Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. First Section: 393-405; Second Section: 406-441.
(page numbers refer to the numbers in the margins so that anyone, regardless of the edition, can follow)
In this reading guide, I outline the bare bones of Kants argument. This is not an explanation of the argument, only a simpler restatement of the argument. We still need to figure out what it means.
Method: the method of the first two sections is what Kant calls analytical. Kant begins with what he considers to be commonly held beliefs about morality then analyses the meaning of these beliefs through the question, what would have to be the case if these beliefs were true? Thus, it is a reconstruction of the moral law given what we know about ordinary moral intuition. Note: it is not a proof of the existence of the moral law.
First Section: Transition from the Ordinary Rational Knowledge of Morality to the Philosophical
-- Everyday moral understanding holds that the only thing that can be good in itself is a good will.
-- What do we think of as a good will? In the case of the man who saves the child for a reward and the one who saves the child out of duty, we think of the second action as being done by a good will. If we take this intuition to its logical conclusion it reveals that acts motivated by anything other than pure duty cannot be said to be done by a good will thus cannot have moral value (397-399).
-- Thus a good will is one that acts out of duty and not inclination, interest, or any other empirical motive. A good will is one that always acts on the principle of doing ones duty whatever that duty may be. (399).
-- If we look deeper into the principle of doing ones duty whatever the duty may be we see that what is important about it is not the content of the principle (it has no content, it does not actually tell you what to do) but simply its form, or the fact that it is a rule. To have a rule (or law as Kant says), whatever that rule is, is to commit yourself to some course of action regardless of how you will feel tomorrow, the next day or the next or how circumstances in the real world will change; it is to act upon a principle that stands above the contingencies of the world.
-- It is the idea of law -- its meaning -- and not a particular law that is embodied in the empty principle of doing ones duty whatever that duty may be (pp. 400 - 402).
-- But how can we act according to the idea of a law and not a particular law? Acting according to a law is acting according to a principle that stands above contingencies, that is acting according to a principle that could hold in all times, places and circumstances. What do we call a principle that could hold in all times, places, and circumstances? We call it a universal law.
-- Thus Kant arrives at the first formulation of the moral law: I ought never to act in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become universal law (pg 402).
Second Section: Transition from Popular Moral Philosophy to Metaphysics of Morals.
-- Kant does not really renew the argument until half-way through 412 (Everything in nature works...). The first six pages of the second section argue once again for a metaphysics of morals (i.e., a purely a priori ethical law) that takes place at a higher level than popular philosophy and then furnishes a review of the arguments in section one.
Objective principles of reasons: principles upon which a perfectly rational being would necessarily act (e.g., God, angels, an android)
Subjective principles of action (maxims): principles upon which we in fact act. If reason were our only guide, then the objective principles of reason would also be subjective principles of action. But no human being is perfectly rational. We all have inclinations, desires, etc. which also influence our will. Therefore, what would be a necessary law for perfectly rational agents becomes contingent in us because it depends on our choosing it over our inclinations as the guide to action. Thus, what would be objectively necessary for a perfectly rational being is for us, subjectively contingent.
e.g.: the proposition, A cannot be in two different places at the same time is an objectively valid truth. However, it is not difficult to imagine some particular person promising to visit her mother and go to a movie with a friend on the same day at the same time (Could a perfectly rational being do this?).
Objective principles when formulated into commands are imperatives.
e.g.: objective principle: A cannot be in two different places at the same time.
imperative: I ought not to promise my mother and my friend to be with them in two different places at the same time.
hypothetical imperative (HI): a command that is rational given a particular end; e.g., If I want x and I know that y is the only way to get x then rationally I should do y, If I want a PhD then the only rational thing for me to do is go to graduate school. The rationality of the command can be judged only in relation to the end. It would make no sense to say that going to graduate school was rational in itself (!) And it would be irrational to go to graduate school if you were interested in becoming a world famous race car driver. Thus, the command I should go to graduate school is rational only in so far as it is a means to a particular end. Another way to say this: hypothetical imperatives always have hidden if clause: I should go to graduate school (if I want a PhD).
categorical imperative (CI): a command that is an end in itself. There is no conditional (if...then...) involved in such commands. They are self-contained and unconditional. For example, Thou shalt not kill, as it is found in Exodus, is a CI (although not a Kantian type CI). It is not justified by appeal to some further good or end that will come about if it is followed. Killing is wrong and thats that says the Lord! If the CI must be unconditionally valid (being based on an objective principle of reason and thus valid regardless of anything that happens in the world) then it must be a universal law. Therefore, if I am to act according to the CI, I must take as the maxim of my action something that could be made into a universal law.
the first formulation of the CI (universal law formulation): Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law, (421)
- Universal laws which govern events in the world are usually called natural laws hence the second formulation of the CI (natural law formulation): Act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature,(421).
- These then, become the test for moral action. When you want to do something, you formulate the desired action into a principle (maxim) and then you imagine that principle being a universal law or a law of nature. If there is something contradictory about willing the principle or in a world governed by it then it should not be the maxim of your action.
- Following these first two formulations, Kant runs through four illustrations of how such a law would work (pp. 422-444).
- Kant then argues (pp. 427-429) that every action has two parts, the principle or maxim that motivates (determines) the action and the end to which the action strives. Now, if in moral action the principle must be a priori and purely rational so too must the end. That is, the end pursued by morality cannot be something contingent; it must be an end in itself - an end worth achieving for its own sake. There is only one thing that can be considered an end in itself and that is humanity itself. This means that each human being has immeasurable worth and all morally valid action must respect that worth. This argument leads into the next formulation of the CI.
third formulation of the CI (end in itself formulation): So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the one time as an end, never merely as a means (429).
-- Again, Kant runs through the illustrations to show how this would work (pp. 429-430)
Dignity: Kant argues that humans have dignity by which he means that their worth is immeasurable. One cannot put a price tag on a human life (434-435). One scholar has described Kants defence of the dignity of each person as One of the truly sublime passages in the corpus of Western moral philosophy. What do you think?
giving a law to ourselves: the idea that we are all ends in ourselves leads Kant to the principle that we are free and autonomous agents bound only by laws that we give ourselves. Further, in putting ourselves in the position of universal legislators, having to make laws which everyone (including ourselves) could and should follow and which do not violate the end in-itself dictum, we are taking up the complete moral point of view. This leads to the final formulation of the CI (pp. 431-436)
fourth formulation of the CI (kingdom of ends formulation): A rational being must always regard himself as lawgiving in a kingdom of ends possible through freedom of the will, whether as a member or as a sovereign. (434). In the text this formula is not explicitly acknowledged as a distinct formula but most people think Kant meant it to be.
The next six pages contain, first, a review of the different formulae of the CI and then a review of the whole argument (pp. 436-440).
Appendix: Some Kantian terminology for the philosophically inclined
analytic statements: a statement the truth of which can be determined solely by an analysis of the meaning of the words in the sentence. For example, Mothers are female can be seen to be true simply by looking at the definition of the subject of the sentence (mother = female parent) and seeing that the predicate (female) is already contained in the meaning of the word mother. One need not go out into the world and check if all mothers are in fact female because they are so by definition. Thus, another way to define an analytic statement, and one that is closer to Kants formulation, is a statement in which the predicate repeats the subject in whole or in part. e.g. predicate repeats in whole: Bachelorettes are unmarried women predicate repeats in part: Bachelorettes are unmarried.
Synthetic statements: all statements that are not analytic or statements the truth or falsity of which cannot be determined while simply sitting in an armchair analyzing the statement itself.
e.g. It is raining
The cat is on the mat
Canada is a nation of 30,000,000 or so people
The vast majority of the statements we make in ordinary as well as scientific discourse are synthetic. This is not surprising as analytic statements cannot tell us anything new about the world, in fact they cannot tell us anything: they contain no information.
A priori truth: a truth that can be known prior to experience. This does not mean chronologically prior to experience, it means without any reference to the world of experience. A priori truths are necessary truths - they are true independent of anything that happens in the world.
e.g. If A is bigger than B and B is bigger than C then A is bigger than C
You cannot be in Saskatoon and Paris at the same time
These truths hold in all times and places and could be figured out while sitting comfortably in an isolation tank, that is, the empirical world does not tell you they are true your rational faculties tell you they are true. Nothing that happens in the empirical world can prove an a priori truth to be false.
A posteriori truth: a truth that can be known only through experience. Whereas a priori truths are necessarily true, a posteriori truths are contingently true, that is, their validity depends on the world remaining the way it is. For example, Wild tigers are only found in Asia is a statement the truth of which can only be verified through empirical proof and further, the statement is true only so long as there really are wild tigers living in Asia and only Asia. But there is no necessity to this fact (tigers might become extinct); rather, it is contingent.
Analytic a priori: this formulation is redundant as all analytic statements are a priori.
Synthetic a posteriori: this is also redundant as all a posteriori truths are synthetic.
Analytic a posteriori: no such thing.
Synthetic a priori: (this is the tricky one!) A proposition in which the predicate is not contained within the subject, that is, which is not true by definition and yet can be known without any experience of the world. Many philosophers (e.g. empiricists) deny the possibility of such propositions because they imply that we can know things about the world independent of our experience of the world. Possible candidates for this category would be: Parallel lines never meet; Every event has a cause; Space is three dimensional; Time proceeds forward not backwards. Kant believes that these are necessary truths, knowable independent of experience, and are not simply definitional, that is, they contain information about the world.
In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant investigates a further candidate for the category of synthetic a priori knowledge: the moral law. Kant believes that there is a moral law which is true for all times and places, knowable by all rational beings simply by virtue of being rational (thus totally independent of any particular experience they might, could, or have had) and which tells us that we should do in the world. A law which fulfils these conditions would have to be synthetic and a priori.