M From the Groundwork on, Kant registers a number of complaints against sentimentalism, all of which cluster around what he takes to be the core insight into its inadequacy. No empirical principles can ground moral laws, because moral laws bind all rational beings universally, necessarily, and unconditionally; empirical principles are contingent in various ways, for example, on aspects of human nature G — Variance in moral feelings makes them an inadequate standard of good and evil G Moral feelings cannot be the source of the supreme moral principle, because the supreme moral principle holds for all rational beings, whereas feelings differ from person to person M If duty were grounded in feeling, it would seem that morality would bind some people e.
Even if people were in complete agreement regarding their moral feelings, the universality of these feelings would be a contingent matter, and thus an inadequate ground for the unconditionally binding moral law. Indeed, if morality were grounded in feeling, it would be arbitrary: God could have constituted us so that we would get from vice the pleasurable, calm feelings of approval that we now allegedly get from virtue M So for Kant, the contingency of the ground of obligation offered by moral sense theories renders those theories inadequate; only a priori determining grounds will do.
In his notes Kant remarks that moral sense theories are better understood as providing a hypothesis explaining why we in fact feel approval and disapproval of various actions than as supplying a principle that justifies approval or disapproval or that guides actions NF For this [compassion] is still one of the impulses that nature has implanted in us to do what the representation of duty alone might not accomplish MM Kant, as discussed above, underwent a decisive change of mind about the views of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson.
We can see this opposition at work in their respective accounts of moral judgment and moral motivation. According to Hume, moral judgments typically concern the character traits and motives behind human actions. To make a moral judgment is to detect, by means of a sentiment, the operation of a virtuous or vicious quality of mind. Reason and experience are required for determining the likely effects of a given motive or character trait, so reason does play an important role in moral judgment.
For example, a person might hate or envy the courage of her enemy but this is not necessarily a moral response. On the contrary, rather than eliminating her sentiments, the judicious spectator enlarges them by means of sympathy, which enables her to resent the misery of others or rejoice in their happiness.
Regarding the mechanism of sympathy, see Taylor — Kant offers a very different account of moral judgment. He focuses on the first-person judgments an agent not a spectator must make about how to behave.
In his view, the primary question is whether a particular mode of conduct is permissible, required, or forbidden in light of the moral law, and sentiment or emotion has no authority in this matter. It is an imperative because it commands and constrains us; it is categorical because it commands and constrains us with ultimate authority and without regard to our personal preferences or any empirically contingent ends G — Scholars disagree about the relationship between these two formulations of the CI, as well as their relationship to the other formulations Kant provides.
Kant claims that FUL is the standard everyone actually does employ in moral judgment G ; CPrR , and some scholars defend its primacy e. Others argue in favor of FEI, emphasizing, in particular, its role in the Metaphysics of Morals , where FEI seems to play the fundamental role in guiding judgment about specific ethical duties e. A rational being equipped with a purely formal procedure for testing maxims has all she needs. Yet such passages are misleading when read in isolation.
Second, Kant frequently emphasizes that no formal procedure could specify all the principles for applying higher-order principles. The wider the duty, the more latitude for individual judgment and experience MM For example, without these, one might unable to determine whether a particular act of beneficence is more condescending than kind MM or to prevent friendly banter from sliding into disrespectful mockery MM Proper moral judgment in such circumstances requires attunement to the feelings of others, but also facility with the social conventions that shape the dynamics of personal interaction.
Kant and Hume are clearly opposed on the question of whether reason or feeling has the final say in moral matters. Hume assigns reason to a subordinate role, while Kant takes reason to be the highest normative authority. However, it is important not to misunderstand the nature of their opposition.
This is his main focus. He says relatively little about what is going on in our heads or the surrounding social environment when we actually make moral judgments. As noted above, Kant at least entertained the possibility that sentimentalism provides the correct empirical explanation of why human beings tend to approve or disapprove of the actions and motives that they do NF A similar contrast between Hume and Kant can be found in their respective accounts of moral motivation.
The claim is not that reason has no role in human action, but rather that its role is subordinate to passion. Hume offers three main arguments for this claim in A Treatise of Human Nature.
Abstract or demonstrative reasoning, which involves a priori inferences and judgments pertaining to relations of ideas, cannot influence the will, but only assist us in our pursuit of an end we already have e.
In order to be motivated to act, we must first anticipate pleasure or pain from something. That anticipated pleasure or pain gives rise to feelings of desire or aversion for the object in question. Probable reasoning allows us to discern the causes of this object; our positive or negative feelings about the object then spread to the causes of it; and we are then motivated to pursue or to avoid them. Simply believing that one thing causes another will not motivate action T 2. The only thing that can oppose an impulse to action generated by one passion is a contrary impulse.
Reason, then, could counteract an impulse to action generated by a passion if and only if reason could itself generate a contrary impulse. But from the first argument, we know that that reason cannot generate such an impulse. Hume goes on to say that whatever we feel in us running contrary to an impulse to act that we mistake for reason must be something else, such as a calm passion e. So a passion cannot be contrary to truth and reason.
Passions cannot, strictly speaking, be evaluated as reasonable or unreasonable, despite our practice of calling passions unreasonable or irrational when they depend in some way on poor reasoning or false beliefs. Later in the Treatise , Hume extends this argument to volitions and actions as well T 3. Hume draws some further important, anti-rationalist moral conclusions from this line of thought. One obvious implication is that reason cannot be the motive to moral action; if reason cannot motivate any sort of action, it cannot motivate moral action.
Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of reason. Such actions. G Early in the Groundwork , Kant describes respect in a manner that makes it sound like a felt aspect of the law itself:.
But his subsequent development of respect makes it sound more like a separate feeling, though one arising from reason:. But although respect is a feeling, it is not one received by means of influence; it is, instead, a feeling self-wrought by a rational concept and therefore specifically different from all feelings of the first kind, which can be referred to inclination or fear.
What I cognize immediately as a law for me, I cognize with respect, which signifies merely consciousness of the subordination of my will to a law without the mediation of other influences on any sense.
Immediate determination of the will by means of the law and the consciousness of this is called respect , so that this is regarded as the effect of the law on the subject, and not as the cause of the law. G n; also see In the Groundwork , Kant states:. The phenomenology of respect is unusual, as it involves both pain and pleasure or something like it. However one interprets the phenomenology, respect seems to function as an intermediary between reason and the will.
In other words, we grasp the law by means of reason, are moved to act accordingly, and feel respect as a result of being so moved. Vexingly, both interpretations have a strong textual basis and both have been defended with great skill and insight.
For an excellent discussion of the issues, see Frierson ch. In the Metaphysics of Morals , Kant also describes the motivational role played by additional feelings. He lists moral feeling, conscience, love of human beings, and respect for oneself as special kinds of feelings of which we are made aware only though consciousness of the moral law MM Since our compliance with duty presupposes our having these feelings, there is no duty for us to have them. However, because of their indispensability to human morality, there is a duty to cultivate them.
Speaking of sympathy, which is perhaps the best example of this sort of feeling, Kant says,. MM Such sensibly-grounded feelings can work with rationally-grounded feelings in order to motivate us to act morally. We may cultivate sympathetic feelings from respect for the law, and then find these feelings prompting us to act in certain ways.
In this context, where the focus is on virtue, Kant sounds closer to Hume than he is often taken to be. Kant thinks it can, while Hume does not. However, one must interpret this opposition with care. The crucial difference between them is that Kant believes pure reason capable of producing a motivationally efficacious feeling respect , while Hume believes nothing of the sort. Indeed, feelings appear to be indispensable for human beings and should therefore be cultivated and strengthened through deliberate practice.
Third, one must keep track of the level at which these two philosophers disagree. According to Hume,. To avoid circularity, there must be a motive to virtuous action that does not itself refer to the moral goodness of the act T 3.
The two philosophers do not necessarily disagree here on the empirical question of what actually motivates people. Kant, in fact, seems comparatively skeptical; he expresses doubt that there have ever been human actions motivated from duty alone e. They disagree sharply, however, on the normative question at issue.
By contrast, Hume believes that such actions indicate a character flaw. Indeed, if a person finds she is moved to act only by the sense that the action is good, she may very well reproach herself for a lack of generosity or gratitude, for example, and consequently form a desire to change her character.
Hume and Kant both treat the concepts of virtue and vice as central to human morality. But they differ on the basic nature of virtue, and they present different catalogues of particular virtues and vices. For this reason, Hume seems far more comfortable with the bourgeois virtues integral to successful participation in modern commercial and political society cf. EPM 9. Vices, by contrast, are those traits that generate a displeasing sentiment of disapproval.
The trait of prudence, for example, is a virtue because it tends to be pleasing to such a spectator. In other words, a trait is a virtue only insofar as it tends to provoke the moral sentiment of approval in a properly situated spectator.
If it did not tend to provoke this response, it would not be a virtue. This marks a significant departure from Aristotelian conceptions of virtue Cohon Hume discusses a capacious catalogue of particular virtues and vices. The question is not whether some virtues are fake or phony and others are authentic. The question is whether some depend on social rules and conventions and others do not. Organizing his catalogue by means of this distinction allows Hume to steer a middle path between those who see morality as entirely conventional e.
According to Hume, some virtues do depend on social convention but others do not Cohon — In both cases, he seeks to explain why people tend to develop such traits and why they tend to be pleasing to judicious spectators.
Hume drops the artificial-natural distinction from the second Enquiry , but his investigations there are motivated by the same questions and the resulting view also steers a middle course between Mandeville and Hutcheson. According to the Treatise , artificial virtues include justice, fidelity to promises, allegiance to government, and chastity.
Hume devotes much discussion to justice, which he treats as a paramount and paradigmatic artificial virtue. Hume understands justice primarily as honesty with respect to property or conformity to conventions of property T 3. Establishing a system of property allows us to avoid conflict and enjoy the possession and use of various goods, so the social value of conventions involving property seems obvious.
Yet one reason that justice receives such attention from Hume is that it poses a problem about moral motivation and moral approval. Hume claims that there needs to be a natural non-moral motive for morally good actions, for otherwise they could only be done because they are morally good; and that would be circular, since our judgment of acts as morally good reflects our approval of the motives and traits that give rise to the acts in question T 3. But this position makes it hard to see how justice can be a virtue; for it is hard to find the requisite natural, nonmoral motive for it.
Self-interest is the natural motive that justifies our establishing rules regarding property T 3. Neither public nor private benevolence would do, since neither could motivate all just actions T 3. But since sympathy with the public interest itself seems neither nonmoral nor inherent in human nature, this claim redescribes the problem rather than solves it.
Hume must ground sympathy for the public interest in more obviously natural sentiments, and explain its development from them e. Otherwise, Hume must abandon his claim that all morally good actions—even those associated with artificial virtues—have non-moral, natural motives. See Gauthier ; Mackie ch.
Among the natural virtues, Hume includes beneficence, prudence, temperance, frugality, industry, assiduity, enterprise, dexterity, generosity, and humanity T 3. In the second Enquiry , he distinguishes among virtues useful to others, virtues useful to oneself, virtues immediately agreeable to oneself, and virtues immediately agreeable to others.
Among qualities useful to ourselves are discretion, caution, enterprise, industry, assiduity, frugality, economy, good sense, prudence, discernment EPM 6. Qualities immediately agreeable to oneself include cheerfulness, tranquility, benevolence, and delicacy of taste.
Qualities immediately agreeable to others include good manners, politeness, wit, ingenuity, decency, cleanliness, and a graceful or genteel manner. What holds all these varied traits together as virtues is their evoking the sentiment of approval in spectators, itself grounded in sympathy.
Like Hume, Kant takes virtue to be central to human morality. According to Kant, virtue is the form in which a being with an imperfect or non-holy will expresses her supreme commitment to morality. Second, virtue is a kind of strength. Third, virtue presupposes opposition and entails internal struggle. Kant often seems to identify our inclinations as the primary opponents of morality G: ; V , ; C His considered view, however, is that inclinations are not the source of the problem.
It is because of radical evil that virtue implies struggle and demands strength. The fundamental task of the virtuous person is to achieve the proper ordering of her incentives, giving the moral law undisputed priority over self-love.
Virtue both expresses and promotes inner freedom. These duties are grounded in the moral law, the supreme principle of morality, which impresses itself on imperfect, finite rational beings like us as a categorical imperative.
Whatever duties we have must ultimately derive from this supreme moral principle. As Kant explains,. In accordance with this principle a human being is an end for himself as well as for others, and it is not enough that he is not authorized to use either himself or others merely as a means since he could then still be indifferent to them ; it is in itself his duty to make the human being as such his end. The food arrives in the village but a group of rebels finds out that they have food, and they come to steal the food and end up killing all the children in the village and the adults too.
The intended consequence of feeding starving children was good, and the actual consequences were bad. Kant is not saying that we should look at the intended consequences in order to make a moral evaluation.
Kant is claiming that regardless of intended or actual consequences, moral worth is properly assessed by looking at the motivation of the action, which may be selfish even if the intended consequences are good. One might think Kant is claiming that if one of my intentions is to make myself happy, that my action is not worthy. This is a mistake. The consequence of making myself happy is a good consequence, even according to Kant.
Kant clearly thinks that people being happy is a good thing. There is nothing wrong with doing something with an intended consequence of making yourself happy, that is not selfishness. You can get moral worth doing things that you enjoy, but the reason you are doing them cannot be that you enjoy them, the reason must be that they are required by duty.
Also, there is a tendency to think that Kant says it is always wrong to do something that just causes your own happiness, like buying an ice cream cone. This is not the case. Kant thinks that you ought to do things to make yourself happy as long as you make sure that they are not immoral i. Getting ice cream is not immoral, and so you can go ahead and do it. Doing it will not make you a morally worthy person, but it won't make you a bad person either.
Many actions which are permissible but not required by duty are neutral in this way. It is fine if they enjoy doing it, but it must be the case that they would do it even if they did not enjoy it. The overall theme is that to be a good person you must be good for goodness sake.
His argument for this is summarized by James Rachels as follows:. After all, it is not as though people would stop believing each other simply because it is known that people lie when doing so will save lives. For one thing, that situation rarely comes up—people could still be telling the truth almost all of the time.
Even the taking of human life could be justified under certain circumstances. Take self-defense, for example. Maxims and the universal laws that result from them can be specified in a way that reflects all of the relevant features of the situation. Consider the case of the Inquiring Murderer as described in the text. Suppose that you are in that situation and you lie to the murderer. This maxim seems to pass the test of the categorical imperative.
Procedure for determining whether a proposed action violates CI I am to do x in circumstances y in order to bring about z.
I am to lie on a loan application when I am in severe financial difficulty and there is no other way to obtain funds, in order to ease the strain on my finances. Everyone always does x in circumstances y in order to bring about z. Everyone always lies on a loan application when he is in severe financial difficulty and there is no other way to obtain funds, in order to ease the strain on his finances.
Note: assume that after the adjustment to equilibrium the new law is common knowledge -- everyone knows that it is true, everyone knows that everyone knows, etc. The Kantian evaluation rule is this: we must be able to answer yes to both questions for the maxim to be acceptable. If we get a no answer to either, we must reject the maxim and try to find another one on which to act. This is the example we have been using in spelling out the procedure. The maxim fails because I must answer "no" to the first question: I could not rationally act on the maxim in the PSW.
There are two reasons Kant states for this: 1 promising and 2 the end to be attained by it would be impossible, since no one would believe what was promised him but would laugh at all such utterances as being vain pretenses. Lying on a loan application would not get us anywhere in a world where everyone always lied when under similar circumstances. The second part of the test is the "contradiction in the will test. The next example is supposed to illustrate a failure of this test.
Here the maxim is something like the following:. In order to advance my own interests, I will not do anything to help others in need unless I have something to gain from doing so. The PSW will contain a law of nature of the form:. To advance his own interests, everyone always refrains from helping others in need unless he has something to gain from doing so. Now Kant would say that there is no problem in conceiving such a PSW in fact, those of a cynical bent might think that the PSW is no different from the existing world.
Applying the first question of the procedure, we see that we cannot answer no to the first question: it would be rational in the PSW to follow the maxim if everyone else is doing the same, because in that world everyone is indifferent to the needs of others, so the best way for you to advance your interests is to be likewise indifferent for you will not gain anything through reciprocity of others by departing from the maxim. However, according to Kant the second part of the test fails: I could not rationally choose the PSW, because "a will which resolved itself in this way would contradict itself, inasmuch as cases might often arise in which one would have need of the love and sympathy of others and in which he would deprive himself, by such a law of nature springing from his own will, of all hope of the aid he wants for himself If a maxim flunks Q1 see above then we have a perfect duty to refrain from acting on that maxim.
If a maxim flunks Q2 see above but not Q1 , then we have an imperfect duty to refrain from acting on that maxim. Illustration : We have a perfect duty not to murder.
This means that we must never murder under any circumstances. We have an imperfect duty to help the needy. This means that we should do so on occasion, where this does not conflict with our perfect duties.
Duties Perfect Imperfect. To Others tell truth assist others in need. To Self no suicide or. For instance, consider the question whether we can cognize the I as a substance that is, as a soul. On the one hand, something is cognized as a substance when it is represented only as the subject of predication and is never itself the predicate of some other subject. On the other hand, something can only be cognized as a substance when it is given as a persistent object in an intuition see 2f above , and there can be no intuition of the I itself.
Hence although we cannot help but think of the I as a substantial soul, we can never have cognition of the I as a substance, and hence knowledge of the existence and nature of the soul is impossible. Antinomies arise when reason seems to be able to prove two opposed and mutually contradictory propositions with apparent certainty. Kant discusses four antinomies in the first Critique he uncovers other antinomies in later writings as well.
The First Antinomy shows that reason seems to be able to prove that the universe is both finite and infinite in space and time. The Second Antinomy shows that reason seems to be able to prove that matter both is and is not infinitely divisible into ever smaller parts. The Third Antinomy shows that reason seems to be able to prove that free will cannot be a causally efficacious part of the world because all of nature is deterministic and yet that it must be such a cause.
And the Fourth Antinomy shows that reason seems to be able to prove that there is and there is not a necessary being which some would identify with God.
In all four cases, Kant attempts to resolve these conflicts of reason with itself by appeal to transcendental idealism. The claim that space and time are not features of things in themselves is used to resolve the First and Second Antinomies. Since the empirical world in space and time is identified with appearances, and since the world as a totality can never itself be given as a single appearance, there is no determinate fact of the matter regarding the size of the universe: It is neither determinately finite nor determinately infinite; rather, it is indefinitely large.
The distinction between appearances and things in themselves is used to resolve the Third and Fourth Antinomies. Although every empirical event experienced within the realm of appearance has a deterministic natural cause, it is at least logically possible that freedom can be a causally efficacious power at the level of things in themselves. And although every empirical object experienced within the realm of appearance is a contingently existing entity, it is logically possible that there is a necessary being outside the realm of appearance which grounds the existence of the contingent beings within the realm of appearance.
It must be kept in mind that Kant has not claimed to demonstrate the existence of a transcendent free will or a transcendent necessary being: Kant denies the possibility of knowledge of things in themselves. Instead, Kant only takes himself to have shown that the existence of such entities is logically possible.
In his moral theory, however, Kant will offer an argument for the actuality of freedom see 5c below. The Ideal of Pure Reason addresses the idea of God and argues that it is impossible to prove the existence of God. Reason is led to posit the idea of such a being when it reflects on its conceptions of finite beings with limited reality and infers that the reality of finite beings must derive from and depend on the reality of the most infinitely perfect being.
Of course, the fact that reason necessarily thinks of a most real, necessary being does not entail that such a being exists. Kant argues that there are only three possible arguments for the existence of such a being, and that none is successful. According to the ontological argument for the existence of God versions of which were proposed by St.
Anselm and Descartes , among others , God is the only being whose essence entails its existence. Kant argues that both of these implicitly depend on the argumentation of the ontological argument pertaining to necessary existence, and since it fails, they fail as well.
Although Kant argues in the Transcendental Dialectic that we cannot have cognition of the soul, of freedom of the will, nor of God, in his ethical writings he will complicate this story and argue that we are justified in believing in these things see 5c below. Recall that an analytic judgment is one where the truth of the judgment depends only on the relation between the concepts used in the judgment.
Kant, by contrast argued that mathematical knowledge is synthetic. Recall, however, that a judgment can be both synthetic yet a priori. Like the judgments of the necessary structures of experience, mathematics is also synthetic a priori according to Kant. Surely, this proposition is a priori : I can know its truth without doing empirical experiments to see what happens when I put seven things next to five other things.
If mathematical knowledge is synthetic, then it depends on objects being given in sensibility. And if it is a priori , then these objects must be non-empirical objects. What sort of objects does Kant have in mind here? Recall that an intuition is a singular, immediate representation of an individual object see 2c above.
Empirical intuitions represent sensible objects through sensation, but pure intuitions are a priori representations of space and time as such.
These pure constructions in intuition can be used to arrive at synthetic, a priori mathematical knowledge. And this will be true irrespective of what particular triangle I constructed isosceles, scalene, and so forth. Kant holds that all mathematical knowledge is derived in this fashion: I take a concept, construct it in pure intuition, and then determine what features of the constructed intuition are necessarily true of it.
In addition to his work in pure theoretical philosophy, Kant displayed an active interest in the natural sciences throughout his career. Most of his important scientific contributions were in the physical sciences including not just physics proper, but also earth sciences and cosmology. In Critique of the Power of Judgment he also presented a lengthy discussion of the philosophical basis of the study of biological entities.
Hence, Kant was pessimistic about the possibility of empirical psychology ever amounting to a true science. A few years later, Kant wrote the Physical Monadology , which dealt with other foundational questions in physics see 2a above. This theory can be understood as an outgrowth and consequence of the transcendental theory of experience articulated in Critique of Pure Reason see 2f above. Where the Critique had shown the necessary conceptual forms to which all possible objects of experience must conform, the Metaphysical Foundations specifies in greater detail what exactly the physical constitution of these objects must be like.
The continuity with the theory of experience from the Critique is implicit in the very structure of the Metaphysical Foundations. The basic idea is that each volume of material substance possesses a brute tendency to expand and push away other volumes of substance this is repulsive force and each volume of substance possesses a brute tendency to contract and to attract other volumes of substance this is attractive force.
The repulsive force explains the solidity and impenetrability of bodies while the attractive force explains gravitation and presumably also phenomena such as magnetic attraction.
Further, any given volume of substance will possess these forces to a determinate degree : the matter in a volume can be more or less repulsive and more or less attractive. The ratio of attractive and repulsive force in a substance will determine how dense the body is. Mechanists believed that all physical phenomena could be explained by appeal to the sizes, shapes, and velocities of material bodies.
The Cartesians thought that there is no true difference in density and that the appearance of differences in density could be explained by appeal to porosity in the body.
Similarly, the atomists thought that density could be explained by differences in the ratio of atoms to void in any given volume. Thus for both of these theories, any time there was a volume completely filled in with material substance no pores, no void , there could only be one possible value for mass divided by volume. The Cartesians and atomists took this to be impossible. At the end of his career, Kant worked on a project that was supposed to complete the connection between the transcendental philosophy and physics.
Although Kant never completed a manuscript for this project due primarily to the deterioration of his mental faculties at the end of his life , he did leave behind many notes and partial drafts. Many of these notes and drafts have been edited and published under the title Opus Postumum. In addition to his major contributions to physics, Kant published various writings addressing different issues in the natural sciences. There he argued, against the Cartesian mechanists, that physical phenomena such as fire can only be explained by appeal to elastic that is, compressible matter, which anticipated the mature physics of his Metaphysical Foundations see 4a above.
In his Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens , Kant gave a mechanical explanation of the formation of the solar system and the galaxies in terms of the principles of Newtonian physics.
He proposed that at the beginning of creation, all matter was spread out more or less evenly and randomly in a kind of nebula. Since the various bits of matter all attracted each other through gravitation, bodies would move towards each other within local regions to form larger bodies.
The largest of these became stars, and the smaller ones became moons or planets. Finally, in the second half of Critique of the Power of Judgment , Kant discusses the philosophical foundations of biology by way of an analysis of teleological judgments.
While in no way a fully worked out biological theory per se, Kant connects his account of biological cognition in interesting ways to other important aspects of his philosophical system. For instance, the teeth of an animal are designed to chew the kind of food that the animal is equipped to hunt or forage and that it is suited to digest. In this respect, biological entities bear a strong analogy to great works of art. Great works of art are also organic insofar as the parts only make sense in the context of the whole, and art displays a purposiveness similar to that found in nature see section 7 below.
Second, Kant discusses the importance of biology with respect to theological cognition. In connection with his moral theory and theory of human history see sections 5 and 6 below , Kant will argue that the teleology of nature can be understood as ultimately directed towards a culmination in a fully rational nature, that is, humanity in its future final form.
In virtue of being a rational agent that is, in virtue of possessing practical reason, reason which is interested and goal-directed , one is obligated to follow the moral law that practical reason prescribes. To do otherwise is to act irrationally. So what is this moral law that obligates all rational agents universally and a priori?
The moral law is determined by what Kant refers to as the Categorical Imperative, which is the general principle that demands that one respect the humanity in oneself and in others, that one not make an exception for oneself when deliberating about how to act, and in general that one only act in accordance with rules that everyone could and should obey. Although Kant insists that the moral law is equally binding for all rational agents, he also insists that the bindingness of the moral law is self-imposed : we autonomously prescribe the moral law to ourselves.
Because Kant thinks that the kind of autonomy in question here is only possible under the presupposition of a transcendentally free basis of moral choice, the constraint that the moral law places on an agent is not only consistent with freedom of the will, it requires it.
His arguments from the Groundwork are his most well-known and influential, so the following focuses primarily on them. Kant begins his argument from the premise that a moral theory must be grounded in an account of what is unconditionally good. If something is merely conditionally good, that is, if its goodness depends on something else, then that other thing will either be merely conditionally good as well, in which case its goodness depends on yet another thing, or it will be unconditionally good.
All goodness, then, must ultimately be traceable to something that is unconditionally good. There are many things that we typically think of as good but that are not truly unconditionally good. Beneficial resources such as money or power are often good, but since these things can be used for evil purposes, their goodness is conditional on the use to which they are put.
Strength of character is generally a good thing, but again, if someone uses a strong character to successfully carry out evil plans, then the strong character is not good. Even happiness, according to Kant, is not unconditionally good.
Although all humans universally desire to be happy, if someone is happy but does not deserve their happiness because, for instance, their happiness results from stealing from the elderly , then it is not good for the person to be happy. Happiness is only good on the condition that the happiness is deserved. Kant argues that there is only one thing that can be considered unconditionally good: a good will.
The value of a good will lies in the principles on the basis of which it forms its intentions; it does not lie in the consequences of the actions that the intentions lead to. If a good will is one that forms its intentions on the basis of correct principles of action, then we want to know what sort of principles these are. And since it is unconditional, it holds universally.
A maxim is a general rule that can be used to determine particular courses of actions in particular circumstances. The categorical imperative offers a decision procedure for determining whether a given course of action is in accordance with the moral law. After determining what maxim one would be basing the action in question on, one then asks whether it would be possible, given the power in an imagined, hypothetical scenario , to choose that everyone act in accordance with that same maxim.
If it is possible to will that everyone act according to that maxim, then the action under consideration is morally permissible.
If it is not possible to will that everyone act according to that maxim, the action is morally impermissible. Rather, it would be impossible. Since everyone would know that everyone else was acting according to that maxim, there would never be the presupposition that anyone was telling the truth; the very act of lying, of course, requires such a presupposition on the part of the one being lied to.
Hence, the state of affairs where everyone lies to get out of trouble can never arise, so it cannot be willed to be a universal law. It fails the test of the categorical imperative. The mark of immorality, then, is that one makes an exception for oneself. That is, one acts in a way that they would not want everyone else to. This formal account abstracts from any specific content that the moral law might have for living, breathing human beings. Kant offers a second formulation to address the material side of the moral law.
Kant argues that the moral law must be aimed at an end that is not merely instrumental, but is rather an end in itself. Only rational agents, according to Kant, are ends in themselves. To act morally is thus to respect rational agents as ends in themselves. The basic idea here is that it is immoral to treat someone as a thing of merely instrumental value; persons have an intrinsic non-instrumental value, and the moral law demands that we respect this intrinsic value.
To return to the example of the previous paragraphs, it would be wrong to lie about an adulterous liaison because by withholding the truth one is manipulating the other person to make things easier for oneself; this sort of manipulation, however, amounts to treating the other as a thing as a mere means to the comfort of not getting in trouble , and not as a person deserving of respect and entitled to the truth.
The notion of a universal law provides the form of the categorical imperative and rational agents as ends in themselves provide the matter. Although humanity may never be able to achieve such a perfect state of utopian coexistence, we can at least strive to approximate this state to an ever greater degree. In Critique of Pure Reason , Kant had argued that although we can acknowledge the bare logical possibility that humans possess free will, that there is an immortal soul, and that there is a God, he also argued that we can never have positive knowledge of these things see 2g above.
In his ethical writings, however, Kant complicates this story. He argues that despite the theoretical impossibility of knowledge of these objects, belief in them is nevertheless a precondition for moral action and for practical cognition generally. We will start with freedom. Kant argues that morality and the obligation that comes with it are only possible if humans have free will.
Kant argues that if we presuppose that humans are rational and have free will, then his entire moral theory follows directly. The problem, however, lies in justifying the belief that we are free. The only room for freedom of the will would lie in the realm of things in themselves, which contains the noumenal correlate of my phenomenal self. Since things in themselves are unknowable, I can never look to them to get evidence that I possess transcendental freedom.
Kant gives at least two arguments to justify belief in freedom as a precondition of his moral theory. There is a great deal of controversy among commentators regarding the exact form of his arguments, as well as their success. It will not be possible to adjudicate those disputes in any detail here. See Section 10 References and Further Readings for references to some of these commentaries. In the Groundwork , Kant suggests that the presupposition that we are free follows as a consequence of the fact that we have practical reason and that we think of ourselves as practical agents.
Any time I face a choice that requires deliberation, I must consider the options before me as really open. If I thought of my course of action as already determined ahead of time, then there would not really be any choice to make. Furthermore, in taking my deliberation to be real, I also think of the possible outcomes of my actions as caused by me.
The notion of a causality that originates in the self is the notion of a free will. So the very fact that I do deliberate about what actions I will take means that I am presupposing that my choice is real and hence that I am free.
The position seems to be that I must act as though I am free, but acting as though I am free in no way entails that I really am free. At best, it seems that since I act as though I am free, I thereby must act as though morality really does obligate me. This does not establish that the moral law really does obligate me. In the Second Critique , Kant offers a different argument for the reality of freedom. In other words, all rational agents are at least implicitly conscious of the bindingness of the moral law on us.
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