Transcript 100Kant1

KANT 1
IMMORALITY IS IRRATIONAL
Immanuel Kant 1724-1804
Rationalist until age
of 50, then read
Hume, who, in his
own words,
“awakened me
from my dogmatic
slumbers”
Then wrote Critique
of Pure Reason
Kant Background
Famous Epigram:
Man is the lawgiver of nature
Philosophical “Copernican Revolution”:
Assume knowledge or morality is real,
then examine presuppositions that
make it possible
Famous Distinction:
Phenomenal vs. Noumenal
Kantian Moral Theory
Groundwork of the
Metaphysics of Morals
Assumes morality is possible. So free-will
presupposed: we can be autonomous.
Argument then is to find the basis by which
we can rule ourselves: apodictic a priori
synthetic truth: the concept of law itself:
The Categorical Imperative
Distinctions 1-3
1. person / thing
2. action / passion
3. moral-immoral / amoral
Persons and actions are characterized by the
top term in each case, animals and
behavior by the bottom term
Not all human beings are persons, nor viceversa.
Behavior ≠ Action.
Action is caused by agent, behavior is not.
Distinctions 4 & 5
4. reason / inclination
5. autonomy / heteronymy
Kant understands reason to influence
action via the will.
Autonomy is freedom: not freedom
from natural law, but freedom to make
laws for oneself.
Autonomy is necessary for morality.
Distinctions 6 & 7
6. duty / desire
7. categorical imperative /
hypothetical imperative
Morality requires autonomy, self-rule by
reason, which requires categorical
imperative.
Rough form of argument
But what can reason command without any
inclination?
[Hume: “Reason is and ought to be the slave
of the passions.”]
All that is left is the form of law itself.
SO: There is but one categorical imperative:
“…act only in accordance with that maxim
through which you can at the same time
will that it become a universal law.”]
CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE
Act only in accordance with that maxim
through which you can at the same
time will that it become
a universal law.
[actually 2 or 3 other formulations]
Maxim: the principle on which one acts;
the command given oneself by the
will. Maxims are hypothetical
imperatives.
[UNIVERSALIZABILITY]
Two sorts of failures of maxims
(re: universalizability):
Impossibility of maxim becoming
universal law: lying, theft, …
- Perfect duties
Impossibility of willing maxim to
become universal law
- Imperfect duties