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1. A Scandal in Philosophy

1. Something was drastically wrong with philosophy if between them the two major schools of philosophy denied the importance of perception (Descartes), denied the possibility of knowledge of causes and effect (Hume), denied the verifiable existence of the external world (Locke, Berkeley, and Hume), and rendered reason impotent as a motivator of human affairs (Hume).

1. Why didn’t Kant accept the supremacy of science and let philosophy die of irrelevance? Kant found this course unsatisfying for the following reasons:

1. Science was revealing a mechanistic universe which would be shown to follow universal, unchanging laws of nature.

1. If such a picture is accurate then God is unnecessary, free will is an illusion, and morality is impossible. Kant wanted to keep these elements in his philosophy.

1. Was it possible to synthesize science with the good parts of rationalism and empiricism in a way that would give a rational account of the world without stripping it of its moral dignity? Kant set out to do this.

1. Kant’s Copernican Revolution

1. The mind imposes underlying structures on sensations and perceptions.

1. This structure is the formal component of knowing.

1. Neither reason by itself or sense experience by itself can give us knowledge of the external world. Knowledge is the result of the interaction between the mind and sense experience.

1. Kantian formalism – knowledge and sense experience are shaped by special regulative ideas called categories (later on in the chapter they will be called transcendental ideas).

1. Descartes had not understood that scientific method is both empirical and rational.

1. The empiricists were guilty of a similar error by discounting the importance of reason.

1. Kant believed that knowledge consisted of both a rational and perceptional component.

1. In the copy theory truth occurs when ideas of the mind agree with external conditions or objects. According to Kant the problem with it is that it only applies to particular object. e.g. this apple falls.

1. Kant realized that if all knowledge fit that model we could only study individual phenomena, we could never discover the laws of nature. e.g. the law of gravity applies to all apples.

1. According to Kant, knowledge is a kind of interaction between the knower (subject) and the known (object). This happens in a scientific experiment in which the knower (scientist) performs on the the known (the experiment itself).

1. Kant was starting a Copernican revolution in philosophy by assuming that instead of the mind having to conform to what can be known, what can be known must conform to the mind.

1. Critical Philosophy

1. By concentrating on the mind’s rational function Descartes ignored its organizing function.

1. This caused him to generate conclusions that did not square with experience.

1. Hume demonstrated the important sense experience and the limits of a priori knowledge.

1. However, Hume confused knowledge that was triggered by experience with knowledge that was based on experience.

1. Kant raised the possibility the mind might interact with and add something to the raw data of experience.

1. Kant asked does the mind have the capacity for a priori knowledge, which is knowledge derived from reason without reference to sense experience. Kant’s answer to that was yes it does.

1. Kant proposed a critical examination of metaphysics which is whatever lies beyond immediate experience.

1. Critical philosophy – Kant’s effort to assess the nature and limits of pure reason (reason unadulterated by experience).

1. Kant wanted to identify the actual relationship of the mind to knowledge.

1. Phenomena and Noumena

1. According to Kant our knowledge is formed by two things, our actual experiences and our mind’s faculties of judgment (reason).

1. Phenomenal reality – the world as we experience it.

1. Noumenal reality – reality that is independent of our perceptions.

1. All we can know is what we perceive, however, because the faculty of understanding is uniform, all functioning minds place the same basic order on experience.

1. We can never know noumena independent of ourselves because in the act of imposing order, the mind changes noumena to a comprehensible form.

1. Why make the distinction between phenomena and noumena if we can never experience noumena?

1. To show the limits of human understanding.

1. To establish a foundation for a moral philosophy capable of preserving our moral autonomy in the face of onslaughts from science and Humean philosophy. This is found in noumena.

1. Transcendental Ideas

1. Kant said that even though we cannot directly experience noumena, special class of transcendental ideas bridge the gap between the phenomenal and noumenal worlds.

1. Transcendental ideas are triggered by sense experience when we rely on them to impose unity on the totality of our experiences.

1. Kant said that without transcendental ideas we could experience the raw data of sense experience.

1. Kant identified three transcendental ideas and also called them regulative ideas because they regulated experience on a grand scale. They are as follows.

3. Self – the “I” itself, viewed as thinking nature or soul.

3. Cosmos – lends unity to experience by synthesizing all events into a single totality (the world in general)

3. God – the highest intelligence that is the sole and sufficient cause of everything.

1. According to Kant there is no way to empirically verify the existence of the self, the cosmos and God. They are known through the operation of reason only and, therefore, are real. However, they are not known through sense experience.

1. Keep in mind that transcendental ideas, pure reason, and a priori ideas are all the same thing.

1. The Objectivity of Experience

1. According to Kant there must be an objective distinction between how the world seems to us and how the world is in order for us to have any experience at all.

1. To Kant a unity of self must exist prior to any empirical verification.

1. I can only be aware of my identity through time if I situate myself in a world of actually existing things that endure through time.

1. These things have the ability to exist other than how I perceive them, thus they must exist objectively.

1. The Metaphysics of Morals

1. We have a phenomenal self that falls under the laws of nature and a noumenal self that is free.

1. Because we have a noumenal self we are free and morally responsible.

1. However, from the scientific view of life we cannot experience our freedom, we can only think of it.

1. Science describes the phenomenal world but it cannot deal with the noumenal world.

1. Theoretical reasoning – is confined to the empirical phenomenal world. It concludes that human beings are governed by cause and effect in the form of inescapable laws of nature and physics. There is no freedom and, thus, no morality on that level.

1. Practical reason – begins with knowledge about moral conduct and produces religious feelings and intuitions. It helps us deal with the moral freedom provided by free will.

1. Natural causes and sensations cannot not account of people being under a moral duty. Moral duty comes from within and comes from being rational.

1. We do not act from impulses and desires alone, we also act from conscious choice based on our general principles. e.g. you can choose to pay a friend back money you borrowed from him because you ought to even though you would rather spend the money on a CD.

1. The Moral Law Within

1. For Kant, morality is a function of reason.

1. Specifically, morality is based on our consciousness of necessary and universal moral laws.

1. Since only a priori judgments are universal and necessary moral judgments must be a priori. This is why empiricists could not discover them.

Thus moral law cannot be found in actual behavior. It is a function of reason, how we think.

1. Only rational creatures are moral and can be held morally accountable.

1. Morality is absolutely necessary for human relations.

1. The very essence of moral judgment involves duty.

1. We think of moral judgments as concerned with how people ought to behave.

1. Practical reason deals with human behavior and relationships by continually monitoring how we ought to behave and generates universal principles that apply to everyone’s behavior in similar circumstances at all times.

1. The Good Will

1. For Kant goodness depends not on our behavior but on our will, on what we indend to do if circumstances do not prevent it.

1. Kant believed that morality was entirely a matter of reason and good will and not a matter of consequences. e.g. I may want to minister to the sick but may be physically or financially unable.

1. According to Kant I must not be judged on the consequences of what I actually do but on my reasons. Put in another way, morality is a matter of motives.

1. However, we must not confuse the good will with halfhearted good wishes. We only have the good will when we summons all the means within our power to do something good.

1. Inclinations, Wishes, Acts of Will

1. Inclinations – actions based on impulse or desire.

1. According to Kant morality cannot be reduced to inclinations because inclinations are notoriously unreliable.

1. Inclinations are not products of reason at all. e.g. infants, dogs and cats have very strong inclinations but they cannot act from a will because they cannot reason.

1. Willing something to happen involves us committing ourselves wholeheartedly, consciously, and consistently, regardless of our inclinations and desires.

1. For Kant acting from a will means acting from internal commands that are the result of rational deliberation.

1. Moral Duty

1. Kant thought it was crucially important to distinguish moral motives from other motives.

1. Doing things from self-interest do not constitute good will. Only when I do a thing solely because it is my duty do I have a good will.

1. Duty excludes consideration of personal preferences of profit from moral calculation.

1. Duty involves the necessity of acting from the respect for moral law and reason that is needed to determine what the moral law is.

1. Duty overpowers our inclinations. e.g. If I tell my boss the truth when she asks me whether I criticized her, and I do it because I believe someone else already told her, I do not receive moral credit because my decision is based on something other than moral duty.

1. Moral duty must be based on what the universal moral obligations of people in similar circumstances are. It cannot be based on what I want to do or what I like.

1. Hypothetical Imperatives

1. Kant argues that the quality of a moral act is determined by the principle to which the will consciously assents. e.g. If I intend to feed the hungry and mistakenly serve tainted meat at a charity dinner my intention is still praiseworthy.

1. Since they effect behavior moral principles are always framed as commands. Kant refers to these commands as imperatives. An example of an imperative is “shut the door.”

1. Hypothetical imperatives – imperatives that tell us what to do under specific, variable conditions. They take the form of if this, then that. e.g.. If it rains then postpone the picnic.

1. No hypothetical imperative is binding on everyone all of the time. When conditions change so do hypothetical imperatives.

1. Although hypothetical imperatives help us deal with life they cannot serve as the basis of moral duty.

1. The Categorical Imperative

1. According to Kant what is needed is a categorical imperative, a command that is universally binding on rational creatures.

1. This alone can guide the good will.

1. Moral duty must be universally and not conditionally binding.

1. Acting from duty is always based on the law in general.

1. We act only according the principles that apply to everyone. e.g. I tell the truth because I have a basic general obligation to tell the truth - period.

1. Kant’s definition of the Categorical Imperative – act as if the maxim (law created) of thy action were to become s universal law of nature. In other words, we should act only in accordance with principles we think should apply to everyone. e.g. we would not want the maxim lie when it suits our purpose to become universal law.

1. The universal law in question should come from our own rational, willing assent and should not be imposed on us from the outside.

1. The Kingdom of Ends

1. Kant believed that as conscious, rational creatures, we each possess and intrinsic worth that always deserves respect.

1. The Kingdom of Ends – a kingdom where everyone is an end in himself or herself and no one is just a means to be used and tossed aside. We are more than objects to be used to further this or that end.

1. The ability to reasons carries with it the obligation to respect the right of others to reason for themselves.

1. We possess intrinsic worth (moral dignity) just because we can reason. It doesn’t matter how likable, talented, attractive, etc. we are.

1. Practical imperative (principle of dignity) – act in such a way that you always treat humanity never simply as a means but always at the same time and end. e.g. If students are viewed by a teacher as only a way to make a living or to indoctrinate with the teacher’s views, then they are treated as a means to an end rather than as an end in themselves.

1. However, we can treat someone as a means if we also treat them as an end. The rules says we can’t treat others simply as an end. e.g. the teacher treats the students as an end, by teaching them, but also as a means, by being paid. That is permissible under the rule.

1. A Kantian Theory of Justice

1. John Rawls – fundamental principles of justice are principles that free and rational persons would agree to if they were in an original position of equality.

1. Rawls gets us in an original position of equality through a thought experiment – we think rather than field test a hypothesis using reasoned imagination to provide the necessary conditions for the experiment and then reasoning out the most likely consequences according to our hypothesis.

1. Original position of equality – imaginary setting in which we can identify the fundamental principles of justice from an objective perspective as rational agents rather than as interested parties.

1. According to Rawls, we enter the original position of equality by placing ourselves behind a veil of ignorance – a problem solving device which prevents us from knowing the social status and the like.

1. Any rational agent that were placed in an original position of equality would agree to two principles, 1.) everyone has the basic right to the most extensive liberty compatible with similar liberty for others, 2.) any social and economic inequalities must be such that they are both reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage and attached to positions that are open to all.

1. Whenever social institutions satisfy these principles those engaged in them can say that they are cooperating in terms to which they would agree if they were free and equal persons whose relationships to one another were fair.

1. What About Family Justice?

1. Susan Moller Okin – no adequate theory of justice can fail to include an analysis of the family since the family is still the primary shaper of personality as well as attitudes of self-respect, gender and ethnicity. Justice cannot be separated from considerations of justice for each specific member of the family.

1. Olin argues that Rawls analysis of justice is ambiguous regarding gender because he rarely indicates how deeply and pervasively gender is structured into this society.

1. Commentary

1. Kant remains the major figure in modern philosophy.

1. Part of Kant’s power is his deep sense that it is wrong to make ourselves an exception in moral matters.

1. Kant’s philosophy is sometimes criticized for exempting us of responsibility for the consequences of our actions.

1. Should you always act according to the Categorical Imperative? The Categorical Imperative would probably say you should pay off your debts. However, should you pay back a loan to your friend if he shows up at your house with a drug dealer wanting to by heroin?

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