MODULE 9 : KANT AND RIGHT THEORISTS

At the end of this module, you will be able to:

1. Understand and articulate the theory of good will.

2. Explain the categorical imperative as an ethical behavior.
3. Differentiate a legal right from a moral right.
4. Make use of the rights theory in real life situations.

"All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with
reason. There is nothing higher than reason."- Immanuel Kant
"Give every human being every right you claim for yourself."- Robert Ingersoll

IMMANUEL KANT'S GOOD WILL AND CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

Who was Immanuel Kant?

"Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me."
-Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher during the era of Enlightenment in

the late 18th century. He came from a modest, very strict and religious family. He was
the fourth of the nine children of Anna Regina Can't and Johann Georg Cant, a saddle
maker, both devout believers of pietism. Immanuel Kant changed his name to Kant to
adhere to German spelling practices. In 1740, he enrolled to a University to where he
applied as a theology student. However, he soon fell in love with Mathematics and
Physics. When his father died, he was forced to postpone his education to work as a
private tutor for the wealthy.
In 1755, he returned to the University of Konigsbergto continue his education
and he later on received his doctorate of Philosophy. It was not until his fifties that he
earned a moderate degree of wealth. In a nutshell, Immanuel Kant was a philosopher
who tried to discover how humans could be good and kind outside the influence or
blandishments of religion (Biography.com, 2014).

KANT'S THEORY OF THE GOOD WILL

What does it mean to be good?

Philosophy Tube (2016) explains the concept of Kant's theory of Good Will.

 The Good Willis the will to do the right thing, whatever it is (Philosophy Tube,
2016).

 To Kant, acting in the Good Will is the only way to be moral.

 According to him, morality is a system of rules that you put on yourself as a result
of being a rational being, of having a mind.

 Money, intelligence, fame, or reputation can be used for either good or bad. But
the will to do good is always good.

 The Good Will focuses on the intention of the action rather than the consequence.
Thus, it is not motivated by the anticipation of reward nor punishment, otherwise,
the act cannot be a genuinely good action.

For example, if a bartender gives a customer right amount of change

because he is afraid to get caught (punishment) or because he wants to get a
tip (reward), then he is not acting based on the concept of Good Will. The Good
Will is not motivated by the desire to get something else, instead, it is good in
itself.

 If one is doing what somebody else is tells her to do, then is can't be good. Good
will has to come from you.

For example, if you are only following orders from your parents, friends
or the authority, then it cannot be genuinely good. Kant also included religious
commandments in this example which is ironic because he came from a pious
family (The School of Life, 2015).

 This leaves us to three main points of Kant's concept of Good Will:

 It is the will to do the right thing at all costs

 It is not motivated by neither reward nor punishment and;
 It has to come inherently from the moral agent

KANT'S CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

Religion vs Reason
Immanuel Kant tried to ground morality in logic or reason. He viewed reason as
a constant, in such a Mathematical sense, which religion fails to make universal in
the subject of morality. For instance, two plus two is equals to four, regardless whether
you are a Christian, a Buddhist, Muslim or an atheist. Whereas morality differs if it shall
be based on religion. This analogy was used to understand morality which to Kant
is supposed to be constant and universal. Although historical religions had all been
wrong in the content of what they believed according to Kant, he observed from his
parents that religion had latched onto a great need to promote ethical behavior
(Crash Course, 2016).
 Most of the time, whether or not we ought to do something, is not really a moral
choice. Instead, it is just contingent on our desires (Philosophy Tube, 2016)
There are two imperatives:

1. Hypothetical Imperative according to Crash Course (2016)

 Commands you should follow if you want something. Thus, your intention is
driven by external factors (reward or punishment). For example, if you
desire to get money, you ought to get a job. If you desire to get a high grade,
you ought to study.
 These if - then statements are what we call hypothetical imperatives.
 Prudence rather than morality If you don't want money, then don't work. If
you don't want an A, then studying become completely optional.

2. Categorical Imperative
 This term first appeared in Kant's book called "Groundwork of the Metaphysics
of Morals", (The School of Life, 2015).
 Commands you should follow all the time regardless of your desires and
circumstances. It's an imperative, an order that's applied categorically
(Philosophy Tube 2016).
 Kant's moral philosophy really depends on free will. To him, freedom is not the
lack of government or being able to do whatever we want. Instead, we are only
free when we act in accordance with our own best nature (The School of
Life, 2015). "A free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same" - IK

Three formulations of the Categorical Imperative according to Kant:

1. I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should
become a universal law.
 The essence of this rule is that one's action is acceptable if he/she morally acts
according to one's duty at the present moment, without consideration of the
outcome of the action.
 This concept does not imply that you should
only do something if it could be good for everyone to do it. Instead, you should act
if it makes sense for you to will everybody to act in the same way (Philosophy
Tube, 2016)
 "Thy will shalt make sense." For example, cheating during an exam. Obviously,
cheating cannot be morally justifiable because it is a duty of the students to
engage in assessments such as written exams. This is how their performance is
evaluated and therefore it is their responsibility to answer the exam with pure
honesty.
2. Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or the person of
another, always as an end, and never simply as a means.
  The keyword to remember in this concept is respect. Respecting people's innate
qualities of being autonomous and rational which dignifies them as human
beings.
 The meaning of treating people always as an end is keeping in mind that they
have a life of their own which they are seeking for happiness and fulfillment, and
they deserve justice and fair treatment. (Philosophy Tube, 2016).
 On the other hand, treating people as mere means means that you treat them as
a tool in achieving your own personal goals. However, it should be clear that Kant
is not saying that we should not treat others as means because we simply live
using people to achieve our ends. What this rule states, instead, is we should not
treat others only and simply as means.
 This second imperative does not only apply to how we should treat others but
also ourselves. Respect other people's status of beings of moral worth as well as
respect ourselves. For example, riding a taxi. Are you not only treating the taxi
driver as mere means since his only purpose to you is to take you to where you
want to go? According to Kant, this does not violate the second imperative
because as a passenger, the taxi driver agrees to take you to your destination on
the condition that you pay him. Also, you agree on paying the taxi driver on the
condition that he takes you to you arrive at your destination. Here, you are both
respecting each other's autonomy and rationality as a moral agent.
3. Act as though your maxims you could become the legislator of universal laws.
 Kant asks us to remember that we are always, in a sense setting an example to
other people in what we do. We contribute to what is normal human behavior. We
have the choice to make that normal good or bad (Philosophy Tube, 2016).

Rights Theory
In law, Immanuel Kant proposed the principle of rights. He saw a distinctive correlation, yet
difference, between the intent of the law and the enforcement of law (De Guzman, 2017).
The principle of rights theory is the notion that in order for a society to be efficacious,
"government must approach the making and enforcement of laws within the right intentions in
respect to the end goals of the society that it governs. Members of society agree to give up
some freedoms for the protection enjoyed by organized society, but governments cannot
infringe upon the rights that citizens have been promised" ("Rights Theory," n.d.).
For Kant, governments were entrusted with the capacity to create laws by the citizens they
governed in exchange for protection. Thus, governments have no right to disrupt that trust by
making laws with cruel intent against the freedom that citizens had been promised (De
Guzman, 2017).

Freedom as our Only Innate Right

“Freedom (independence from being constrained by another's choice), insofar as it can
coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law, is the only original
right belonging to every man by virtue of his humanity" (Kant, 1996, p. 30).
 According to Kant in his Doctrines of Right (1996), he asserted that "There is only one
innate right" and this innate right is a right belonging to every man. Kant says that such a right
belongs to every human being by virtue of his or her humanity. It means that you have this
right simply because you are a human being, and because you are a human being, you
possessed a human dignity, that you are worthy of respect of others, and that one innate
right is freedom, the "independence from being constrained by another's choice".
There are four rights that constitutes our only innate right. The first right is the innate
equality of human being, that is, "independence from being bound by others to more than one
can in turn bind them". Second and third are the right to be independent, and to be one's own
master "since before he performs any act affecting rights, he has done no wrong to anyone".
The fourth right is a person "being authorized to do to others anything that does not in itself
diminish what is theirs, so long as they do not want to accept it". Kant seems to advocate the
radical view that a rightful action can even do harm to another as long as it does not infringe on
his or her freedom of choice. In other words, the harm is rightful if and only if its existence
depends on the voluntary consent of the one who is harmed.

Rationality and Autonomy as a Requirement for Dignity

According to Kant, what makes human being acquire dignity is because of its rationality
and autonomy. Unlike non-rational animals, human beings are rational and autonomous
beings that we are able to choose our own way of life, and that we are capable of reasoning.
Rationality, for Kant, is not the same thing as intelligence. It is a normative capacity, grounded
in what Kant took to be the unique human ability to reflect on the reasons for our beliefs
and actions, and decide whether they are good reasons or bad ones. While autonomy for
Kant is the capacity to choose your own way of life. As a human being, we reflect about
what counts as a good life, decide the question for ourselves, and live accordingly. This kind of
autonomy has often been regarded as the basis of at least some of our rights. We have the
basic rights of personal liberty, liberty of conscience, and the freedom of speech and
association, because each of us has a general right to determine for ourselves what counts as
a worthwhile life, and to live that life, so long as the way we act is consistent with upholding the
same right for everyone else (Perspektiven et al., 2012).

Protection of Freedom
Grounding all of our rights in freedom is important to Kant, because on Kant's account,
rights, by their very nature, are coercively enforceable. It is the essence of having a right that
you may legitimately use force to protect that to which you have the right, or the state
may do so on your behalf. That is how rights secure our freedom against the domination of
others. Kant believed that the protection of freedom is the only thing that justifies the use
of coercion, because the protection of freedom is the use of coercion against coercion itself.
According to Kant, people do not get to push each other around in the name of what one or
another of us, or the majority of us, or for that matter, even all of us, considers to be good. The
only thing that justifies us in preventing someone from acting as she chooses is that her action
is a hindrance to someone else's freedom (Perspektiven et al., 2012).
Definition of Rights
Some ethical theorists define the term "right" as "Justified claim that individuals and
groups can make upon other individuals or upon society; to have a right is to be in a position to
determine by one's choices, what others should do or need not do" ("Rights Based Ethics,n.d.).
Rights can be legal in nature, or pertain to human rights or moral rights.

Legal Rights and Moral Rights

What is legal is not always moral. Sometimes, what is moral is not necessarily legal in a
particular country. Moral rights refer to what ought to be, whereas legal rights are the rights
that are 'on the books.' Moral rights represent the natural law while legal rights embody the
conventional positive law (De Guzman, 2017).
The justification of a claim is dependent on some standard acknowledged and accepted
not just by the claimant, but also by society in general (Velasquez, et al., 2014). The standard
can be as concrete as the Constitution, for example a law that guarantees that, "No person
shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law," or any law that spells
out the legal rights of citizens. Thus, legal rights refer to all those rights found within
existing legal codes. A legal right is a right that enjoys the recognition and protection of
the law. Questions as to its existence can be resolved by simply locating the relevant legal
instrument or piece of legislation
For Kant, the point of legal rights is not to protect more important interests But to create
domain in which each person can pursue his own conception of the good. Kant believed that
each of us has an innate right to freedom, which he defined as independence from being
constrained by another's choices (MM 237). He argued that without the institution of
enforceable legal rights, our relationships with each other must be characterized by the
unilateral domination of some individuals over others. Since our innate right to freedom will be
violated when one person is dependent on some other person's good will, Kant thinks it is a
duty, and not just a convenience, for human beings to live in a political state in which every
person's rights are enforced and upheld (MM 6:307-8). No matter how well-intentioned we are,
we can be rightly related to each other only if we live in a political state with a legal system that
guarantees the rights of everyone (Perspektiven et al., 2012)
Moral rights, on the other hand, are justified by moral standards that most people
acknowledge, but which are not necessarily codified in law; these standards have also,
however, been interpreted differently by different people (Velasquez, et al., 2014). Moral
rights are rights that exist prior to and independently from their legal counterparts. The
existence and validity of a moral right is not deemed to be dependent upon the actions of
jurists and legislators
It must be clear, therefore, that human nights are best thought as of being both legal and
moral nights. The legitimacy claims of human rights are connected to their status as moral
rights Nonetheless, the practical efficacy of human rights is essentially dependent upon their
developing into legal rights (De Guzman, 2017).
Rights Based Ethics
Rights Based Ethics is a broad moral theory in which Kant's principle of rights theory
included. The concept of rights-based ethics is that "there are some rights, both positive and
negative, that all humans have based only on the fact that they are human These rights can be
natural or conventional. That is, natural rights are those that are moral while conventional are
those created by humans and reflected society's values" ("Rights Based Ethics," n.d.).

Examples of Rights Based Ethics System include the following ("Rights Based Ethics," n.d.):

 The right to life

 The right to liberty
 The right to freely practice a religion of choice
 The right to express ideas or opinions with freedom as an individual
 The right to free education
 The right to join any peaceful parties or groups of choice
 The right to be free from slavery
 The right to not be tortured
 The right to be treated as equal to others
 The right to be considered innocent until proven guilty
 The right to personal privacy
 The right to own property

The philosopher John Locke is one of the main supporters of this system which takes the
viewpoint of what the ideal world looks like and generates a rights system based upon those
ideas. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights also upholds and manifests the values of a
Rights Based Ethical System (De Guzman, 2017).

Rights and Duties

To every right there is a corresponding duty. Duty means anything that ought to be
done or omitted. It is the moral obligation of a person to respect the rights of others.
A rights-based approach to ethics develops the capacity of duty bearers to meet their
obligations and encourages rights holders to claim their rights. Governments have three levels
of obligations: To respect a right means refraining from interfering with the enjoyment of right.
To protect a right means to prevent other parties from interfering with the enjoyment of rights.
To fulfil a right means to take active steps to put in place, laws, policies, institutions and
procedures, including the allocation of resources, to enable people to enjoy their rights
(UNFPA, 2014).
 For Kant, unlike benevolence, the moral concept of right does not concern our wishes and
needs (MS, 6: 230). Since we already know that human dignity is the foundation of our only
human right, Kant rests human dignity on the capacity of autonomy. For example, human
rights must include the right to assured survival, such as the right to be fed because human
beings need food in order to survive. One might appeal to the notion of human dignity in order
to claim that the requirement that one receive food when one is starving amounts to the
requirement that one's dignity must be respected and preserved. Then, if a person has a moral
right to have his or her dignity preserved, others are obliged to preserve his or her dignity, for
instance by providing his or her with food, In the moral sense, a right "is related to an obligation
corresponding to it" (MS, 6: 230). The right that we have by virtue of autonomy is also the
same as the right to mere "independence from being constrained by another's choice" (MS, 6:
237).

Rights Theory as a Framework in Ethical Decision Making

Rights Theory is an approach to ethics that roots in the philosophy of the 18th century
thinker Immanuel Kant and others like him, who suggest that the most ethical action is the one
that best protects and respects the legal and moral rights of those who are affected by the
action (Bonde & Firenze, 2013). According to these philosophers, what makes human beings
different from mere things is that people have dignity based on their ability to choose freely
what they will do with their lives, and they have a fundamental right to have these choices
respected (Velasquez et al., 2015).

Where does Rights Theory come from?

Rights theory is a normative theory which means it is a theory that focuses on how
people should or ought to behave. It is also a branch of Deontological theory that focuses on
the intention behind an action or decision rather than on the final outcome or resulting
consequences. Thus, to a deontologist, whether a situation is good or bad depends on
whether the action that brought it about was right or wrong. What makes a choice right is its
conformity with a moral norm: Right takes priority over good.
Kant's principle of rights theory thus, teaches us that it is not merely the outcome of
actions that is significant but also the reasoning behind them, because if the intent is evil, then
the outcome, in all likelihood, is bad as well (De Guzman, 2017).

How does an action or decision can be considered as ethically correct?

The principle of Rights theory states that "An action or policy is morally right only if those
persons affected by the decision are not used merely as instruments for advancing some goal
but are fully informed and treated only as they freely and knowingly consented to be treated."
Kant claims that we rational and autonomous beings should treat ourselves as ends.
Kant believed that as a human being, we possessed a human dignity that gives us moral worth,
that we are worthy of respect of others, and it is our rationality and autonomy that gives rise to
that. Therefore, we need to be respected in certain ways such as other people will respect our
choices, both in the sense that they will leave us free to determine our own actions, and in the
sense that they will regards our chosen ends as things that are good and so worthy of our
pursuit. Also, it is our duty to respect others as ends themselves. We are obligated not to usurp
other people's control over their own actions by forcing or tricking them into doing what we
want or think would be best, that is we are not allowed to us other people as mere means to
our own ends. Because to use other people as a mere means or instruments to achieve or
own ends or goals, we are actually violating their innate right which is freedom, that is defined
as the "independence from being constrained by another's choice." That is, we should only
treat them as they knowingly and consented to be treated.
Therefore, in deciding whether an action is ethical or not using this approach we must ask
ourselves; does the action respect the legal and moral rights of everyone? Actions are
wrong to the extent that they violate the rights of individuals; the more serious the violation, the
more wrongful the action (Velasquez, et al., 2015). If we choose not to do something because
it would infringe on another person's rights, this would be an ethical act. Conversely, by
ignoring people's rights and behaving in ways which are contradictory to them we are behaving
unethically,
To sum up, with rights theory, an action or decision would be considered ethically
correct if it respects the rights of other people. Considering and upholding the rights of
others are the foundation of rights theory.

Conflicts in Using Rights Theory as a Framework in Ethical Decision Making

Whenever we are confronted with a moral dilemma, we need to consider whether the
action or decision would respect the legal and moral rights of each of the individuals involved.
But sometimes the rights of individuals will come into conflict and one has to decide which right
has priority. In cases like this, we need to examine the freedoms or interests at stake and
decide which of the two is the more crucial for securing human dignity (Velasquez, et al., 2014).
But there is no hierarchy of rights. So, it is difficult to come to an ethically correct decision or
action where the right of one person results in the right of another being breached.

Limitations of using Rights Theory as a Framework in Ethical Decision Making

Rights should not be the sole consideration in ethical decision making. In some instances,
the social costs or the injustice that would result from respecting a right are too great, and
accordingly, that right may not be limited. Moreover, an emphasis on rights tends to limit our
vision of what the moral life entails. Morality, it's often argued, is not just a matter of not
interfering with the rights of others. Relying exclusively on a rights approach to ethics tends to
emphasize the individual at the expense of the community. And, while morality does call on us
to respect the uniqueness, dignity, and autonomy of each individual, it also invites us to
recognize our relatedness-that sense of community, shared values, and the common good
which lends itself to an ethics of care, compassion, and concern for others (Velasquez, et al.,
2014).

References:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=942401
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-social-political/
De Guzman J.M., and Peña (2016). Culture in Moral Behavior. Ethics, Principles of Ethical Behavior in
Modern Society.
Dellomos, Carl., and Enriquez (2019). Moral Courage, Ethics,. Jimczyville Publication