Mirasol A.

Jabol
Ethics
Dionisio Edloy Limos
_______________________________________________________________

II. The Categorical Imperative

 Immanuel Kant’s Contribution to Deontology

 The Concept of Duty and Moral Obligation
 Criticisms of Kant’s View

A genuinely moral imperative would not be contingent on wants, desires, or needs, and this
is what is meant by a categorical imperative. A categorical imperative, instead of taking an if-
then form, is an absolute command, such as, “Do A,” or “You ought to do A.” Examples of
categorical imperatives would be “You shouldn’t kill,” “You ought to help those in need,” or
“Don’t steal.” It doesn’t matter what your wants or goals are; you should follow a categorical
imperative no matter what.

But these aren’t the categorical imperative. Kant believes that there is one categorical
imperative that is the most important and that should guide all of our actions. This is the
ultimate categorical imperative from which all other moral rules are derived. This categorical
imperative can be expressed in several different ways, and Kant presents three formulations
of it in The Groundwork.

Reference:

 Kranak, J. (2019, December 9). Kantian Deontology – Introduction to Philosophy:

Ethics.Pressbooks.
https://press.rebus.community/intro-to-phil-ethics/chapter/kantian/deontology/

Immanuel Kant’s Contribution to Deontology

Kant divided his deontological beliefs between hypothetical and categorical imperatives.
Much of his writing and the focus of deontology centers on categorical imperatives, which
Kant defined as moral and unconditional absolutes. When applied to health care, one of
Kant’s most famous categorical imperatives would have the health provider consider whether
it would be acceptable for everyone to take the same action he or she was about to take.
In other words, healthcare providers should act in such a way that any other provider
making the same decision would be justified and considered acting morally. Another
example of a categorical imperative, or moral law, according to Kant, is the requirement
never to treat people solely as a means to an end. According to Kant, each human has his or
her own predetermined goals and needs. If healthcare providers use people only to move
their agendas forward, they have violated Kant’s moral law. Kant started not with pain and
pleasure but rather with the fact that mankind’s distinguishing feature is our possession of
reason. Therefore, it follows that all humans have universal rational duties to one another,
centring on their duty to respect the other’s humanity.
To Kant, all humans must be seen as inherently worthy of respect and dignity. He
argued that all morality must stem from such duties: a duty based on a deontological ethic.
Consequences such as pain or pleasure are irrelevant.
Reference:

 Barrow JM, Khandhar PB. Deontology. [Updated 2022 Oct 19]. In: StatPearls
[Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022
Jan-.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK459296/.(Page 2)

The Concept of Duty and Moral Obligation

The concepts of moral obligation and moral rule have some important characteristics
in common with the concept of a moral right. Moral rights and obligations and most moral
rules specify what one is morally permitted, forbidden, or required to do without
consideration of the consequences of the action--except in so far as these consequences are
part of the characterization of the acts themselves; killing, for example, is an act that results
in death.
Obligations and rules, like rights, may have an institutional or legal basis rather than
an ethical one. For example, at many colleges there is a rule that makes it an institutional
obligation of all students to see their advisor on or before Registration Day. Students in some
universities but not others have a right to, an institutional guarantee of, on housing on
campus. In contrast people generally have a moral/ethical obligation to keep their promises.
Because rights, obligations and moral rules all concern taking action, they are related
notions. Thus, moral constraint on action can be expressed in the language of rights or
obligations, as well as that of moral rules. For example, if people have a moral right to refuse
medical treatment, then a corresponding moral rule prohibits treating people against their
will. Therefore, health care providers all have a professional moral obligation not to perform
medical interventions on people without their permission.
Moral rights and obligations are subject to further classification, as we saw earlier.
For example, rights may be classified as either absolute or prima facie, depending on
whether the claims they embody always override other considerations in the case of absolute
rights or whether the claims can be overridden by weightier rights and considerations in the
case of prima facie rights. We will take up the notion of moral responsibility and see that it is
a more complex notion than that of moral rights, moral obligations and moral rules.

A moral obligation or duty is a course of action that is morally required. Obligations arise
from many sources--from one's promises, agreements and contracts, and from one's
relationships, debts of gratitude, and roles.

Reference:

 Whitbeck 1995, Introduction to Ethical Concepts, Part 2. (n.d.).

https://web.mit.edu/course/2/2.95j/readings/introethics_pt2.html
Criticisms of Kant’s View

Kant’s deontology is not without its opponents. Here are some of the criticisms
commonly raised.
1. One criticism of Kant’s ethics is that he ultimately assumed the freedom of the
will without proof. Given our observations about the human condition, it is viewed by many
as more tenable to postulate determinism over freedom, regardless of what that does to
human morality. In Kant’s case, he seems to make a pragmatic decision that moral
responsibility is so important that this justifies the assumption of human freedom.

2. Many reject Kant’s contention that genuine moral worth is grounded in a

purely rational activity of the will married to an impersonally calculable logical consistency.
Kant does not try to hide this. And yet his view of intentionality, though rigorous, fails to
capture much of what we admire as moral motivation, such as the admiration of maternal
instinct judiciously applied.

3. Another criticism of Kant concerns the issue of maxims. When humans act,
Kant says that we act according to subjective principles of action called maxims. What he
never does is argue for a consistent way to form these maxims prior to assessment via the
three tests for categorical imperatives. Once again, honesty serves as a good case in point.
Suppose I am unemployed and tempted to steal to feed my family. If I phrase the maxim
generally, “It is OK to steal,” I am breaking a categorical moral law by the three tests. But
Kant does not really specify that I cannot phrase the maxim anyway I wish, such as “I may
steal to feed my starving family when I know I will not get caught, and when I can reasonably
assume that others in the same position are not doing the same.” Universalize this maxim,
and there is no apparent practical contradiction. Here we seem to have a case where a maxim
fails the first test but passes the second and third ones.

4. Kant insists that moral situations never, if thought out carefully, cash out as
genuine dilemmas over conflicting categorical imperatives. Otherwise, the status of absolute
moral rules as a class would be in jeopardy. During World War II, Dutch fishermen hid
Jewish fugitives in their boats and ferried them to safety over in England. Often, SS patrol
boats and submarines would stop these fishing boats. When Nazi captains asked the
fishermen if there were Jews on board, what were the fishermen to do? If the maxims “It is
wrong to lie” and “Permitting the murder of innocent people is wrong” are both viewed as
categorical imperatives, as I think they must be, then we have a genuine categorical dilemma.
In these cases, most Dutch captains viewed it as permissible to sacrifice absolute honesty to
save innocent lives. Kant has trouble with these types of scenarios.

References:
 M.W. Hallgarth, Consequentialism and Deontology in Encyclopedia of Applied
Ethics (Second Edition), 1998
Questions

1. According to Kant, nothing can be called “good” without qualification except:

a. Right Action
b. Good Consequences
c. Happiness
d. A Good Will

2. The first formulation of categorical imperative states that:

a. One should respect only things.
b. One should treat other person only as ends
c. One should act only on principles, one could rationally will everyone else to
act on.
d. One should not assist others in need.

3. What is categorical imperative, according to Kant?

a. An imperative that tells you what to do to achieve a particular goal.
b. An imperative that applies to everyone regardless of what they happen to
want or what goals they have.
c. A rule that tells you to treat others wit respect
d. A rule that tells you to treat others as you would like to be treated.

4. Which of the following is NOT an implication of Kant's categorical imperative?

a. One must act to treat every person as an end and never as a means only.

b. Our moral judgments should rest on reasons that apply to all other persons
who are similarly situated.

c. Humans cannot morally be treated as research subjects because this treats

them as means rather than only as ends.

d. I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim
become a universal law.

5. Which of the following is not possible in Kant's view:

a. Analytic a priori judgments

b. Analytic a posteriori judgments
c. Synthetic a priori judgments
d. Synthetic a posteriori judgments