Chapter 4

DEONTOLOGY
Kantian Ethics
By: Immanuel Kant
Duty and Agency
 To be a RATIONAL AGENT is to act freely on the
basis of duty.
 DUTY = a moral obligation imposed by rational will.
Rational Will  DUTY = moral
action
TENSION
TENSION

Impulses/Instincts  DESIRE = immoral

action
Autonomy
 Faculty of RATIONAL WILL = the capacity to 1) 1) act
act
principles
according to 2) self-determined 3) principles.
 The property of rational will is AUTONOMY.
 Greek: autos—‘self’ + nomos— ‘law’
 Literally, autonomy means self-law.
 ‘self’ = inner principle of the person
 ‘law’ = something that directs/determines/
regulates movement, action, behavior
Autonomy
 Heteronomy  Greek: heteros—‘other’; = other-law
AUTONOMOUS HETERONOMOUS
self-law other-than-the-self-law
self-acting, self-directing, acted upon, being directed,
self-determining being determined
active passive
self-driven externally driven
take it upon oneself imposed upon
Autonomy
 AUTONOMY = the will that is subject to a principle or
law.
 ‘principle’  Latin: principis— ‘first, beginning, original’
= that from which any other thing proceeds.
 Autonomy is the quality of being the author, origin, or
first cause of your action.
 In autonomous action, the self (pure reason) is
the principle or self-legislating authority of the
law governing one’s action.
Autonomy
RATIONAL WILL ANIMAL INSTINCT
reason-driven impulse-driven
autonomic automatic
inner self (inner law) outer self (external law)
 Autonomy is freedom, the capacity to make free
choices.
 Free choice is an action determined by pure reason.
 Animal choice (arbitrium brutum) is determined
by sensible impulses.
Autonomy
 Human choice, as free choice, is affected but not
determined by sensible impulses.
 Autonomy is a property of the will only in instances
when the action is determined by pure reason.
 PURE REASON = the mental capacity to construct ideas
that transcend one’s immediate surroundings.
 What does it mean to think using our pure
reason?
Autonomy

We are basically animals but we

cannot be reduced simply as
animals as we are more essentially
rational agents. There are two
possible causes of our action.
Impulses and reason. Human
freedom lies in this distinction.
Synthesis
 Deontologybases the morality of a human action
not from the consequences but by Pure Reason
 Purereason imply the use of rational will where
we can find our duty to actualize the good will as
an agent.
 Asa rational agent man has to act in freedom and
deliberation.
 Ethics
here is something not dictated or
automatic but autonomic or based on principles.