DEONTOLOGICAL ETHICS OF KANT

Lecture 7
• An action may be judged as right or wrong either by the consequences
of the action as in utilitarianism, or by the motive or inner urge that
moves or prompts a person to the action as in the deontological ethics
of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804).
• The word deontology is derived from the Greek word “deon” meaning
“duty”.
• Kant’s deontology is a duty or rule-based theory of normative ethics
that judges an action neither by consequences such as pleasure nor by
feelings of inclination, pity, or benevolence, but by the agent’s motive
for performing the action by following a rule as a duty for duty’s sake.
• The key concept in Kant’s theory of morality is what he calls “the
good will”.
• Kant considers “the good will” as the ultimate or highest good (called
the Summum bonum in Latin), because it is intrinsically, as opposed to
instrumentally, good, and both good in itself and good without
qualification.
• This concept of the Good Will, as expressed in the desire to perform
our moral duty, is the proper motive for every morally acceptable
action.
• For Kant “good will” consists in freely choosing to perform an action
solely because of the thought that duty requires it, and not because of
the contingent benefits or conveniences associated it. A person has
good will if he "acts out of respect for the moral law."
• A person of good will not only act in accordance with duty, but acts
for the sake of duty.
• For example, a merchant’s decision for not cheating on his customers
may be morally right or wrong depending on whether he is motivated
by reason for avoiding loss of customers and potential profits or for
acting out of respect for the moral law “It is wrong to cheat on
customers”.
• According to Kant, having a good will is a necessary as well as a sufficient
condition for being a morally good person.
• Thus by a good will Kant means that which we actually value in moral
decisions. According to him, whenever we observe an action that is morally
virtuous, what we regard as valuable is the will that has led to that action,
instead of the consequence of that action.
• The reason for this is that good consequences could arise by accident
from an action that was ill-motivated, and bad consequences could arise
from an action that was well-motivated.
• The right action can be done for the wrong reasons, and sometimes good
reasons might not suffice to bring about the intended consequences. In
either case, the primary object of our moral assessment is the will behind
the action rather than its consequences.
• Kant explains the distinction between moral duty and non-moral duty
in terms of the distinction between categorical imperative and
hypothetical imperative.
• A hypothetical imperative is an imperative based on inclination or
desire and represents "the practical necessity of a possible action as
means to something else that is willed.
• Examples:
“Do not steal if you want to be popular.”
" If you want to get a good job, you ought to study hard."
" If you want to gain social respect, you ought to tell the truth."
• A categorical imperative is an unconditional imperative based on
reason alone and is one that represents "an action as objectively
necessary in itself apart from its relation to a further end".
• Examples:
“Thou shalt not steal.”
"You ought not to kill anyone."
"You ought always to tell the truth."
“Keep your promises.”
• Because morality holds independently of contingent facts about us such as
what we desire, moral imperatives must be categorical imperatives that
apply with absolute necessity to all rational beings and can be known a
priori, i.e., by reason alone, independent of experience.
• For Kant there is only one categorical imperative (CI) in the moral realm,
which he formulated in two ways.
• First Formulation of Categorical Imperative: “Act only according to that
maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a
universal law”.
• This is a purely formal (or, logical) statement and expresses the condition
of the rationality of conduct rather than any content of morality. It is used to
test actual moral principles having moral content.
• Second Formulation of Categorical Imperative: "Act in such a way that you
always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person
of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as
an end." Or never treat people only as means, but always also as ends.
• The categorical imperative incorporates two criteria for determining moral
right and wrong: (1) universalizability and (2) reversibility.
• Universalizability means the person's reasons for acting must be reasons that
everyone could act on at least in principle.
• Reversibility means the person's reasons for acting must be reasons that he
or she would be willing to have all others use, even as a basis of how they treat
him or her.
• That is, one's reasons for acting must be reasons that everyone could act upon in
principle, and the person's reasons must be such that he would be willing to have
all others use them as well.
• Problems with Kant's Theory
• (1) It is purely formal and empty of moral content.
• (2) The theory applies only to rational agents. It would not apply to non-
humans or to humans who are not rational, e.g., humans with brain
malfunctioning, illness or persistent vegetative coma.
• (3) The theory cannot resolve conflicts between duties: How would a
person resolve a conflict between two perfect duties such as never tell a lie
and avoid harming someone? What if telling the truth were to harm
someone?
• (4) A clever person could phrase the maxim to be universalized in such
a manner as to permit immoral acts.