Duty and Reason: Immanuel Kant

According to Kant, nothing is wholly good because they can always be attached to some bad or be misused for bad. Be it mental talents, character or gifts of good fortune they, in themselves, are not good. The only thing that can be called good is good will. Good will is not good because of what it achieves, although it can produce results of good. good will is good by virtue of its existence, the sole purpose to produce good. Whether it produces that good or not, it in itself is good.

Kant says that happiness is not a product of reason but rather reason actually reduces peoples happiness. Reason instead must help people to produce good will. Kant says that this will, produced through reason, "must be the supreme good and the condition of every other", including the desire of happiness.

To better explain good will, Kant takes the "notion of duty" into his explanation. A good will is a will that acts for duty and actions are only moral if they are drivin by duty, good will in turn. Acting when duty is the only reason to act is morally right. Duty does not have to be pleasant, just morally right. Just because a behavior is praiseworthy does not mean that it is a moral action. We have many inclinations that drive us to do praiseworthy actions, those good actions aren't moral unless they are driven by duty alone.

Again, Kant reinforces that moral worth, like good will, is not judged by the product of actions but rather  by the principles that guided the actions - duty. He defines duty as "the necessity of acting from respect for the law." Inclinations, at best, may be approved, but Kant does not believe that they can be respected. Actions done by duty exclude inclinations, leaving only the law which has pure respect. Morals must lie in the "conception of the law, which is only possible in a reasonable being."

Kant believes that the supreme principle or law of morality is the "categorical imperative." Imperatives are things that people ought to do, which shows the connection of reason to a will. Hypothetically imperatives are ones that have a practical necessity of a possible action as a means to something that is willed. Categorical imperatives are where the actions are necessary in themselves - not for another mean to an end. Categorical are good in themselves (if will and reason are connected) while Hypothetical are means to other ends.

Kant believes that there is only one categorical imperative that we should follow: Act only on a maxim that you can will to be a universal law. These maxims for moral action must have no contradictions and should maintain the purity of its purpose/will.

Kant's ideas of categorical imperative have social implications. We must treat people as a end in themselves not a means to an end outside of the relationship that you have. "Things" are means to an end while "persons" are means to themselves.

When the principle is complete, it must follow two rules: First, people should be respected as ends in themselves and second, any moral maxim followed must be universally followable.



Discussion Questions/Comments

Can a person's "good will" be caused by an inclination? Isn't good will an inclination in itself?

I really liked Kant's definition of happiness! It mades a lot of sense to me.

I have become confused (starting in #9) if Kant means good will every time he says will. Is all will produced by reason good will, since reason was used to create it?

With the one categorical imperative that we should follow, does Kant mean that we should only act on moral maxims that are reasoned with good will and should be law?

Key Terms/Definitions

Inclination: a person's tendency or urge to act or feel in a particular way; a disposition or propensity
Happiness: contentment with one's condition
Maxim: a short, pithy statement expressing a general truth or rule of conduct (ex: actions speak louder than words)



Link to Reading: https://ereserve.plu.edu/protected/phil/b125_kant.pdf

Ethical Skepticism: Bernard Williams

Socrates asks "How should one live?" Plato thought the answer lay in following a life of philosophical understanding.

Williams looks at the work of Socrates and Plato, who attempt to justify morality to amoral people. Williams asks why philosophers should even bother, as they are dealing with people who will be unmoved by their arguments. Williams believes that the reason we try to convince these people is because they might influence individuals to give up morality and live an unethical life. Williams says "to be skeptical about ethics is to be skeptical about the force of ethical considerations." These people must not be assumed to live lives that lack ethical considerations, but rather question what the force of these ethical considerations are. Skeptics interact with the world and must find actions they approve of or do cheerfully, removing skepticism away as the skeptic has just made an ethical decision. By removing oneself from all ethics, one has nothing to do.

Williams feels that we should not ask what to say to the amoral person but what we can say about them, as that message will reach the rest of the population who has morals - providing support and reinforcement of morals to the people who will actually listen, those with morals, instead of the amoral who won't listen. When it comes to force, Williams explains that Plato thought, "the power of the ethical was the power of reason", and that the power of the ethical was made into a force by the power of reason. The aim then should be to focus on reinforcing the ethical rather than attacking the unethical.

Williams asks if there is a Archimedean Point, and notes that both Aristotle and Kant have philosophical "ventures" that follow his own definition: something to which even the amoralist or the skeptic is committed but which, properly thought through, will show us that he is irrational, or unreasonable, or at any rate mistaken." Kant follows rational action (agency) and Aristotle thought that it is "the idea of a specifically human life." Williams says that there is no such Archimedean Point and says that he hopes people will adopt three things to help prompt ethics: truth, truthfulness, and the meaning of an individual life.

Williams proclaims that the scientific truth does not provide us with anything normative - possessing facts does not change people's behavior (smokers still smoke despite its known harm). This knowledge can have an impact though when we look at the social understanding we have.

The reason Williams says we should seek truthfulness is because our ethical thought should "stand up to reflection, with the goal of its institutions and practices should be capable of becoming transparent." If our ethics can't be transparent, then what are we hiding? We need to be truthful about our ethics so that people can know how ethical they really are.

Williams needs for "individuals of dispositions of characters" and "a life of their own to lead" for his hopes to be reached. As for the "meaning of an individual life", he looks for "one that does not reject society, and indeed shares its perceptions with other people to a considerable depth, but is enough unlike others, in its opacities and disorder as well as in its reasoned intentions, to make it somebody's." He wants people to understand each other, maintain that truthfulness, and to make the principle of general goodness someone else's principle so that they too can add to the world happiness.


Discussion Questions/Comments

Could you explain what Mill means by "One has nothing to do" in #5? Does he mean there is no meaning to an amoral person's life?

What does Aristotle mean by a "specifically human life?"

Key Terms/Definitions

Philosophical: general and abstract, rationally reflective, and concerned with what can be known through different kinds of inquiry
Amoral: lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness and wrongness of something
Archimedean Point: a point where the viewer can objectively perceive the subject of inquiry, with a view of totality
Normative: establishing, relating to, or deriving from a standard of a norm, especially of behavior.


Phrenology: the detailed study of the size and shape of the cranium as a supposed indication of character and mental abilities