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Kant’s Biography:
Immanuel Kant was born on April 22, 1724 in Königsberg, the capital of East Prussia. Kant
was the born into a Pietist family. Pietism was a Lutheran movement that stressed good
works and unmediated access to god through simple forms of worship. Kant’s family was
never wealthy – his father was a tradesman – and Kant had to use a scholarship to attend
school in his early years. When he was 16, Kant began attending the University of
Königsberg, studying mathematics, physics, philosophy, theology, and classical Latin
literature. (He would often speak to his friends in Latin.) After leaving the university, Kant’s
first work was “Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces” (1749), which sought to
figure a middle way between the Newtonian and Leibnizian theories of physical movement.
(Kant, thus, was far from an amateur in the study of contemporary physical sciences.) For
the next eight years, Kant then worked as a tutor, serving in households near Königsberg,
the town that he would never leave during the course of his life. In 1755, Kant returned to
the University of Königsberg. He quickly published two works on physics and his first
philosophical work, “A New Elucidation of the First Principles of Metaphysical Cognition,”
which gave Kant the ability to provide lectures at the university as a Privatdozent (professors
paid directly by the students). In 1770, Kant finally received a position where he was directly
paid by the university. In the period between 1762 and 1770, Kant lectured some twenty
hours per week on a variety of subjects, from physics to anthropology to philosophy. He also
kept up on the latest work in philosophy, reading David Hume and Rousseau with great
interest (both were to have a great influence on his work). Kant’s later work was an answer
to the theories of Rousseau and Hume, who had both questioned the place of reason in
human affairs.
From 1770-1780, Kant published little and little was expected of him. However, in 1781, he
published the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, a book that put Kant at the center of
the philosophical universe at the time. From there, Kant published a number of books and
influential essays in quick succession: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (a work that tried
to simplify the difficult theories in the Critique of Pure Reason, and which is a good source to
begin reading Kant’s philosophy) (1782); “Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan
Point of View,” “What is Enlightenment?” (1784); “The Grounding of the Metaphysics of
Morals” (1785); a revised second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (1787); The Critique of
Practical Reason and an essay on “The Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy” (1788);
the Critique of Judgment and “On a discovery according to which any new Critique of Pure
Reason is rendered dispensable by an older one”( 1790); “On the Common Saying: 'That
may be right in theory but does not work in practice'” and “Religion within the Limits of
Reason Alone” (1793); “Towards Perpetual Peace” (1795); and the Metaphysics of Morals
(1797). Kant retired in 1797 and died seven years later on February 12, 1804.
Overview:
In his practical philosophy, Kant argued that human reason is autonomous, providing
rational beings with a source for ethical conduct. Reason, Kant argued, could provide the
“laws” by which one should act, and called on us to ignore the inclinations that would have
us act out of self-interest. Kant has been called an ethical formalist, meaning that he believes
that morality is founded on universality of moral laws derived from the very definition of
rationality itself. The Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (henceforth Grounding) is nothing
if not an attempt to tease out and explain how morality can be based on nothing else but
reason, separated out from all sense-perception (intuition) or ideas based upon experience
(the understanding). But Kant also recognized that we are not just ruled by the moral laws
but, by partaking in reason, its legislators; our reason is the mark of our freedom, and the
moral laws, far from inhibiting us, are the outward sign of our ability to be free. The
Grounding is a difficult text to understand because Kant uses words such as “freedom,”
“autonomy,” “will,” “inclination,” etc. in very precise ways. But Kant makes the reading
easier by providing, at every turn, the precise definition that is meant by his use of these
terms. As you read the text, mark these out and memorize them for the course of your
reading.
Unlike Aristotle, whose paradigm for freedom is to act according to reason, Kant argues that
reason allows human beings to make the laws that they will follow. The inherent dignity of
being human is having reason, which makes us “free with regard to all laws of nature” (435).
In section I, Kant looks at the ordinary conceptions of morality to see if he can derive the
fundamental principal of morality. Kant proceeds first by arguing that we need to look at the
good will of an agent rather than natural inclination or even the action taken to see if it is
moral. According to Kant, we could have a number of reasons to do something, such as
helping an old lady across the road, many of which would not be moral. We could be just
sizing up the woman to see if she’s carrying money in her purse. But it’s also the case that
our inclinations – our desires – are a good indication of morality. For Kant, the most moral
things to do are those that are opposed to the pleasure we might derive from doing
something. We should do something because it conforms to our moral duties, not because it
conforms to what we find pleasurable. At the end of Section I, Kant provides his first
description of the categorical imperative: “I ought never to act except in such a way that I
can also will that my maxim should become a universal law” (402). In other words, I should
do things that would make perfect sense for everyone to do. For example, it would selfcontradictory to make it universal law that everyone breaks promises, because then there
would be a contradiction: there would not be any such thing as a promise since no one could
ever be expected to live up to them.
In section II, Kant outlines the difference between hypothetical and categorical imperatives.
Hypothetical imperatives, according to Kant, have to do with one’s own happiness. Since
happiness is often illusory and we cannot in fact predict with certainty what will bring such a
state for us, it can only be hypothetical. In addition, no imperatives relating to our own
pleasure can be made universal, as in the categorical imperative. Kant spends much of
Section II providing a philosophical proof for the necessity of the categorical imperative and
how it follows from the very definitions of reason and will. Importantly, Kant also reveals in
this section that all rational beings should be treated as ends in themselves, not as a means
for another end; we not not, in contemporary parlance, “use” other people.
In Section III, Kant argues for the way in which the notion of freedom he raises in section II
works itself out. Alas, we will not have the time in this class to focus on section III. Before
dipping into Kant’s Grounding, it is important to look at some key terms for his ethical
theory:
Outline
Preface
Kant begins by accepting Aristotle’s distinction between the three classes of philosophy:
logic, ethics, and physics. Kant then divides all rational knowledge into two classes:
1. Material Knowledge: Those that combine reason with some material object (i.e.
empiricist). Of the three branches of philosophy, physics and ethics deal in some way with
the actions of material entities, whether they are planets or people. The “material” of physics
is nature while the “material” of ethics is freedom.
2. Formal (Rational or pure) knowledge: This area is concerned only with reason itself, its
modes of thought a priori (logically prior) to any encounter with the empirical world. This is
the domain of what Kant will call “pure practical reason” in this essay; it is also the domain
of logic.
It’s important to note that formal knowledge cannot be derived from the empirical world.
We will see this again and again in the Grounding. We will not be able to derive universal
laws applicable to all rational beings from the empirical world. This is the mistake the Kant
sees in a number of ethical philosophers that proceeded him, many of whom argued (a la
Hobbes) that humans are inherently amoral, if not immoral, if left to their own devices. After
all, many will see the corrupt activities in the empirical world of our neighbors and infer
from this that human beings must be this way. Kant’s method will be instead to look at
formal knowledge – the necessary laws of reason – that are universal to all rational beings.
Kant will thus distinguish between morality and practical anthropology.
Morality: the necessary a priori principles that provides duties for the will.
Practical Anthropology: This is the study of how men actually enact their wills. This, Kant
suggests, is what most people studying morality have done, i.e. merely studied the actions of
their fellow human beings, which are always in the contingent, empirical world.
A priori principles: For Kant, this means logically prior to any engagement with experience.
A priori principles are founded in reason, and one cannot use experience to prove them. For
example, in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant argues that there are the a priori categories of
time and space that cannot come from experience itself, but are rather categories of reason
that exist prior to any experiences we have in life. We cannot even think of an experience
that could take place witht the categories of time and space. A priori principles, according to
Kant, are necessary. Principles derived from experience are contingent. “It is possible to show
that pure a priori principles are indispensible for the possibility of experience and so prove
their existence a priori. From where could experience derive its certainty, if all the rules,
according to which it proceeds, were always themselves empirical, and therefore
contingent?” (CPR, B5). In terms of practical reason, Kant argues that we cannot derive
moral principles from experience, and much of Section I of the Grounding aims to show why.
Rather, a priori moral principles, Kant argues, form duties for all rational beings, even nonhuman rational beings.
By way of example, we can make the very Kantian distinction between theoretical and
experimental physics. Theoretical physics tells us how things ought to be, while experimental
physics tells us, through intense research, how they are. The question that Kant asks with
regard to morality is whether it can be done purely theoretically, that is, can we have a
metaphysics of morals that is “carefully purified of everything empirical in order to know
how much pure reason can accomplish in each case and from what sources it draws a priori
teaching [and] whether such teaching can be conducted by all moralists” (389)? This will be
the task of the Grounding: to work out an ethics away from (empirical) anthropology. In
other words, Kant will not be arguing that human beings act a certain way in given
situations, and therefore the ethically valid thing to do is to be inferred from those actions.
On the contrary, Kant will be working out the universal rules by which free subjects govern
themselves. Part of this project, as Kant will note in Section I, is that these ethical principles
are available to all reasoning human beings.
In this way, Kant says that if a law is to be morally valid, “then it must carry with it absolute
necessity” (389). In other words, moral duties are not contingent upon an empirical set of
circumstances (i.e. Thou shall not kill applies when you are being mugged in an alley, but
not when the criminal is put on death row). For Kant, any “ethics” based upon experience is
merely a “practical rule” and not a “moral law.” In fact, Kant argues that ethics and
morality are always going to be open to corruption “as long as the guide and the supreme
norm for correctly estimating them are missing” (390). We can therefore seek “the moral law
in its purity …[only] in a pure philosophy” (390). Without such a grounding in pure practical
reason (a priori to experience), there “would be no moral philosophy at all” (390). The
present work sets out to provide the “supreme principle of morality” (392).
(Kant also notes that this text is a preliminary study of Critique of Practical Reason, which was
eventually published two years after this text [1787]).
Some further things to note at the end of the preface:
1. Kant does not think of ethics in terms of eudaemonia (happiness). Happiness, however
we define it, is not the goal of ethics. Happiness is sought through our “inclinations,” not
moral laws. In addition, finding out what is ethical and what is not applies to all rational
beings (whether they are human or not), and as such, does not tell us about “human
nature.” This is left to the anthropologists.
Section I
Kant begins this section by noting that there is “no possibility of thinking of anything at all in
the world, or even out of it, which can be regarded as good without qualification, except
good will” (893). Kant differentiates between two types of qualified goods (i.e. goods other
than good will):
1. Gifts of nature: these are what Aristotle refers to as intellectual virtues, such as one
intellectual talents and temperament.
2. Gifts of fortune include, according to Kant, honor, health, power, and even
happiness. We see that for Kant, happiness is not conditioned upon moral virtue, but
is rather an external good like wealth that can be given or taken away by the
contingencies of life.
These are what Kant calls “extrinsic” goods, which means that they are not part of a things
nature, but rather are an inessential feature. For example, wealth or moderation can be good
in some circumstances, and bad in others. They are not “intrinsically” good like a good will.
This is an important argument, for Kant, because it is here that he differentiates himself from
Aristotle. According to Kant, an act and its consequences can only be “extrinsically” good –
not “intrinsically” good. In other words, someone’s behavior or virtue - say courageous
behavior – can be ethically good in some circumstances (such as the heroism of a firefighter
risking his or her own life for the life of another) but ethically bad in others (such as when a
terrorist acts “bravely” for his/her cause). What will matter to Kant is one’s good will, even
if that good will is not manifested in good actions. In other words, whether one accomplishes
or fails to accomplish one’s goal makes no ethical difference, according to Kant. This is
based on good will, which is by definition intrinsically good, and does not depend on
anything outside of it (gifts of nature and fortune, “good” acts, etc.) to make itself better. It
simply is good.
As Kant puts it, “a good will is good not because of what effects it accomplishes, not because
of its fitness to attain some proposed end [see Aristotle]. It is good only through its willing,
i.e. it is the good in itself” (394). Even without accomplishing anything, it is still a good in
itself, i.e. intrinsically good. “Its usefulness or fruitlessness can never augment nor diminish
this value.” Kant admits this idea may seem “fanciful.” What good is ethics if good acts
have no intrinsic moral quality to them? For the moment, let’s keep this important question
open. For now, we can see a key difference with Aristotle. Whereas for Aristotle, happiness
(eudaemonia) was the only good-in-itself, for Kant, in practical philosophy, only a good will is
good in itself. Kant critiques Aristotle by arguing that if some “being’s preservation, welfare,
or in a word, happiness, happiness, were the real end of nature in the case of a being having
reason and a will, then nature would have hit upon a poor arrangement in having the reason
of the creature carry out this purpose” (395).
Instinct, and not reason, according to Kant, does a much better job of leading a being to
happiness, and Kant here suggests the dictum that ignorance, for many, is bliss. In fact, Kant
argues, it is those with most acute ability to reason that often seem the unhappiest. This is
why many form what Kant calls “misology,” a hated of reason, since it often appears that
the more one knows, the more one brings trouble down upon oneself. For Kant, there is
something higher than happiness that is the goal of the “private purpose of men” (396). In
this way, it is not reason’s function, as in Aristotle, to lead one on the path to happiness.
Rather, its function is ethical, to provide each of us with a good will. This does not mean
that morality and happiness are opposed (as some suggest), but rather that they are two very
different ventures, according to Kant. The former is a result of the proper functioning of
reason; the latter is an “external good” uncontrollable, it seems, by the dictates of reason. To
put it simply: we can use our freedom to be moral; we cannot choose to be happy. Summing
this up, Kant argues that “inasmuch as reason has been imparted to us as practical faculty,
i.e. to influence the will, its true function must be to produce a will which is not merely good
as a means to some further end, but is good in itself” (396). In short, reason’s “highest
function [is] the establishment of a good will.”
Kant then turns to developing and working out this concept of the will, which estimates the
“total worth of our actions.” Kant then turns to different types of actions and whether they
match or do not match moral laws (duties) set by reason. The distinction to keep in mind
here is between duties (which follow from reason) and inclinations (which do not).
Actions in accord with duty: these are actions that match what duty dictates. For example,
if there is a duty not to steal, a person acts in a way that s/he doesn’t steal. But, as Kant
quickly notes (and this is why he is suspicious of discussing ethics in terms of action), an
action can conform to duty without following from it. As such, actions in accord with duty
can either:
A. Follow duty, as when we take an action because we want to follow our moral duties.
B. Or just be coincidental with it, as when we choose not to steal, not because of our
moral duties, but rather because of a fear of punishment. This is following our
“inclinations,” not our duties.
Actions not in accord with duty: This is relatively self-explanatory. However, there can be
two types of these actions as well:
A. Actions which are done in violation of one’s moral duty, such as setting out to steal.
B. Actions in which one sets out to follow one’s duty, but unwittingly performs an
action not in accord with it. Kant does not discuss this option at length here,
although it remains a possibility.
According to Kant, the most morally upright action is when one follows duty even when one
is not inclined to do so. For example, Kant suggests that it is not that difficult, for example,
to act in such a way as not to steal if one also has a great fear of getting caught. However,
more morally upright would be when one follows one’s duty against strong inclinations,
such as (and here Kant emphasizes the difference between his approach and that of Aristotle)
a person who has not had fortune on his or her side may be despondent over living, and may
be inclined to kill him- or herself, but the person chooses not to do so because of the moral
duty not to kill oneself (399). Finally, Kant remarks that to try to be happy is a duty, but only
indirectly, in the sense that being happy would not put one in a position where one is
inclined to perform immoral acts, such as killing oneself.
In any case, the first principle of morality, according to Kant, is that actions should be done
according to duty, not inclination, in order to have any moral worth. Thus, Kant will be
interested in the motivation for actions, not the actions themselves. The second principle of
morality is that “an action done from duty has its moral worth not in its purpose, but in the
maxim according to which the action is determined.” As such, the moral worth of an
activity is not whether it accomplishes its end or goal, but whether the action was undertaken
according to duty “principle of volition” (400). As such, the will outweighs all
considerations of inclination and only “the law itself can be an object of respect and can be a
command.” An act undertaken because of duty “must altogether exclude the influence of
inclination and therewith every object of the will,” which is determined through maxims.
It is necessary, at this point, to distinguish between maxims and duties. Duties, as we have
seen, are universal moral laws applicable to all rational beings. Maxims are a “subjective
principle of volition” and is a practical rule, a principle according to which a subject does
act. In order to follow a duty such as “Thou shall not kill,” one might give oneself a number
of maxims, such as “I should not carry a firearm when I am angry or delusional” in order to
follow one’s moral duty. Even if everyone of your desires needs to fold in the face of duty,
then so be it.
Against utilitarianism, which argues in brief that ethics should be based on provided the
greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, Kant argues that “the moral worth of
an action does not lie in the effect [e.g. how many people are helped by the action] expected
from it… for all of these effects … could have been brought about also through other causes
and would not have required the will of a rational being, in which the highest and the
unconditioned good can also be found” (401). At this point, Kant provides us with the
categorical imperative, which should govern all maxims: “I should never act except in such
a way that I can also will that my maxim becomes a universal law.
Looking at two examples Kant provides in this section will help clear up some of the
difficulties you might be having at this point.
The Merchant: In the first example, that of a salesman or merchant, Kant distinguishes
between following duty and following inclinations. The merchant has a duty not to
overcharge an ignorant customer. The “honest” merchant decides not to overcharge the
customer, even though s/he knows that the customer may pay a greater amount (e.g. s/he
doesn’t know that $6.00 for a gallon of milk is too much). This, of course, is an important
example for our class. In the same way, we could say that the merchant has a duty not to
overcharge any customer, whether s/he could get away with it because of ignorance, mental
illness, etc. on behalf of the customer. What Kant wants us to focus on ethically is why the
merchant is honest, which can be the result of three different motivations: (1) self-interest:
the merchant may be caught and punished; (2) direct inclination: without recognizing his or
her duty, the merchant decides out of affection for the customer not to overcharge him or
her; (3) duty. Only the third is the result of a good will.
False Promises: In this example, Kant provides us with an illustration of the categorical
imperative. The categorical imperative tells us that we should not follow any maxim that is
not universalizable. This simply means that we should follow a maxim (“subjective
principle”) that could not be made into a practical law or universal duty for everyone
(“objective principle”). Thus, we could argue that in some cases it is right to make false
promises, such as when it benefits us in some way (we promise to pay later for goods we can
enjoy now), or even when it seems ethically right, such as when we might promise a hostagetaker not to punish them in order to get him or her to lay down his or her arms. For Kant, if
we make it a universal law that everyone can break promises, then there will be no such
thing as a promise, since a promise by definition must engage another in an act of trust. As
such, a subjective principle, or maxim, that says “it’s ok to break promises” is unethical
because it is not a law that can be made universal for everyone.
Kant concludes the section by pointing out that this simple calculus – seeing if one’s maxims
can be universal – is available to everyone with the ability to reason, and thus ethics is not
just the province of the philosopher or sage. But there is still a role for philosophy in this
area, according to Kant, since “even wisdom, which consists more in doing and not doing
than in knowing, needs science, not in order to learn from it, but in order that wisdom’s
precepts may gain acceptance and permanence” (405). There will be, he says, a natural giveand-take between one’s inclinations and one’s duties, obviously with the former trying to
corrupt one into not following the latter. As such, Kant suggests that common people will
need philosophers to provide “information” and “clear instruction” as to the source of this
principle (to follow duties) in order not to be swayed by inclinations.
Section II:
The first section of the Grounding helped us to identify duty and its relation to having a good
will. As we say, one does one’s duty not out of an expectation of external benefit or in order
to feel good, but rather because a good will impels us towards actions that are in line with
our duties. Further, the demands of morality are unconditional and no one is excepted from
following its dictates. In the beginning of this section, Kant identifies what he takes to be the
great problem that he confronts in this text, namely the view that, based on experience, we
can see that most people are unethical. We see our neighbors cheat on their husbands/wives
and break their promises, therefore ethics must be a pipedream, if anything at all. Kant
draws us back from this cynicism by arguing that we should not, and have not thus far,
begun our ethical inquiry from the stand-point of experience. However, what Kant tells us is
that there is no way from experience, i.e. from the use of our senses, to determine the reason
why someone acts the way he or she does. It could be that the person is acting in response to
inclinations, desires, or even duties; we have no way of knowing. (Even in our relations to
ourselves, it is difficult to tell ourselves why we do something in a given situation. We might
like to tell ourselves that we acted out of duty, but in fact, our desires may have had more
sway at the time of a particular action.)
All we can do for the moment is put experience aside and focus on the inner principles,
which cannot be seen in experience (407). For example, even if we have never had a sincere
friend in our own experience, it does not mean that there isn’t a duty provided by reason that
commends us to be sincere. This is what Kant means by the a priori, that which is logically
prior to all experience. Even if we were never born in this particular world under these
particular circumstances, we would always already be commended to act according to duty
as rational beings. This a priori duty is necessary for all rational beings “and that it must be
valid [is true] not merely under contingent conditions and with exceptions but must be
absolutely necessary” (408).
Leaving aside the seeming redundancy of “absolutely necessary,” Kant is saying that we
cannot rely on experience to provide these moral laws or duties; this can only be done
through reason. Or, to put it another way, “the question at issue here is not whether this or
that has happened but that reason of itself and independently of all experience commands what
ought to happen” (408). In fact, for Kant, “worse service cannot be rendered morality than
that an attempt be made to derive it from examples. For every example of morality presented
to me must itself first be judged according to principles of morality in order to see whether it
is fit to serve as an original example, i.e. as a model.” In other words, we cannot recognize
an example in the real world without already knowing, in some way, the moral principle that
the example is supposed to fit. The example doesn’t provide us with moral laws, but the
other way around. Reason dictates the morals laws such that we recognize a situation as an
ethical one. In addition, Kant says that we should not be lead by examples, but by moral
laws: “Imitation [of previous examples of ethical behavior] has no place at all in moral
matters. And examples serve only for encouragement, i.e. they put beyond doubt the
feasibility of what the law commands and they make visible what the practical rule [or duty]
expresses more generally. But examples can never justify us in setting aside their true
original, which lies in reason, and letting ourselves be guided by them” (409). One must act
morally according to one’s reason; for Kant there is no excuse for “just following orders,” or
for following the example of others.
Kant breaks here to note that most people would assume that we get our ideas of ethics from
experience and not from reason. But Kant says that even if this is the case, it is the duty of
the philosopher to put ethics back on the solid ground of a metaphysics of morals grounded
in pure practical reason. If we were ethics the result of a popular vote, Kant says, such a
procedure would turn out to be “a disgusting mishmash of patchwork observations and halfreasoned principles.” So much for a morality based on cultural mores. Kant reminds us that
we cannot seek morality by looking at the nature of human beings, or how people have
historically acted, but again, only at what reason tells us a priori to all empirical existence. As
such, Kant differentiates again the philosophy or metaphysics of morals from its application:
“Pure philosophy of morals (metaphysics) may be distinguished from the applied (viz.,
applied to human nature), just as pure mathematics is distinguished from applied
mathematics and pure logic from applied logic. By this designation one is also immediately
reminded that moral principles are not grounded on the peculiarities of human nature but
must subsist a priori themselves, and that from such principles, practical rules must be
derivable for every rational nature, and accordingly for human nature” (FN1, 411). Kant
says that a morality based on incentives of inclinations (say fear of retribution) and reason
cannot be consistent, and thus will lead to as much bad as good. Let us read from Kant’s
second footnote on this page, for it provides an important summary of Kant’s position. Note
that Kant is responding to Sulzer, who wrote Kant some twenty years earlier about a
question he will now address, and Kant is just now finally getting around to it. Sulzer, by the
way, passed away six years before this was written. In any case, Sulzer had asked Kant to
explain why the teaching of ethics seemed to have little effect (now you can ask why you’re
taking this class). Kant replies: “[T]he teachers themselves have not purified their concepts:
since they try to do too well by looking everywhere for motives for being morally good, they
spoil the medicine by trying to make it really strong. For the most ordinary observation
shows that when a righteous act is represented as being done with a steadfast soul and
sundered from all view to any advantage in this or another world [note Kant’s critique of the
use of religious beliefs to keep people in line ethically], and even under the greatest
temptations of need or allurement, it far surpasses and eclipses any similar action that was in
the least affected by any extraneous incentive; it elevates the soul and inspires the wish to be
able to act in this way. Even moderately young children feel this impression, and duties
should never be represented to them in any other way” (411). Whether the most developed
reason or not, Kant argues, reason is the seat of morality. “In this purity of their origin lies
their very worthiness to serve us as supreme practical principles; and to the extent that
something empirical is added to them, just so much is taken away from their genuine
influence and from the absolute worth of their corresponding actions” (411).
This leads Kant to analyze the universal concept of a rational being in general. This will be
done so as to proceed not only from popular morality to metaphysics of morals, but also
from popular philosophy back to metaphysics. The task is to show that duties as such arise
from the very definition of what it means to be a rational being. As Kant puts it, “we must
follow and clearly present the practical faculty of reason from its universal rules of
determination to the point where the concept of duty springs from it” (412).
According to Kant, everything in nature works according to pre-established laws, and only a
reasoning being is able to act according to her conception of laws since a reasoning being has
a will. The will stands between pure reason and actions; it is “nothing but practical reason.”
Kant argues then that if reason is without defect in determining the will, then it must be the
case that the will is a faculty of choosing “independent of inclination” what is necessary to
be done in order for the action to be good. “But if reason does not sufficiently determine the
will, and if the will submits also to subjective conditions (certain incentives) which do not
always agree with objective conditions; in a word, if the will does not in itself completely
accord with reason (as is actually the case with men), then actions which are recognized as
objectively necessary are subjectively contingent” – that is, human beings with reason often
follow their inclinations (based on the faculty of desire) and not the laws of reason. The
representation by reason of an objective law is called a command of reason, and is
formulated in terms of an imperative. For Kant, imperatives tells us what we ought to do,
though we might not necessarily do it because of the faculty of desire. Kant differentiates
between the two influences on the will as follows: “That is practically good which
determines the will by means of representation of reason and hence not by subjective causes,
but objectively, i.e., on grounds valid for every rational being as such. It is distinguished
from the pleasant as that which influences the will only by means of sensation from merely
subjective causes, which hold only for this or that person’s senses but do not hold as a
principle of reason valid for everyone” (413).
We, of course, do not always flow the moral law: “imperatives,” Kant tells us, “are only
formulas for expressing the relation of objective [i.e. provided by reason] laws of willing in
general o the subjective imperfection of the will of this or that rational being” (413). We are,
after all, human, and often follow our subjective desires instead of our objective moral duties.
Imperatives, Kant notes, can be either hypothetical or categorical. Hypothetical imperatives
“represent the practical necessity of a possible action as a means for attaining something else
that one wants.” Hypothetical imperatives are divided in to “problematic” and “assertoric”
imperatives. Assertoric hypothetical imperatives tells one to act prudently in order to achieve
a real end. A problematic hypothetical imperative is for a possible end. The categorical
imperative, however, is an end-in-itself. It is a directive that is followed for the sake of itself,
not for another (i.e. thou shall not kill) (414). Morality, Kant concludes, requires that we act
according to categorical imperatives not as a way of achieving some other end, but rather to
do something directly, whether doing so is good for other purposes or not.
Kant provides an example of the problematic hypothetical imperatives (good for some
possible purpose) in rules of skill, which are technical in nature. They can only tell you what
means to use (e.g. tools, etc.) but don’t tell you anything about the end that you should be
aiming for.
Assertoric hypothetical imperatives are good for an actual purpose and are Counsels of
Prudence (pragmatic). This tells us that since we want an actual end (Kant says it is
happiness), we should do X in order to accomplish it. But Kant argues that happiness is too
indeterminate. What makes one happy? This is a question that is too complicated to provide
an end for proper action since what makes us happy changes from time to time, if not minute
to minute (cold water on a hot day, hot chocolate on a cold day, etc.). The “imperative that
refers to the choice of means to one’s own happiness, i.e., the precept of prudence, still
remains hypothetical; the action is commanded not absolutely but only as a means to a further
purpose” (416). This is an important point for distinguishing Kant from Aristotle. Against
the prudence of the hypothetical imperative, or what Aristotle would call phronesis, Kants say
that there is “one imperative which immediately commands a certain conduct without
having as its condition any other purpose to be attained by it. This imperative is categorical”
(416). To help confuse things a bit, Kant calls this moral law “apodeictic,” which simply
means that categorical imperative is necessary aside from whatever your faculty of desires tells
you to do.
Kant next turns to the important question of how these imperatives are possible. Why are
they necessary? Hypothetical imperatives can be cast aside once one has reached a certain
end, or completed the use of a certain means. But the categorical imperative can never be
abandoned. In section III, Kant will take up how these laws of morality are grounded in the
very concept of reason and the autonomy of the will.
Kant applies the categorical imperative (“act as if the maxim of your action were to become
through your will a universal law of nature”) to four types of duty. To put the categorical
imperative simply: one should not try to except oneself from the rules one would have
everyone else follow. To do so is to act immorally.
Duties to oneself:
Perfect duty: not to commit suicide. Imperfect (or indirect) duties: to improve one’s talents
(which will help others and keep one from getting to the point where desires might interfere
with one’s duties).
Duties to others:
Perfect duty: not to make false promises. Imperfect or indirect (or very broad) duty: help
others in need.
Kant then several cases to illustrate (as in section I) what he means.
The false promise: We can properly will that people believe us and that there is an institution
of promising whereby each of us can trust one another. But there is a problem if one is in
need of money, one would borrow money without really meaning to pay it back. If we will
this as a universal law (that everyone can break promises), then this would be contradictory
since the very institution by which one would borrow the money would not exist if there
were no such thing as promises. Thus, willing that one does not need to follow promises
does not meet the test for becoming a “universal law of nature.” As such, one cannot act to
break promises, since this would fail as a universal law by which one would be able to
borrow in the first place.