Archetypes of Wisdom

Douglas J. Soccio

Chapter 12: The Universalist: Immanuel Kant

The ProfessorImmanuel Kant (1724-1804) was born in Königsberg in what was then known as East Prussia (now Kaliningrad in the former Soviet Union).His parents were poor but devout members of a fundamentalist Protestant sect known as Pietism, living severe, puritanical lives.At the age of sixteen, Kant entered the University of Königsberg, and in 1755 he received the equivalent of today’s doctoral degree. He became a popular lecturer, and in 1770, the university hired him as a professor of logic and mathematics.

The Solitary WriterKant’s life is noteworthy for not being noteworthy, never traveling more than sixty miles from his birthplace, and living with a regularity that people in his town could “set their watches by”. But Kant was a prolific writer.Observations on The Feeling of the Beautiful & Sublime (1764)The difficult but revolutionary The Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785),Critique of Practical Reason (1788),Critique of Judgment (1790), andReligion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793).

A Scandal in PhilosophyKant was one of the first thinkers to fully realize the consequences of Hume’s relentless attack on the scope of reason.However, the seeds of what Kant referred to as a “scandal” in philosophy were planted when Descartes doubted his own existence and divided everything into two completely distinct substances: minds and bodies.Kant felt that something was drastically wrong if the two major philosophical schools – rationalism and empiricism – denied knowledge of cause and effect, the existence of the external world, and rendered reason impotent in human affairs while the science of the day clearly showed otherwise.

Kant’s Copernican RevolutionIn response to this “scandal,” Kant turned to an analysis (or critique) of how knowledge is possible, of the underlying structure of the mindThe theory he developed – transcendental idealism – claims that knowledge is the result of the interaction between the mind and sensation. Experience is shaped, or structured, by special regulative ideas called categories.What Kant was proposing challenged assumptions about thought in the way Copernicus challenged assumptions about the universe. Kant suggested that instead of mind having to conform to what can be known, what can be known must conform to the mind.

Phenomena & NoumenaAccording to Kant, our knowledge is formed by two things: our actual experiences and the mind’s faculties of judgment. This means that we cannot know reality as it is, but only as it is organized by human reason.Kant’s term for the world as we perceive it is phenomenal reality.Kant’s term for reality as it is independent of our perceptions – what we commonly call “objective reality – is noumenal reality.Although we never experience pure reality, we can know that our minds do not just invent the world. Our minds impose order on the world, and that order is what Kant is trying to make explicit.

Transcendental Ideas

Although we cannot directly experience noumena, a special class of transcendental ideas bridges the gap between things as we experience them and things as they are in themselves.Kant identified three transcendental ideas: self, cosmos (totality), and God, which regulate and synthesize experience on a grand scale.These ideas create the unity and objectivity of your experience of yourself as “you” (in a world of sensation created by some highest intelligence).

Theoretical & Practical Reason

Although there is only one faculty of understanding, Kant distinguishes two functions of reason: one theoretical, the other practical.Theoretical reasoning is confined to the world of experience, and concludes that human beings, like all phenomena, are governed by cause and effect in the form of the inescapable laws of nature.Practical reasoning enables us to move beyond the phenomenal world to the moral dimension, helps us to deal with the moral freedom provided by free will, and produces religious feelings & intuitions.

The Moral Law WithinKant notes that very few people consistently think of their own moral judgments as mere matters of custom or taste. Whether we actually live up to our moral judgments or not, we think of them as concerned with how people ought to behave.Just as we cannot think or experience without assuming the principle of cause and effect, Kant thought we cannot function without a sense of duty. And our practical reason imposes this notion of ought on us.For Kant, morality is a function of reason, based on our consciousness of necessary and universal laws. Since necessary and universal laws must be a priori, they cannot be discovered in actual behavior. The moral law is a function of reason, a component of how we think.

The Good WillIt’s important to note that Kant conceives of the good will as a component of rationality, the only thing which is “good in itself”. Kant argues that “ought implies can” – by which he means it must be possible for human beings to live up to their moral obligations (since circumstances can prevent us from doing the good we want to do).Thus, Kant reasons, I must not be judged on the consequences of what I actually do, but on my reasons. Put another way, morality is a matter of motives. As Kant himself said…“Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we should make ourselves happy, but how we should become worthy of happiness.”

Inclinations

In Kantian terminology, decisions and actions based on impulse or desire - or inclinations. Inclinations are unreliable and inconstant, and so not what morality should be based on.Inclinations are not produced by reason. Animals act from inclination, not from will.In contrast to inclinations, acts of will reflect autonomy, the capacity to choose clearly and freely for ourselves, without “outside” coercion or interference.

Moral Duty

“Duty,” Kant says, “is the necessity of acting from respect for the moral law.”Duty does not serve our desires and preferences, but, rather, overpowers them.My moral duty cannot be based on what I want to do, what I like or don’t like, or whether or not I care about the people involved. That’s why it’s called “duty”.

The Categorical ImperativeImperatives are forms of speech that command someone, or tell them what to do. Kant distinguishes two types of imperatives: hypothetical and categorical.Hypothetical imperatives tell us what to do under specific, variable conditions. They take the form: “If this, then do that.”Categorical imperatives tells us what to do in order for our act to have moral worth. They take the form: “Do this.” The categorical imperative is universally binding on all rational creatures, and this alone can guide the good will (which summons our powers to obey such an imperative).The categorical imperative says, “Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become a universal law of nature.” In other words, we must act only according to principles we think should apply to everyone.

The Kingdom of EndsKant believed that as conscious, rational creatures, we each possess intrinsic worth, a special moral dignity that always deserves respect. In other words, we are more than mere objects to be used to further this or that end.Kant formulates the categorical imperative around the concept of dignity – sometimes referred to as the practical imperative: “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, never merely as a means but always at the same time as an end.”To describe the universe of all moral beings, Kant uses the expression “kingdom of ends”, a kingdom whose creatures possess intrinsic worth, in which everyone is an end in himself or herself.

The Metaphysics of Morals

Taken together - the transcendental ideas (of self, cosmos, and God); the division of reality into phenomena and noumena; the moral law and duty our good wills have to abide by it; the categorical imperatives that ought to override our inclinations; and the kingdom of ends to which we all respectfully belong – all of these things constitute what Kant thought of as the metaphysics of morals, the transcendental realm that is universal and necessary for all creatures that are rational.

A Kantian Theory of Justice

John Rawls (1921-2002) relies upon some fundamental insights of Kant’s to generate a very powerful theory of justice

Rawls begins with a thought experiment known as the original position to justify two basic principles of justice.

Rawls asks his readers to imagine that they are to found a society. What principles of justice would be chosen to regulate it? Principles chosen behind a “veil of ignorance” would be objective and impartial, and therefore, justified.

A Kantian Theory of Justice

Rawls argues that ultimately two principles would be chosen:

1) Everyone has an equal right to “the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.”

2) Any social and economic inequalities must be such that “they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all.”

What About Family Justice?

Susan Miller Okin argues that Rawls does not provide an analysis of justice within the family.

According to Okin, “Family justice must be of central importance for social justice.”

According to Okin, Rawls is ambiguous.