Summary of Kant - Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals

Summary of Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals Preface: Defines metaphysics as pure philosophy limited to “determinate objects of the understanding.” There can be both a metaphysics of nature (of physics) and of morals (ethics), the second of which can be broken down into the empirical (practical anthropology) and the rational (morals). But for Kant, this division is not akin to the division of labor, because pure reason will arrive at the proper conclusion regardless of the number of people working on it. The goal of the groundwork is to work out a “pure moral philosophy” free of all empirical grounding. What is ethical must be done for the sake of the law, not merely be the same as the law because then it would be mere coincidence (it wouldn’t matter if I happen to not lie — I have to not lie because I recognize the ethical demand on me). But the groundwork is not meant to be his definitive statement on morals, since he has to write the critique of practical reason first. Regardless, Kant will attempt to work from common rational moral cognition to a supreme principle, and then to test that principle in the second and third section. —– First Section: Transition from Common Rational Moral Cognition to Philosophical Moral Cognition A good will is the only thing that can be good without limitation, since all other good things are contingent on it. Some things might be conducive to good will (moderation, for example), but could easily be used for evil. Good will is good not because of what it accomplishes, but through the act of willing in itself. Kant accepts the proposition a priori that whatever instrument is found in man, it must be the most appropriate instrument for it. Thus, it cannot be that happiness is the highest attribute since reason is not at all conducive for it (instinct would work much better). Nature would have limited man’s reason from the realm of happiness and entrusted man’s happiness to instinct alone. Instead, Kant points out that reason in the realm of happiness actually leads to a lack of contentment, or a “hatred of reason.” However, reason is a practical faculty (influence over the will), yet does not necessarily lead to happiness, its true use must be to produce a “will good in itself” Kant then turns to the concept of duty which “elevates” the good will. His test case is an action which is in conformity to duty, since one which is in opposition to duty would be too easy to distinguish the causation. For example, the preservation of ones life is a duty, but people do this would of self interest, not because it is a duty. The maxim is only moral when his self-inclination is removed (if he were suicidal, yet chose to keep living because of his duty). Moreover, it is a moral act not when someone sympathetic takes inner gratification from donating to the poor; instead, it is moral when someone who has absolutely no interest in donating to the poor does so out of duty. Or, more famously, love thy neighbor and thy enemy. This is Kant’s first proposition: an action has moral worth only if it is done out of duty. The second proposition is that an action has moral worth not because of its aim, but because of the maxim on which it is based. Therefore, it wouldn’t matter if the intent failed or backfired, as the principle was good. Will is between principle a priori and incentive a posteriori, and since Kant has stripped the will of its incentives (see above), the goodness of an act must necessarily be in the principle. The third proposition, as derivative of the first two, is that “duty is the necessity of an action from respect for the law.” Inclination is possible for an effect of an action — I could want or approve of a certain result — but the law can be respected. Since an action in accordance from duty must be stripped of all inclination (subjective desires), then what is left is the purely objective, which is the law. Thus, law must be universal, and one should never act except that his action could be made a universal law. this is not a specific law but rather lawfulness in general that fulfills the logical requirements and gives meaning to duty. Kant then uses the example of a person in a tight spot lying to avoid embarrassment. Although he could will the lie, he could not will the maxim to lie, as the universal law would destroy promises and law would “destroy itself.” This gives us the general principle of the common understanding, which would serve as an acceptable compass for moral behavior (and appears to be the equivalent of Socrates’ human wisdom), but it could still be corrupted by the human desire for happiness, which would try to bring these laws closer in accordance to our inclinations. Thus, in the following sections, Kant has to show how practical philosophy can determine the correct moral laws and thus subjects common practical reason to the “complete critique of reason.” —– Second Section: Transition from Popular Moral Philosophy to the Metaphysics of Morals Kant opens this section by noting the objection that it cannot be shown that man has ever acted solely in accordance with duty. It could always be the case that man, even while claiming to follow duty, is actually secretly acting for self-benefit. Thus, it would appear to be a terrible idea to base a moral system on something that cannot be shown to be empirically true. However, Kant argues that basing the worth of a moral system on its empirical reality automatically leads to its defeat by “those who ridicule all morality” because even a neutral observer would note that men act selfishly. Instead, Kant is talking about what reason commands ought to happen (prescriptive): duty is prior to all experience because it comes a priori through reason. Thus, following examples is pointless (beyond encouragement), since even the “best” examples — Jesus in the Bible — must first be evaluated as worthy by some moral framework. Popularity is entirely unimportant for Kant; instead, must be a moral system free of theology, anthropology, physics, etc. Kant writes that the pure expression of the law necessarily has a power over the heart stronger than all other forces because one thinks only of reason, not a mixture of reason and incentive (28). [not sure that I follow why this makes it “stronger” in this sense — it may be stronger logically, but in terms of the heart?] Kant then starts his proof towards a metaphysics of morals. First, laws govern how things in nature work, and only the rational being can follow the “representation” of those laws (a will) (29). The will is practical reason, and if reason defines the will, the beings actions are both subjectively and objectively necessary because he chooses according to reason what is good. However, if there are other factors leading to a choice, then it is a subjective decision which objective laws to follow, ie the law is corrupted. A “command” is the presentation of an objective principle, and the formula of that is an imperative (30). Imperatives require an “ought,” and communicate an objective law in general to a subjective imperfection of a rational being. Imperatives can be either hypothetical (something that one might will, or a possible action for another attaining something else), or categorical (objectively necessary for itself). In accordance with the perfection of skill, there is only one end which is naturally necessary which is “the aim at happiness” and prudence is the skill that allows for that perfection. But following prudence is a hypothetical imperative because it leads to happiness, is done to achieve happiness. The imperative of morality, however, is categorical in that the end is itself. While skill is technical, prudence is pragmatic, only morality is law (objective). Skill is analytic in that one knows the consequences of ones actions, as there is only one consequence to a particular action which happens certainly. If I do the necessary mathematics to divide a line in half, I will divide a line in half. Prudence would be the same way, but it has no universal definition of happiness. This is because happiness is empirical and man cannot state a “determinate concept” of happiness. For example, how much money will make happy and how can one know this without first having that much? Thus, it must be empirical and there cannot be a command of happiness. Both skill and prudence can be gotten out of or modified if the end to be achieved is changed. In contrast, the objective law gives no other option. The categorical imperative represents the accordance of the subjective maxim with the objective law, and accordance alone is the content of the imperative. Thus, the categorical imperative is “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law (of nature)” (38). Kant then gives a series of examples to test his first categorical imperative. First is the man who, depressed while still in possession of his reason, thinks the maxim that “from self-love, I make it my principle to shorten my life when by longer term it threatens more ill than it promises agreeableness” (38). But it cannot be that a law of nature kills by the very same principle (self-love) that it promotes life. Second, a man who cannot pay for an item and yet wonders if he could borrow money and not pay it back. He makes the maxim that “if I believe myself to be in distress, then I can borrow money and never pay it back.” Yet this cannot be universal because it would destroy the act of promising. Third, there is a man with an amazing talent who instead prefers to indulge and let his talents rust. While he could will this for himself, he cannot will this as universal because “as a rational being he necessarily wills that all the faculties in him should be developed because they are serviceable and given to him for all kinds of possible aims” (40) [but what if these faculties lead to misery, like Kant’s discussion of reason earlier]. And fourth is the fortunate man who does not wish to help others in hardship. Kant says this could be a natural law, but the will could conflict since the man could at one point be the one in need of assistance. Kant argues that understanding maxims from the point of view of reason means that one can avoid the bias of always thinking himself the exception. While Kant has shown that a duty must be grounded in the categorical imperative, which would have to be universal, he has not yet shown a priori that there is such an imperative or that it is duty to follow that law. Here, Kant warns against looking to nature to find the content of a law, since the law much be universally valid for all rational beings regardless of their particular nature (even aliens…). Thus Kant poses the question if it is necessary for ALL rational beings to always act in accordance with universal law and maxims, and if that is the case, then it must be shown a priori in the concept of the will or of the rational being. To do this, Kant must first find an end in itself, because any other end is relative and thus subjective. This is a human being, which exists only as an end, in contrast to things which have a subjective value to us. This is because rational nature exists as an end in itself, which is how a human being “represents his own existence.” [the proof apparently comes later?] This leads to the practical imperative “act so that you use humanity, as much as in your own person as in the person of every other, always at the same time as end and never merely as means” (47). Going back to the previous examples, that means a man cannot commit suicide because he would kill himself as a means of preserving what is left of his happiness. In lying to get money, one uses another as a means for money. The third does not promote the harmonization of a duty and man kind. And the fourth, if one is to truly take a human subject as an end in itself, it means also taking his ends as well. [I really don’t understand the logic in the third and fourth examples, in both sections] This leads to the third principle, “the idea of the will of every rational being as a will giving universal law.” Thus the will is subject to the law in the double sense that it is also its author. This principle means that imperatives based on universal law are the only objective laws. If man is thought to be only the subject, then there would need to be another criterion for acting in accordance of the law, like coercion. The third principle, however, leads to a “realm of ends,” which is the combination of human beings through common laws. The law uniting man is the second principle that all rational beings are ends, and a rational being belongs to the realm so long as it gives and is subject to the law. It belongs as “supreme head” if it gives law without being subject to it, but it can only be this when it is a “fully independent being.” Duty emerges for all those besides the supreme head as a result of the relation of rational beings to one another, which also gives “dignity” because one only observes the law which he gives himself. Dignity has no cost or replacement, while “price” is something that can be replaced; dignity has an “inner price” or worth which cannot be exchanged. Because morality is when humans are treated as ends, that is the only condition for dignity (no equivalence to rational beings). All maxims have a form (universality), a matter (an end), and a complete determination (harmonize from ones on legislation to a possible realm of ends), which can be summarized as “act in accordance with that maxim which can at the same time make itself into a universal law” (55). Using this, Kant returns to the notion of a good will, which is by definition free of all evil. The above maxim is the only condition under which the good will cannot be in contradiction, and thus the only maxim for a good will. Actions which coincide with the autonomy of the will are “permissible,” while those that do not are “impermissible” (57). Objective necessity without recourse to holy justification is called obligation. The absolutely good will relies on autonomy without any incentive in it. But metaphysics cannot show the synthetic position is possible, and Kant has only so far shown that morality is not imaginary because both the autonomy of the will and the categorical imperative are true and necessary a priori (62). In the next section, he must show a “possible synthetic use of pure practical reason” (62). —– Section Three: From the Metaphysics of Morals to the Critique of Pure Practical Reason. “the concept of freedom is key to the definition of the autonomy of the will” Will is a type of causality unique to rational beings, and freedom is the quality that allows it to be effective/independent of other causes. Freedom consists in autonomy, or the will being its own law. This definition collapses the distinction between acting morally and acting freely, since to act morally is to be free. “Freedom must be presupposed as a quality of the will of all rational beings.” Every rational being that cannot act except “under the idea of freedom” is actually free, for it cannot ascribe any other cause of its actions except to itself. “of the interest attaching to the ideas of morality” Rational beings would all be capable of acting in accordance with the laws, but must be shown to have a reason to do so. Here, Kant must deal with the apparent tautology of freedom leading to moral laws, and following moral laws leading to freedom. The way out is differentiating the freedom a priori from the freedom as representing the self through actions. This is similar to the critique of pure reason, in the distinction between the world of sense and the world of understanding; man divides himself into the sense and intellect. Reason is how the human being distinguishes himself from all other things, and separates sense from understanding and gives the limits of understanding. In so far as that the rational being belongs to the intelligible world, he must think in terms of freedom: independence from the world of sense is freedom. “how is a categorical imperative possible?” Man is both in the sense and intelligible world, but the intelligible contains the laws for the former.