Kant’s Moral Philosophy

1. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is widely regarded as the greatest philosopher of

the modern period. He wrote important works in metaphysics and
epistemology, religion, aesthetics, politics and moral philosophy. Today we
examine his moral philosophy.

2. Kant’s (1724-1804) main works on moral philosophy – which he called

‘practical philosophy’ – are Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals;
Metaphysics of Morals; Critique of Practical Reason.

3. Kant rated the importance of morality about as highly as any philosopher has.
Here is a famous statement from the concluding section of the Critique of
Practical Reason:

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more
often and the more steadily one reflects on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral
law within me. … the first view of a countless multitude of worlds annihilates, as it were, my
importance as an animal creature, which after it has been for a short time provided with vital
force (one knows not how) must give back to the planet (a mere speck in the universe) the
matter from which it came. The second, on the contrary, infinitely raises my worth as an
intelligence by my personality, in which the moral law reveals to me a life independent of
animality…
Critique of Practical Reason 5:162

4. Two things are particularly worth noting here. First, the moral law is “within”
us; it is not a law given by divine commandment or by social convention. It is
a law which, in a sense that we need to understand, we legislate for ourselves.
Second, morality gives us a dignity and importance beyond our animal
existence. Morality is what enables human beings to transcend their animal
natures.

5. Kant’s first great book on morality is Groundwork of the Metaphysics of

Morals. It was published in 1785. (You can find an excerpt from this work on
the course website.)

6. Kant begins the Groundwork with a claim about value: the only thing that is
unconditionally good, he claims, is a good will.

Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good,
without qualification, except a good will. Intelligence, wit, judgement, and the other talents of
the mind, however they may be named, or courage, resolution, perseverance, as qualities of
temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects; but these gifts of nature
may also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them, and
which, therefore constitutes what is called character, is not good. … Thus a good will appears
to constitute the indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness.
Groundwork 4: 393

Having a good will is the mark of our character, i.e. of our being good people.
Having a good will means having the right kind of intentions or motives. For
Kant, therefore, it is inner psychological facts that are morally valuable; the
 consequences of our actions are not, by themselves, morally valuable. Kant’s
theory of morality, therefore, is not consequentialist. Kant believed that a
good will is a will that is motivated by moral principle, or duty. Because of
his emphasis on acting from duty, Kant’s theory is usually classed as
deontological.

7. What is a good will? Kant thinks that to have a good will, you must do
something because you know it is right.

Feelings and desires, for example sympathy and self-love, do not have moral
worth according to Kant. (Kant calls feelings and desires “inclinations”.) You
might act with sympathy on many occasions – he does not rule this out – but
an act is morally admirable for Kant only because it is an act of duty, i.e. is
done from duty.

Say that you decide to visit an ill friend in hospital. You might be motivated to
do this out of self-interest; for example, to get in good with your friend
because you are after a favour from them. Obviously, there is nothing morally
admirable about this. However, you might instead be motivated out of
sympathy or friendliness. Isn’t there something admirable about this? Kant
claims that, although there is nothing wrong with feelings of sympathy and
friendliness, it is not what makes your visit morally admirable. The only
motive that makes your action morally admirable is that it is done from duty:
you visit your friend because it is the right thing to do. For example, you
know that they will be lonely and upset, they are your friend, and friends
should take care of each other in situations like this. Importantly, you would
be prepared to visit them no matter what you happen to feel about the prospect
of a trip to the hospital.

If you are only motivated to do something because of your feelings, your grip
on doing the right thing is very fragile. Consider our example of the hospital
visit once more. Say, you visit your friend in hospital because you feel like it:
you like your friend, you’re worried about her, and this makes you want to
cheer her up. What happens when your feelings change? Say at the last
minute you realise “I don’t like hospitals, they smell horrible, they are
depressing, my friend will be in a bad mood, who needs that?” If feelings or
inclinations are your guide to what you should do, then when they change you
should change your plan accordingly. But this makes your judgement of what
you should do depend on how you are feeling at the moment. For this reason,
Kant thought that feelings are completely unreliable guides to what you should
do. Even when they guide you in the right direction (as they initially did in
our example of the hospital visit) they don’t do so reliably.

What we need is a reliable guide to doing the right thing. Feelings or

inclinations don’t provide this. What does? Kant’s answer is reason provides
you with that guide.
8. What makes something a duty? How does reason guide us in deciding what
the right thing to do is? How does reason tell us what our duty is? Kant
answers this by giving a theory of the categorical imperative. What is the
categorical imperative?

The categorical imperative contrasts with what Kant calls hypothetical

imperatives. An imperative is an order or demand. “Close the door” is an
imperative. Hypothetical imperatives are imperatives that are given for
particular reasons. “Close the door, if you want to stay warm” is a
hypothetical imperative. The general form is: do X, if you wish to achieve Y.
The categorical imperative, by contrast, merely makes demands upon us: do X.

For example, Kant held that it is a duty to tell the truth. Therefore, he thought
that we should recognise the following imperative: always tell the truth.
Why? Not because we want to get something from telling the truth. You tell
the truth because it is right. Period. By contrast, the imperative: always tell
the truth, if you wish to be trusted describes a hypothetical imperative. There
is nothing wrong with hypothetical imperatives. It is just that, according to
Kant, they don’t describe moral duties.

9. How can we work out what our duties are?

Duties are categorical imperatives. But not just anything in the form of a
categorical imperative is a duty. Always insult people smaller than you has the
form of a categorical imperative, but it isn’t a duty (I suppose). Kant calls
rules that have the form of a categorical imperative “maxims”. A duty is a
morally correct maxim. Now we need to know how to distinguish morally
correct maxims from impostors like the insult smaller people maxim. What
makes one maxim morally correct and another morally incorrect?

Kant’s general answer is that reason guides us. Morally correct maxims are
reasonable and morally incorrect maxims are unreasonable. Morality is
grounded in human reason. But how? He offers various formulas for deriving
maxims from reason. I will discuss the two most important and well known of
them. (Kant slips into calling these formulations of the categorical imperative.
He then goes on to talk about the categorical imperative as if it is the form of
all duties.)

Formula of Universal Law:

I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my maxim should become a
universal law. (Groundwork 4: 402)

Promise-breaking is an act that fails to satisfy the categorical imperative,

understood in this way, because it is incoherent to imagine a universal practice
of promise making and breaking. The widespread breaking of promises would
undermine the very practice of promise making, says Kant, and thus it is
incoherent to imagine both that everyone makes promises and break them at
their convenience. If this is what we all did, there wouldn’t be any such thing
as a promise. My saying “I promise to return your lawn-mower” wouldn’t
mean anything anymore. Break promises at your convenience is a maxim that
 could not be universalised. Thus it is an unreasonable maxim. It can’t be a
moral duty.

The formula of Humanity

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.
(Groundwork 4: 429)

Kant thinks that if you treat others as if they are not rational agents, with
purposes and goals that they set for themselves, then you violate the
categorical imperative. You have a duty to always treat others as an end in
themselves. For example, the maxim always break promises when convenient
gives you license to exploit others. In making a promise you know you will
break as soon as it is convenient, you are exploiting the person you are
promising. You are treating them merely as a means of securing what you
want.

10. So Kant’s ethics is all about valuing reason, both in ourselves and in others.
Why is reason so important? What is the value of our being reasonable in the
way Kant demands? Kant’s answer is that in following reason, we gain a kind
of freedom: autonomy. The good will – remember this is will that is
motivated by knowledge of what is right, discovered by application of the
categorical imperative – is a will that is free. Kant calls this an autonomous
will. What does Kant mean? In the Groundwork, Kant contrasts autonomy
with heteronomy.

Autonomy: the will’s determination of itself.

Heteronomy: the will’s determination by alien forces.

Autonomy is a kind of self-legislation. You are autonomous when you are

your own ruler. Where do moral laws come from? According to Kant, from
the reason within us. What happens when our decisions are forced upon us
from outside? We lack autonomy; we become a conduit for outside forces,
e.g. social pressures, peer pressure. What happens when our decisions are
based on desires and feelings, inclinations as Kant calls them? We still lack
autonomy, we become a conduit for the animal forces which bind us. Where
did our desires (for pleasure, fame, sex, social standing, etc. etc.) come from?
We did not choose them. On what basis could we choose them? Yet more
desires? Eventually we must admit to just finding that we desire something.
Nature, society, culture and chance all plant desires in us. How can we be
autonomous – i.e. self-ruled, creators of our own character – if we merely
respond to desires that are implanted in us? We can’t, thinks Kant. So how
can we become autonomous? By following reason. By determining our will
according to reason. By following the categorical imperative. In Kant’s
fanciful way of putting it, by legislating the moral law for ourselves.

Kant’s vision is of people creating their own character by exercising their

reason, rather than following the dictates of their inclinations. The value Kant
places on autonomy is expressed vividly in this passage from his essay “What
is Enlightenment?” (You can find this essay on the course website.)
Through laziness and cowardice a large part of mankind, even after nature has freed them
from alien guidance, gladly remain immature. It is because of laziness and cowardice that it is
so easy for others to usurp the role of guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor! If I have a
book which provides meaning for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a doctor who will
judged my diet for me and so on, then I do not need to exert myself. I do not have any need to
think; if I can pay, others will take over this tedious job for me. The guardians who have
kindly undertaken the supervision will see to it that by far the largest part of mankind,
including the entire “beautiful sex,” should consider the step into maturity, not only as
difficult but as very dangerous. (Kant: What is Enlightenment?)