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5/4/22, 12:48 AM Launchpad: Introduction to Kant's Deontology: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-introduction-to-kants-deontology 1/7

Launchpad: Introduction to Kant's Deontology

5/4/22, 12:48 AM Launchpad: Introduction to Kant's Deontology: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-introduction-to-kants-deontology 2/7

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5/4/22, 12:48 AM Launchpad: Introduction to Kant's Deontology: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-introduction-to-kants-deontology 3/7

Kant's ethical theory provides us with something very different than the previous two. If Bentham’s utilitarianism focuses solely on results in the form of getting pleasures by any means, then what distinguishes Kant’s morality is that it focuses exclusively on principled intentions behind the actions regardless of the results. In other words, whereas utilitarianism is often described as a type of “consequentialism” because it focuses solely on the pleasurable consequences of our actions, Kant’s moral theory is described as “deontology” because it focuses on principles alone to the exclusion of consequences: hence, deontology means the study of duty (deon) for duty’s sake, doing your moral duty as a matter of principle rather than whether it will be beneficial for some other purpose or bring about certain happy consequences. This emphasis on principle is a significant point of departure from utilitarianism and virtue ethics in several ways:

Kant concedes to utilitarianism that humans are basically selfish pleasure seekers … BUT, Kant wants to emphasize that nevertheless we can temporarily transcend this state because we have an inherent rational capacity to defer pleasure and choose rational ends for their own sake when push comes to shove.

In other words: The normative form of human nature that guides his morality is that humans are primarily egotistical and selfish animals; yet humans are also distinctively more than this insofar as each individual has the same faculty of reason for self-governance beyond being consumer slaves to pleasure.

each person is therefore morally equal and important in principle, because each individual is able to act autonomously on the basis of universal reason morality is then primarily about the principle of respecting each person's autonomy: hence, each person has inherent dignity not reducible to market utility--each person is more than the object of someone else's pleasure.

For Kant morality then is to be focused on intentions: whether we are intending the right rational principles for their own sake, rather than pursuing external results with ulterior motives. There is more to Kant's reasoning which is further elaborated in my (https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/files/68034389?wrap=1) lecture notes on Kant (https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/files/68034388? wrap=1) (https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/files/68034388/download? download_frd=1) , with an outline of its overall logic at the end.

5/4/22, 12:48 AM Launchpad: Introduction to Kant's Deontology: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-introduction-to-kants-deontology 4/7

Some Key Questions to Think about

In the readings we will want to pay close attention to Kant's reasoning and ask:

1. how does he build his theoretical case for respecting each person as an end in themselves?

2. How does Kant define the freedom of the will, as more than arbitrarily doing whatever you happen to want, according to the dictates of practical reason?

3. What is it about "practical reason" that we all share and is morally significant? 4. Can you distinguish between Kant's conception of practical reason as the ultimate

form of autonomy and the utilitarian conception of reason as merely instrumental? (we explored some of the differences between these forms of reason in Week 3) And how might his notion of practical reason compare and contrast with virtue ethics's understanding of practical reason?

But with Kant’s exclusive focus on pure practical reason, principled intentions, and a formal duty to respect each individual, does his framework turn out to be too abstract? We will therefore want to further ask:

1. What does it look like within real social relations to concretely treat, rather than merely theoretically recognize, each person as an end in themselves? And does Kant's theory provide any practical guidelines here?

2. Is such an emphasis on purity of principles too abstractly theoretical? Can such an abstract theory that emphasizes absolute moral law-following for its own sake without consideration of certain notions of happiness substantively work toward changing society for the better? Or in other words, can a society that treats each individual with dignity come about without also emphasizing the practice of certain socially creative virtues like compassion and solidarity that also seek out the common good of happiness?

3. Following this, should (and can) acts of compassion and solidarity be understood as a duty for duty's sake, i.e., as a self-sacrificial suppression of desire? Shouldn't morality be about transforming desire, rather than suppressing it, so that compassion might be able to consider the good of another as also a common good for oneself?

5/4/22, 12:48 AM Launchpad: Introduction to Kant's Deontology: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-introduction-to-kants-deontology 5/7

This week we will also want to wrap up the first half of the quarter by comparing and contrasting the theoretical frameworks. I've provided lecture notes comparatively summarizing (https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/files/68034351?wrap=1)

(https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/files/68034351/download? download_frd=1) all three ethical theories that should provide a touchstone for moving forward in their practical application. Grasping the similarities and differences of all three will be key for moving forward: as we analyze case studies you will need to know the nuanced differences of all three theories in order to apply them according to their distinctive logic. Your analysis of case studies will be graded on how well you grasp the distinguishing logic and normative forms of each ethical framework.

Quick Review and Summary of all Three Ethical Theories

A Snapshot of the Forms of Ethical Reasoning:

Virtue Ethics: Practical reason is about the transformation of desires and needs toward higher ends of fulfilling our socially creative capabilities through virtuous practices that allow us to transcend mere herd animals and consciously build communities together for the sake of individual and collective flourishing. Practical reason is then emancipatory social practice because it is about coming together for that end of making a community of mutual flourishing in which everyone can become an active participant in ruling together.

Utilitarianism: No practical reason as emancipatory social practice, but only instrumental reason for calculating the most efficient means to privately meet biological necessities and private appetites--that is, ethics is about maximizing the consumption of sense experiences and not for realizing higher faculties or capabilities -- though we saw Mill push against this notion of instrumental rationality. For Bentham we are primarily pleasure seeking machines, and calculating efficient means for meeting arbitrarily programed and predetermined ends set by biological impulses, the market, or majority rules is the sole function of reason.

5/4/22, 12:48 AM Launchpad: Introduction to Kant's Deontology: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-introduction-to-kants-deontology 6/7

Deontology: Instead of instrumental rationality, practical reason as higher capability for choosing new ends beyond given nature is upheld like virtue ethics. But it is only the formal cognitive structure and purified logical form of practical reason: not as the social practice of transforming our nature into its higher social form, but the cognitive ability, in privately meeting necessities, to also adhere to an abstract rule of law universally and equally applicable.

A Brief Summary of all Three Ethical Theories on Justice

Utilitarianism:

Justice is about maximizing utility for pleasure amongst the greatest amount of people, while minimizing pain.

This makes justice a matter of abstract calculation determined by whatever consumer trends happen to dominate, rather than determined by principles, so that the imperative to maximize for majority rule can easily step over individuals and minorities as well as fail to meet real human needs even for the majority.

Deontology:

Justice is about respecting the free will according to a principle of fairness and equality, and thus about making sure majority power doesn’t encroach on the individual right to make one’s own rational decision.

On this basis, and thus against utilitarianism, it grounds justice and rights on a principle of human dignity rather than calculation – individual rights are worthy of respect regardless of what the majority finds desirable. Deontology’s principle of justice as fairness, however, also remains abstract, often reducing equality to a flat homogeneity that cannot account for different historical inequities and thus differing needs.

Virtue:

Justice is according to need: it is not about simply applying abstract fairness and equality, but about cultivating the wisdom of how to concretely distribute and allocate goods so as to meet the varying levels of need amongst differently situated groups, not only for basic goods, but for developing the social virtues that empower toward distinctive human excellence.

5/4/22, 12:48 AM Launchpad: Introduction to Kant's Deontology: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

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Justice according to need rather than fairness demands the harder work of determining not only the higher needs we all have to become distinctively human but how those needs are to be uniquely addressed in differing historical situations—how to build real equity rather than flatten to abstract equality requires accounting for our diverse social and historical contexts. This view can pose difficulties if it does not articulate a substantive sense of the common good for all, since without such it might lapse into appearing to be arbitrarily preferential toward certain groups or predicated on existing displays of virtue narrowly defined.