Todays Lecture

1
Todays Lecture

• Grade spreadsheet
• Turnitin.com
• Study session on Monday 18th
• Final Exam and office hours
• Immanuel Kant

2
Grade spreadsheet

• I will be placing an undated grade spreadsheet on
  the course website some time on Wednesday. Please
  check to ensure that the data matches what you
  have (this will be the last chance to do so
  before the exam).
• If there are any discrepancies, come and see me.

3
Turnitin.com

• Remember that if your assignments are not in
  Turnitin.com by Friday you will receive a zero on
  the relevant assignment.
• There is no negotiation on this one, so dont
  leave this task to the last minute.

4
Study session on Monday 18th

• There will be a study session on Monday the 18th,
  from 1100-1300 (or 1100 a.m. to 100 p.m.). This
  will be held in Talbot College room 310. You
  dont have to stay for the whole period, if you
  come at all. Attendance is strictly voluntary.
  But you may be able to help each other out.
• Bring ideas and talk stuff over. I wont be able
  to give you any substantive answers, as that
  would defeat the purpose of the exam. But I can
  referee your discussion (i.e. if you need a
  referee).

5
Final Exam and office hours

• Dont forget that the final exam is on Tuesday,
  the 19th, at 900 a.m.
• The location, remember, is TC 343.
• Also, I will choose the exam questions from the
  first fifteen questions on your original handout
  of possible exam questions (unfortunately we will
  not be getting to either Rawls or hooks - so drop
  questions 16 and 17).
• My final office hours for this course are this
  week. I will be submitting your final grades on
  Friday the 22nd, so if you have any questions
  about grades, seek me out before the 22nd.

6
First Section Intrinsic versus extrinsic
goodness or value

• You can understand the beginning of this section
  as assuming that the moral life is good. This is
  suggested by the status accorded those who would
  live morally (see FP, p.643). The question is, Is
  it extrinsically or intrinsically good?

7
First Section The good will

• Under the influence of something like this
  consideration, Kant introduces the notion of the
  good will.
• It is his contention that nothing in the world
  - indeed nothing beyond the world - can possibly
  be conceived which could be called good without
  qualification except a good will (FP, p.642).
• As he implies in this claim, he will include God
  here.

8
First Section The good will

• Kant considers candidates for unconditional goods
  (i.e. unqualified goods) among those personal
  traits associated with valuers, and with those
  environmental contingencies that inform the
  quality of their lives. He seems to treat this as
  exhaustive in its scope.
• Neither the talents of mind (FP, p.642) nor the
  qualities of temperament (FP, p.642) can be
  taken to be unconditionally good.
• If it were not for the goodness of will, or
  character, such qualities as intelligence or
  perseverance could do great harm. Their goodness,
  then, is derivative (FP, p.643).

9
First Section The good will

• Gifts of fortune (FP, p.643) by which he
  means power, riches, honor, ... health,
  general well-being and the contentment with ones
  condition (FP, p.643) are also derivatively
  good. Without a good will, or character, such
  gifts could do great harm (FP, p.643).
• This does not yet give what Kant wants, after all
  the good will could be extrinsically good.
• But it is Kants contention that the will is not
  good because of what it accomplishes or because
  of its causal potency (i.e. it is not good for
  something else, or achieving something else).
  Indeed its goodness would not be diminished if it
  were to lack causal potency. It is good only
  because of its willing (i.e., it is good in
  itself) (FP, p.643).

10
First Section An(other) argument for the
intrinsic goodness of the will

• (1) Every organ has a purpose.
• (2) Every organ is best fitted or adapted for its
  purpose.
• (3) The more a person tries to use her reason to
  secure her own happiness the more she fails.
• (4) Whats more, those who live closer to
  instinct are happier than those who live
  according to their reason.
• (5) Reason, therefore, is ill-equipped to secure
  an individuals happiness.

11
First Section An(other) argument for the
intrinsic goodness of the will

• (6) Given (5), the purpose of reason cannot be a
  rational beings happiness.
• (7) Reason is a practical faculty (or
  power)...that is, reason is a faculty (or power)
  for influencing the will.
• (8) If reasons goodness (or value) lies in its
  purpose, then it lies in its influence on the
  will.
• (9) Given (3) through (6), reasons goodness (or
  value) isnt in its power to yield an
  extrinsically good will.
• (10) Therefore, reasons goodness (or value) must
  lie in its power to yield an intrinsically good
  will (FP, pp.643-44).

12
First Section Developing the notion of an
intrinsically good will

• It is at this point that Kant begins his
  discussion of duty. The reason for this is that
  the notion of duty implies a good will. I.e. to
  act from duty is to exhibit a good will (FP,
  p.644).
• He hopes, then, by developing the notion of what
  it is to act from duty, he will, ipso facto,
  develop the notion of a good will (FP, p.644).

13
First Section The first proposition

• The moral worth of an action lies in the
  intentions of the agent. If the agent acts
  because duty requires her to so act, then her
  action has moral worth (FP, pp.644-45, 646).
• An action motivated by self-interest,
  self-preservation or even feelings of warmth
  towards another lack moral worth, according to
  Kant (FP, pp.644-45).
• This may seem strange at first, but Kant notes
  that the (albeit meager) moral worth of such
  actions only arises when they accord with our
  duties. But since such inclinations do not always
  so arise, they are not unconditionally good, and
  only what is unconditionally good has moral worth
  (FP, p.645).

14
First Section The first proposition

• It is in this way, undoubtedly, that we should
  understand those passages of Scripture which
  command us to love our neighbor and even our
  enemy, for love as an inclination cannot be
  commanded. But beneficence from duty, even when
  no inclination impels it and even when it is
  opposed by a natural and unconquerable aversion,
  is practical love, not pathological love - it
  resides in the will and not in the propensities
  of felling, in principles of action not in tender
  sympathy and it is alone can be commanded (FP,
  p.646).

15
First Section The second proposition

• An action done from duty does not have its moral
  worth in the purpose which is to be achieved
  through it but in the maxim whereby it is
  determined (FP, p.646).
• This seems to follow from Kants earlier
  rejection of the view that an actions moral
  worth arises from the purposes or ends of said
  action. Though an actions effects/consequences
  or purposes may conform to what is right, the
  wrong motivation for said action can undermine
  its worth. What ensures the proper connection
  between an action and whats right is the
  principle of the will that gives rise to the
  action (FP, p.646).

16
First Section The second proposition

• Interestingly, the success or failure of the
  willed action is irrelevant to its moral worth
  (on this account). Whether it succeeds or fails
  is largely out of the hands of the person willing
  the action. The goodness of a persons choice can
  only be reasonably ascribed, then, on other
  grounds, grounds over which the person has
  control. Thus the choice itself is the source of
  the moral worth of an act (if it has any moral
  worth at all) (FP, p.646).

17
First Section The third proposition

• Duty is the necessity to do an action from
  respect for law (FP, p.646).
• You have three elements in the notion of acting
  from duty (1) An objective principle (or
  practical law), (2) a subjective maxim which
  accords with, or follows from, said objective
  principle and (3) respect for the law (without
  any regard for the consequences of acting in
  accord with said law) (FP, p.647).

18
First Section practical laws, objective
principles and maxims

• An objective principle is that which all rational
  beings (human or otherwise) could act upon if
  their reason has control over their desires.
• A maxim is a subjective principle of the
  will...that is, a principle with which an agent
  wills herself to act (i.e. a psychological
  principle of action).
• An objective principle is a practical law (see
  FP, pp.634, 637 and also the authors footnote on
  page 647 of your FP).
• Note that, due to the abstract nature of duty and
  the moral law, only a rational being can be moral
  (FP, p.647). This will exclude children by the
  way (they are still too bound to contingencies
  and lack the ability to reflect without recourse
  to experience).

19
First Section The first categorical imperative

• The supreme categorical imperative is proffered
  as a way of discovering what counts as an
  objective principle (or practical law).
• Also, what he identifies as the supreme
  categorical imperative, of which there are at
  least three complementary versions, is to be
  imagined as lying at the foundation of our moral
  system.

20
First Section The first categorical imperative

• Those imperatives that we use (or pretend to use)
  in our moral lives are derived from the supreme
  categorical imperative (FP, p.647).
• The common sense of mankind in its practical
  judgments is in perfect agreement with this and
  has this principle constantly in view (FP,
  p.647)
• The derivation of lower order imperatives from
  the supreme categorical imperative is thought to
  preserve the necessity enjoyed by the supreme
  categorical imperative.

21
First Section The first categorical imperative

• The first categorical imperative is I ought
  never to act in such a way that I could not also
  will that my maxim should be a universal law
  (FP, p.647).
• This falls out of Kants move to strip the will
  of all impulses which could come to it from
  obedience to any law, nothing remains to serve as
  a principle of the will except universal
  conformity to law as such (FP, p.647).

22
First Section The first categorical imperative

• Consider Kants test case May I, when in
  distress, make a promise with the intention not
  to keep it? (FP, p.647).
• Kant suggests we can distinguish a prudential and
  strictly moral approach to answering this
  question.
• Prudentially, we can go either way (FP, p.648).
• Morally, however, we can only go in the direction
  of not making such a promise (at least according
  to Kant) (FP, p.648).
• After all, if we imagine such a maxim holding as
  a universal law, no promises could subsequently
  exist. No one would trust me, nor could I trust
  them, so promises would be of no effect. Since I
  cannot so will my maxim to be a universal law, I
  ought not to follow it myself (FP, p.648).

23
First Section The first categorical imperative

• Note that, for Kant, his account thus far
  accords, or purports to accord, with our common
  moral knowledge (FP, pp.648-49).
• Kant does not view the discussion thus far as
  innovative, he has merely highlighted what is
  already at work in our moral reasoning (FP,
  p.648).
• We have an imperative that yields maxims which
  hold universally.
• We have an imperative that yields maxims which
  hold impartially.
• We also have a method of discovering our duty
  which does not require theoretical knowledge, a
  wealth of experience or intellectual expertise
  (FP, p.648).

24
Second Section

• In this Second Section, Kant will move from a
  critical examination of our common moral
  knowledge, to a metaphysics that will explain or
  make sense of this knowledge.

25
Second Section Kants pessimism

• Kant opens the second section up with the
  admission that it is, in fact, absolutely
  impossible by experience to discern with complete
  certainty a single case in which the maxim of an
  action, however much it might conform to duty,
  rested solely on moral grounds and on the
  conception of ones duty (FP, p.650).

26
Second Section Kants pessimism

• This is primarily to indicate that Kants notion
  of duty is not an empirical notion. That is, Kant
  didnt merely glean his theory of duty from what
  can be observed in common moral practice (FP,
  p.650).
• It also indicates that, for Kant, the success or
  failure of his theory does not depend on whether
  we can successfully implement it (see page 650 of
  your FP).
• Is this a problem?

27
Second Section Kants pessimism

• Our concern is with actions of which perhaps the
  world has never had an example, with actions
  whose feasibility might be seriously doubted by
  those who base everything on experience i.e.
  empiricists, and yet with actions inexorably
  commanded by reason. For example, pure sincerity
  in friendship can be demanded of every man, and
  this demand is not in the least diminished if a
  sincere friend has never existed, because this
  duty, as duty in general, prior to all experience
  lies in the idea of reason which determines the
  will on a priori grounds (FP, p.650).

28
Second Section Kants pessimism

• Think of this another way Kant is committed to
  the view that the a priori demands of reason are
  there to be discovered, but this does not mean
  that all or any rational beings will do so.
• Isnt something like this readily conceded by
  anyone who believes that there is an objective
  ground to morality, and that there is a
  distinction to be made between what we do and
  what we ought to do?

29
Second Section Against the situatedness of moral
principles

• (1) Moral laws must be valid universally. (This
  Kant takes to be fundamental to an understanding
  of the nature of morality).
• (2) From this it follows that, where there is a
  moral agent, s/he or it ought to act in accord
  with the moral laws.
• (3) From this it follows that the moral laws are
  not grounded in those properties that make a
  particular moral agent human or nonhuman.
• (4) It must also be the case, then, that the
  moral laws are not grounded in particular (or
  localized) circumstances or cultures.
• (5) Therefore, no set of experiences, no set of
  empirical facts, can ground or entail the moral
  laws (FP, p.651).

30
Second Section Against the situatedness of moral
principles

• For Kant, if we try to ground our moral
  principles/laws on our nature, or in our moral
  practice, we may focus on principles or laws that
  only sensibly hold for humans, rather than for
  all moral agents.
• However, if our moral principles or laws ought to
  hold for all moral agents, then we cannot ground
  our moral principles on our nature or moral
  practice (FP, pp.651, 653).
• This leaves nowhere else to go than pure reason,
  according to Kant (FP, p.651).

31
Second Section Against the situatedness of moral
principles

• But a completely isolated metaphysics of morals,
  mixed with no anthropology, no theology, no
  physics, or hyperphysics, and even less with
  occult qualities (which might be called
  hypophysical), is not only an indispensable
  substrate of all theoretically sound and definite
  knowledge of duties it is also a desideratum of
  the highest importance to the actual fulfillment
  of its precepts (FP, p.652).

32
Second Section categorical and hypothetical
imperatives

• Hypothetical imperatives are conditionally
  necessary. Given a certain end (whether it is
  currently willed or not), one should act
  according to a certain principle (which will
  enable one to achieve that end) (FP, p.654).
• Think of a hypothetical imperative as an
  if...then proposition. E.g. if you want to drive
  to university this morning, then you need to make
  sure there is enough gas in the car.

33
Second Section categorical and hypothetical
imperatives

• Categorical imperatives are unconditionally
  necessary. That is, the imperative is not
  conditional on a certain end being willed (FP,
  p.654).
• It is clear from what has already been covered
  that moral laws, under Kants account, are
  categorical imperatives (see FP, p.655).

34
Second Section categorical and hypothetical
imperatives

• Kant will also contend that the content of the
  supreme categorical imperative from which our
  moral laws follow, can be deduced from the mere
  concept of a categorical imperative (page 658 of
  your FP).
• This, of course, must be the case if the supreme
  categorical imperative is to hold for all
  rational beings (be they human or nonhuman, in
  our solar system or elsewhere)...right?

35
Second Section categorical and hypothetical
imperatives

• But if I think of a categorical imperative, I
  know immediately what it will contain. For since
  the imperative contains, besides the law, only
  the necessity of the maxim of acting in
  accordance with the law, while the law contains
  no condition to which it is restricted, nothing
  remains except the universality of law as such to
  which the maxim of the action should conform and
  this conformity alone is what is represented as
  necessary by the imperative (FP, p.658).

36
Second Section the supreme categorical imperative

• Since the supreme categorical imperative requires
  that all rational beings act in accord with it,
  without restrictions, the content of this
  imperative must be universal in scope.
• There is also only one categorical imperative.
• Thus Act only according to that maxim by which
  you can at the same time will that it should
  become a universal law (FP, p.658).
• All other moral imperatives are derived from this
  principle (FP, p.658).

37
Second Section the second version of the
categorical imperative

• Act as though the maxim of your action were by
  your will to become a universal law of nature
  (FP, p.658).
• This, for Kant, captures the necessity attached
  to the supreme categorical imperative (FP,
  p.658). Understand it as a way of imagining a
  universe in which all rational agents perfectly
  follow the dictates of their reason.
• Also note how he is more explicitly introducing
  the notion of autonomy (or self rule).
• So understood such a law seemed to nicely mirror,
  in Kants view, the relationship between natural
  objects and the laws of nature (FP, p.658).

38
Second Section the second categorical imperative

• Note in Kants examples of how to apply his
  procedure of deciding our duty there are two
  different ways in which we appear to run into
  trouble if we depart from what can be willed as a
  universal law.
• (1) What we propose to do may, if universalized,
  self-destruct (examples 1 and 2 FP,
  pp.658-59).
• (2) Even if what we propose to do does not
  self-destruct, it may be the case that we still
  cannot sincerely will it to be a universal law
  (examples 3 and 4 FP, p.659).

39
Second Section the second categorical imperative

• Example 1 The Suicide Candidate (FP, pp658-69).
• Example 2 The False Promise Maker (FP, p.659).
• Example 3 The Talented (But Lazy) Person (FP,
  p.659).
• Example 4 Selfish, and Unscrupulous, Rich Person
  (FP, p.659).
• What do you think of his examples? Does his
  fourth example deal with Glaucons concerns in
  our previous readings?
• What of his earlier claim, in connection to false
  promising, that immediately I see that I could
  will the lie but not a universal law to lie (FP,
  p.648)?
• Are there counter-examples of morally acceptable
  lies?

40
Second Section the second categorical imperative

• Note that in all of his examples, Kant seeks to
  infer our moral duties from the Supreme
  Categorical Imperative (FP, p.659).
• The foregoing are a few of the many actual
  duties, or at least of duties we hold to be
  actual, whose derivation form the one stated
  principle is clear (FP, p.659).

41
Second Section on transgression

• Kant suggests that when we shirk our moral duty
  we do not do so by not willing that our maxims
  become universal laws. Rather, we take the
  liberty of viewing ourselves as the exception,
  even if only momentarily (FP, p.660).
• Is he right?

42
Second Section Rational beings as ends in
themselves

• The third version of the supreme categorical
  imperative rests on a recognition that each of
  us, when we will an action, treat ourselves as
  ends in ourselves ... not merely as means. Since
  we could not (without contradiction) will
  ourselves to be regarded as means only, we ought
  not to treat other rational beings in this way
  (FP, p.662).
• This is true whether we talk of hypothetical or
  categorical imperatives (FP, pp.661-62).
• This Kant contends, is a duty of every rational
  agent (FP, p.662).
• The third version reads Act so that you treat
  humanity, whether in your own person or in that
  of another, always as an end and never as a means
  only (FP, p.662).