Download Routledge: Kantian Ethics

Routledge: Kantian Ethics
Kantian ethics
Kantian ethics originates in the ethical writings of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), which
remain the most influential attempt to vindicate universal ethical principles that respect
the dignity and equality of human beings without presupposing theological claims or a
metaphysical conception of the good. Kant’s systematic, critical philosophy centres on an
account of reasoning about action, which he uses to justify principles of duty and virtue, a
liberal and republican conception of justice with cosmopolitan scope, and an account of
the relationship between morality and hope.
Numerous contemporary writers also advance views of ethics which they, and their
critics, think of as Kantian. However, some contemporary work is remote from Kant’s
philosophy on fundamental matters such as human freedom and reasoning about action. It
converges with Kant’s ethics in claiming that we lack a substantive account of the good
(so that teleological or consequentialist ethics are impossible), in taking a strong view of
the equality of moral agents and the importance of universal principles of duty which
spell out what it is to respect them, and in stressing an account of justice and rights with
cosmopolitan scope.
Both Kant’s ethics and contemporary Kantian ethics have been widely criticized for
preoccupation with rules and duties, and for lack of concern with virtues, happiness or
personal relationships. However, these criticisms may apply more to recent Kantian
ethics than to Kant’s own ethics.
1 Kant’s ethics
Kant’s main writing on ethics and politics can be found in Grundlegung zur Metaphysik
der Sitten (Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals) (1785), Kritik der practischen
Vernunft (Critique of Practical Reason) (1788), Die Metaphysik der Sitten (The
Metaphysics of Morals) (1797) and numerous sections of other works and free-standing
essays. Throughout these writings he insists that we cannot derive ethical conclusions
from metaphysical or theological knowledge of the good (which we lack) or from a claim
that human happiness is the sole good (which we cannot establish). We lack the basis for
a teleological or consequentialist account of ethical reasoning, which therefore cannot be
simply a matter of means-ends reasoning towards some fixed and knowable good (see
Consequentialism; Teleological ethics).
Yet if reasoning about action, that is practical reasoning, is not means-end reasoning,
what can it be? Kant’s alternative account proposes simply that reasons for action must
be reasons for all. He insists that we can have reasons for recommending only those
principles of action which could be adopted by all concerned, whatever their particular
desires, social identities, roles or relationships. Correspondingly, practical reasoning must
reject any principles which cannot be principles for all concerned, which Kant
characterizes as non-universalizable principles (see Universalism in ethics §5).
Kant gives this rather limited modal conception of practical reasoning some grand names.
He calls it the ‘supreme principle of morality’ and the ‘categorical imperative’. He
formulates this fundamental principle of ethics in various ways. The formulation most
discussed in the philosophical literature runs ‘act only on that maxim [principle] through
which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law’ ([1785] 1903: 421).
The formulation that has had and still has the greatest cultural resonance requires us to
treat others with impartial respect. It runs ‘treat humanity…never simply as a means, but
always at the same time as an end’ ([1785] 1903: 429) (see Respect for persons §2). The
equivalence of these two formulations of the categorical imperative is far from obvious.
One way of glimpsing why Kant thought they were equivalent is to note that if we treat
others as persons rather than as things then we must not destroy or impair their abilities to
act, indeed must leave it open to them to act on the same principles that we act on; hence
we must act on universalizable principles. On Kant’s view, one of the worst features of
consequentialist ethics is that it not merely permits but requires that persons be used as
mere means if this will produce good results.
Kant claims that the categorical imperative can be used to justify the underlying
principles of human duties (see Duty §2). For example, we can show by a reductio ad
absurdum argument that promising falsely is not universalizable. Suppose that everyone
were to adopt the principle of promising falsely: since there would then be much false
promising, trust would be destroyed and many would find that they could not get their
false promises accepted, contrary to the hypothesis of universal adoption of the principle
of false promising. A maxim of promising falsely is not universalizable, so the
categorical imperative requires us to reject it. Parallel arguments can be used to show that
principles such as those of coercing or doing violence are not universalizable, and so that
it is a duty to reject these principles.
Kant calls duties such as these perfect (namely, complete) duties. These are duties which
can observed by each towards all others. He also provides arguments to establish the
principles of certain imperfect (namely, incomplete) duties, such as those of helping
others in need or developing one’s own talents. One way in which imperfect duties are
unavoidably incomplete is that they cannot be observed towards all others: nobody can
help all others, or develop all possible talents. Kant calls these imperfect duties ‘duties of
virtue’ (see Virtues and vices §§2–3).
The derivation of principles of duty from his conception of practical reason is the core of
Kant’s ethics, and provides the context for his discussion of many other themes. These
include: the difference between internalizing principles and merely conforming to them
in outward respects (‘acting out of duty’ versus ‘acting according to duty’); the place of
happiness in a good life; the need for judgment in moving from principle to act (see
Moral Judgment §2); the justification of state power; and the justification of a
cosmopolitan account of justice. He also develops the connections between his distinctive
conceptions of practical reason and of freedom and his equally distinctive view of
religion, which he sees as a matter not of knowledge but of reasoned hope for a future in
which morality can be fully realized. In some works Kant articulates reasoned hope in
religious terms; in others he articulates it in political and historical terms as a hope for a
better this-worldly human future (see Hope §3).
2 Contemporary Kantian ethics
Much contemporary work on ethics is labelled Kantian, in the main because it does not
derive an account of right action from one of good results, but rather sees the right as
prior to the good (Right and good). In contemporary Kantian work obligations and rights
are the fundamental ethical notions. Such work is often called deontological ethics (the
term derives from the Greek word for ought) (see Deontological ethics). Deontological
ethical theories are contrasted with teleological or consequentialist theories, which treat
the good as prior to the right. Deontological theories are concerned with ethically
required action, hence with principles, rules or norms, with obligations, prohibitions and
permissions, and with justice and injustice, but not with virtues, good lives, moral ideals
and personal relationships (see Fried 1978; Gewirth 1978).
Deontological ethics has many distinct forms. Many versions endorse one or another
interpretation of the Kantian demand to respect persons, and think that moral principles
should be universal; few mention Kant’s minimalist strategy for justifying certain
universally binding principles as those we must live by if we reject non-universalizable
principles. Indeed, many deontological ethical theories rely on conceptions of freedom,
reason and action which are unlike Kant’s, and resemble those typically used by
consequentialists.
One prominent range of deontological positions seeks to justify principles of justice by
showing that they would be agreed to by all concerned under certain hypothetical
conditions. They draw on the thought that agreements and contracts are good reasons for
action, and suggest that all ethical claims are to be justified by showing that they are
based if not on actual then on hypothetical agreements or contracts. These sorts of
deontological theories are often called contractarian or contractualist; they are
contemporary versions of social contract theories (see Contractarianism).
Some contractualists take a Hobbesian rather than a Kantian approach. They argue that
principles of justice are those on which instrumentally rational persons, guided by their
individual preferences, would agree (see Hobbes, T. §§6–7). Other contractualists take a
more Kantian approach. They argue that principles of justice are those which would be
accepted or agreed to by persons who are not merely instrumentally rational but can use
certain reasonable procedures.
The best known exponent of Kantian contractualism is John Rawls, whose A Theory of
Justice (1971) identifies principles of justice as those that would be agreed by rational
and self interested beings in circumstances which ensure that their choosing will be
reasonable as well as rational (see Rawls 1980, 1993). He argues that principles of justice
would emerge if they were chosen by all concerned in a hypothetical situation devised to
ensure impartiality and hence agreement. Rawls calls this hypothetical situation ‘the
original position’, and represents it as one in which persons are ignorant of their own
social position and personal attributes, hence of their own advantage, hence cannot but be
impartial.
Rawls claims that rational persons in this hypothetical situation would choose principles
of justice that prescribe equal rights for all and the highest attainable level of wellbeing
for the worst off. Since everything that differentiates individuals, and could thus provide
a basis for disagreement, for bargaining, or for a need to seek agreement, is carefully
excluded from the original position, it is not obvious why principles chosen in it should
be thought of as matters of agreement, or why the parties to the original position should
be thought of as contracting with one another. Nor is it clear why the fact that certain
principles would be agreed to under these conditions justifies those principles to those in
other situations. Why are principles which would be agreed to under conditions that do
not obtain binding under conditions that actually obtain?
In A Theory of Justice Rawls argues that principles that would be so agreed are binding in
other situations because they cohere, or form a ‘reflective equilibrium’ with ‘our
considered judgments’ (see Moral justification §2). Principles are justified not merely
because the instrumental reasoning of the hypothetically ignorant would select them, but
because we would reasonably judge them congruent with our most carefully considered
moral views. In his later Political Liberalism (1993) Rawls depicts these principles as the
outcome not of hypothetical agreement in an original position, but as the hypothetical
agreement of persons who are not only rational but reasonable, in the sense that they are
willing to abide by principles given assurance that others will do so too (1993: 49).
Principles and institutions are just if they are the focus of reasonable agreement by all
concerned.
Jürgen Habermas has also advocated versions of Kantian ethics which stress agreement
between agents. In earlier work he argued that the test of justification or legitimation is
that a proposal would be agreed in a hypothetical ‘ideal speech situation’, in which
communication was undistorted. In more recent work (1993), he has argued that
legitimation of norms is achieved through processes of public discourse, to which each
can contribute and in which all can agree.
3 Criticisms of Kantian ethics
Both Kant’s ethics and contemporary Kantian ethics have been criticized from many
quarters. The critics evidently include those who advocate one or another form of
teleological or consequentialist theory, who believe that it is possible to establish an
account of the good, from which a convincing account of the right, and specifically of
justice, can be derived. However, they also include a variety of writers who reject
consequentialist thinking, including communitarians, virtue ethicists, Wittgensteinians
and feminist thinkers (see Community and communitarianism; Virtue ethics;
Wittgensteinian ethics; Feminist ethics).
The most common and general criticisms are that, because it concentrates on principles or
rules, Kantian ethics is doomed to be either empty and formalistic or rigidly uniform in
its prescriptions (the complaints cannot both be true). The charge of empty formalism is
based on the correct observation that principles underdetermine action; it is usually
countered with the equally correct observation that quite indeterminate principles (such
as ‘Stay within the budget’ or ‘All religions are to be tolerated’) may set significant
constraints on action, so are not empty. The charge of rigidly uniform prescriptivity is
based on the thought that rules prescribe, so must regiment. It is usually countered by the
reminder that since rules can be indeterminate, they need not regiment: universal
principles need not be uniformly prescriptive. An ethical theory that applies to principles
can be more than empty and less than rigid.
Other critics object that since Kantian ethics focuses on obligations and rights, and in
good measure on justice, it either must or does neglect other ethical categories, and in
particular the virtues, good character or good lives; that ‘natural and human rights…are
fictions’ (MacIntyre 1981: 67); and that obligations inevitably conflict in ways that
render all deontological ethics incoherent. Some critics have laid particular stress on the
point that in requiring impartial respect for all, Kantian ethics wholly ignores the place of
happiness, of the emotions, of personal integrity and above all of personal relationships in
the good life (see Morality and emotions §§2, 4). They have claimed that we must choose
between an ethics of justice and one of care, an ethic of rules and one of relationships, an
ethic of duty and one of virtue, and that the latter term of each pair is to be preferred.
4 Back to Kant?
Some of these criticisms are accurately aimed at significant features of various forms of
contemporary Kantian writing in ethics; many of them are less apt as criticisms of Kant’s
ethics. Several recent writers have suggested that Kant’s ethics is the most convincing
form of Kantian ethics, and that its distinctive features are strengths rather than
weaknesses. Many of these writers accept much of the critique of deontological ethics,
but think that not all the criticisms apply to Kant’s ethics, of which they offer detailed
interpretations. Part of their effort has gone into work on Kant’s conceptions of action,
reason and freedom, and part into work on his ethics. They have pointed out that Kant’s
account of practical reason and of its vindication does not assume either that all reasoning
about action is instrumentally rational pursuit of preferred ends, or that ethical
vindication is located in hypothetical agreements or contracts reached by reasonable
procedures. They have stressed that Kant’s conception of practical reason is based on
universalizability rather than impartiality or reciprocity and that he views obligations
rather than rights as basic to ethics. They have insisted that impartial respect for persons
and a cosmopolitan approach to justice are not morally negligible matters, and have
criticized communitarians, virtue ethicists and some feminist thinkers for not taking
justice seriously. They have also pointed out that Kant offers accounts of the virtues, of
the role of happiness in the good life, and of judgment, and argued that his position is not
damagingly individualistic and that he acknowledges the importance of institutions and
of social and personal relationships in human life (see Hill 1992; Korsgaard 1996;
Herman 1993; O’Neill 1989).