Peter Bornedal, General Lecture, 203

• Kant lived in the Prussian city Königsberg his entire life. He never traveled, and

is famous for his methodic and rigorous lifestyle and high work ethics. He would

begin his lecture-schedule seven o’clock in the morning (and was so popular with

students that they had to arrive an hour early to secure themselves a seat). As he

raised to fame, scholars from all over Europe would travel to Königsberg to see

him lecturing. It is said that the lectures that preceded the work we are reading,

Grounding of a Metaphysics of Morals, were so gripping to the audience that they

felt they were listening to a revelation.

• After work, Kant would have his famous afternoon walk, being so punctual

about this exercise that the German writer Heinrich Heine once quipped that the

wives of Königsberg adjusted their clocks after him passing by.

• Kant was never married; nor did he have – as far as we know – any kind of

romantic relationship. This methodic, monotonous, and rigorous life might indicate

a rather dry personality, but apparently he was not. Anecdote has is that Kant

was an entertaining, engaging, and witty conversationalist. He seems to have

been popular as a guest in the better society, and seems to have had a good

sense of humor – although we admittedly do not find much humor in his

philosophical work.

• Kant is undoubtedly regarded as one, if not the greatest, of

Germany’s philosophers. He has dealt with almost all

aspects of philosophy and even science. His three so-called

“Critiques” – Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical

Reason, and Critique of Judgment – deal respectively with

the three most important branches of philosophy:

Knowledge/Mind, Ethics/Morals, and Aesthetics. Besides

these works, he wrote important treatises about physics,

astronomy, logic, religion, anthropology, politics, and

education. Kant Lecturing

Kant

• Kant wrote on Ethics and Morals in four different works. His first preliminary study is the Grounding of a Metaphysics of Morals (1785), which we read. Thereupon follows his Critique of Practical Reason (1788). About ten years later he publishes his Metaphysics of Morals (1797), and finally one year later his Anthropology from a Pragmatic point of view (1798).

• In the three first works, moral behavior has a strictly ideal formulation. Kant wants to set up moral principles that are ideal, meaning they are not meant to describe actual human behavior. In the last work, ethical behavior is studied from a practical perspective, meaning that he studies actual human behavior – not ideal principles that ought to regulate human behavior. The first three works deal with ethics from a metaphysical point of view, while the last work deals with ethics from an anthropological.

• When one studies metaphysics of moral, one sets out to determine the general and universal principles that have to guide moral action, whether or not people actually follow these principles.

• We can illustrate the idea with a couple of examples taken from Kant himself. Kant says: “even if there has never existed a sincere friend, sincerity in friendship is an idea that is still required of every man.” Or “even if an unselfish act has never been performed, unselfishness is still the ideal for moral action.”

• So, even if the motives for our actions are impure and selfish, Kant’s moral theory prevails, because it deals with what ought to be the case. Moral law does not depend on experience, but on reason. Moral principles must be grounded in pure a priori concepts, not mixed with anything empirical.

• Kant claims that even if ideal moral principles are rarely or never carried out, we always presuppose these principles. For example, 1) when we lament how corruptible and dishonest the human being is, we spontaneously presuppose integrity and honesty as ideal regulatory principles – principles that ought to regulate human behavior; 2) in the image we form of God as all-benevolent, we presuppose ideal moral principles. God is in his essence, what we can only strive to be in our existence. We cannot be all-benevolent like God, but we can set up benevolence as an ideal, and we do so in the image we form of God.

• The upshot is, we may not believe in the actual execution of ideal moral principles; still, Kant insists, we always presuppose that they ought to exist.

Quotations:

Even if there never have been action springing from such pure sources, the question at issue here is not whether this or that has happened but that reason of itself and independently of all experience commands what ought to happen. (Kant, ibid., p. 19)

They [philosophers advocating self-interest and self-love as basic human motives] have spoken with sincere regret as to the frailty and impurity of human nature, which they think is noble enough to take as its precept an idea so worthy of respect but yet is too weak to follow his ideal reason, which should legislate for human nature. (Kant, ibid., p. 19)

• The reason why we so often do not follow ideal regulatory principles, which we ought to follow, is that we as humans have a free will. If we were objects, we would not have a choice. A stone cannot decide whether or not it wants to follow the laws of nature, but as subjects we can choose not the follow the laws of morals. Because of our freedom of the will, the metaphysical ethical laws Kant deduces as applying specifically to human beings are not laws of nature, but laws of freedom.

• In his work, Critique of Pure Reason, Kant had been studying the ‘laws of nature.’ These he would separate in an empirical part and a rational part. The empirical part would consist of sensations, and the rational part of the so-called categories of understanding. The categories were in themselves abstract or pure, and they acquired an empirical content before they could be applied to and make sense of the world of appearances.

• Without getting into Kant’s epistemological work, we notice that when Kant in his ethical work studies so-called ‘laws of freedom,’ also these laws have an empirical and rational part. Addressing the empirical part, one studies how people actually behave (like in Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology, or History). Addressing the rational part, one studies how people ideally ought to behave (like in Metaphysics of Morals).

• We can set the Kantian distinctions up in this table:

Empirical part (Sensations)

Laws of nature -- Physics

Rational part (Categories)

Empirical part (How people actually do behave)

Laws of freedom -- Ethics

Rational part (How people ideally ought to behave)

According to Kant, we are endowed with two

essentially different kinds of knowledge:

scientific knowledge and moral knowledge.

Scientific knowledge studies the laws of nature

of the external world; moral knowledge studies

the laws of freedom of the internal world. In

Scientific knowledge one studies causes. In

Moral knowledge one studies motives. Both

kinds of knowledge have their own kinds of a

priori laws. In his work, Critique of Practical

Reason, Kant states. “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing

admiration and reverence, the more often and more steadily

one reflects one them: the starry heavens above me and the

moral law within me. I do not need to search for them and

merely conjecture them as though they were veiled in obscurity

or in the transcendent region beyond my horizon; I see them

before me and connect them immediately with the

consciousness of my existence. The first begins from the place I

occupy in the external world of sense { . . . ] the second begins

from my invisible self, my personality, and presents me in a

world with has true infinity but which can be discovered only by

the understanding, and I cognize that my connection with that

world [ . . . ] is not merely contingent, as in the first case, but

universal and necessary. The first view of a countless multitude

of worlds annihilates, as it were, my importance as an animal

creature, which must give back to the planet (a mere speck in

the universe) the matter from which it came. The second, on the

contrary, infinitely raises my worth as an intelligence by my

personality, in which the moral law reveals to me a life

independent of animality and even of the whole sensible

world.” (Kant: Critique of Practical Reason, Cambridge

University Press; p. 133-34.)

• That a moral imperative is a priori implies that it applies to all peoples in all histories, and under all

circumstances, whether or not they live by it or obey it. It is a priori because it is already part of our rational

constitution; Kant therefore only “deduces” (i.e., he articulates and makes explicit) what is already there as

implicitly known. The result of the ‘deduction,’ the abstract moral law, can therefore also not be an object for

discussion or negotiation. Universal moral law is part of our implicit rational knowledge, which we as such ‘know’

is true as rational beings.

• Kant starts his deduction of pure morals by asserting such an unconditional moral law (something we all

‘know’ is true when it is made explicit to us): “There is no possibility of thinking of anything at all in the

world, or even out of it, which can be regarded as good without qualification, expect a good will.” (Kant,

Grounding of a Metaphysics of Moral, p. 7.)

• This is Kant’s first example of an unconditional moral law: the good will. Notice here that Kant does not

suggest any specific quality as moral, as numerous other moral philosophers have done, such as honor,

generosity, self-control, intelligence, courage, perseverance, fortune, wealth, etc. Only the good will can qualify

as moral law, because without the background-motivation of a ‘good will’ all the qualities mentioned above –

generosity, self-control, intelligence, etc. – can be abused, or may have been executed for selfish purposes.

• Two examples: A) If a man is generous because he expects something in return, he is generous for selfish

purposes, not out of a purely good will. B) A villain in perfect self-control is not a virtuous man acting with ‘good

will,’ but rather a more dangerous villain. The same applies if he is courageous, intelligent, etc.

• Therefore Kant continues that a good will is good not because it effects some end, or achieves some personal

benefit or profit. It must be “good in itself”: “A good will is good not because of what it effects or

accomplishes, nor because of its fitness to attain some proposed end; it is good only through its willing,

i.e., it is good in itself.” [ . . . ] “[The will] is not merely good as a means to some further end, but is good

in itself.” (Kant, ibid., p. 7 & 9.)

• Because we have a “freedom of the will” we can influence and direct our will; we can choose between willing

an action that is a means to some further end, or willing an action that is good in itself.

• If we act with an unconditional good will, even if our action achieves nothing, or perhaps achieves the

opposite of what we intended, our action has a moral content. The ‘good will’ shall “shine by its own light as

something which has its full power in itself.” (Kant, ibid., p. 8.)

• It seems that intention has become the quintessential criteria for the morality of an action; it seems as if,

insofar as we act with the intention to do good, our action has moral content.

• Is now a ‘good will’ identical to ‘good intentions’? – Well, not quite! -- And why not? – Because the

definition would be redundant and meaningless! One cannot explain a good will with good intentions,

because it is the same thing. Kant wants to deduce universal moral principles, he wants to know what is

inherent in exhibiting ‘good will.’ If a ‘good will’ simply were to have ‘good intentions,’ he would still need to

explain what is inherent is exhibiting ‘good intentions.’ His problem would not have been solved; it would

not have gone away.

• Furthermore, if a ‘good will’ were reducible to ‘good intentions,’ we would be referring to a psychologically

determined ‘good will’ rooted in a compassionate subject. But the moral principle cannot be determined

from neither individual psychology, nor from compassion. The moral principle is formal and universal, never

concrete and individual; and it is rooted in reason, never passions.

• The upshot is, forget the compassionate subject – the ‘warm heart,’ as Nietzsche often puts it in his

somewhat misunderstood mockery of Kantian positions.

Forget the following equation:

The ‘Warm Heart’/the Compassionate Subject = Good Intentions = Good Will → Moral Action

Apply instead the following deduction:

Freedom of the Will Respect for Universal Law Duty toward Maxims Prescribed by Law

Good Will Moral Action

• Let us first explain what is meant by the statement above

• What is it to ‘act from duty’? – It is 1) to act, not just according to a law, but also for the sake of a law that

transcends the individual (that is, for the sake of a formal principle, not a psychological principle, like the ‘warm

heart’). 2) it is to act contrary to inclinations (desires, self-interests, personal benefits, profit, etc.). 3) It is to

adopt an action because reason commands of us this course of action (not because passions or compassions

urge us on).

• What is a maxim? – A maxim is a brief articulation of an instruction that the individual follows in his action.

• What is Law? – Law is the set of imperatives prescribing moral actions. Moral Laws are always categorical,

meaning that they are not up for discussion or negotiation. Metaphorically speaking, moral laws are as if carved

in stone, like the Ten Commandments Moses brings down from Mount Sinai. However, the Ten Commandments

are divine rules of conduct, while Kant’s categorical imperatives are rational rules of conduct.

• In order to illustrate his principle, ‘acting from duty,’ Kant gives us four different examples of action, where only

the last has moral content. One is contrary to duty; two are in accordance with duty but are still performed

because of self-interests; only the last is performed ‘from duty’ and ‘contrary to inclination.’ Only the last

qualifies as truly moral. The four examples are the following:

1) Some actions are contrary to duty, and performed out of self-interest and inclination, like stealing, cheating,

lying, etc. Obviously, they are not moral.

2) Other actions are performed according to duty, but because of some mediate self-interest. A person pays his

taxes on time according to duty, but he knows that he thus avoid fines, and society gives him back various

social benefits. He acts according to duty, but not from a duty free of self-interest, and is thus not a true moral

subject.

3) Other actions are performed according to duty, but because of some immediate self-interest. If a man does

not commit suicide, he acts according to duty, but if he loves his live, he also acts according to inclination. He

never contemplated suicide since he is happy and everything is going well. Thus, he preserves his life

according to duty, but not from a duty free of self-interest, and is thus not a true moral subject.

4) Finally, there are actions, which are in accordance with duty, and moreover, are performed from duty contrary

to inclination. These are true moral actions, whose maxims constitute the subject as moral.

• Whether one acts ‘according to’ or ‘from’

duty, one acts out of respect for Law. But only

actions done ‘from duty’ have moral content,

because they are done ‘for the sake of’ duty,

without considerations of inclinations or

personal benefits.

• They are done out of nothing but pure

respect for Law.

• Notice that a so-called ‘good will’ is a rational

will to respect Law, with no other motives than

respect for Law.

“Duty is the necessity of an action done out

of respect for the law. [ . . . ] Hence there is

nothing left which can determine the will

except objectively the law and subjectively

pure respect for this practical law, i.e. the

will can be subjectively determined by the

maxim that I should follow such a law even

if all my inclinations are thereby thwarted. [

. . . ] The pre-eminent good which is called

moral can consist in nothing but the

representation of the law in itself.” (Kant,

ibid., p. 12-13).

• In this Kantian definition, there is no room for the ‘warm

heart.’ If a ‘warmhearted’ man enjoys spreading joy and

happiness around, he is acting according to duty (and

certainly, nobody blames him), but his action has the

characteristics of the third case above: he acts according to

duty, but also according to immediate inclination.

Therefore, his action has no true moral content.

• If on the contrary, this man, in his personal life carries

great sorrows, but nonetheless still has the power to

benefit and spread joy among others, then his action is

performed from duty contrary to inclination, and it has a

true moral content.

“If adversity and hopeless sorrow have completely

taken away the taste for life, if an unfortunate man,

strong in soul and more indignant at his fate than

despondent or dejected, wishes for death and yet

preserves his life without loving it – not from inclination

or fear, but from duty – then his maxim indeed has a

moral content.” [ . . . ] “Even though no inclination

moves him any longer, he nevertheless tears himself

from this deadly insensibility and performs the action

without any inclination at all, but solely from duty –

then for the first time his action has genuine moral

worth.” (Kant, ibid., p. 10 & 11)

• We have learnt that to act with a ‘good will’ is to act from, ‘for the sake of,’ duty in respect for Law and nothing

but Law. From this deduction, Kant formulates his famous categorical imperative. In its first formulation, it reads:

“Since I have deprived the will of every impulse that might arise for it from obeying any particular law,

there is nothing left to serve the will as principle except the universal conformity of its actions to law as

such, i.e., I should never act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a

universal law.” (Kant, ibid., p. 14.)

• Kant’s example: “when I am in distress, may I make a promise with the intention of not keeping it.” In other

words, is it okay under some circumstances to lie? – Now, one might argue that a person should avoid lying,

because it would be detrimental to him in the long run. A lying shopkeeper would eventually be exposed, and

thus loose customers. The argument presupposes that one should be truthful because of some ends or

consequences; it presupposes a so-called ‘hypothetical imperative,’ an if-then relation: if I don’t lie, then my

business will thrive, and I will prosper: if I do so and so, then I will achieve this or that.

• Therefore, a hypothetical imperative is not ‘categorical.’ it is not unconditional, universal, and absolute. A

‘categorical imperative’ is asserted out of respect for Law, without other concerns. A hypothetical imperative is

asserted out of concerns for benefits or profits. It does not determine the moral content of an act.

• So, now we ask again, but from the perspective of the categorical imperative, is it okay under some

circumstances to lie? – The answer is still ‘no,’ but with a different explanation. Observing the categorical

imperative, I avoid lying because of respect for universal Law. My reason tells me that lying cannot be accepted

as universal Law. My reason tells me that if I will lying as universal Law, then I will everybody to lie, and then it

is no longer possible to make promises at all. Under the obligation of a universal law to lie, every promise is a

contradiction in terms. “I immediately become aware that I can indeed will the lie but can not at all will a

universal law to lie. For by such a law there would really be no promises at all, since in vain would my

willing future actions be professed to other people who would not believe what I professed, or if they

overhastily did believe, then they would pay me back in like coin.” (Kant, ibid., p. 15).

• If now I do not will a universal law to lie, then I must admit that neither do I will my first proposal: may I make a

promise with the intention not to keep it. I must reject this proposal. Therefore, when one ‘respects law,’ one does not respect a particular law, but a law requesting universal validity in an action.

Imperatives says that something would be good to do or to refrain from doing, but they say it to a will that

does not always therefore do something simply because it has been represented to the will as something

good to do. That is practically good which determines the will by means of representations or reason and

hence not by subjective causes, but objectively, i.e.. on grounds valid for every rational being as such.

(Kant , ibid., p. 24).

• What is here established is that we have wills, meaning that we have the choice to follow a rational decision or

not. If purely subjective interests determine this choice, it is not a moral choice, but if our will be governed by

objective moral laws, then we are following, not personal interests, but an imperative.

• We can only rationally choose moral imperatives, because our wills in themselves are not moral, rational, or

objective. We are not gods, and we have no holy wills, we have only human wills. If we were gods, we would

not need moral imperatives.

• In the categorical imperative, the so-called maxim of the action (i.e., the instruction as articulated to the

subject describing the action) should conform to universal law. In this conformity the maxim makes itself into a

universal law. This correspondence or conformity is alone what is necessary by the imperative, therefore there

is only one imperative and it reads (in two different versions):

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a

universal law. [ . . . ] Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law

of nature. ( Kant, ibid., p. 30)

• An example of Kant’s: A suicidal man! – Is he allowed or not to take his own life according to the categorical

imperative? His duty to himself is to preserve his life. If he decides to commit suicide he does so because it is

an easy way out of a life of suffering. Thus he commits suicide out of self-love. “I end my life out of self-love’”

becomes the maxim of his action. Now he must ask himself whether this maxim could become “a universal law

of nature.” Here he realizes that ‘suicide from self-love’ could never be a universal law of nature, because it

would imply a contradiction. If his maxim is universalized, self-love, which normally is to preserve life, is

determined as destruction of life, and we are under a universal obligation to destroy our lives – which is absurd.

Human Autonomy as Moral Imperative

• Even if I tell a lie, I presuppose that one has an universal moral obligation to tell the truth, because I calculate

and expect that the one to whom I lie believes I tell the truth. I tell the lie believing in universal law; I just don’t

apply this universal law to myself.

• In that case, I am using my fellow human being as a means to further my personal ends. While lying I recognize

that I am using the other person merely as a means.

• This cannot be permitted, because in all cases where I use another rational being for my own ends, the maxims

of the actions cannot be universalized. The maxim, ‘I shall use another rational being in order to further my own

end,’ cannot become an “universal law of nature,” because we would then place ourselves under a universal

obligation to deprive ourselves of our rationality; that is, our free will to rationally choose different courses of action

– and again, that is absurd. A rational being is characterized by its ability to make choices, according to the

“practical law of freedom.” If I deprive a person of this ability, I deprive him of the “freedom of his will.”

• The categorical imperative therefore has another famous formulation, namely that one must always use another

rational being as an end in himself, never as a means (it Is often referred to as Kant’s “Principle of Humanity”):

“Rational nature exists as an end in itself. [ . . . ] The practical imperative will thus be as follows: so act as

to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other, always at the same time as an end

and never merely as a means.” . . . “Persons must exist as ends in themselves. [ . . . ] Such an end is one for

which there can be substituted no other end to which such beings should serve merely as means, for

otherwise nothing at all of absolute value would be found anywhere.” (Kant, ibid., p. 36).

• According to this formulation of the categorical imperative, one always has a duty to use both oneself and

another person as ends in themselves, never as means. Kant’s suicidal man is for example using himself as a

‘means’ – which is not permitted:

“If he destroys himself in order to escape from a difficult situation, then he is making use of his person

merely as a means so as to maintain a tolerable condition till the end of his life. Man, however, is not a

thing and hence is not something to be used merely as a means; he must in all his actions always be

regarded as an end in himself.” (Kant, ibid., p. 36).

The Kingdom of Ends: Kant as the First Human

Rights Philosopher

• In his ‘deductions’ of the moral imperatives, Kant

presupposes that Man is capable of self-legislation – that is,

we are able to give laws to ourselves, which we are able

thereupon to follow.

• We are able to make laws and choose to follow them

thanks to our free will. We are not subjected to natural laws

(in which case we are without choice in moral matters), but

to ‘practical laws of freedom.’

• This freedom from natural laws in the human being must

be preserved. Humans can only be subjected to ‘practical

laws,’ and these laws are always of their own making. They

are self-legislative and are thus testimonies of our free will.

• If therefore ‘practical laws’ are fashioned as ‘natural laws’

it indicates a perversion of reason, and a violation of human

freedom.

• If a dictator dictates laws as if they were laws of nature,

his maxim cannot be universalized, because it contradicts

human freedom as such. The human being is a priori free or

autonomous. This freedom cannot be violated.

• Because of this fundamental autonomy, humans must

never be deprived of their freedom to make rational

decisions. They must always be treated as ends, and we

must legislate as if we all belonged to a “Kingdom of Ends,”

a society where we are free and have equal rights.

• There can be no ‘scientific proof’ of this deduction,

because it transcend the bounds of possible experience. It

belongs to the noumenal, not to the phenomenal, world. It

transcends the apparent world. Still, it nevertheless has

existence as “regulative idea.”