Ethics

KANTIAN ETHICS
Chapter 2: Normative Ethics- Kantian
Ethics
Immanuel Kant- (1724-1804) born in Königsberg in East Prussia. He is famous for
revolutionising how we think about every aspect of the world- including science,
art, ethics, religion, the self and reality.
◦ Kant developed revolutionary insights concerning the human mind and the conditions for the
possibility of knowledge.
◦ He intends to develop what he calls “supreme principle of morality”.
◦ For Kant, he thinks that we can gain knowledge from our senses through our rational
capacities.
◦ His general philosophical approach starts by asking what we can know a priori. A priori-
knowledge that comes from the power of reasoning based on self-evident truths.
For Kant, understanding ethics should be directed “inwards”.
He believes that people will recognise certain actions as right or wrong
irrespective of how we might feel and irrespective of the consequences.
◦ For Kant, actions are right if they respect what he calls the Categorical Imperative. (For
example, lying fails to respect Categorical Imperative. To whatever reason one might give
because of lying, the action of lying is wrong for Categorical Imperative irrespective of the
consequence.)
◦ To this, Kant’s theory is deontological which means it focuses more on the duties rather than
the end, the goal or the consequence.
Duty and Agency
A theory that evaluates that is done because of duty is called deontology.
◦ Deontology comes from the Greek word deon meaning, “being necessary”. Thus it referes to
the “the study of duty and obligation.
◦ In Kant’s theory, he proposed that unlike animals, human’s has his own rational will.
To draw the difference, think of it like this: Animals uses it’s sentience, meaning in order
to navigate external forces an animal has to use it’s senses to perceive the environment. But
on the other hand, humans are a step higher from the animals for he uses his senses as well
as his rational will in reacting to external stimuli.
Rational will enables a human being to perform necessary mental faculty to
construct ideas and thoughts that are beyond one’s immediate surroundings.
◦ This enables a person to stop and think mentally whether to stop the action we are doing and
reflect or to carry on with the action.
◦ In fact, a human person has the ability to imagine a better world and create different images
in this world like how we are interacting to other people.
◦ Although humans has also the capacity to act on this mental imaginations and enact and
make real of the actions formed from mental imaging.
◦ In addition, humans also has the ability to formulate reason, as to how and why certain
actions were done because of our own evaluation of the action.
Given an example where:
A student has to finish studying all her subject for the upcoming periodical
examination. She devotes her time and make sure to study all through the night.
However, there were times in which the student feels sleepy and ready to lay in
bed. But the student tries to stand up and do small actions to wake her system
up. She also made herself coffee, as well as she stretches her arms and legs in
order for her to stay awake.
◦ In this scenario, the student’s actions are based on her rational will. In the sense that she
uses her reasons to act on her condition and reasons and not merely mindlessly reacting on
her situation.
In a philosophical discussions on human freedom, the capacity in which a person
acts based on his or her intentions and mental states is called agency.
A person must also act based on his good will, meaning, the extent of the action
done by a person is anchored in the outcome of the action being good and not
just pleasurable.
For example, seeing someone being happy kicking the back part of a chair of his classmates.
This does not constitute to a good will rather the opposite. In here, Kant argues that good
will are performed despite of having conflicting desires.
Autonomy
For Kant, there is also a presence of autonomy in rational will.
Autonomy comes from the Greek word “autos” meaning self and “nomos”
meaning law. Thus constituting, autonomy as self-law or self-legislating.
In so far that the action will be done autonomously, there must be a presences
of legislation and imposition. (legislate and impose)
◦ In here, a law must be with legislated or must be enacted upon. Thus if it is directed towards
a person, the imposition of the law happens.
Thus Kant states: “the will thus not only subject to the law, but 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 the subject is”.

Kant describes autonomy as the will that is subject to a principle or law.

Kant also claims that the difference in rational will from a animal impulse. Take a
look on this passage:
“The choice that can be determined by pure reason is called free choice. That
which is determinable only by inclination (sensible impulse, stimulus) would be
animal choice (arbitrirum brutum) . Human choice in contrast, is a choice that
may indeed be affected but not determined by impulse, and therefore in itself
(without an acquired skill of reason) not pure, but can nevertheless be
determined to do actions from pure will”.
In the passage, there is a clear representation of choice or decision, whether it is
caused by sensible impulse or by pure reason.
◦ Sensible impulse are usually bodily and emotional. These are desires such as urge to eat,
drink and sleep etc. that are innate for survival and propagation. Sensible impulse are animal
choices or arbitrium brutum.
◦ On the other hand, there is the presence of choice or action that is determined by pure
reason. Kant calls this action as free choice. It is the mental capacity to construct ideas and
thoughts that are beyond one’s immediate surroundings making a person able to do
intervention between stimulus and reaction.
◦ So for Kant, a human person does not act in mere sensible impulses. A human person react
with rationality.
Universaliizability
To understand the faculty of reason to be a cause of an autonomous action, one need to learn a
method or specific procedure that will demonstrate autonomy of the will.
◦ In here, 2 kinds of moral theory are established.

1. Substantive moral theory- it immediately promulgates the specific actions that comprise
that theory. It identifies the particular duties in a straight forward manner and the adherents
(followers) of the theory must follow. For example: The set of Ten Commandments.
2. Formal moral theory- this do not supply the rules or commands straight away. It does not
tell you what you may or may not do. Instead it provides to supply procedure and the criteria
determining on one’s own, the rues and morals commands. It gives a set of instructions on how
to act on the list of duties or moral commands.
Categorical Imperative
Kant endorses the formal moral theory, and the embodiment of this theory for him is the
categorical imperative.
Categorical Imperative- is a procedural way of identifying the rightness or wrongness of an
action. In a way:
“Act only according to such maxim, by which you can at once will it become a universal law”.

There are four key elements in the formulation of categorical imperative, namely:
1. action
2. maxim
3. will
4. universal law
Kant states that we must formulate an action as a maxim in which it is defined as “subjective
principle of action”.
◦ In context, a maxim consists of rule that one lived by in the day-to-day lives, but does not constitute to a
status of a law or a moral command that binds a person in a certain way.
◦ Rather maxims depicts the pattern of one’s behavior.
◦ In the same manner, maxims can be associated as the “standard operating procedures of our lives.
◦ We became aware of our own maxims when we talk about it in our selves and reveal our habits and
reasons behind them.
◦ Kant calls a maxim as a subjective principle of action.
Example of a maxim: When a student has a certain action of cleaning and tidying up a room before
starting to study his/her subjects. (in here, the actions is almost always done by the student and is a
standard practice to the student, this may be because he/she believes that a clean and tidy room
associates with clear mind.)
The formulation of categorical imperative calls for our attention to be kind to our maxims that
we live by. Kant claims that we ought to act according to the maxim “by which we can at once
will that it become a universal law.
This means that our maxims must be universalizable, in which it means to “will become a
universal law”.
In here, Kant tells us this means nothing other than imaging a world in which the maxim or
personal rule, that we live by were adopted by everyone as their own maxim.
However, Kant tells us to conceive of the maxim as if it obliged everyone to comply. (imagining
everyone that the maxim is a universal rule)
So as imagining, the proper way to imagine a universalized maxim is not to say, what if everyone
does the maxim? What if everyone were obliged to follow that maxim?
In here, Kant argues false promises. Not everyone will wholeheartedly obliged to do the maxim.
Rather he/she will follow because it was just expected of him/her.
To draw an example: Borrowing money from a friend.
A man is in need of money but he does not have immediate means to be able to give back
the borrowed money. The man makes an internal dialog to himself if he will continue to borrow
for the money even if he is not sure when will he be able to pay back. If he opted to continue
borrowing for the money, then the act done is under false promising.
To reiterate, Kant states that we should act according to a maxim which will can
at once will that it become a universal law. To universalize a maxim, we simply
imagine a hypothetical world with each and every person are obligated to follow
the maxim.
In the same sense, there is now two possibilities of these hypothetical scenarios,
the maxim can either make sense or not make sense as a universal law.
◦ By making sense, we would mean logically plausible, or will be able to a person will be able to
act on the maxim.
◦ While as not making sense would mean, self-contradiction or logically impossible.
To this Kant assessed:
“Here I see straightaway that it could never be valid as a universal law of nature and be consistent with
itself, but must be necessarily contradict itself. For the universality of the law that each person, when
he believes himself to be in need, could promise whatever he pleases with the intent not to keep it, it
would make the promise and the purpose that he may have impossible, since no one would believe
what was promised him but would laugh at all such impressions as futile pretense.”

For Kant distinguishes being “consistent with itself” and “contradict itself”.
In this manner, a maxim that does not fulfil to become a universal law is when it contradicts
itself and become rationally impossible. This happens of a maxim becomes (1) self-contradictory
or (2) the act or purpose of the maxim is impossible.
In conclusion, the theory of Immanuel Kant follows deontology. In which a
person acts out of duty and reason from his or her own maturity and rational
capacity to take action in decision-making.
In deontology, particularly in universalizability, we validate and adopt rules and
laws that are right and reject those what are irrational, thus impermissible
because they are self-contradictory.
The moral reflection of deontology is that: we are encouraged to have courage
to think on our own, to use our rational will against external authorities as well
as internal base impulse that tend to undermine our autonomy and self-
determination.
References:
Dimmock, M.&A. Fisher(2017). Ethics for A-Level. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers.http://
doi.org/10.1164/OBP.0125; http://www.openbookpublishers.com/products/639#resources

Bulaong, O. G., Calano, M. J., Lagliva, A. M., Mariano, M. N., Principe, J. D. (2018). Ethics:
Foundation of Moral Valuation. Published and Distributed by: Rex Book Store