Discussion Assignment

Notes - Main Ideas in Kant, Part 1

Background on Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who lived and worked in the late 1700s, during the period of the Enlightenment and around the time of the American Revolution.

This was an era when philosophers were interested in defining ethics in a philosophical way, not just based on religion or culture.

As we will see, Kant was very influential in this regard. He defended traditional moral rules like “do not lie” and “do not murder” in new and creative ways that are still used today. He is also famous for his defense of the absolute value of humanity and served as a precursor to the idea of inviolable human rights.

Tips for Reading Kant  

Kant is a smart thinker, but his work can be very challenging to read! This is due to his style of writing and to the many technical terms he uses. Also, our assigned reading moves kind of slow at the beginning, and then gets to some of Kant’s key points towards the end.

My advice is to do the reading with these notes open, so that they can help you follow along with Kant’s main ideas. If things get confusing, you can always turn back to the notes for clarification, and also let them help you focus your greatest attention on the most important parts of the reading.

Action from Duty 

The assigned reading for class is Section 2 of Kant’s essay in Chapter 8 of our course text, so please skip ahead and be sure to start reading there, with the paragraph that begins “If we have hitherto drawn our notion of duty...”

In the reading, Kant is going to defend a number of moral rules that are binding for everyone, regardless of their culture, upbringing, and self-interest.

In the first two paragraphs of Section 2, Kant begins by admitting that it can be hard to tell when a person (including oneself) is acting from moral duty (from obedience to a moral law). In many cases, he notes, people are actually motivated by self-interest or some similar motive. Still, Kant believes it is important to investigate the possibility of moral laws, as he will do in the rest of the reading.

Reason and Experience

Kant’s next main point, which unfolds over several paragraphs, is that we should gain knowledge of moral laws based on pure reasoning, rather than based on experience. The term a priori means “based on pure reason,” so he uses that term a few times as well.

If there is such a thing as true moral laws, Kant explains that they must apply to all people (even, he says, to all “rational beings”), so he concludes that it would be inappropriate to form moral laws based on the experience of one’s own culture, on one’s likes and dislikes, on good examples or role models, or even on generalizations about human nature that hold across many different cultures. Instead, Kant seeks to develop a moral code based on pure reason, apart from any kind of experience.

This may seem pretty audacious, or even unappealing, but Kant does make an attempt at this in the reading, so our best stance for now is probably to watch how he does it and then size up whether his approach is a good one.

At this point, though, one example may help to illustrate what Kant means by a priori, or pure, reason. This is the example of math. We learn math through concrete lessons and experiences in life, but the truths of math themselves strike people as true based on pure reason alone. 2+2=4 seems obviously true, for example, and there is not really a need or a way to go out into the world and “check” whether this is correct.

So, Kant is hoping to develop moral laws that are similar to the truths of math, in that they are clearly true to people who consider them, based on pure reason. 

Imperatives

Kant begins the next stage of his argument in the paragraph that starts “Everything in nature works according to laws.”

In this and the next few paragraphs, Kant explains that humans use reason to think about how to act, but also experience desires and inclinations that move them in certain directions. For example, a person might feel a desire to go back to sleep but know that they should really get up and go to work.

Since people do not always follow their reason, we have the experience of reason “telling” us to do things. This is what Kant calls an imperative.

An imperative is a command of reason to do, or not do, some action.

Since they are commands, imperatives tend to include the words “should,” “shall,” or “ought.” 

Hypothetical and Categorical Imperatives 

Kant goes on to distinguish two kinds of imperatives:

1. Hypothetical imperatives tell people what they should do if they want to achieve a certain goal.

2. Categorical imperatives tell people what they should do, no matter what.

As Kant explains, hypothetical imperatives always refer to a specific goal. They are not absolute commands, but commands that apply as means to a given end.

Some of these relate to a skill or endeavor that a person has chosen to pursue. For example:

· If you want to get better at tennis, you should practice your serve. 

· If you want to pass this course, you should take time to study. 

· If you want to drive to Orlando quickly, you should take the Florida Turnpike. 

Other hypothetical imperatives relate to the goal of happiness. For example:

· If you want to be happy, you should form strong friendships.

· If you want to be happy, you should save money for the future.

In addition to hypothetical imperatives tied to specific goals, Kant also believes reason tells us to do certain things, no matter what. This relates to the topic of ethics. As you can probably guess, Kant connects morality to the idea of a categorical imperative that people should always follow, whatever their other goals or desires may be. So, in the remaining parts of the reading, Kant will defend his views on this topic.

First Form of the Categorical Imperative

Kant holds that there is one fundamental categorical imperative from which all moral rules can be derived. However, he expresses this principle in three different forms, two of which we will be studying in the course. These forms sound pretty different at first, but Kant believes they are related and can help guide us in different situations. 

To rephrase slightly from the reading: 

The first form of the categorical imperative holds that an action is right if it follows a maxim that can be willed as a universal law, and wrong if it follows a maxim that cannot be willed as a universal law.

This is an example of a moral theory since it is presented as an account of what makes any action right or wrong. However, this view includes a few tricky concepts that we will need to unpack to apply and assess it.  

Maxims 

We don’t typically use the word “maxim” in English today, but the word means “policy,” so it can help to keep that in mind. 

When we act, Kant believes that we always follow some policy. In turn, a good way to assess our actions is to uncover and evaluate these policies. 

Kant takes a maxim or policy to involve an action, a set of circumstances, and an intention. In this way, it will complete the following sentence:

I will ____ when ____ in order to ____. 

Of course, we do not consciously stop and recite a statement like every time we act. But Kant’s point is that since we are rational, we do at some level act according to policies. 

For example, some possible maxims are: 

· I will give to charity when I have extra income in order to help others.

· I will steal when I am bored in order to get expensive clothes.

· I will support my children when I am a parent in order to promote their welfare. 

The first step in assessing an action is to figure out the underlying maxim that is at work. Then, we can move on to the next part of Kant’s view.  

Universal Laws

The word “universal” means “applying to everyone.” Kant believes that moral laws are supposed to apply to everyone. So, he asks us to think about which maxims we could accept as rules for everyone to follow. 

He says an action is right if its maxim is a policy we could reasonably as a universal law. In contrast, an action is wrong if we could not its policy as a law for everyone to follow. 

Kant gives some examples in the reading, clearly numbered 1 through 4, to help illustrate his views on this issue, so I encourage you to look at these.

Example 1, concerning suicide at the end of life, is kind of confusing, and some commenters think Kant makes a mistake there. 

However, example 2 is a good illustration of Kant’s view. There, a person is tempted to tell a lie to get a loan, and this may be successful for a person in a single case. However, to act morally, Kant reminds us that we cannot just choose what is convenient on one occasion. Instead, we have to think of what we could as a law for everyone to follow. As Kant explains, a universal practice of lying to get a loan would make the whole practice of loaning money impossible, since banks would just stop issuing loans if people always lied. So, for this reason, it is wrong for even a single person to lie in this way, since they are doing something that they could not as a universal law. 

Similarly, example 4 in the book is a nice illustration of Kant’s view. 

Specifying Maxims

One thing to keep in mind with the first form of the categorical imperative is that we need to determine the maxim of an action in a reasonably general way, to capture the underlying policy that is really at work. 

For example, consider the statement: 

I will visit the Town Center Mall in Boca Raton when it is April 1 in order to buy shoes.

Now, we could not will this statement as a law for everyone in the world to follow. If that were followed, then the mall and in fact the whole city would be impossibly crowded!

However, this is not really the correct way of describing a person’s policy. The more general maxim this person seems to be following is something like:

I will visit a nearby store when I need shoes in order to buy them.

When we think of it this way, then it turns out to be a moral action, since we could easily will this as a universal law for everyone to follow.

Later Parts of the Reading

After discussing his four examples, Kant gives some further reflections on the first form of the categorical imperative and briefly returns to his views on reason and experience. 

Then, starting around the paragraph that begins “Now I say: man and generally any rational being,” Kant moves on to a few further themes. For these last parts of the reading, please see my video and transcript called Main Ideas in Kant, Part 2.

The video considers Kant’s distinction between persons and things, as well as the second form of the categorical imperative, which is stated in italics as the last sentence of our reading (just before the endnotes).

So, I will leave things there for now. Thanks in advance for your patience working through this reading, and if you have any thoughts or questions, you can feel free to let me know.