Question

Deontology

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)

Art by Anselm Kiefer

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” - Kant

I. The historical context:

“Liberty Leading the People” – Eugene Delacroix (ca. 1830)

II. What is distinctive about human freedom?

a. What matters is the good will alone acting freely without determination by possible consequences:

“For reason recognizes the establishment of a good will as its highest practical destination.” Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, p. 14

i. For Kant a good will obeys only itself—its logical structure—and does not act according to ulterior motives.

ii. This means any morality that determines right actions in terms of rewards and punishments is not really moral for Kant.

iii. This applies to utilitarianism’s consequentialism based as it is on the end goal of getting pleasures. Kant’s critique of utilitarianism:

1. The mere fact that people—regardless of majority consensus—happen to hold to this or that experience of sense pleasures does not mean that particular activity and its consequent pleasure are ethically right or just.

a. Actions based on the attainment of particular pleasures are fleeting and differ from place to place. What is needed is a universal principle or norm by which to judge the relative interests, preferences, and desires in the first place.

2. More specifically, basing morality entirely on contingent desires for particular pleasures fails to grasp what morality is really about:

a. As Kant says: “Making man happy is quite different from making him good,” which requires learning how to reason about universally shared principles of right and wrong based on true freedom.

i. In pursuing happiness as the private experience of pleasure, utilitarianism, according to Kant, only teaches us how to become better calculators of cost/benefit in submitting to passions and sensuous experiences, thus keeping us enslaved to the ends given by sensation and impulse.

ii. But in uncritically accepting these externally given ends and focusing only on efficient means in meeting them, utilitarianism fails to teach what is most important in morality: how to rightly choose distinctively human ends in order to be “free” from externally imposed ends.

1. How to become authors of our own purposes rather than instruments or batteries for someone or something else.

iii. Without the ability to choose the ends themselves rather than merely the means, we would remain a slave to our appetites and their needed objects, as well as their commercial/customary mediation, which would be to live under the sovereign master of pleasure and pain like any other animal.

3. What distinguishes morality for Kant, therefore, is that it is based on the distinctive nature of human freedom:

a. What makes our freedom distinctive is that it is based on our inherent rational capacity to set our own ends for their own sake, rather than only choosing amongst means for those ends already predetermined by our easily manipulated tastes and desires.

i. We can at times defer biological needs in order to pursue higher rational ideals – We do not always obey our thirst (nor do we need a moral command to do so)

b. Unlike utilitarians, but like Aristotle, Kant affirms that we are inherently rational animals. This means that he affirms a sense of reason more exalted than utilitarianism:

i. we are not just animals who happen to use reason for better managing mere survival, but rather we newly organize the ways we survive in order to live toward higher rational ideals that we choose for their own sake.

ii. For utilitarianism our rational capacity is merely a calculating instrument, with no special qualitative capacity or purpose other than to calculate the means for whatever the sovereign masters of pleasure and pain set for us. – Obey your Thirst!

1. Reason is supposedly value-neutral – an indifferent tool able to be manipulated by and for whomever. – Buy Sprite!

iii. For Kant, however, reason is not a mere instrument but our highest form of being. The purpose of reason is for free self-determination beyond the whims of physical needs and sensations.

1. The utilitarian use and understanding of reason is therefore self-contradictory for Kant, since it subordinates our highest quality to our lowest interests.

2. For Kant reason is value-laden as it is synonymous with freedom. The use of reason is for liberating humanity as its own end —to be more than a mere consuming animal, and so an actively self-determining subject rather than a passive object of nature.

3. Rationality is about establishing higher forms of self-organization against the disorganization of lower appetites and fleeting desires.

4. Therefore, for Kant, the end goal of reason is freedom as self-determination; and the form of self-determining freedom is reason as such.

4. Kant distinguishes between what he calls “heteronomy” and “autonomy” in distinguishing two ways the will is determined:

a. Heteronomy = unfree: any action that is done for the sake of something/someone else and so obeys legislation outside itself – the will does not freely choose its own end ( Hetero=other; nomos=law)

i. Kant doesn’t think that these actions are necessarily immoral, but rather they are most often amoral, and thus not the basis of morality.

ii. As based in inclinations and desires a heteronomous act is dependent on drives, instincts, impulses and conventions that the will did not choose for itself but are already given by nature or society (like feeding an empty stomach).

b. Autonomy = free: the will choosing its own ends—that is, any action that is done for its own sake according to its own rationally determined laws. ( Auto=self; nomos=law)

i. To have a will determined by its own rationality— the legislation of its own reason—rather than the dictates of given natural necessity and its corresponding appetites and interests.

1. To be autonomous is to possess a will that can set its own rules rather than follow another, which means it is about acting in such a way that you treat your act of willing as an end in itself.

c. So, for Kant, human freedom is distinctive insofar as it has the capacity of the free will to act according to its own self-legislating rationality beyond the calculation of appetites and interests— to choose actions good in themselves rather than for some other reason.

b. But how do we know this sense of autonomous freedom is not just an arbitrary will acting for whatever instrumental reasons?

i. Every human has a will, and the purpose of every will is to be free, and the rational form of freedom is the same: to not contradictorily submit the will to this or that impulse or external authority, but rather to submit these different ends to the will’s own reason.

1. Kant is not saying we have the freedom to whimsically do whatever we want – rather, he is saying that the autonomous will is free only in acting consistently with its own rational law, which is to be free from acting in a self-contradictory way.

i. A will that does not act according to its own rational principles of self-legislation is a will always susceptible to contradicting itself by submitting to outside influence and external demands.

ii. Therefore, the rationality of the free will is the same for everyone— the free will universally has the same logical structure—because it is in everyone’s interest to be truly free.

ii. The universally shared law of the free will can be briefly given:

Act in such a way that you do not contradict your autonomy.

a. It is then about acting consistently in a principled way that is true to the will’s own pure practical reason—a will that obeys nothing other than its own universal law of self-legislation as such.

b. This is why Kant’s morality is solely concerned about intending the right act—pure acts of reason without contradiction. Hence, Kant’s emphasis on the inner motive and intentionality of the will rather than outcomes. (it’s about following the right principle of acting for its own sake rather than maximizing happiness)

i. Think about the exploding fuel tanks on the Ford Pinto: Kant would say Ford would need to do the right thing regardless of any cost/benefit analysis, even if that means possibly doing something that is not cost effective at all.

ii. Contrary to Kant’s position Utilitarians would not consider the rightness of the act or a rational motive in itself, but only whether it will yield the greatest profit.

For Kant if a person did the right thing regarding Ford Pintos, such as fixing the car in order to save lives regardless of short-term financial losses, but ultimately did it according to an expanded utilitarian calculus about how it will benefit the company’s image in the long run, then it is not a truly moral act. (right outcome but wrong motivating act does not equal morally right action)

2. The point for Kant is whether you are willing to be honest, or truthful for its own sake rather than for the sake of the bottom line (since the bottom line of profit is an external end).

a. It is then about acting from the principle of reason, which is universally shared and universally applicable, rather than from one’s own self-interests, which are particular, fleeting, and not freely chosen.

i. Kant therefore equates the rationality of a truly free will with the moral law. But what is the moral law?

III. What then is a morally good will? What is the universal moral form of the will’s own pure practical reason?

a. A morally good will is the free will insofar as it wills its own rational act for its own sake—it obeys its own rationality, or is true to its own self-legislation (not in the clichéd sense of the phrase—“being true to oneself”—which for Kant would be more about subordinate personal feelings rather than the universality of reason we all hold).

i. What is this duty or supreme principle of morality that is imperative for the consistency of the rational will? Kant distinguishes between two imperatives:

1. Hypothetical imperative : if you do A in a given context you’ll get B. They are conditional imperatives for obtaining certain results. Impure reason, reason subordinate to ends outside itself.

2. Categorical imperative : do A no matter what for its own sake, regardless of B. “Categorical” means unconditional, an imperative that must be done regardless of any context or category; or rather, it must be done universally across every category of life and time-period.

ii. The categorical imperative is then the specific rational form of any moral command for the free will, since it is to act unconditionally according to principles of autonomous reason rather than for certain conditions.

iii. So, what more specifically is the form of this self-legislating categorical imperative?

1. “Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”

a. The will is free to act in whatever manner as long as its actions spring from autonomous rational principles that can be made into a universal law applicable for all:

i. E.g.: Deciding what to wear to work, or what foods to buy at the store, or how to invest your money are decisions that cannot be universalized for everyone since their contexts change, often requiring different decisions to be made—these are always hypothetical imperatives.

ii. But in deciding which foods to buy, the decision to always honestly obtain, rather than to steal, the food is morally universalizable:

1. Stealing is always wrong for Kant because it would always contradict the very principle of a free will (instead giving in to depraved desires), and not because it would treat others in a way you would not wanted to be treated, or because it would lead to social chaos.

2. The point here is whether the act of the will can be universally upheld according to its own rational principle without also contradicting itself, and not about whether an action would be generally desirable or beneficial for all.

b. Therefore, it is similar yet significantly different from the Golden Rule which states: “do unto others as you would want them to do unto you”. Kant’s categorical imperative is more about a duty to the universal nature of the rational will itself, whereas the Golden Rule is tied to feelings, desires and passions in relation to pleasure and pain.

i. Kant thinks self-interests as well as majority rule can more easily manipulate the Golden Rule than the Categorical Imperative.

ii. The categorical imperative is then not about extending feelings and desires, but about respecting the universal nature of free will’s reason as an end in itself—this can be seen more clearly in his second articulation.

2. “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.”

a. All things have relative values externally imposed, but the rationally self-determining will of any person is an absolute value in itself.

i. Since every person has a will with a rational capacity to autonomously legislate for themselves rational principles as their own end, then every will is itself a dignified end in itself—and treating everyone as such is a law that is universalized without contradicting itself.

1. “I say that humanity, and in general every rational being, exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means for arbitrary use by this or that will.”

2. For Kant, failure to treat other persons as an end in themselves is also a failure to treat ourselves as an end, since we would be refusing our own higher rational nature in relating to them and thus acting according to lower animal instincts.

b. This second formulation of the imperative also rules out the very idea of any mutual agreement in which two persons agree to treat each other as mere means to their own ulterior ends of pleasure or pain—especially in a demeaning way—since such an agreement could not be rationally universalized in the sense of treating each other as ends in themselves.

i. In other words, for Kant it is universally right that we should never consent to our own degradation nor accept that anyone else should, since to do so would be to treat oneself and others as mere objects.

1. Kant would then say that you can never eat the cabin boy nor let yourself or someone else become enslaved, even if they consented to it.

2. Therefore, Kant does not superficially respect freedom of choice in itself, since morality is about choosing the right end in accordance with autonomy.

- We should never respect any choice that contradicts one’s own capacity for autonomous willing.

ii. Utilitarians however have no way of arguing against any individuals who consent to be treated as a degraded object if this is what they happen to find most pleasing, however distorted.

3. Kant understands that most of our lives will be spent socially, politically, and economically calculating relative interests and values; but instead of subordinating morality to this instrumental calculus (like utilitarianism) he thinks the ultimate ideal of moral reason is the “kingdom of ends”:

a. This ideal requires us to act from the pure reason of the categorical imperative whenever there is a conflict of interest in our day-to-day calculating activities.

The fundamental moral question to ask in any situation of conflicting interests is then not, how should we treat others in a way that might maximize utility, or how might we respect their choice no matter what, but rather how should we treat them as ends in themselves, rational beings worthy of dignity – unlike questions of utility, for Kant this is the moral question that is universally applicable in any circumstance .

But a key issue in Kant’s deontology is its abstractness and detachment from concrete life: it does not concern itself with everyday pursuits of happiness and the development of our whole being, but is only pertinent occasionally when conflicts of interest arise within the socioeconomic sphere. Hence it still presupposes that we are all passive selfish consumers, yet with an extra rational capacity to respect one another out of principle. Can the kingdom of ends be anything other than an abstract idea of formal respect?

Summary of Kant’s overall logic:

1. We all have a free will by virtue of being rational beings

2. To act according to a free will is to willingly act for its own sake—that is, to choose to act for the sake of your own self-determination and not for some other end.

3. To willingly take up ordinary activities like deciding to go grocery shopping, or to eat something, or watch a movie, are forms of acting not for their own sake but for the sake of something else. If one meets conflicts of interest with others amongst these everyday pursuits by deciding to willingly steal or lie or harm others this is always wrong because it fails to rise above lower impulses and act according to our higher reasoning.

4. But willing to respect unconditionally or tell the truth unconditionally is to freely respect for its own sake or to tell the truth for its own sake—you are willing to do something for the sole reason of your own pure willing to do so, and not because someone or something else compels you

5. A free will therefore acts out of pure motives (duty for duty’s sake) and not ulterior motives—this is why Kant’s moral law is concerned only with the purity of your intentions and not with the outcomes of whether it brings pleasure or happiness, etc.

6. The “categorical imperative” is the moral law of a free will acting true to its own reasoning: act in such a way that universally all others could (and should) do the same.

7. Moreover, because everyone equally has the rational capacities for a free will, they must be treated as dignified ends in themselves, just as we treat our own will as an end in itself (always respect others for their own sake—this is another version of the categorical imperative).

8. This is why Kant speaks of the highest ideal being a “Kingdom of Ends” – a community in which no one is degraded as a mere means to someone else’s ends (you’re not batteries for someone else’s machine!). 

The presuppositions: we are inherently rational, and we are only free when we act in accordance with our self-legislating rationality, which means working toward the ideal of a “kingdom of ends”.

For Kant then you are only free when you treat all others as equally free, which means under no circumstances can a human life be treated as anything other than an end in itself.

· This returns us in some ways to Aristotle’s notion of humanity as inherently rational and social, working toward a community of friendship, determined for its own sake, and not as a means to biological needs, commercialism, or military alliances.

· Although there are some important differences: While Kant believes we are inherently rational, he does not believe we are inherently social, which means he has a hard time figuring out those social practices necessary for becoming more rational and concretely building a “kingdom of ends”. Instead we remain abstractly rational without an ability to socially cultivate such.

· Feminist philosophers, among others, will criticize Kant’s framework for failing to recognize our inherently social and embodied nature. Because his abstract reason is divorced from our concrete labors it has a difficult time addressing the real needs for realizing our socially creative bodies in an ethically meaningful way.