Ethics Paper

11/2/2020 Topic: KANT: BIO & PHILOSOPHY

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KANT: BIO & PHILOSOPHY

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Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was born in Königsberg , East Prussia. At the age of 16 he entered the University of Königsberg and eventually became expert in several subjects. After the death of his father he took a position as a tutor and made the grand tour of Europe. In 1755 he returned to Königsberg, for life, and took a teaching position at the university. He taught many subjects in both the Natural and Cultural sciences and was once actually offered the Chair of Poetry. He refused this but later accepted the chair of Philosophy. For most of his career he followed the standard philosophical thought of his day. However, Kant credited the work of David Hume (1711– 1776) with disrupting his “dogmatic slumber" and setting his thinking on an entirely new path.

To better understand the results of this new line of thought, we should briefly consider the “dogma” in question, and Hume’s attack on it. David Hume was an exponent of empiricism, a doctrine opposed to rationalism. For empiricists, all knowledge is derived from sense experience, and, therefore, the subjective perspectives of observers can never be entirely overcome. According to this position, rationalist efforts to circumvent the senses by relying on reason alone are bound to fail. Reason can contribute to knowledge, but only by relating ideas to one another, as ideas are ultimately based on sense impressions.

Hume was especially effective in drawing out the skeptical implications of the empiricist position. For example, he argued that the concept of causality could not legitimately be inferred from experience. In a famous case, he was shown several billiard balls in a particular arrangement on a table. The cue ball was then struck and a very predictable causal chain was then played out (the cue ball hit another ball which caused a third ball to move). Hume calmly observed this and then stated; "I see event A and event B and event C but I do not see causality" (Meaning that he did not see the concept of causality in itself but only the empirical movements of the billiard balls). Kant found Hume’s attack on causality particularly worrisome because it threatened the basic metaphysical categories of Time, Space, and Causation which all humans rely on to make sense of their lives.

In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant lays out his response to this philosophical dispute. Kant sees the force of the skeptical objections to rationalism and therefore aims to re-establish some of the claims of reason on firmer ground. Kant agreed with Hume that we could not know the concept of causality in itself. However, he thought it possible to draw general conclusions about the sensible world by giving an account of how the human mind structures all experience. In other words, he saw the human mind as having a sort of filter within it which

11/2/2020 Topic: KANT: BIO & PHILOSOPHY

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presented all sense experience in terms of the concepts of Time, Space, and Causation. This being similar to how a pair of rose colored sun glasses filters the light in a way which makes all objects look rosy.

Kant compares his metaphysical studies to those of Copernicus, who revolutionized the study of astronomy by accounting for the position of the observer of the celestial bodies. Analogously, Kant aims to revolutionize metaphysics by accounting for the structure of the human mind that apprehends nature. According to Kant, the sensible world has certain features that can be known a priori, not because these are features of the objects in themselves, but, rather, because they are features of human understanding. We can know a priori that all objects will exist in space and time because this is simply how the human mind works. Thus we cannot ever conceive of any object that exists that does not exist in space and time. Thus, on the Kantian view, human understanding becomes the legislator of nature because the laws of nature we perceive in the world are put there by our own minds.

According to Kant, ethics, like metaphysics, is a priori, meaning that our moral duty is determined independently of empirical considerations. Kant’s ethics can therefore be contrasted with ethical views such as utilitarianism that hold that the morality of acts is derived from their consequences. In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant outlines his fundamental ethical principle, which he calls the “Categorical Imperative.” The principle is “imperative” because it commands, and it is “categorical” because it does so unconditionally, that is, irrespective of the particular inclinations and circumstances of the actor. This principle is given by reason and states that we may act only in such a way that the maxim of our action, i.e. the principle governing our action, could be willed as universal law. For example, one is forbidden to act on the maxim “lie whenever it provides an advantage” because such a maxim would destroy trust among humans, and with it the possibility of gaining any advantage from lying.

This leads to one of the standard criticism of Kant's ethical philosophy. For if lying violates the Categorical Imperative suppose one were to get into a situation where they were hiding innocent human beings from a serial killer. Would it then be wrong to lie to the serial killer about where these people are? This is what is known as "The Sound of Music Dilemma." For in the film the Mother Superior of a convent lies to the Nazis in order to protect the Von Trapp family. And, in its context, this sort of a lie seems quite appropriate. However, for Kant lying violates the Categorical Imperative (therefore, Kant would see the mother superior giving up the Von Trapp family to the Nazis to be a moral act when it quite clearly is not).

Natural Law's Doctrine of Double Effect deals with this problem by looking at both the nature of the intent of the person involved and the moral weight of each act. And, as telling a small lie out of a good intention clearly is not as evil of an act as destroying innocent human life out of a bad intention, the mother superior's act of misleading the Nazi is clearly the more moral choice in this situation.

11/2/2020 Topic: KANT: BIO & PHILOSOPHY

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