Categorical imperative

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The categorical imperative is the central philosophical concept of the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and to modern deontological ethics. Kant introduced this concept in Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. Here, the categorical imperative is outlined according to the arguments found in his work.

Kant thought human beings occupy a special place in creation, believing that morality can be summed in one, ultimate principle, from which all duties and obligations derive, defining an imperative as any proposition that declares a certain action (or inaction) to be necessary. A hypothetical imperative would compel action in a given circumstance: If I wish to satisfy my thirst, then I must drink this lemonade. A categorical imperative would denote an absolute, unconditional requirement that exerts its authority in all circumstances, and is both required and justified as an end in itself. It is best known in its first formulation:

Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law.

He expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the moral philosophy of his day because he believed it could never surpass the level of hypothetical imperatives. For example, a consequentialist standard may indicate that murder is wrong because it does not maximize good for the greatest number; but this would be irrelevant to someone who is not interested in maximizing the good. Consequently, Kant argued, hypothetical moral systems cannot persuade moral action or be regarded as bases for moral judgments against others, because the imperatives they are based on rely too heavily on subjective considerations.

A deontological moral system based on the demands of the categorical imperative was presented as an alternative.

Contents

[edit] Nature of the concept

The nature of a moral proposition ("It is wrong to commit murder") must necessarily mean that a particular act or kind of act ought not be carried out under any circumstance ("One ought not commit murder"). This is the central point of his meta-ethical theory that establishes Kant as an extreme moral objectivist. A categorical imperative is the one and only basis for all moral statements, because a hypothetical imperative would depend on the subjective desires of the rational actors, rendering it powerless to compel moral action in all actors.

[edit] Freedom and autonomy

In contrast to David Hume, Kant viewed the human individual as a rationally autonomous self-conscious being with full freedom of action and self-determination. For a will to be considered "free", we must understand it as capable of effecting causal power without being caused to do so. But the idea of lawless free will, that is, a will acting without any causal structure, is incomprehensible. Therefore, a free will must be acting under laws that it gives to itself.

Although Kant conceded that there could be no conceivable example of free will, because any example would only show us a will as it appears to us — as a subject of natural laws — he nevertheless argued against determinism. He proposed that determinism is logically inconsistent: The determinist claims that because A caused B, and B caused C, that A is the true cause of C. Applied to a case of the human will, a determinist would be arguing that the will does not have causal power because something else had caused the will to act as it did. But that argument merely assumes what it set out to prove; that the human will is not part of the causal chain.

Secondly, Kant remarks that free will is inherently unknowable. Since even a free person could not possibly have knowledge of his own freedom, we cannot use our failure to find a proof for freedom as evidence for a lack of it. The observable world could never contain an example of freedom because it would never show us a will as it appears to itself, but only a will that is subject to natural laws imposed on it. But we do appear to ourselves as free. Therefore he argued for the idea of transcendental freedom — that is, freedom as a presupposition of the question "what ought I to do?" This is what gives us sufficient basis for ascribing moral responsibility: the rational and self-actualizing power of a person, which he calls moral autonomy: "the property the will has of being a law unto itself".

[edit] Good Will, duty, and the categorical imperative

Since considerations of the physical details of actions are necessarily bound up with a person's subjective preferences, and could have been brought about without the action of a rational will, Kant concluded that the expected consequences of an act are themselves morally neutral, and therefore irrelevant to moral deliberation. The only objective basis for moral value would be the rationality of the Good Will, expressed in recognition of moral duty.

Duty is the necessity to act out of reverence for the law set by the categorical imperative. Because the consequences of an act are not the source of its moral worth, the source must be the maxim under which the act is performed, irrespective of all aspects or faculties of desire. Thus, an act can have moral content if, and only if, it is carried out solely with regard to a sense of moral duty; it is not enough that the act be consistent with duty, but carried out to achieve some particular interest.

[edit] The first formulation

From this step, Kant concludes that a moral proposition that is true must be one that is not tied to any particular conditions, including the identity of the person doing the moral deliberation. One could not morally command others by saying "It is wrong for you to murder, but it is not wrong for me to murder" because that would be a hypothetical imperative: Effectively saying "If I am person A, murder is right; If I am person B, murder is wrong". Therefore, a moral commandment must have universality, which is to say that it must be disconnected from the particular physical details surrounding the proposition, and could be applied to any rational being. This leads to the first formulation of the categorical imperative:

  • "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law."

Kant divides the duties imposed by this formulation into two subsets:

[edit] Perfect duty

According to his reasoning, we first have a perfect duty not to act by maxims that result in logical contradictions when we attempt to universalize them. The moral proposition A: "It is permissible to steal" would result in a contradiction in conceivability because the notion of stealing presupposed the existence of property. But were A universalized, then there could be no property, and the proposition has logically annihilated itself. Hence we have a perfect duty never to steal. Similarly, if the moral proposition B: "It is permissible to lie" were true, there must be language, but the universalization of lying would destroy the meaning of language. Therefore proposition B results in a logical contradiction, and Kant (rather famously) declared that lying is impermissible in any and all conceivable circumstances.

[edit] Imperfect duty

Second, we have imperfect duty, which is the duty to act only by maxims that we would desire to be universalized. Since it depends somewhat on the subjective preferences of humankind, this duty is not as strong as a perfect duty, but it is still morally binding. The moral proposition C: "One should never lend aid to another person unless there is something in it for oneself" could only be morally true if no one ever wanted help from another person, because that is the only case in which we could will it to be true. Since we can determine (by empirical observation) that this is not the case, C results in a "contradiction of the will", and Kant claims we have an imperfect duty to help others in their times of need, when possible.

[edit] The second formulation

Every rational action must set before itself not only a principle, but also an end. Most ends are of a subjective kind, because they need only be pursued if they are in line with some particular hypothetical imperative that a person may choose to adopt. For an end to be objective, it would be categorically necessary that we pursue it.

The free will is the source of all rational action. But to treat it as a subjective end is to deny the possibility of freedom in general. Because the autonomous will is the one and only source of moral action, it would contradict the first formulation to claim that a person is merely a means to some other end, rather than always an end in his or her self.

On this basis, Kant derives second formulation of the categorical imperative from the first.

  • "Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end."

By combining this formulation with the first, we learn that a person has perfect duty not to use itself or others merely as a means to some other end. As a slaveowner would be effectively asserting a moral right to own a person as a slave, he or she would be asserting a property right in another person. But this would violate the categorical imperative because it denies the basis for there to be free rational action at all; it denies the status of a person as an end in himself. One cannot, on Kant's account, ever suppose a right to treat another person as a mere means to an end.

The second formulation also leads to the imperfect duty to further the ends of ourselves and others. If any person desires perfection in himself or others, it would be his moral duty to seek that end for all people equally, so long as that end does not contradict perfect duty.

[edit] The third formulation

Because a truly autonomous will would not be subject to any particular interest, it would only be subject to those laws which it makes for itself. But it must also regard those laws as if they would be binding to others, or they would not be universalizable, and hence they would not be laws of conduct at all. Thus Kant presents the notion of the hypothetical Kingdom of Ends of which he suggests all people should consider themselves both members and heads.

  • "So act as though you were through your maxims a law-making member of a kingdom of ends."

We ought to act only by maxims which would harmonize with a possible kingdom of ends. We have perfect duty not to act by maxims that create incoherent or impossible states of natural affairs when we attempt to universalize them, and we have imperfect duty not to act by maxims that lead to unstable or greatly undesirable states of affairs.

[edit] Formal criticism

An objection based on the coherence of Kant's position has been stated by Onora O'Neill (1993):

"This [most central] objection is that Kant's basic framework is incoherent. His account of human knowledge leads to a conception of human beings as parts of nature, whose desires, inclinations and actions are susceptible of ordinary causal explanation. Yet his account of human freedom demands that we view human agents as capable of self-determination, and specifically of determination in accordance with the principles of duty. Kant is apparently driven to a dual view of man: we are both phenomenal (natural, causally determined) beings and noumenal (non-natural, self-determining) beings. Many of Kant's critics have held that this dual-aspect view of human beings is ultimately incoherent."

This objection is based on the view that human free will is incompatible with a deterministic world of cause and effect. The question of free will is contested in philosophical debates and literature even today.

[edit] Normative interpretation

Although Kant was intensely critical of the use of examples as moral yardsticks, because they tend to rely on our moral intuitions (feelings) rather than our rational powers, this section will explore some interpretations of the categorical imperative for illustrative purposes.

[edit] Deception

Kant asserted that lying, or deception of any kind, would be forbidden under any interpretation and in any circumstance. In Groundwork, Kant gives the example of a person who seeks to borrow money without intending to pay it back. The maxim of this action, says Kant, results in a contradiction in conceivability (and thus contradicts perfect duty) because it would logically contradict the reliability of language. If it is universally acceptable to lie, then no one would believe anyone and all truths would be assumed to be lies. The right to deceive could also not be claimed because it would deny the status of the person deceived as an end in himself. And the theft would be incompatible with a possible kingdom of ends. Therefore, Kant denied the right to lie or deceive for any reason, regardless of context or anticipated consequences.

[edit] Theft

Kant argued that any action taken against another person to which he or she could not possibly consent is a violation of perfect duty interpreted through the second formulation. If a thief were to steal a book from an unknowing victim, it may have been that the victim would have agreed, had the thief simply asked. However, no person can consent to theft, because the presence of consent would mean that the transfer was not a theft. Since the victim could not have consented to the action, it could not be instituted as a universal law of nature, and theft contradicts perfect duty.

[edit] Suicide

Kant applied his categorical imperative to the issue of suicide in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, writing that:

If a man is reduced to despair by a series of misfortunes and feels wearied of life, but is still so far in possession of his reason that he can ask himself whether it would not be contrary to his duty to himself to take his own life, he should ask himself a question. He should inquire whether the maxim of his action could become a universal law of nature. His maxim is: From self-love I adopt it as a principle to shorten my life when its longer duration is likely to bring more evil than satisfaction. It is asked then simply whether this principle founded on self-love can become a universal law of nature. Now we see at once that a system of nature of which it should be a law to destroy life by means of the very feeling whose special nature it is to impel to the improvement of life would contradict itself, and therefore could not exist as a system of nature; hence the maxim cannot possibly exist as a universal law of nature, and consequently would be wholly inconsistent with the supreme principle of all duty.

[edit] Intent to break promise

Kant applies the categorical imperative in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant raises a situation where a man asks himself if it is right to borrow money with the promise to repay, with intent of never paying it back. The universality of this is self-contradictory according to Kant; a world where it is universal to take loans and never intend to repay them cannot exist, for no one would believe a promise to repay the loan and thus no one would loan money to anyone. Because this creates a contradiction in conceivability, a rational being has perfect duty not to make promises without the intent to keep them. Kant's conclusion is:

...the universality of a law which says that anyone believing himself to be in difficulty could promise whatever he pleases with the intention of not keeping it would make promising itself and the end to be attained thereby quite impossible, inasmuch as no one would believe what was promised him but would merely laugh at all such utterances and being vain pretenses.

[edit] Laziness

Kant also applies the categorical imperative in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals on the subject of "failing to cultivate ones talents." He proposes a man who if he cultivated his talents could bring many goods, but he has everything he wants and would prefer to enjoy the pleasures of life instead. The man asks himself how the universality of such a thing works. While Kant agrees that a society could subsist if everyone did nothing, he notes that the man would have no pleasures to enjoy, for if everyone let their talents go to waste, there would be no one to create luxuries that created this theoretical situation in the first place. Not only that, but cultivating one's talents is a duty to oneself. Thus, it is not willed to make laziness universal, and a rational being has imperfect duty to cultivate its talents. Kant concludes in Groundwork:

...he cannot possibly will that this should become a universal law of nature or be implanted in us as such a law by a natural instinct. For as a rational being he necessarily wills that all his faculties should be developed, inasmuch as they are given him for all sorts of possible purposes.

[edit] Charity

Kant's last application of the categorical imperative in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals is of charity. He proposes a fourth man who finds life fine but sees other people struggling with life. This man ponders about what if he did nothing to help those in need while not envying them or accepting anything from them. While Kant admits that humanity could subsist (and admit it could possibly perform better) if this was universal, he states in Groundwork that:

But even though it is possible that a universal law of nature could subsist in accordance with that maxim, still it is impossible to will that such a principle should hold everywhere as a law of nature. For a will which resolved in this way would contradict itself, inasmuch as cases might often arise in which one would have need of the love and sympathy of others and in which he would deprive himself, by such a law of nature springing from his own will, of all hope of the aid he wants for himself.

[edit] Animal rights

A Kantian mode of thinking states only rational and autonomous beings are held to have intrinsic worth, and objects or creatures that (according to Kant) are not autonomous are held to have no intrinsic moral value.

Although actions with respect to non-rational agents do not have intrinsic moral content, Kant derived a prohibition against cruelty to animals as a violation of a duty in relation to oneself. According to Kant, man has the duty to strengthen the feeling of compassion, since this feeling promotes morality in relation to other human beings. But, cruelty to animals deadens the feeling of compassion in man. Therefore, man is obliged not to treat animals brutally (Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, § 17).

[edit] Euthanasia

Euthanasia is the taking of a being's life in order to end its suffering. Applied to the first formulation, it appears that universalized, the maxim "It is acceptable to take someone's life to end their suffering" is acceptable, for there is no contradiction in doing so. Unlike the more general maxim "it is acceptable to take someone else's life", the maxim of euthanasia focuses solely on those people who are suffering, which, if universalised, would not cause a contradiction as humankind would still exist in order to carry out the maxim. (Whereas if everybody killed someone else who wasn't suffering, humankind would cease to exist, so would be unable to carry out the said maxim, hence the contradiction.) By definition, euthanasia is done for benevolent reasons; the valuing of someone's humanity is treating them as an end. however, since suicide is unacceptable as it is contradictory to claim "I value my life so much that I am going to end it", then one might argue that the second formulation, when applied to euthanasia, would also bring about a contradiction: "I value your life so much that I am going to end it". And thus, Kant would be unlikely to support euthanasia.

[edit] Normative criticism

[edit] The Golden Rule

It is often said that the Categorical Imperative is the same as The Golden Rule. In the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals Kant states that what he is saying is not the same as the Golden Rule; that the Golden Rule is derived from the categorical imperative with limitations. Under the Golden Rule many things cannot be universal. A criminal on the grounds of the Golden Rule could dispute with judges and a man could refuse to give to charity, both of which are incompatible under the universality of the categorical imperative. Kant makes this point when arguing that a man who purposefuly breaks a promise is immoral.

[edit] Inquiring murderer

One of the first major challenges to Kant's reasoning came from the Swiss philosopher Benjamin Constant, who asserted that since truth telling must be universal, according to Kant's theories, one must (if asked) tell a known murderer the location of his prey. This challenge occurred while Kant was still alive, and his response was the essay On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives (sometimes translated On a Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns). In this reply, Kant agreed with Constant, and argued that it is indeed one's moral duty to be truthful to a murderer.

Kant argued that telling the truth to the murderer is required because moral actions do not derive their worth from the expected consequences. He claimed that because lying to the murderer would treat him as a mere means to another end, the lie denies the rationality of another person, and therefore denies the possibility of there being free rational action at all. This lie results in a contradiction in conceivability and ergo the lie is in conflict with duty.

Furthermore, Kant questioned our ability to know that the expected future outcomes of our actions would actually occur. For example, suppose Jim said that the victim was in the park, when he thought the target was in the library. However, unbeknownst to Jim, the victim actually left the library and went to the park. The lie would actually lead the murderer to the victim, which would make Jim responsible for the murder. On a Supposed Right to Lie states:

However, if you told a lie and said that the intended victim was not in the house, and he has actually (though unbeknownst to you) gone out, with the result that by so doing he has been met by the murderer and thus the deed has been perpetrated, then in this case you may be justly accused, as having caused his death. For if you had told the truth as best you knew it, then the murderer might perhaps have been caught by neighbors who came running while he was searching the house for his intended victim, and thus the deed might have been prevented. Therefore, whoever tells a lie, regardless of how good his intentions may be, must answer for the consequences resulting therefrom even before a civil tribunal and must pay the penalty for them regardless of how unforeseen those consequences may be. This is because truthfullness is a duty that must be regarded as the basis of all duties founded on contract, and the laws of such duties would be rendered uncertain and useless if even the slightest exception to them were admitted.

Kant is restating that there cannot be any exceptions to the categorical imperative, for if you state that "You can never lie, unless it is to help another" then you must accept this as a universal rule, and one would not desire for everyone to lie to help others. Kant also states that lying to the murderer is making an exemption for yourself (avoiding universality) and using the murderer as a means to save your friend.

[edit] Questioning Autonomy

Schopenhauer's criticism of Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals expresses doubt concerning the absence of egoism in the Categorical Imperative. Schopenhauer claimed that the Categorical Imperative is actually hypothetical and egoistical, not categorical.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

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