III. Kant and Deontology
Rationality and motive
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
 Kant’s moral philosophy: Concerned with
the moral authority of reason (i.e., reason
alone, without reference to experience).
 In the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Kant says that
he aims to construct a “pure moral philosophy, perfectly
cleared of everything which is only empirical, and which
belongs to anthropology.”
 Kant maintains that there are some absolute moral rules
(in fact, ultimately, exactly one). We can know this not in
terms of how the empirical world works, but in terms of
our nature as rational beings.
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 For U, as we’ve seen, what is morally fundamental are
consequences, assessed in terms of utility…ultimately,
in terms of pleasure/pain, happiness/unhappiness.
 For Kant, what is morally fundamental is human
freedom—autonomy. We are capable of autonomy
because we are rational beings; it is our capacity for
rationality and autonomy that make us distinct from the
rest of nature, that make us deserve (and offer) respect.
Pleasure and pain are responses to what we happen to
desire. But that is the contrary of human freedom
(heteronomy).
Kant’s Theory
In contrast to U, Kant’s theory is strictly deontological. I.e.,
the rightness or wrongness of an action has nothing to do
with the consequences that the act brings about:
“An action done from duty has its moral worth, not in the
purpose that is to be attained by it, but in the maxim
according to which the action is determined. The moral
worth depends, therefore, not on the realization of the
object of the action, but merely on the principle of volition
according to which, without regard to any objects of the
faculty of desire, the action has been done.”
Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)
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Maxims?
By “maxim” Kant means the rule that you would be
following if you were to perform some action. In effect: “If
everyone behaved this way, what rule would they be
following?”
Example: You are in a financial jam and you lie on a
loan application to obtain money that you know you likely
can’t pay back.
The maxim of this action might be something like “It is
permissible to overcome financial trouble by lying.” Or,
as Kant would more bluntly put it: “It’s OK to lie.”
How Does This Get Us to an Absolute Rule?
 Kant: Your willingness to act on a specific maxim
expresses your commitment to a general rule, i.e., a
commitment that extends beyond this particular case to
cover you and all other rational beings.
 This claim is not as strange as it might seem. In fact,
Kant insists, it is a matter of ordinary logic. (And logic is
something that we rational beings ought to be eminently
capable of.)
To give it a name, we might call the principle at work
here the generalizability of reasons…
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The Generalizability of Reasons
Consider the following dialogue:
Me:
“The Audwagen Serpent is a really awesome car. It has plenty
of power with its 300 horsepower V6. Yet, it gets better than 60
MPG on the highway. And it is safe: It has roll cage
construction and side-panel airbags.”
You:
“So what do you think of the Volksdi Locust?”
Me:
“It’s a piece of crap.”
You:
“But the Locust has a V6 engine that gives better than 300
horsepower, it gets 62 MPG highway, and it too has roll cage
construction and side-panel airbags…?”
 Practically anyone can discern that I’ve made an error of
some kind in the previous dialogue.
And, notice, it’s not a factual (empirical) error about cars.
We could substitute sports teams or political platforms or
works of art and the error would still arise.
 The error: I’ve been logically inconsistent.
If X + Y + Z are ‘jointly sufficient’ for me to judge
something ‘an awesome car’, then I should be willing to
judge as ‘an awesome car’ anything else that has those
same properties. (Either that or specify at least one more
property required for a car to be ‘awesome’)
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How does this relate to ethics?
Well…
 Either the maxim of an action provides a sufficient
reason for performing that action or it doesn’t. If it
doesn’t, then you had no sufficient reason for acting the
way you did, that is, your action was irrational (nonrational).
 If you act on a maxim, then you are effectively
committing yourself to a universal moral rule, since, if
that maxim provides sufficient reason for you to act in
that way, then logical consistency dictates that it ought to
provide sufficient reason for everyone else.
Imperatives
Hypothetical Imperative: A non-moral imperative telling
us what we ought to do provided that we have the
relevant desire. (“If you want to go to law school, you
ought to write the LSAT”)
Categorical Imperative: An imperative that holds
categorically, i.e., without exceptions.
We can know such things, Kant asserts, because we are
rational beings. I.e., we accept them because we accept
the authority of reason…
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The Categorical Imperative (CI)
First Formulation (‘Universal Law’)
Act only on that maxim by which you can at the
same time will without contradiction that it should be
a universal law of nature
This may resemble (a slightly pretentious version of) the
Judeo-Christian ‘Golden Rule’ (and that’s not an
accident, Kant would assert).
But, in the context of Kant’s theory, there more going on
here. It may not look like it at first, but the CI can be
thought of as, in effect, a test for logical consistency…
An Example (related to Kant’s own, but in somewhat
different terms):
If, when I say “I promise to pay you back,” I know,
according to the maxim of my action, that I mean “I’m not
going to pay you back (I’m just saying that I will),” there
is a clear contradiction:
“I promise” & “I don’t promise” (P & ~P)
If whenever anyone says “I promise” they are entitled to
mean, “I don’t promise,” there can clearly be no such
thing as promise keeping. Making false promises cannot
be willed to be a universal law (“universalized”) without
creating a contradiction.
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Second Formulation (‘Humanity’)
Act in such a way that I will always treat humanity,
whether in my own person or in the person of
another, never simply as a means, but always at the
same time as an end.
 For Kant all (but only) rational beings are genuine
participants in the realm of morality.
And it is precisely our rationality and our autonomy (our
ability to and our requirement that we “give the law unto
ourselves”) which makes us the sort of creatures that are
worthy of respect.
So why should we never treat other people merely as
means?
 Because, as a rational being, you wouldn’t accept as
legitimate any reason that was offered up for some
action that you couldn’t accept for yourself. So, it would
be inconsistent for you to treat another rational being any
differently than you would want to be treated.
 In short, rational beings, for Kant, are creatures that both
give and require respect.
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Some Problems with the CI
1. How can we know exactly how to specify maxims?
Couldn’t they be relative to circumstances or intentions?
“It is permissible to lie in order to save a life” might well
be universalizable, even if “It is permissible to lie” is not.
Kant seems to insist that there is only one relevant
description for each sort of action.
2. Similarly, but more a bit more broadly, Kant’s CI theory
seems highly inflexible (certainly as compared to U).
Consider: The ‘Case of the Inquiring Murder’ (‘The AxeWielding Murder at the Door’)
3. Moreover, Kant’s theory (at least as it stands) seem to
be unable to deal with conflicting duties.
Perhaps (per Peter Geach) there never are any such
conflicts in real life thanks to God’s providence. This is
...um, dubious, however.
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Implications for Justice
 According to Kant, we must reject U not only as a basis
for morality, but as a basis for law.
Basing rights on utility would require a society to
endorse some conceptions of happiness over others, yet
people “have different views on the empirical end of
happiness and what it consists of.”
 Instead, the law should aim at harmonizing each
individual’s freedom with that of everyone else…
 …this harmonization of individuals’ freedom can be
embodied in a social contract.
Yet (as you’d expect by now) this social contract can’t
depend on empirical facts alone; the social contract isn’t
(indeed, can’t be) actual, it must be imaginary.
 The ideal legislator will frame laws such that they are
justified by reason alone (as if “they could have been
produced by the united will of a whole nation”)
The test for just law: It would obligate each citizen “as if
he had consented.”
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