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"Immigration," "Immanuel Kant", and "Kantian Ethics" "Immigration," "Immanuel Kant", and "Kantian Ethics"

Harry van der Linden Butler University, [email protected]

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Part of the Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons

Recommended Citation Recommended Citation van der Linden, Harry, ""Immigration," "Immanuel Kant", and "Kantian Ethics"" Ethics, revised Edition / (2004): -. Available at https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/facsch_papers/62

This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Digital Commons @ Butler University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Butler University. For more information, please contact [email protected].

Permission to post this publication in our archive was granted by the copyright holder, Salem Press. This copy should be used for educational and research purposes only.

The original publications appeared at:

"Immigration," published in Ethics, Revised Edition, pages 715-17, reprinted (or reproduced) by permission of the publisher Salem Press. Copyright, ©, 2004 by Salem Press. "Immanuel Kant," published in Ethics, Revised Edition, pages 804-06, reprinted (or reproduced) by permission of the publisher Salem Press. Copyright, ©, 2004 by Salem Press. "Kantian Ethics," published in Ethics, Revised Edition, pages 806-08, reprinted (or reproduced) by permission of the publisher Salem Press. Copyright, ©, 2004 by Salem Press.

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these concepts, health care will be called upon to mit igate every problem society has, not only the enor mous number it is traditionally expected to solve.

Margaret Hawthorne

FURTHER READING

Beauchamp, Tom L., and LeRoy Walters, eds. Con temporary Issues in Bioethics. 6th ed. Belmont, Calif: ThomsonlWadsworth, 2003.

Boorse, Christopher. "On the Distinction Between Disease and Illness." Philosophy and Public Af fairs 5 (Fall, 1975): 49-68.

Callahan, Daniel. "The WHO Definition of 'Health.'" The Hastings Center Studies 1, no. 3 (1973): 77-88.

Caplan, Arthur L. 'The Concepts of Health and Dis ease." In Medical Ethics, edited by Robert M. Veatch. Boston: Jones & Bartlett, 1989.

Engelhardt, H. Tristam, Jr. "Health and Disease: Philosophical Perspectives." In Encyclopedia of Bioethics, edited by Warren T. Reich. Rev. ed. Vol. 2. New York: Macmillan, 1995

Foucault, Michel. The Binh ofthe Clinic: An Archae ology ofMedical Perception. Translated by A. M. Sheridan Smith. 1973. Reprint. New York: Vin

. tage Books, 1994. McGee, Glenn, ed. Pragmatic Bioethics. 2d ed. Cam

bridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003. Macklin, Ruth. "Mental Health and Mental Illness:

Some Problems of Definition and Concept For mation." Philosophy of Science 39 (September, 1972): 341-364.

SEE ALSO: Diagnosis; Health care allocation; Holis tic medicine; Medical ethics; Medical insurance; Mental illness; Physician-patient relationship.

Immigration DEFINITION: Flow into countries of people seeking

to change their nationalities TYPE OF ETHICS: Politico-economic ethics SIGNIFICANCE: Governments regulate by force who

may leave their territories and especially who may settle within their borders. Border controls designed to exclude unwanted immigrants may be viewed as legitimate forms of collective or

IMMIGRATION

communal self-determination, but critics argue that they often violate the individual right to free dom of movement and the ideal of equal eco nomic opportunity for all.

During the 1990's, the U.S. government took unprec edented and costly measures to prevent migrants in search of greater economic opportunities from ille gally crossing its long border with Mexico. The fed eral Irrunigration and Naturalization Service (INS) almost tripled its budget, doubled the size of its Bor der Patrol, and created a border of fences, cameras, and policing by helicopters. Concerns with security eventually led to further steps to close the border. Na tions in the European Union have taken similar mea sures. However, it is unclear how effective various ef forts at border control have been.

Although millions of illegal migrants were ar rested throughout the world and returned to their countries of origin, there were still at least six million illegal irrunigrants in the United States and more than three million in Western Europe at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The cost in human suffering is also high. Every year, hundreds of migrants die try ing to enter what critics of strict border controls call "fortress Europe and America." The moral question raised is what justifies governments' effort to exclude ordinary people who seek to improve their lives.

THE COMMUNAL RIGHT TO EXCLUDE

The communitarian philosopher Michael Walzer argues that communities have a right to determine the rules governing their cooperation and with whom to exchange the goods of their cooperation, inclUding membership. He compares political communities to clubs, noting that within clubs existing members choose the new members and that no one has a right to join a club. Another aspect of the analogy is that people have the right to leave their clubs and so they have a right to emigrate. Walzer adds that political communities are also similar to families. The chil dren of citizens are automatically citizens, and states typically give preference to would-be irrunigrants who are genetically related to its existing citizens. For Walzer, the right to exclude is not absolute: He ar gues that all states should take in some political refu gees since every person has the right to belong to some political community.

There are many reasons that citizens may have for

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wishing to exclude other people from entering their countries. Walzer stresses the danger of immigrants undermining a national culture and a shared way of life. Other grounds for exclusion are limiting pop ulation growth, protecting the environment and re sources, shielding native workers from wage depres sion and increased competition for scarce jobs, and preventing an overburdening of welfare programs, public education, and other social services.

Critics of restrictive border policies contest the view that admitting many immigrants with different cultural backgrounds threatens national unity. They point out that cultural blending is common and that, at any rate, a multicultural society enriches the lives of its citizens. This latter view was challenged in the United States after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, heightened public fears of Muslims living in the country.

On their account, national unity can be based on respect for individual rights and need not include a

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deep sharing of specific cultural values. They also ar gue that immigration contributes to economic growth and that many immigrants take jobs that natives find undesirable. A final perceived benefit of immigration is that it counteracts the shrinking or graying of the native populations of many Western nations.

ARGUMENTS FOR OPEN BORDERS

Proponents of open borders typically argue that even if more immigration does not benefit the receiv ing country, this does not necessarily warrant exclu sion. Some utilitarian moral philosophers argue that the state must impartially balance the interests of its citizens against the interests of immigrants. Liberal human rights theorists maintain that individuals have a right to freedom of movement, arguing that just as people should be able to move from one city in the United States to another-whether or not their move ment benefits the communities-so they should be able to move across borders. Egalitarian liberals hold

European immigrants sailing to the United States in 1906. (Library of Congress)

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Public Opinion on U.S. Immigration Levels in 2004

In January, 2004, a CBS NewslNew York Times poll asked a cross-section of Americans whether legal immi gration into the United States should be kept at its current level, increased, or decreased.

Current level 34%

. Increased 16%

Source: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. Figures reflect re sponses of 1,022 adults surveyed in January. 2004.

cluding engineers. scientists, and physicians. It is generally held that professionals from these nations should not be denied the right to emi grate from their home countries; however, some ethicists have also argued that it would be ap propriate to impose exit taxes to be paid by the hiring agencies to compensate for the eco nomic loss to the sending countries and to re imburse them for their educational costs. In creasingly, professional immigrants view it as their duty to establish networks with profes sionals in their countries of origin and to pro mote local businesses and educational devel opments.

Harry van der Linden

FURTHER READING

Bokser, Ben Zion. From the World of the Cabbalah. New York: Philosophical Library, 1954.

Heschel, Abraham Joshua. God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1955.

Idel, Moshe. Kabbalah: New Perspectives. New Ha ven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988.

Ruderman, David B. Kabbalah, Magic, and Science. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988.

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Scholem, Gershom. Origins ofthe Kabbalah. Edited by R. 1. Zwi Werblowsky. Translated by Allan Arkush. Philadelphia, Pa.: Jewish Publication So ciety, 1987.

Steinsaltz, Adin. Opening the "Tallya": Discovering the Moral and Mystical Teachings of a Classic Work of Kabbalah. Translated by Yaacov Tauber. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003.

SEE ALSO: Hasidism; Jewish ethics; Messianism; Talmud; Torah.

Kant, Immanuel IDENTIFICATION: German philosopher BORN: April 22, 1724, Konigsberg, Prussia (now

Kaliningrad, Russia) DIED: February 12, 1804, Konigsberg, Prussia

(now Kaliningrad, Russia) TYPE OF ETHICS: Enlightenment history SIGNIFICANCE: In Foundations ofthe Metaphysics of

Morals (Grulldlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, 1785), The Metaphysics ofMorals (1797), and es pecially the Three Critiques (1781-1790), Kant synthesized rationalism and empiricism into a single philosophical system that stood as the cul mination of Enlightenment thought. He argued for the existence of a universal and objective moral law, the categorical imperative, which had the form of law as such and therefore transcended any individual human concern or value.

Late in his life, after his revolutionary work in epis temology, Kant first presented his mature moral phi losophy in Foundations ofthe Metaphysics ofMorals. Here, Kant developed his influential idea that human beings as rational agents are "autonomous," or have the capacity for moral self-government. For Kant, autonomy means that, as rational beings, people set their own standards of conduct, as distinct from the demands made by their desires, and are able to decide and act on these standards. On the basis of a complex argument, Kant concluded that autonomy is possible only if the will is guided by a supreme principle of morality that he called the "categorical imperative." Kant viewed this imperative as the product of reason

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and as the basis for determining moral duties. He expressed it in three basic formulations.

THE FORMULA OF UNIVERSAL LAW

"Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Kant defined a maxim as a subjective principle on which a person intends to act, and a universal law as a principle that applies to everyone. Therefore, his formula of universal law demands that one act only on maxims that one can rationally will that everyone adopt. Kant provided the fol lowing example of how to use the formula: Suppose that a person must borrow money for a personal need and knows that he is unable to repay it. Is it morally permissible for him to act on the maxim of falsely promising to pay back a loan in order to get the loan? The formula tells that the person may act on the maxim if he can rationally will its universalization. The person cannot rationally will this because it would mean that people would no longer trust promises to repay loans, including his own. Kant added that the immorality of the maxim is clear in that the person really wants people to keep their promises so that he can be an ex ception to the rule for this one occasion.

THE FORMULA OF HUMANITY "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." For Kant, "humanity" refers to people's uniquely human characteristics, their ra tional characteristics, including autonomy and the capacity to understand the world and to form and pur sue life-plans. Thus, his formula of humanity de mands that people always act so that they respect themselves and others as beings with a rational na ture.

In Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant used the formula of humanity to argue for a va riety of duties to oneself and others. According to Kant, respect for rational nature in oneself implies that one ought not to destroy or deny one's intel lectual and moral capacities through suicide, drug abuse, lying, self-deception, or servility. It also im plies that one must further one's own rational nature by developing one's natural talents and striving to be-

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Immanuel Kant. (Library of Congress)

come virtuous. Respect for rational nature in others requires that one not harm them and that one uphold their individual liberty, but Kant discussed these du ties as part of his legal and political philosophy. More exclusive ethical duties to others include the duty to contribute to the flourishing of rational nature in oth ers through beneficence and the duty to refrain from arrogance, defamation, ridicule, and other activities that deny people's humanity.

THE FORMULA OF THE REALM OF ENDS

"All maxims ... ought to harmonize with a possi ble realm of ends." This formula shows that the two previous formulas are interconnected. (Kant held them all to be equivalent, but this has not been widely accepted.) Kant described the realm of ends as a har mony between human beings, resulting from each acting only on maxims that can become universal laws. It is a harmony of ends in that its members, by acting only on universalizable maxims, act only on maxims that can meet everyone's consent; thus,

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they respect one another as rational self-determining agents, or ends in themselves. It is also a harmony of ends in that people will seek to further one another's individual ends.

MORAL VISION

Kant held that people must mirror the realm of ends in their moral choices and actions, and that it is humanity's duty to bring about this ideal. He viewed the French Revolution and the Enlightenment as steps in the right direction; argued for a worldwide league of democratic states as a further step toward the realm of ends; and claimed, moreover, that the re ligious institutions of his time must embrace the ideal, setting aside their historically evolved differ ences. Kant maintained that moral philosophy must not formulate new duties, but should only clarify the moral principle operative in "common moral reason" in order to help ordinary persons more adequately re sist immoral desires. Kant'S clarification went be yond these confines, however, and it ended with an inspiring moral vision of the realm of ends as the pur pose of history, the kingdom of God on Earth, and the ultimate individual and collective vocation.

Hany van del' Linden

FURTHER READING

Aune, Bruce. Kant's Theory of Morals. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979.

Banham, Gary. Kant's Practical Philosophy: From Critique to Doctrine. New York: Palgrave Mac millan, 2003.

Hill, Thomas E., Jr. Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant's Moral Theory. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Uni versity Press, 1992.

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Edited and translated by Lewis W. Beck. 3d ed. New York: Maxwell Macmillan, 1993.

___. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. Introduction by Howard Caygill. Rev. 2d ed. New York: Bedford/St. Mar tins, 2003.

___. Critique of the Power ofJudgment. Edited by Paul Guyer. Translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

_____ . Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Edited and translated by Allen W. Wood. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002.

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Kerstein, Samuel J. Kant's Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Paton, H. J. The Categorical Imperative: A Study in Kant's Moral Philosophy. Philadelphia: Univer sity of Pennsylvania Press, 1971.

Sullivan, Roger 1. Immanuel Kant'S Moral Theo/y. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Timmons, Mark, ed. Kant's "Metaphysics of Morals": Interpretive Essays. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

SEE ALSO: Autonomy; Consistency; Deontological ethics; Duty; Enlightenment ethics; Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals; Kantian ethics; Post Enlightenment ethics; Practical reason; Transcen dentalism.

Kantian ethics DEFINITION: Moral system put forward by, or mod

eled after that of, Immanuel Kant TYPE OF ETHICS: Enlightenment history SIGNIFICANCE: Kantian ethics are concerned with the

determination of an absolute and universal moral law and with the realization or modeling of an ideal society characterized by the mutual respect and harmonious coexistence of all moral agents.

The term "Kantian ethics" is commonly used to refer to the ethics of Immanuel Kant, as set forth in his Foundations of the Metaphysics ofMorals and other moral writings of the 1780's and 1790's. The term is also frequently used to refer to later moral theories that are similar to Kant's ethics but contain modifi cations in response to its perceived shortcomings. Three important examples are the moral theories of Hermann Cohen, John Rawls, and Jiirgen Habermas.

IMMANUEL KANT

The ultimate purpose of moral rules, Kant argued, is to make possible his ideal society, the "reaJm of ends," which has two main aspects: All its members respect one another as self-determining agents who pursue different individual ends, and they seek to promote one another's ends. Kant believed that this

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moral ideal would evolve if everyone followed the fundamental principle of his ethics: the "categorical imperative." This imperative demands that one act only on those personal policies of conduct ("max ims") that one can rationally will to become universal laws or principles that guide everyone's conduct. Ac cording to Kant, obedience to the categorical impera tive implies respect for others as self-determining be ings with different individual ends; in acting only on maxims that can become universal laws, one acts only on principles to which others can rationally con sent, and thus one upholds their right to legislate their own moral rules and pursue their own individual ends.

Kant also argued that general obedience to the categorical imperative would bring about universal mutual promotion of individual ends (as the other as pect of the realm of ends) because the imperative pro hibits refusing to assist others. The reason for this prohibition is that one cannot rationally will that ev eryone adopt a maxim of not assisting others in the pursuit of their individual ends, for in such a world one would lack the assistance of others as a means for realizing one's own happiness.

Attempts to overcome the shortcomings of Kant's ethics, while preserving its strengths, have led to such influential examples of Kantian ethics as the moral theories of Hermann Cohen, John Rawls, and Jiirgen Habermas. The most significant shortcom ings are the following: The categorical imperative does not offer a sufficient criterion for determining universal laws, Kant failed to provide an adequate justification of the categorical imperative, he de scribed moral agents as isolated legislators ofuniver sal laws, and he failed to address satisfactorily how the realm of ends can be institutionalized.

HERMANN COHEN

During the later part of the nineteenth century, Kant's philosophy regained in Germany the great in fluence it had had during his own lifetime. This resur gence is known as neo-Kantianism, and one of its most important representatives is Hermann Cohen, who transformed Kant's ideal of the realm of ends into a democratic socialist ideal. Cohen held that hu man agents can only arrive at universal laws, or ap proximations thereof, if all people become decision makers or colegislators in their institutions. Thus, Cohen argued that the realm of ends requires for its

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realization not only political democracy, as Kant himself claimed, but also democracy in the work place. Moreover, Cohen held that workplace democ racy, in order to be effective, requires workers' own ership of productive property. Cohen also maintained that these democratic socialist proposals were neces sary for realizing the aspect of the realm of ends that all of its members promote one another's individual ends.

JOHN RAWLS

A second main philosophical movement of re newed interest in Kant's ethics and corresponding at tempts to improve his ethics occurred during the 1970's and 1980's. The American philosopher John Rawls and the German philosopher Jiirgen Habermas are the two major figures of this movement. Rawls's primary concern is to argue for principles of justice that create a political society in accord with the realm of ends. More specifically, he argues for an extensive liberal welfare state based on the principles of justice that all persons must have equal political and civil liberties and that social and economic inequalities must be corrected to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. Rawls holds that rational agents will opt for these principles of justice once their situation of choice, the "original position," is made impartial by a "veil of ignorance" that makes them temporarily for get about all the specific facts concerning themselves and their society. Whether this innovative transfor mation of the categorical imperative-the veil forces one to opt for principles that are acceptable to all justifies Rawls's two principles of justice, and whether it can more generally be used to justify and explicate Kantian moral rules, are questions that have generated much debate.

JURGEN HABERMAS

The basic principle of the "discourse ethics" of Jiirgen Habermas is a clear modification of the cate gorical imperative. The principle is that for a norm to be valid it must be accepted in a practical discussion by all those who are affected by the norm. The partic ipants in the practical discourse must then also fore see the consequences of the general observance of the norm for the realization of the particular interests of each of them. This view that moral norms must be constructed by communities engaged in free practi cal discourse implies that the good society must be

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fundamentally democratic; unlike Cohen and Rawls, however, Habermas has been somewhat vague and hesitant about the specific institutional ramifications of his Kantian ethics.

Harry van del' Linden

FURTHER READING

Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Com municative Action. Translated by Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen. Cam bridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990.

Kant, Immanuel. Groundworkfor the Metaphysics of Morals. Edited and translated by Allen W. Wood. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002.

Kerstein, Samuel J. Kant's Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Rawls, John. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Edited by Erin Kelly. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 200 I.

___ . Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

___. A Theory of Justice. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999.

Van der Linden, Harry. Kantian Ethics and Social ism. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1988.

Willey, Thomas E. Back to Kant: The Revival of Kantianism in German Social and Historical Thought, 1860-1914. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1978.

SEE ALSO: Autonomy; Consistency; Deontological ethics; Enlightenment ethics; Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals; Kant, Immanuel; Post Enlightenment ethics; Rawls, John; Theory of Jus tice, A.

Karma DEFINITION: Spiritual and ethical force generated by

a person's actions TYPE OF ETHICS: Religious ethics SIGNIFICANCE: In Eastern religious traditions, karma

is the motive force determining the transmigra tion of souls in successive incarnations: One's next life will be better or worse depending on the

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good or evil of one's actions in this life. In modern Western culture, the term is used in a more gen eral and secular sense to mean good luck or for tune earned through good deeds, or bad luck which is deserved as a result of malfeasance.

The word karma is a Sanskrit term meaning "action," "deed," or "work." By extension, it also came to mean the results of one's deeds and the law of retribution according to which one reaps what one sows.

The term karma does nOl appear in its extended sense in the oldest hymns of the Hindu scriptures. Nevertheless, the idea does appear that evil deeds have consequences that one would want to avoid. Furthermore, a person could obtain forgiveness from the god VarUl:Ja. The early hymns also taught contin ued personal existence beyond death, sometimes in an undifferentiated state, but sometimes with good men going to Heaven and others to a sort of hell.

In the Upani~ads (composed roughly between the eighth and fifth centuries a.c.E.), Hindu speculation arrived at the conclusion that if one did not reap all that one had sown in this lifetime, one would inherit those uncompensated aftereffects in a future life. The cycle of rebirths came to be understood as the condi tion from which salvation was necessary. Further more, the law of karma was held to operate automati cally; it was independent of the efforts of any god.

In its fully developed form, the law of karma is held to explain such phenomena as premature death (the result of misdeeds committed earlier in one's life or in a previous life), child prodigies (the child con tinues to develop skills already learned in a previous life), and differences in socioeconomic status (karma determines the caste into which one is born). In a moral universe, everything that happens to a person is earned; nothing is accidental or in any other way un deserved. In short, one determines one's own fate, in this and future lives.

Over time, Hindus developed several paths by which to escape the cycle of rebirth. The most impor tant were enlightenment, work, love and devotion, and meditation, which also could be a method em ployed in other paths. The BhagavadgitQ (variously dated between the fifth and first centuries B.C.E.) dealt with the relationship between karma and one's caste duty. Simply put, it was the duty of each person to fulfill his or her role, even if the person found that role distasteful. Failure to do so would entangle one

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