be done for the
sake of the moral law. The idea is that the motive confers the moral worth upon
an action. And the only kind of motive that can confirm moral worth on an
action is the motive of DUTY.
Well, what’s the opposite of doing something
out of a sense of duty – because it’s right? Inclination…
MORALITY
DUTY vs.
INCLINATION
Inclinations refer to all of our contingently
given wants, needs, desires, impulses, and the like. Only actions done for the sake
of the moral law, for the sake of duty, only these actions have moral worth.
Examples.
·
Shopkeeper
(sk): inexperienced customer comes in = easy to short-change… shopkeeper thinks
that: if I short-change this customer, word could get out and this will damage
my reputation; so I won’t short-change him. Though the sk does nothing wrong, his action has no moral worth.
Why? He did the right thing out of self-interest.
·
Suicide:
we have a duty to preserve ourselves.
Better
Business Bureau: “Honesty is the best policy. It’s also the
most profitable.” What would Kant say about the moral worth of this?
U.
of Maryland problem with cheating: initiated an honor system
with local merchants; if you sign the moral pledge, not to cheat, you would get
discounts of 10%-25% at local shops. Kant’s view?
*****************************************************************
The point is, what matters is the quality of the will, the character of the motive;
and the relevant motive to morality can only be the motive of duty, and not the
motive of inclination. And when I act out of a sense of moral duty, when I
resist, as a motive for my action, inclination or self-interest, even sympathy
and altruism, only then am I acting freely; only then am I acting autonomously.
Only then is my will not determined or governed by external considerations. This is the link between
Kant’s idea of freedom and morality.
If one is conscious of what morality is, then
can one not alter one’s motive to achieve that end of morality? Is this
self-defeating? I.e., If I decide do something because I want to be moral, is
this following the moral law?
Incentives?
Reverence for the Moral Law… as inclination, then valid – sees the importance
of it…
What
separates morality from pure Subjectivity? What’s
to guarantee that the law I give myself, when I’m acting out of moral duty, is
the same as the law someone else gives himself?
Answer:
How many Moral Laws are there? 1000? Or is there One? Kant thinks there’s ONE.
The reason that leads us to the law that we give ourselves as autonomous beings, is a (kind of practical) reason that we share as human beings. It’s not idiosyncratic. The reason that we need to respect the dignity of persons is that we are all rational beings –we all have the capacity for reason. And it’s the exercise of that capacity for reason, which exists, undifferentiated, in all of us, that makes us all worthy of dignity; and, since it’s the same universal capacity for reason, unqualified by particular autobiographies and life circumstances, that delivers the moral law, it turns out that to act autonomously is to act according to a law that we give ourselves, exercising our reason, but it’s the reason we share with everyone as rational beings, not the particular reasons we had given: It’s pure practical reason which legislates a priori regardless of any particular, contingent or empirical ends.
What moral law would that
form of reason deliver? What is its content?
Part
II
Groundwork
for the Metaphysics of Morals
This book
is about two big questions:
1)
What is the
supreme principle of morality?
2)
How is
“freedom” possible?
****************************************
What is the
supreme principle of morality?
Has to do
with a set of 3 contrasts, oppositions,
dualisms that are related
1)
Morality: Motive … according to which we act – only one kind of motive
is consistent with morality – the motive of duty – doing the right thing for the right reason. Other
motives are inclinations:
pursue some (self-)interest, sentiments, feelings.
2)
Freedom: Determination of will… autonomy
(according to law that I give myself: given by Reason) vs. heteronomy
3)
Reason: Imperatives… 2 ways that reason determine/command the will:
always in the form of an ought : Hypothetical vs. Categorical
Hypothetical imperative: use instrumental reason; if I want x, I do y. Good as a means to achieve something else.
Categorical imperative: action is good in itself – act according to a law
given by reason alone.
What is the Categorical Imperative – the supreme principle of morality?
3 versions:
1) The Formula of the Universal Law:
“Act only on that (subjective) maxim
whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
2) The Formula of Humanity as an
End: Man, and in general, every rational being exists as
an end in himself, not merely as a means for an arbitrary use by this or that
will. “Act in such a way that you always
treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never
simply as a means, by always at the same time, as an end.”
3) The Formula of Autonomy:
“Act so that through your
maxims you could be a legislator of universal laws.”
***********
What is the test for a maxim (principle)?
Mill’s
criticism: If I universalize the maxim, and find that
the whole practice of promise-keeping would be destroyed if universalized, then
I must be appealing somehow to consequences.
Defense:
this is the test to see whether the maxim corresponds with the categorical
imperative, but it isn’t exactly the reason. The reason you should
universalize, to test your maxim, is to see whether you are privileging your
particular needs and desires over everybody else’s.
***********
Rational beings have dignity; they are worthy
of reverence and respect; are ends in themselves.
Duty
against suicide and murder…both equal to taking life for
some purpose – fail to respect humanity as an end. I violate that dignity in my
own person if I take my own life – it has to do with the universal character
and ground of the moral law. The reason we have to respect the dignity of others
has nothing to do with anything particular about them (not like love, sympathy,
solidarity, altruism,…), but respect for
universal humanity.