By: Ms.

Josille Marquez
• The moral theory that evaluates actions that are done because of
duty is called Deontology.

• Deontology comes from the Greek word “deon” which means being
necessary. Hence, deontology refers to the study of duty and
obligation.

• Immanuel Kant was the main proponent of this theory. He was a

German Enlightenment philosopher who wrote “Groundwork towards
a Metaphysics of Morals” (1785). In this work, Kant wrote that human
beings have faculty called “rational will” which is the capacity to act
according to the principles that we determine for ourselves.
• This means that an organism has the ability to perceive and
navigate its external environment.

• Both animals and humans are sentient but animals don‟t have
rational will like humans. Dogs are carabaos are sentient
organisms, we don‟t see them bumping into trees and walls since
just like humans, they have the ability to navigate and perceive
the surroundings.

• Both humans and animals interact in and within the world,

reacting to external stimuli and the internal impulses to survive
and thrive.
• It is consists of the mental faculty to construct ideas and thoughts
that are beyond our immediate surroundings. This refers to the
capacity for mental abstraction, which arises from the
operations of the faculty of reason.

• Thus, human beings have the ability to stop and think about
what we are doing. Human beings can remove themselves from
the immediacy of their surroundings and reflect on their actions
how such actions affect the world. v
• First construction consists in how we imagine things can be. We
can imagine different and better world and create mental
images of how we interact with other people in that world.

• Second construction, on the other hand, is our ability to enact

and make real those mental images. This ability to enact
thoughts is the basis for rational will. Rational will, therefore,
refers to the faculty to intervene in the world, to act in a manner
that is consistent with our reason.
• Animals only act according to impulses, base don their natural
instincts. Thus, animals act with immediacy (from Latin : I and
medius, or “no middle”) with nothing that intervenes between
the impulse and the action. Therefore, animals do not and
cannot deliberate on their actions. They don‟t act but only
react. To their external surroundings.

• On the other hand, human beings have the ability to stop and
evaluate and think about what we are doing. We have the
capacity to act based on reasons and not merely to mindlessly
react to the environment and base impulses. This capacity is
called agency or the ability to act based on her intentions and
mental states.
• Kant claims that the property of rational will is autonomy. It is
the opposite of heteronomy. Autonomy comes from Greek words
“autos” which means self and “nomos” which means laws. Hence,
autonomy means self-law or self-legislating.

• Heteronomy on the other hand, comes from the Greek words,

“heteros” which means other and “nomos” means law. Thus,
heteronomy means other law.
• A scenario wherein children don‟t like to brush their teeth but
parents know that children should in order to maintain oral
hygiene. So, parents try to find ways to get their small children
brush their teeth before going to bed using variety of incentives
or threats of undesirable consequences. (By incentivizing that
they will play their computer games after brushing teeth)

• This is an example of heteronomy in nature since the parents

are the one who legislate the principle that children should
brush their teeth.
• A scenario wherein the children who used to be reminded by
their parents to brush their teeth are now twenty years old.
Suppose the brush their teeth every night before going to bed
without the advise of their parents. The children reflected on the
idea that they need to brush their teeth for their oral hygiene
and therefore they impose themselves to brush their teeth
before going to bed.

• This therefore refer to the autonomous act of the individuals

since no one imposed to them to brush their teeth but
themselves.
“The will is thus not only subject to the law, but it is also subject
to the law in such a way that it gives the law to itself (self-
legislating) and primarily just in this way that the will can be
considered the author of the law under which it is subject.”

• Subject comes from the Latin words sub (under) and jacere (to
throw).

• When you say “subject to the law”, there is an imposing

authority figure ( Heteronomous since there is an authority
figure) that uses his power to control the subject into complying
with his will. Therefore the will should always be subject to the
law.
“The will is thus not only subject to the law, but it is also subject to
the law in such a way that it gives the law to itself (self-
legislating) and primarily just in this way that the will can be
considered the author of the law under which it is subject.”

• The will must also give the law to itself. (Dito papasok yong
autonomy.) Meaning, the will is the authority figure giving the
law to itself. This means that the will also dictates someone‟s
action.
• The distinguishing point is the locus of the authorship of the law.
When you say authorship, who is the author or source of the
law. May it be internal or external.

• If the author of the law is external, therefore the will of an

individual is subject to an external authority, it is therefore
heteronomous will.

• if the will itself (internal) is imposing the law unto self, then it is
autonomous.
• Animal choice or arbitrum brutum refers to the set of actions
that are caused by sensible impulse. Sensible impulses are
usually bodily and emotional. These are bodily instincts and
desires such as the urge to eat, drink and sleep, or have sexual
intercourse. This also includes sentiments and emtions. Meaning,
acting without reason but due to sensible impulses are mere
animal choice.

• Examples: A cat who ate the food on the table. The cat dis not
think that it not right to eat the food on the table but merely
followed his sensible impulse or the desire to eat.
• Free choice, on the other hand, refers to the choice or action
that is determined by pure reason. Human freedom resides in
the capacity of reason to intervene in sensible impulses.

• Rationality described as the mental capacity to construct ideas

and thoughts that are beyond one‟s immediate surrounding.
Therefore, Kant describes that human choice can be affected
and but determined by sensible impulses. (You found a food
that are not yours and you are already hungry, since you will
not act according to your sensible impulse, you may think that
this food is not mine so I should not eat this. There is a pure
reason or rationality beyond your action.)
• Kinds of moral theories:

1. Substantive moral theory- immediately promulgates

the specific actions that comprise that theory. It identifies
the particular duties in a straightforward manner that the
adherents of the theory must follow. Example of this is the
set of Ten Commandments of the Judeo-Christian tradition
since these are articulated mostly in the form of
straightforward moral command. “Honor your father.” ,
“Thou shall not kill”.
• Kinds of moral theories:

2. Formal moral theory- it does not supply the rules or

commands right away. It only provides the „form” or
“framework” of the moral theory. It means that this only
supply a procedure and the criteria for determining the
rules and moral commands. It will not give the exact list of
rules or commands, instead it will give a set of instructions
on how to make a list of duties or moral commands.
Example is a cookbook, wherein you are given instructions
on how to cooks certain dish but not given the actual food,
you may add a slight variation to the ingredients.
• A categorical imperative written by Kant in the “Grundlegung
zur Metaphysik der Sitten” which provides a procedural way of
identifying the rightness or wrongness of an action.

• This categorical imperative provided four key elements such as

action, maxim, will and universal law.
• Kant states that we must formulate an action as a maxim, which
he defines as the “subjective principle of action”. Meaning, a
maxim consists of a rule that we live by in our day-to-day lives,
but it does not have the status of a law that binds us to act in a
certain way. (Meaning, this maxim is only a formal moral theory
since it does not provide an exact or specific rules.)

• Maxims are akin to the “standard operating procedures” SOPs

in our lives. People act according to a variety of maxims even if
we are not aware of them.
• Kant claims that people ought to act according to the maxim
“by which you can at once will that it become a universal law”.
It means that maxim must be universalizable. This means nothing
other than the imagining a world in which the maxim or
personal rule that an individual live by were adopted by
everyone as their own maxim.

• Kant therefore telling us to conceive of the maxim as if it

obligated everyone to comply. (That what‟s universalizable
means)
• Kant explained this general category of acts by giving an
example of a man who needs money but has no immediate
access to obtain it except by borrowing it from a friend. This
man knows that he will not be able to pay the money back, but
if he says he cannot return the money, then no money will be
lent to him.

• If we are going to formulate this act as a maxim, “When I am

need of money, I shall borrow it even when I know I cannot pay
back.”
• If borrowing money without intending to pay were everyone‟s
obligation to pay (universalized maxim), what would happen to the
status of the universalized maxim? The purpose of borrowing money
would be defeated because no one will lend money.

• In a world where it is an obligation to borrow money without paying

back, all lenders would know that they will not be paid and they will
refuse to lend money. As a UNIVERSALIZED MAXIM, it would self-
destruct because it becomes impossible.

• Therefore, false promising would not be possible to become a

universalized maxim.
• In the current maxim of borrowing money without the intention
to pay back, the meaning of the act “to borrow” implies taking
and using something with the intent to return it. In the maxim, the
claim is to borrow money even when you know you cannot pay it
back. It contradicts the meaning of “to borrow”. Therefore, the
logical plausibility of the universalized maxim is at stake since it
contradicts the very meaning of the word “to borrow”.

• Thus, Kant discovers two ways by which he rejects maxim. These

are either (1) self-contradictory (2) the act and its purpose
become impossible.
• It refers to the intrinsic quality of an action that is objectively
and necessarily rational.

• Universalized maxims that are rejected are shown to be

impermissible, irrational and immoral. (The assumed universal
maxim of borrowing money without an intention to pay)

• Therefore, borrowing money without intending to pay, as a kind

of false promise, is objectively and necessarily wrong, insofar
as it encounters a self-contradiction and logical impossibility
when it is universalized as a maxim.
Answer the following questions.

1. What is the difference between autonomy and heteronomy?

What does autonomy have to do with free will in contrast to
animal impulse? (10 pts)

2. In terms of the method called universalizability, what are the

steps to test if an action is rationally permissible? (10 pts)