Some Notes for Kant's Grounding , Second Section, Part 2 (pp.33-48)

 

            In this section of the book Kant introduces three more "practical principles."  These are all supposed to be formulations of the same basic idea: the categorical imperative.  The first two formulations came on p. 30.  Their traditional labels are "the formula of universal law" and "the formula of the law of nature."  You might want to look at these again to remind yourself what they say.  Now we are told that this same fundamental moral law may also be understood in terms of:

 

1.      an objective or necessary end or an "end-in-itself."(p. 35-36)  Try to get clear on Kant's distinction between an objective end and a subjective (or contingent) end.  ("End" here means, roughly, "goal," "purpose," or "reason for acting.") 

a.       Note his claim that only an objective end can give us a moral law.  I think the idea is roughly this: Because it is a categorical imperative, the moral law commands us to act in certain ways regardless of what we want or how we feel.  This makes sense only if there are some creatures in the world whose value we must respect regardless of what we want or how we feel about them.  Such creatures are those we call persons.  Persons must be respected even when they are thwarting our plans and even when we don’t like them.   (It is important to keep in mind, though, that the respect Kant is talking about here is not the sort of respect we feel for people who are especially accomplished or noble.  It might be called ‘minimal respect’ – the sort of respect a person deserves just because he or she is a person.  One can respect a person, in this sense, even while punishing them for committing a crime.)   If there were no such creatures, if everything in the world had only instrumental value (like a tool), then there would be nothing wrong with doing whatever you wanted.  We wouldn’t need morality; there would be no moral law.

b.      Note also how he discusses the same four examples (seen above on pp.30-32) from this new angle (pp.36-7).

 

2.  a will that legislates for itself but at the same time for any rational being  (the so-called "formula of autonomy" pp.37-39).  Here, try to understand how Kant thinks that we are not only subject to the moral law but also authors of that law.

 

3.  a kingdom of ends (pp.39-41), that is, a community of rational beings, each legislating and obeying the same laws. 

           

We will also want to understand how Kant can believe that all these ideas are in some sense equivalent.

 

Note Kant’s criticism of the “Golden Rule” as a fundamental moral principle in the footnote on page 37.  He says that the Golden Rule would allow a criminal “to dispute with the judges who punish him.”  How so?  If I am a judge I must give criminals what they deserve, not what they want (or what I would want if I were in their shoes).  This seems to violate the Golden Rule.  But it doesn’t violate Kant’s principle, because I can consistently will that everyone follow the rule: “Give criminals the punishment they deserve.”  It’s true that willing this rule is willing my own punishment, if I commit a crime.  But I don’t have to commit a crime.  So my desire to avoid punishment is not in conflict with my intention to punish criminals.  This case is different from a case where I might be considering whether or not it is OK to commit a crime.  If I say that it is OK for me to steal, then, by Kant’s rule, I must also be willing to say that it is OK for everyone to steal.  This includes stealing from me.  So, by willing that everyone follow the rule, “Steal, when you think it’s the best way to get what you want,” I am willing that others steal from me when it is to their benefit.  And I cannot control whether or not they will be in a position to take advantage of me in this way, or not.  (I have some control, in that I can take precautions.  But, as a vulnerable and fallible human being, I cannot rationally suppose that I will never be victimized.)  So, when I ‘will that this maxim become a universal law’, my will is in conflict with my desire not to be robbed.   Since crime victims do not normally ‘volunteer’ to be victimized, they are not in the same position as a criminal who is about to be punished.  The criminal is a ‘volunteer’.  He has chosen to commit a crime.  So Kant’s principle has this welcome result:  It helps us see why it is right to punish criminals and wrong to steal from innocent victims, even though in both cases we are doing to others what we would not want done to us.  The Golden Rule can lead to confusion on this point.

 

Note Kant's distinction between price and dignity (pp.40-41).

 

Toward the end of this section (pp.45-48) Kant attacks the idea that morality can be based on anything but the categorical imperative.  He discusses several other approaches to ethics and argues that they all involve what he calls heteronomy (opposite of autonomy).  That is, they all involve positing some goal or purpose (an “object of the will”).  But the moral law must be a law we give ourselves, just because we are rational, independently of any goal or purpose that we may have.  (Kant still has not shown that there is such a law.  He has only tried to show that our ordinary moral concepts presuppose it.  For all that he has established so far, morality may still turn out to be a “mere phantom of the brain.”)