Kant

1
Universalizing Morals, Depersonalizing Man Kants
Moral Education of the Subject
Peter Bornedal, General Lecture, 203
2
Kant lived in the Prussian city Königsberg his
entire life. He never traveled, and is famous for
his methodic and rigorous lifestyle and high work
ethics. He would begin his lecture-schedule seven
oclock in the morning (and was so popular with
students that they had to arrive an hour early to
secure themselves a seat). As he raised to fame,
scholars from all over Europe would travel to
Königsberg to see him lecturing. It is said that
the lectures that preceded the work we are
reading, Grounding of a Metaphysics of Morals,
were so gripping to the audience that they felt
they were listening to a revelation. After
work, Kant would have his famous afternoon walk,
being so punctual about this exercise that the
German writer Heinrich Heine once quipped that
the wives of Königsberg adjusted their clocks
after him passing by. Kant was never married
nor did he have as far as we know any kind of
romantic relationship. This methodic, monotonous,
and rigorous life might indicate a rather dry
personality, but apparently he was not. Anecdote
has is that Kant was an entertaining, engaging,
and witty conversationalist. He seems to have
been popular as a guest in the better society,
and seems to have had a good sense of humor
although we admittedly do not find much humor in
his philosophical work.
Immanuel Kant
Kant is undoubtedly regarded as one, if not the
greatest, of Germanys philosophers. He has dealt
with almost all aspects of philosophy and even
science. His three so-called Critiques
Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical
Reason, and Critique of Judgment deal
respectively with the three most important
branches of philosophy Knowledge/Mind,
Ethics/Morals, and Aesthetics. Besides these
works, he wrote important treatises about
physics, astronomy, logic, religion,
anthropology, politics, and education.
Kant
Kant Lecturing
3
Kants Regulatory Idea

• Kant wrote on Ethics and Morals in four
  different works. His first preliminary study is
  the Grounding of a Metaphysics of Morals (1785),
  which we read. Thereupon follows his Critique of
  Practical Reason (1788). About ten years later he
  publishes his Metaphysics of Morals (1797), and
  finally one year later his Anthropology from a
  Pragmatic point of view (1798).
• In the three first works, moral behavior has a
  strictly ideal formulation. Kant wants to set up
  moral principles that are ideal, meaning they are
  not meant to describe actual human behavior. In
  the last work, ethical behavior is studied from a
  practical perspective, meaning that he studies
  actual human behavior not ideal principles that
  ought to regulate human behavior. The first three
  works deal with ethics from a metaphysical point
  of view, while the last work deals with ethics
  from an anthropological.
• When one studies metaphysics of moral, one sets
  out to determine the general and universal
  principles that have to guide moral action,
  whether or not people actually follow these
  principles.
• We can illustrate the idea with a couple of
  examples taken from Kant himself. Kant says
  even if there has never existed a sincere
  friend, sincerity in friendship is an idea that
  is still required of every man. Or even if an
  unselfish act has never been performed,
  unselfishness is still the ideal for moral
  action.
• So, even if the motives for our actions are
  impure and selfish, Kants moral theory prevails,
  because it deals with what ought to be the case.
  Moral law does not depend on experience, but on
  reason. Moral principles must be grounded in pure
  a priori concepts, not mixed with anything
  empirical.
• Kant claims that even if ideal moral principles
  are rarely or never carried out, we always
  presuppose these principles. For example, 1) when
  we lament how corruptible and dishonest the human
  being is, we spontaneously presuppose integrity
  and honesty as ideal regulatory principles
  principles that ought to regulate human behavior
  2) in the image we form of God as all-benevolent,
  we presuppose ideal moral principles. God is in
  his essence, what we can only strive to be in our
  existence. We cannot be all-benevolent like God,
  but we can set up benevolence as an ideal, and we
  do so in the image we form of God.
• The upshot is, we may not believe in the actual
  execution of ideal moral principles still, Kant
  insists, we always presuppose that they ought to
  exist.

Quotations Even if there never have been action
springing from such pure sources, 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. (Kant, ibid., p. 19) They
philosophers advocating self-interest and
self-love as basic human motives have spoken
with sincere regret as to the frailty and
impurity of human nature, which they think is
noble enough to take as its precept an idea so
worthy of respect but yet is too weak to follow
his ideal reason, which should legislate for
human nature. (Kant, ibid., p. 19)
4
A Free will to Obey Principles and Idealities
According to Kant, we are endowed with two
essentially different kinds of knowledge
scientific knowledge and moral knowledge.
Scientific knowledge studies the laws of nature
of the external world moral knowledge studies
the laws of freedom of the internal world. In
Scientific knowledge one studies causes. In Moral
knowledge one studies motives. Both kinds of
knowledge have their own kinds of a priori laws.
In his work, Critique of Practical Reason, Kant
states. Two things fill the mind with ever new
and increasing admiration and reverence, the more
often and more steadily one reflects one them
the starry heavens above me and the moral law
within me. I do not need to search for them and
merely conjecture them as though they were veiled
in obscurity or in the transcendent region beyond
my horizon I see them before me and connect them
immediately with the consciousness of my
existence. The first begins from the place I
occupy in the external world of sense . . .
the second begins from my invisible self, my
personality, and presents me in a world with has
true infinity but which can be discovered only by
the understanding, and I cognize that my
connection with that world . . . is not
merely contingent, as in the first case, but
universal and necessary. The first view of a
countless multitude of worlds annihilates, as it
were, my importance as an animal creature, which
must give back to the planet (a mere speck in the
universe) the matter from which it came. The
second, on the contrary, infinitely raises my
worth as an intelligence by my personality, in
which the moral law reveals to me a life
independent of animality and even of the whole
sensible world. (Kant Critique of Practical
Reason, Cambridge University Press p. 133-34.)

• The reason why we so often do not follow ideal
  regulatory principles, which we ought to follow,
  is that we as humans have a free will. If we were
  objects, we would not have a choice. A stone
  cannot decide whether or not it wants to follow
  the laws of nature, but as subjects we can choose
  not the follow the laws of morals. Because of our
  freedom of the will, the metaphysical ethical
  laws Kant deduces as applying specifically to
  human beings are not laws of nature, but laws of
  freedom.
• In his work, Critique of Pure Reason, Kant had
  been studying the laws of nature. These he
  would separate in an empirical part and a
  rational part. The empirical part would consist
  of sensations, and the rational part of the
  so-called categories of understanding. The
  categories were in themselves abstract or pure,
  and they acquired an empirical content before
  they could be applied to and make sense of the
  world of appearances.
• Without getting into Kants epistemological
  work, we notice that when Kant in his ethical
  work studies so-called laws of freedom, also
  these laws have an empirical and rational part.
  Addressing the empirical part, one studies how
  people actually behave (like in Anthropology,
  Psychology, Sociology, or History). Addressing
  the rational part, one studies how people ideally
  ought to behave (like in Metaphysics of Morals).
• We can set the Kantian distinctions up in this
  table
• Empirical part (Sensations)
• Laws of nature -- Physics
• Rational part (Categories)
• Empirical part (How people
  actually do behave)
• Laws of freedom -- Ethics
• Rational part (How people ideally
  ought to behave)

5
Kant Deduces a Moral Principle Implicitly
Known, the Good Will being the First Step in
such a Deduction
6
It is Reason, not Emotion that Executes the
Moral Principle
If we act with an unconditional good will, even
if our action achieves nothing, or perhaps
achieves the opposite of what we intended, our
action has a moral content. The good will shall
shine by its own light as something which has
its full power in itself. (Kant, ibid., p. 8.)
It seems that intention has become the
quintessential criteria for the morality of an
action it seems as if, insofar as we act with
the intention to do good, our action has moral
content. Is now a good will identical to
good intentions? Well, not quite! -- And why
not? Because the definition would be redundant
and meaningless! One cannot explain a good will
with good intentions, because it is the same
thing. Kant wants to deduce universal moral
principles, he wants to know what is inherent in
exhibiting good will. If a good will simply
were to have good intentions, he would still
need to explain what is inherent is exhibiting
good intentions. His problem would not have
been solved it would not have gone away.
Furthermore, if a good will were reducible to
good intentions, we would be referring to a
psychologically determined good will rooted in
a compassionate subject. But the moral principle
cannot be determined from neither individual
psychology, nor from compassion. The moral
principle is formal and universal, never concrete
and individual and it is rooted in reason, never
passions. The upshot is, forget the
compassionate subject the warm heart, as
Nietzsche often puts it in his somewhat
misunderstood mockery of Kantian positions.
Forget the following equation   The Warm
Heart/the Compassionate Subject Good
Intentions Good Will ? Moral Action   Apply
instead the following deduction Freedom of the
Will ? Respect for Universal Law ? Duty toward
Maxims Prescribed by Law ? Good Will ? Moral
Action
7
The good will is, a) an act performed from
duty, b) it is free of self-interest, and c) it
obeys a maxim prescribed by Law.
Let us first explain what is meant by the
statement above What is it to act from duty?
It is 1) to act, not just according to a law,
but also for the sake of a law that transcends
the individual (that is, for the sake of a formal
principle, not a psychological principle, like
the warm heart). 2) it is to act contrary to
inclinations (desires, self-interests, personal
benefits, profit, etc.). 3) It is to adopt an
action because reason commands of us this course
of action (not because passions or compassions
urge us on). What is a maxim? A maxim is a
brief articulation of an instruction that the
individual follows in his action. What is Law?
Law is the set of imperatives prescribing moral
actions. Moral Laws are always categorical,
meaning that they are not up for discussion or
negotiation. Metaphorically speaking, moral laws
are as if carved in stone, like the Ten
Commandments Moses brings down from Mount Sinai.
However, the Ten Commandments are divine rules of
conduct, while Kants categorical imperatives are
rational rules of conduct. In order to
illustrate his principle, acting from duty,
Kant gives us four different examples of action,
where only the last has moral content. One is
contrary to duty two are in accordance with duty
but are still performed because of
self-interests only the last is performed from
duty and contrary to inclination. Only the
last qualifies as truly moral. The four examples
are the following  1) Some actions are contrary
to duty, and performed out of self-interest and
inclination, like stealing, cheating, lying, etc.
Obviously, they are not moral. 2) Other actions
are performed according to duty, but because of
some mediate self-interest. A person pays his
taxes on time according to duty, but he knows
that he thus avoid fines, and society gives him
back various social benefits. He acts according
to duty, but not from a duty free of
self-interest, and is thus not a true moral
subject. 3) Other actions are performed
according to duty, but because of some immediate
self-interest. If a man does not commit suicide,
he acts according to duty, but if he loves his
live, he also acts according to inclination. He
never contemplated suicide since he is happy and
everything is going well. Thus, he preserves his
life according to duty, but not from a duty free
of self-interest, and is thus not a true moral
subject. 4) Finally, there are actions, which
are in accordance with duty, and moreover, are
performed from duty contrary to inclination.
These are true moral actions, whose maxims
constitute the subject as moral.
8
Respect for Law, Ladies and Gentlemen, Respect .
. .
 Whether one acts according to or from duty,
one acts out of respect for Law. But only actions
done from duty have moral content, because they
are done for the sake of duty, without
considerations of inclinations or personal
benefits.  They are done out of nothing but
pure respect for Law.  Notice that a so-called
good will is a rational will to respect Law,
with no other motives than respect for Law.
  Duty is the necessity of an action done out
of respect for the law. . . . Hence there is
nothing left which can determine the will except
objectively the law and subjectively pure respect
for this practical law, i.e. the will can be
subjectively determined by the maxim that I
should follow such a law even if all my
inclinations are thereby thwarted. . . . The
pre-eminent good which is called moral can
consist in nothing but the representation of the
law in itself. (Kant, ibid., p. 12-13).  
 In this Kantian definition, there is no room
for the warm heart. If a warmhearted man
enjoys spreading joy and happiness around, he is
acting according to duty (and certainly, nobody
blames him), but his action has the
characteristics of the third case above he acts
according to duty, but also according to
immediate inclination. Therefore, his action has
no true moral content.  If on the contrary,
this man, in his personal life carries great
sorrows, but nonetheless still has the power to
benefit and spread joy among others, then his
action is performed from duty contrary to
inclination, and it has a true moral
content. If adversity and hopeless sorrow have
completely taken away the taste for life, if an
unfortunate man, strong in soul and more
indignant at his fate than despondent or
dejected, wishes for death and yet preserves his
life without loving it not from inclination or
fear, but from duty then his maxim indeed has a
moral content. . . . Even though no
inclination moves him any longer, he nevertheless
tears himself from this deadly insensibility and
performs the action without any inclination at
all, but solely from duty then for the first
time his action has genuine moral worth. (Kant,
ibid., p. 10 11)
9
The Categorical Imperative, 1
We have learnt that to act with a good will
is to act from, for the sake of, duty in
respect for Law and nothing but Law. From this
deduction, Kant formulates his famous categorical
imperative. In its first formulation, it reads
Since I have deprived the will of every impulse
that might arise for it from obeying any
particular law, there is nothing left to serve
the will as principle except the universal
conformity of its actions to law as such, i.e., I
should never act except in such a way that I can
also will that my maxim should become a universal
law. (Kant, ibid., p. 14.)   Kants example
when I am in distress, may I make a promise with
the intention of not keeping it. In other words,
is it okay under some circumstances to lie?
Now, one might argue that a person should avoid
lying, because it would be detrimental to him in
the long run. A lying shopkeeper would eventually
be exposed, and thus loose customers. The
argument presupposes that one should be truthful
because of some ends or consequences it
presupposes a so-called hypothetical
imperative, an if-then relation if I dont lie,
then my business will thrive, and I will prosper
if I do so and so, then I will achieve this or
that. Therefore, a hypothetical imperative is
not categorical. it is not unconditional,
universal, and absolute. A categorical
imperative is asserted out of respect for Law,
without other concerns. A hypothetical imperative
is asserted out of concerns for benefits or
profits. It does not determine the moral content
of an act. So, now we ask again, but from the
perspective of the categorical imperative, is it
okay under some circumstances to lie? The
answer is still no, but with a different
explanation. Observing the categorical
imperative, I avoid lying because of respect for
universal Law. My reason tells me that lying
cannot be accepted as universal Law. My reason
tells me that if I will lying as universal Law,
then I will everybody to lie, and then it is no
longer possible to make promises at all. Under
the obligation of a universal law to lie, every
promise is a contradiction in terms. I
immediately become aware that I can indeed will
the lie but can not at all will a universal law
to lie. For by such a law there would really be
no promises at all, since in vain would my
willing future actions be professed to other
people who would not believe what I professed, or
if they overhastily did believe, then they would
pay me back in like coin. (Kant, ibid., p.
15). If now I do not will a universal law to
lie, then I must admit that neither do I will my
first proposal may I make a promise with the
intention not to keep it. I must reject this
proposal. Therefore, when one respects law, one
does not respect a particular law, but a law
requesting universal validity in an action.
10
The Categorical Imperative, 2
Imperatives says that something would be good to
do or to refrain from doing, but they say it to a
will that does not always therefore do something
simply because it has been represented to the
will as something good to do. That is practically
good which determines the will by means of
representations or reason and hence not by
subjective causes, but objectively, i.e.. on
grounds valid for every rational being as such.
(Kant , ibid., p. 24).   What is here
established is that we have wills, meaning that
we have the choice to follow a rational decision
or not. If purely subjective interests determine
this choice, it is not a moral choice, but if our
will be governed by objective moral laws, then we
are following, not personal interests, but an
imperative. We can only rationally choose
moral imperatives, because our wills in
themselves are not moral, rational, or objective.
We are not gods, and we have no holy wills, we
have only human wills. If we were gods, we would
not need moral imperatives. In the categorical
imperative, the so-called maxim of the action
(i.e., the instruction as articulated to the
subject describing the action) should conform to
universal law. In this conformity the maxim makes
itself into a universal law. This correspondence
or conformity is alone what is necessary by the
imperative, therefore there is only one
imperative and it reads (in two different
versions) Act only according to that maxim
whereby you can at the same time will that it
should become a universal law. . . . Act as
if the maxim of your action were to become
through your will a universal law of nature. (
Kant, ibid., p. 30)   An example of Kants A
suicidal man! Is he allowed or not to take his
own life according to the categorical imperative?
His duty to himself is to preserve his life. If
he decides to commit suicide he does so because
it is an easy way out of a life of suffering.
Thus he commits suicide out of self-love. I end
my life out of self-love becomes the maxim of
his action. Now he must ask himself whether this
maxim could become a universal law of nature.
Here he realizes that suicide from self-love
could never be a universal law of nature, because
it would imply a contradiction. If his maxim is
universalized, self-love, which normally is to
preserve life, is determined as destruction of
life, and we are under a universal obligation to
destroy our lives which is absurd.
11
Human Autonomy as Moral Imperative
Even if I tell a lie, I presuppose that one has
an universal moral obligation to tell the truth,
because I calculate and expect that the one to
whom I lie believes I tell the truth. I tell the
lie believing in universal law I just dont
apply this universal law to myself. In that
case, I am using my fellow human being as a means
to further my personal ends. While lying I
recognize that I am using the other person merely
as a means. This cannot be permitted, because
in all cases where I use another rational being
for my own ends, the maxims of the actions cannot
be universalized. The maxim, I shall use another
rational being in order to further my own end,
cannot become an universal law of nature,
because we would then place ourselves under a
universal obligation to deprive ourselves of our
rationality that is, our free will to rationally
choose different courses of action and again,
that is absurd. A rational being is characterized
by its ability to make choices, according to the
practical law of freedom. If I deprive a person
of this ability, I deprive him of the freedom of
his will. The categorical imperative
therefore has another famous formulation, namely
that one must always use another rational being
as an end in himself, never as a means (it Is
often referred to as Kants Principle of
Humanity) Rational nature exists as an end in
itself. . . . The practical imperative will
thus be as follows so act as to treat humanity,
whether in your own person or in that of any
other, always at the same time as an end and
never merely as a means. . . . Persons must
exist as ends in themselves. . . . Such an
end is one for which there can be substituted no
other end to which such beings should serve
merely as means, for otherwise nothing at all of
absolute value would be found anywhere. (Kant,
ibid., p. 36). According to this formulation
of the categorical imperative, one always has a
duty to use both oneself and another person as
ends in themselves, never as means. Kants
suicidal man is for example using himself as a
means which is not permitted  If he
destroys himself in order to escape from a
difficult situation, then he is making use of his
person merely as a means so as to maintain a
tolerable condition till the end of his life.
Man, however, is not a thing and hence is not
something to be used merely as a means he must
in all his actions always be regarded as an end
in himself. (Kant, ibid., p. 36).  
12
The Kingdom of Ends Kant as the First Human
Rights Philosopher
In his deductions of the moral imperatives,
Kant presupposes that Man is capable of
self-legislation that is, we are able to give
laws to ourselves, which we are able thereupon to
follow. We are able to make laws and choose to
follow them thanks to our free will. We are not
subjected to natural laws (in which case we are
without choice in moral matters), but to
practical laws of freedom. This freedom from
natural laws in the human being must be
preserved. Humans can only be subjected to
practical laws, and these laws are always of
their own making. They are self-legislative and
are thus testimonies of our free will. If
therefore practical laws are fashioned as
natural laws it indicates a perversion of
reason, and a violation of human freedom. If a
dictator dictates laws as if they were laws of
nature, his maxim cannot be universalized,
because it contradicts human freedom as such. The
human being is a priori free or autonomous. This
freedom cannot be violated. Because of this
fundamental autonomy, humans must never be
deprived of their freedom to make rational
decisions. They must always be treated as ends,
and we must legislate as if we all belonged to a
Kingdom of Ends, a society where we are free
and have equal rights. There can be no
scientific proof of this deduction, because it
transcend the bounds of possible experience. It
belongs to the noumenal, not to the phenomenal,
world. It transcends the apparent world. Still,
it nevertheless has existence as regulative
idea.