Kant’s Moral Philosophy: Autonomy, Duty, and Moral Worth

Kant’s moral rationalism

• moral requirements are requirements of practical reason that hold for any rational agents

• some principles for practical reasoning are moral principles that state moral requirements. These principles express rational requirements on choice and action that apply to all rational agents.

  • Practical Reason - A rational agent’s capacity to deliberate and make free choices concerning what to do.

  • Principles of Practical Reason - Principles that generate requirements for deliberating and choosing rationally.

• We learn our morality from religion, society, parents, social media, etc. but Kant believes it comes from reason.

• Reasoning about actions and what to do is grounded in our nature as human beings.

• Kant thought that we can discover what morality requires by thinking about what practical reasoning requires (reasoning about what to do).

Hypothetical imperative (HI)

• If one intends E and recognizes that doing A is necessary for bringing about E, then do A (or give up E).

• We are always required to satisfy the above requirement. However, what means we are rationally required to adopt given HI is dependent on what ends we adopt.

• Kant gives us an example of a requirement of practical reasoning: If you have some goal/end and believe that there is some necessary means to that end, you must take those necessary means. (example: if you want to be a nurse, you have to take and pass my class). The problem is that morality requires a categorical imperative. Morality consists of requirements that apply for all of us regardless of what contingent ends we might have (e.g., whether we want to be nurses or not).

ends with conditional value

• Ends whose values are contingent on our adopting them. (e.g. houses, money, etc.)

ends with unconditional value/ends in themselves

• Existent ends who are intrinsically valuable and whose value is not contingent on our valuing them.

autonomy/humanity/freedom

• self law (idea of freedom and governing yourself)

• the capacity, inherent in all rational agents, to act freely on the basis of reason and independently of our desires (i.e. the capacity to set and achieve ends).

• Kant - “Autonomy is . . . the ground of the dignity of human nature and of every rational nature”

categorical imperative - HEI (humanity as an end in itself formulation)

• Always act in a way that treats others an end in themselves and never merely as a means. 

• Negative Requirement of HEI: You are required not to treat them merely as a means - to act in ways that disrespect their autonomy/humanity (e.g. coercing, lying, etc.). Though you can treat them as a means (e.g. paying the clerk at the store to get food).

• It is wrong to treat someone as a tool and use you for their own ends/end goal - basically don’t treat other people like servile

• Positive Requirement of HEI: In respecting humanity, you are required to promote it. This requires to adopting certain ends such as self-perfection (duty to self) and the happiness of others (duty to others).

• You can treat someone as a means but not merely as a means

  Ex - Treating someone as a means: going to class and using the teacher

  Using merely as an end: substitute teacher (getting the short end of the stick) and treating them poorly
  

perfect duties/negative duties/omission

• Duties derived from obligatory ends to not do certain things

  • Duties not to destroy or degrade the autonomy of ourselves and others autonomy

  • Specific and narrowly defined

  • duties to not treat others in certain ways that disrespects their freedom (e.g., lie, cheat, kill)

  • according to Kant, this includes suicide because it is a waste of ones potential and it is something that morality forbids you to do

imperfect duties/positive duties (commission)

• Duties derived from obligatory ends to do certain things

  • Duties to promote autonomy in ourselves and others

  • More general and less narrowly defined

  • duties to promote the freedom of ourselves and others (e.g., to assist them in their goals, to educate onself, etc.) 

Humanity formula

• An action A in circumstance C is obligatory if and only if (and because) failing to perform A in C would (from among the alternative actions open to one in C) fail to respect humanity to a greater degree than would any alternative action.

• An action A in C is wrong if and only if (and because) performing A would fail to respect someone’s humanity to a greater degree than would any other alternative action open to one in C.

• An action A in C is optional if and only if (and because) either (i) performing A would not fail to respect someone’s humanity to a greater degree than would any other alternative action open to the agent in C, or (ii) neither performing A nor failing to perform A in C would involve failing to respect humanity.

FUL (formula of universal law)

we must act on principles/maxims that can become universal law. The idea is that we must act on rules that are consistent and non self-contradictory. If we were to adopt a rule to lie whenever we want, note that if everyone else followed it, the rule would never work. Nobody can lie at all because nobody can trust one another. To adopt such a rule is irrational because it is inconsistent. 

• Act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature. (G, 4:421/73)

  Kant defines a maxim as “a subjective principle of volition” (G, 4:402n/56) on which an agent acts whenever she acts intentionally. When one acts, one represents to oneself the action one is proposing to do (or has done) and the circumstances in which the action is to take place.

  Maxims can be expressed in thought and language by sentences having this form:

  • I will ________, if/when ________ in order to ________.

  Consistent willing avoids self-contradiction and adopting conflicting ends

• In order to check our policies and see if they are consistent, we have to see if other people would adapt to it

most important things to Kant

• the most valuable thing in the world is to our freedom. To be specific, it is to act in accordance with the moral law and to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.

• The possession of virtuous character.

• The possession of happiness (fulfillment of one’s desires and goals) as one’s character merits.