Notes:
- Moral principles are confused with principles of self-interest (a priori/a posteriori). This weakens the claims of morality.
- Moral principles must be grasped entirely a priori, without the reference to the empirical world.
- Some questions to be answered:
-What is meant by “rational agent”?
-What is meant by “will”?
-What is meant by “good” and “ought”?
-What is meant by “imperative” (in general, not limited to moral imperative)?
A rational agent is one who has the power to act in accordance with his idea of laws – in accordance with principles.
This is what is meant when we say that a rational agent has a will (“practical reason”).
Human beings are “imperfectly rational”. Thus we must distinguish between:
a)subjective principles (maxims)
b)objective principles (maxims)
So far as an agent acts based on objective principles, his actions could be described as in some sense “good”.
Imperfectly rational agents may, or may not act on objective principles. For imperfectly rational agents actions which are objectively necessary are subjectively contingent.
Objective principles, to an imperfectly rational agent, seem to necessitate the will;they SEEM to be imposed upon the will from without.
Objective principles, to a wholly rational agent would be a necessarymanifestation of the will.
When an objective principle necessitates the will, it may be described as a command, an imperative.
“I ought” – means that I recognize an action to be imposed or necessitated by an objective principle valid for any rational agent as such.
For a perfectly rational agent objective principles would not be imperatives – they would be necessary, but not necessitating. Where I say “I ought” a perfectly rational agent would say “I will” – he would have not need for imperatives.
Classification of Imperatives
Kant identifies three kinds of imperatives. We thus have three kinds of objective principles and three corresponding kinds (senses) of “good”.
- Hypothetical Imperatives (Conditioned by will to some end – they would necessarily be followed by a fully rational agent if he willed that end. They are good as means to an end that we will, or might will)
- Pragmatic Imperatives(Where the end is which every rational agent wills by his very nature. Every rational agent wills his own happiness and the actions enjoined by a pragmatic imperative could be said to be good in the sense of being “prudent”.
- Categorical Imperatives (Unconditioned. They would necessarily be followed by a fully rational agent, but are not based on the previous willing of some end. Categorical imperatives have a form of “I ought to do such and such”, but without and “if” as a prior condition. These are unconditioned imperatives of morality, and the actions they enjoin are morally good – good in themselves and not merely as means to some end.
Different kinds of imperative exercise different kinds of necessitation: rules of skill, counsels of prudence, commands (laws) of morality.
How can imperatives be justified?
Kant always assumes that a principle on which a fully rational agent as such would necessarily act is also one on which imperfectly rational agent ought to act if he is tempted to do otherwise.
To understand this argument we must understand thedistinction between analytic and synthetic propositions:
Analytic Proposition: The predicate is contained within the subject-concept:
“All triangles have three sides.” In order to justify an analytic proposition we don’t need to go beyond the concept of the subject. Here ‘triangle’ already contains the predicate “three sides”.
Synthetic Proposition:The predicate is not contained within the subject-concept:
“All bachelors are unhappy.” This is a synthetic proposition. We can clearly think of bachelors without thinking that they are unhappy. In order to justify a synthetic proposition, we must go beyond the concept of the subject to find some “third term” which will entitle us to attribute the predicate to the subject.
“Any fully rational agent who wills an end necessarily wills the means to the end.”
This is an analytic proposition. To will (not merely wish) and end is also to will the action which is a means to this end.
Therefore any rational agent who wills an end ought towill the means to that end if he is irrational enough to be tempted to do otherwise.
This justifies hypothetical imperatives and imperatives of prudence.
Categorical imperatives cannot by justified in this manner.
When I recognize moral duty by saying “I ought to do this”, this does not presuppose that another end has been willed.
To justify a categorical imperative we have to show that a fully rational agent would necessarily act in a certain way – not IF he happens to want something else, but simply and solely as a rational agent.
The predicate here, however, is not contained in the subject “rational agent”, so we are dealing with a synthetic proposition.
Yet this synthetic proposition is an assertion of what a rational agent as such would necessarily do. We can never justify such an assertion by examples or experience. This makes it not only synthetic, but also a priori (a priori, in “Kantese” means outside the world of experience, cause and effect).
How, then, can such a proposition be justified?
The two standpoints
As finite rational agent, man can regard himself from two standpoints: the member of the “intelligible” world (things in themselves, as differentiated from appearances of things within mind/consciousness) and as a member of the “sensible” world (as subject to the laws of nature, cause and effect, etc.)
The “intelligible” world contains the ground of the sensible world and also of its laws.
Kant says that “I ought” is a synthetic a priori proposition; the third termwhich connects this “ought” with the will of an imperfectly rational agent is the Idea of the same will, viewed, however, as a pure will belonging to the intelligible world.
“A rational being… has two points of view from which he can regard himself and from which he can know laws governing… all his actions. He can consider himself first– so far as he belongs to the sensible world – to be under laws of nature (heteronomy); and secondly – so far as he belongs to the intelligible world – to be under laws which, being independent of nature, are not empirical but have their ground in reason alone.”
To be independent of determination by causes in the sensible world is to be free.
Michael Sandel summarizes this position as follows:
Categorical imperatives are possible “only because ‘the idea of freedom makes me the member of the intelligible world’ [Kant]. The idea that we can act freely, take moral responsibility for our actions, and hold other people morally responsible for their actions requires that we see ourselves from this perspective – from the standpoint of an agent, not merely an object. If you really want to resist this notion, and claim that human freedom and moral responsibility are utter illusions, then Kant’s account can’t prove you wrong. But it would be difficult if not impossible to understand ourselves, to make sense of our lives, without some conception of freedom and morality. And any such conception, Kant thinks, commits us to two standpoints – the standpoints of the agent and of the object. And once you see the force of this picture, you will see why science can never prove or disprove the possibility of freedom.”
Morality and freedom are not empirical concepts. We can’t prove that they exist, but neither can we make sense of our moral lives without presupposing them.
Questions:
- Is Categorical Imperative (treat everyone with respect, as an end in itself) the same as the Golden Rule?
- Acting according to duty means having to obey a law. How is that compatible with freedom and autonomy? (duty and autonomy go together only in the special case when I am the author of the law)
- What guarantees that everyone will choose the same moral law? (the moral law is not up to individuals, but up to “pure practical reason”. Everyone who exercises PPR will reach the same conclusions.
- What if scientists discover that we have no free will after all?