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Kantian ethics AO1

One concern of intellectuals like Kant during the European enlightenment period was the problem of religious conflict.
Kant thought the issue was basing morality on differing faiths which can’t come to agreement.
His solution was to base morality on reason, which allows the potential for agreement.
This would create a harmonious society.
Kant was impressed at the way scientists like Newton had revolutionised their field through grounding inquiry on reason. Kant wanted to achieve the same for morality.
As the laws of maths and physics show, the laws discovered by reason are universal.
So, morality based on reason will involve universal moral laws which are ‘categorical’, meaning apply in all cases.
An ‘imperative’ is a statement which is moral due to containing terms like ‘should’.
A categorical imperative states what we should do in all cases.
A hypothetical imperative states what we should do in order to achieve certain goals. E.g., ‘you should do X if you want Y’. They are therefore dependent on our personal goals/desires/wants.
Universal laws apply in all cases so much be categorical. They can’t be ‘hypothetical’, meaning conditional on our personal feelings, consequences or the particularities of a moral situation. So, Kant rejects hypothetical imperatives as not genuine morality.
Only categorical imperatives are valid. They are of the form ‘you should do X’.
Kant thought there was only one categorical imperative, but it comes in 3 formulations.
A universal moral law would be something everyone could follow. So, a good test of whether an action accords with the moral law is to check whether everyone could do it. This is the first formulation of the CA – only do an action if it is universalizable – if it is possible for everyone to do it.
E.g. It’s not actually possible for everyone to steal, since if everyone stole there’d be no property and then no one could steal.
E.g. It’s not possible for everyone to lie, since if everyone lied there’s be no honesty/trust, and then no one could lie.
If it’s not possible for everyone to do an action, then that action can’t be part of the universal moral law since that must apply to everyone in all situations.
The second formulation – always treat persons, never merely as a means but always at the same time as an end.
Always treat people as if they have their own goals in life.
The third formulation – just act as if you were part of a society where everyone was following Kant’s ethics.
Kant has strict views about moral motivation. A “good will” is one which has the right moral motivation. We must do our duty out of a sense of duty – not because of our own personal feelings or desires. E.g. we should give to charity because it’s our duty – not because we feel sympathy.
The three postulates.
Kant thinks ethics can’t make sense without free will, because then there would be no such thing as moral responsibility. It is what separates us from animals and explains why humans can be morally bad, but animals cannot.
Kant noted that in life, sometimes bad people go unpunished and good people go unrewarded.
He argued ethics cannot make sense unless we postulate the existence of an afterlife where virtuous people are rewarded and unvirtuous punished. Reward in the afterlife is the ‘summum bonum’.
Our reason tells us there is an objective ethics which we must follow. Yet, for it to make sense, we must postulate:
Free will.
Immortality of the soul (afterlife)
God
Kant didn’t think we could prove these things, but he said we have to assume they exist in order for the ethics we know to be valid to make sense. This is what is meant by a ‘postulate’.
for us to be morally responsible and deserving of punishment/reward.

Clashing duties

Sartre claimed duties can clash.
A soldier could either go to war to defend their country, or they could stay home and look after their sick parent.
Both actions are universalizable and neither treats persons as mere means, therefore both actions are their duty according to Kant’s ethics.
Yet, they cannot do both.
Prima facie duties clashing appears like a practicality issue, showing Kantian ethics to be overly abstract and disconnected from the reality of moral decision-making. Closer analysis shows it to present a deeper problem than that.
We must be capable of doing an action for it to be our duty. Kant himself said ‘ought implies can’.
If maxims clash and one cannot be followed, then it can’t be our duty.
So, if those duties were obtained through Kant’s formula of the categorical imperative, then Kant’s ethical theory cannot tell us our duty.
This suggests Kantian ethics fails in its aim as a normative theory, to identify what is morally right and guide action accordingly.

Counter

Kant responds that some duties are ‘perfect’, where there is only one means of fulfilling it, e.g. always telling the truth.
Cases like the soldier that appear to clash involve ‘imperfect duties’, where there are multiple ways to fulfil them.
E.g. the soldier could help his country by staying home and making bombs
Or, they could pay someone else to look after their sick parent.
So Kant’s response is that imperfect duties don’t clash because you can find a way to fulfil both.

Evaluation

However, Kant’s defence fails because there are situations where we can’t fulfil both imperfect duties.
E.g. What if the soldier had no way to get anyone else to look after their sick parent – and what if their country didn’t need anyone else to stay home to make bombs..? Then the duties do clash.
So, Kantian ethics cannot tell us our duty and thus fails in its primary objective.

Kant ignoring the moral value of emotions

Michael Stocker asks us to imagine a friend visiting you while you are in hospital saying they only came because it was their duty.
B. Williams argues such cases show how Kantian morality is unnatural and requires “one thought too many”. When doing good, a virtuous person need not be thinking about moral laws. They simply do good out of habit.
Stocker argues that if we act out of duty, it’s not possible to also act out of virtuous habits like friendliness or love. These are vital to our humanity and the means by which we ethically relate to others, yet Kant excludes them.

Counter:

A strength of Kant’s approach is that emotions are transient and fickle. Kant uses this to argue emotions are too unreliable for ethical motivation. Reason’s ability to produce respect for the moral law is more stable.
For Kant, acting on emotion isn’t morally wrong, it just can’t be morally good. His argument is that when we act on emotion, our action depends on the way we feel. If we help others because we feel like it, then we aren’t helping others because it is good.
Barbara Herman interprets Kant’s issue as that emotions can only lead to a right action by luck.
Kant concludes we aren’t really acting morally unless we act out of duty.

Evaluation

However, Kant’s defence is unsuccessful.
Emotions can be unreliable, but Aristotle argued we can develop good emotional & behavioural habits. Aristotle called this cultivating virtue. We can rationally control of our emotions, and then they can be relied on to motivate us in moral situations.
E.g., cultivating the virtue of friendliness and acting out of love when visiting a friend in hospital. Emotion can be the reliable result of the rational cultivation of virtue and thus have moral value. So, Kant’s views on emotion & moral motivation are unconvincing.

Kant vs consequentialism

Kantian ethics violates our moral intuitions because of the terrible consequences to telling the truth in some situations.
Benjamin Constant created the murderer at the door scenario. If a murderer asked us where their victim was, and we knew, Constant argued we should lie. Telling the truth seems situational, not an absolute duty.
To use a more modern example, if a Nazi asked whether we were hiding Jews and we were, it seems Kant is committed to the view that it’s wrong to lie. In that situation even if we said nothing we would reveal the truth, lying is the only hope.
If successful, this issue would show that Kant’s deontological approach fails and consequentialism seems stronger. Morality can’t reduce to acting on a universal duty regardless of the situation.
So, if Kant is indeed wrong to leave out consequences, that would show that Kantian ethics is false.

Counter

Kant defends himself by presenting the issue of calculation as a strength of his deontological approach.
Kant illustrates that if we lied about where the victim was, yet unknown to us the victim had actually moved there, then we would be responsible for their death.
We cannot control consequences, so we cannot be responsible for them. So, they cannot be relevant to our moral decision-making.

Evaluation

However, Kant’s logic is flawed. He claims we cannot completely control consequences and thus cannot be responsible for them.
The truth seems to be, however, that we can control consequences to some degree. It seems to follow that we are responsible for them to that degree.
Consequentialism doesn’t claim we can completely control the consequences, just that we should consider them when acting.
So, although we can’t perfectly predict or control what the murderer will do, we have what Singer calls a ‘reasonable expectation’ about the consequences and so it is reasonable to act with them in mind and lie.
Kant’s argument against consequentialism fails to address this.

Question preparation

Key paragraphs:

AO1 for Kantian ethics
Clashing duties
The issue of emotions
The issue of consequences

Question types:

“Kantian ethics is too reliant on reason, it fails to take empathy and love into account.” – Discuss [40]

The moral value of emotions
Kant vs consequentialism – it is empathy/sympathy that prompts us to lie to save a life – so emotions show that consequences are ethically relevant.
Clashing duties – If duties clash – e.g. in Sartre’s ‘soldier’ example, that suggests we can’t rely on abstractly determining our duty, and so emotions may be a better guide in practical reality.
If you want to do a really good essay, it could be worth learning Hume’s meta-ethical views – that we simply are unable to act without emotion.

Questions could be focused on:

Duty (the good will – ‘duty for duty’s sake’)
Hypothetical & categorical imperatives
The three formulations of the categorical imperative
The three postulates (Freedom, immortality & God).

Is Kant correct that consequences are irrelevant to the morality of an action? [40]

Kant vs consequentialism –
The moral value of emotions – It’s inhuman to act without emotion, actually acting on emotions can be good, and emotions often relate to the consequences of actions. E.g. we visit a friend in hospital to cheer them up – to produce good consequences.
Clashing duties – The fact that duties clash, shows that Kant’s deontological approach fails, and we should therefore favor a consequentialist approach which would e.g. weigh up the pleasure/pain and decide which action to do on that basis. E.g. the soldier staying home might make his relative happy, but if his country loses the war that would be much worse.

“Kant’s three postulates must be accepted in obeying a moral command” – Discuss. [40]

This question would be crazily hard. Here’s a basic way you could do it:
Kant’s argument is that reason tells us there is an objective ethics, which is to follow the categorical imperative. Yet, this can’t make sense unless we postulate free will, God and immortality.
So, for the categorical imperative to make sense at all, Kant says we need the three postulates.
However, postulating those three things is only necessary if the categorical imperative actually does make the sense Kant thinks it does.
Kant’s ethics faces criticism, however, which suggests it’s not the valid objective ethics he thought, and therefore we don’t need the three postulates.
One way in which the categorical imperative and thus the three postulates is undermined is: Kant vs consequentialism –
Another way in which the categorical imperative and thus the three postulates is undermined is: Clashing duties
Another way in which the categorical imperative and thus the three postulates is undermined is: The moral value of emotions

3 postulates and the consequentialism debate:

Kant’s claim that the postulates are necessary for morality assume that his duty-based ethical theory is the correct one. The murderer at the door scenario evokes a strong ethical intuition against deontology, however … It suggests consequentialist approaches are more intuitive. Theories like utilitarianism don’t require the postulates. Bentham was an atheist and rejected free will. This suggests the three postulates are not necessary for ethics.

Kant responds: calculation issue – consequentialism wrong form of ethics – duty is right

But: he fails

So: 3 postulates unnecessary for ethics – because Kant had the wrong kind of ethics in mind, as shown by the ethically absurd judgements his theory led to in cases like the murderer at the door.

Weirdly worded questions:

Is Kantian ethics too abstract? [40]

Too abstract means theoretical – too detached from practical reality – failing to take practical things into account, such as:
Clashing duties – Kantian ethics too abstract because: in practical reality, duties can clash
The moral value of emotions – Kantian ethics too abstract because: not taking into account the practical reality of human emotions & desires, Kant takes too logical and robotic an approach

Kant vs consequentialism – Kantian ethics too abstract because: he’s only focused on the action rather than the practical results of the action, which can mean people might be harmed. E.g. murderer at the door.