Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals Part I

today we're going to begin our discussion of deontological ethics and of course your textbook has a section devoted to this and you have the textbook I encourage you to read it because it can give you a general overview of the work of a manual Cott cotton ethics is deontological ethics the word deontological comes from the prefix de own which in greek means duty so deontological ethics is an ethical tradition which begins with the assertion that to live a good life is to do one's duty and we are familiar with the idea of having a duty I have duties of work I have duties that arise from being a father for being a son ok but for God the duties which we have in the moral realm do not arise from taking on specific roles ordinarily I don't have a duty to teach a course unless I have signed a contract saying that I will do this for this sum of money usually we elect to take on duties or obligations on the basis of contracting with others but for cut the duties that we have morally speaking result entire from our existence as rational beings okay and we're going to have to come to understand what he means by a rational bid but for one thing given that all persons are considered by God to be rational beings this is obviously a Universalist theory of ethics and Conti and ethics is the clearest example of a rigid universal theory in fact we refer to cocked as a moral absolutist meaning that moral rules apply with absolute universality and necessity to all rational beings for example according to Kant it is never alright to tell a lie no matter what the consequences are it is never alright to steal despite the consequences all rational beings which we can simplify simply by using the word persons okay persons are rational beings and the practical side of being rational for can't simply means that we are free okay because to be rational for Kant means having the ability to apply a principle to a particular situation so for example if I throw a ball up into the air and it comes back down and I say what explains the motion of the ball is the principle of gravitation I have taken a universal principle the principle of gravity and employed it to explain the particular behavior of this ball okay and that is a rational judgment I can likewise discover universal moral principles and apply them to particular situations and when I do that I am doing ethics okay now of course metaphysics is or belongs to the province of rational beings and Kant entitles one of his works in ethical thinking the groundwork of the metaphysics of morals now that is certainly a mouthful and unintelligible until we understand what cotton means by metaphysics okay now as I have said before metaphysics is the study of ultimate reality we understand commonsensical II that there is a distinction between the way something appears and the way something really is the appearance of something does not always signify its reality things can be different in reality that they appear and so traditionally metaphysics seeks the real inner nature of the world what are the principles which govern the behavior of objects in space and time what is the origin of the universe does God exist is there a soul an afterlife is there a smallest particle and so forth but Todd here is suggesting that it is possible to do a metaphysic of morals which from the beginning suggests to us that he is going to reveal the real ground of ethics okay now let's begin like this before we start talking about what Kant actually says about what it means to live a good life let's focus on this title first of all when cod uses the word metaphysics or in metaphysics what he means is the application of a universal principle to a determinant object of the understanding now what does that mean it means exactly what I said just a moment ago when I say for example that every event has a cause and I assert that as a universal and necessary principle why because I say every event which expresses universality must have a cause which expresses necessity and then I witnessed some events I hear a noise and I look around and I see that there was just a car accident and I make the judgement that the accident was the cause of the noise what I have done there is to apply the universal principle of cause and effect to this particular situation such that I say that the impact of the cars was the cause of the noise okay that is an exercise in metaphysics because I'm taking a universal principle and using it to explain a particular event okay you with me so far all right now when I say things like Isaac Newton does that objects in motion tend to stay in motion or objects at rest tend to stay at rest or every action has an equal and opposite reaction these express what we purport to be universal necessary principles that govern the behavior of objects in space and time okay and so when I say something like every action has an equal and opposite reaction and so when I fire the gun and it kicks back the kick back is the result of the force of the projectile leaving the barrel I have made a judgment in what he calls the metaphysical nature because I'm explaining a natural event in terms of a metaphysical principle and metaphysical principles are always Universal meaning they apply everywhere and always and they are necessary meaning it must be that way and cannot be otherwise okay however just as there are principles Universal and necessary which explained the behavior of objects in space and time such that I can make judgments in physics and physics is simply what we call the metaphysics of nature okay there are also universal necessary principles which govern the behavior of persons and thus I can also do a metaphysic of freedom when I do the metaphysics of nature I am articulating the principles that govern the behavior of objects that is I'm doing physics when I articulate the principles that govern or ought to govern the behavior of three beings persons then I am doing the metaphysics of freedom or what we call ethics okay so remember this metaphysics is the application of a universal necessary principle to a particular situation and that situation can either be a natural physical event or it can be a moral such and for Kant if there is to be such a thing as ethics such that I can say things like one ought not to steal one ought not to lie or one ought to give to charity or one ought to develop one's talents or respect one's parents or not commit adultery or what-have-you I don't mean that one ought not to lie unless it behooves them to do so or one ought not to steal if there is a chance of getting caught these are not hypothetical commands for Kant if ethics is a real science consisting of universal and necessary principles that ground our judgments then the principles which govern human freedom must be necessary and universal such that there are no exceptions to that ok all right but the problem is how do we discover the principles which either govern the behavior of things or ought to govern the behavior of people where do those principles come from and of course that is what Mazzoni means by the origin of ethics what is the origin of the claim for example of the utilitarian that I ought to maximize happiness for all of sentient creation where does that principle arise whence comes its authority okay well what cut maintains is that if our metaphysical principles whether we are talking about those which pertain to nature or those which pertain to freedom those principles must be discovered purely a priori and while I have likely used the bad term before let me remind you that a priori is Latin and signifies without reference to the sentences an a priori idea or judgment is one made on the basis of reason alone without the benefit of sensory perception okay are you with me so for example if I say that a is greater than B I can know a priori that'd be must be less than a I do not have to use my senses to confirm it I know it simply by thinking about the meaning of greater than and less than okay now if our metaphysical principles are to be universal applying everywhere in all ways and necessary such that they must be the case and cannot be otherwise they must be discovered a priori because nothing which I learn on the basis of my senses can ever have universal or necessary Authority think about it if I throw the chalk up into the air and catch it and I say well the chocolates up and the chalk came down can I move from that single observation to the universal and necessary principle of gravitation I can't because perceptions or particular sensations are always particular and contingent I am observing this particular event which did not have to happen nor did I have to witness it okay so metaphysical principles must be absolutely pure meaning I must discover them on the basis of reasoning alone otherwise they could never apply universally and necessarily okay metaphysical principles must be discovered a priori because all a posteriori perceptions which means on the basis of the sentences are always particular and contingent not universal and necessary yes a principle which is universal and necessary like every event must have a cause must be discovered a priori because I could never discover the universal based on my particular experiences no matter how many times I experience something going up and coming back that even if I experienced it a million times I can never use those experiences to make the claim that it is a necessary and universal principle that whatever goes up must come down because then I would have to experience every single event of things going up and coming down but I don't ok so the basis for a metaphysical principle which always means necessary and universal must be pure reason itself so the origin of ethics for taught which also means the origin of his principle of morality must be discovered a priori on the basis of reasoning alone without reference to what is given to sensory perception all right now all of that really is just background because what cogs book is titled is the groundwork of the metaphysics of morals remember if doing metaphysics means applying a universal principle to a particular situation before I can apply a universal principle I must discover what the principle is and that's what khat means by doing the groundwork ok I'm laying the groundwork for doing a metaphysic of morals for example if I were to say to you that you ought not to have told a lie I am applying the principle of not lying to a particular situation but the question is where did that principle come from the book we are reading the groundwork of the metaphysics of morals seeks to discover the supreme principle of morality so as you are reading Copts always keep in mind what his basic project is the entire point of the groundwork of the metaphysics of morals is to discover the supreme principle of morality and Kant calls his principle supreme because if ethics is to have universal necessary Authority Kant argues there can be but one such principle and we will see that he calls his supreme principle of morality the categorical imperative cops supreme principle of morality is called the categorical imperative so before we get into the details let's talk about what it means to say that the supreme principle of morality is an imperative that is categorical what is an imperative if I say that it is imperatives yes that's right in other words it is a command okay if I issue an imperative for example if I say do your homework that is a command am saying that it is imperative that you do your homework okay now I might say that to my children because I know the importance of their success in school but let's say that I were to tell you you ought to go to baskin-robbins because I know that you want an ice cream cone okay that imperative is not categorical but rather it is hypothetical what is a hypothetical situation or if you know it is an if-then statement right hypothetically speaking if you want an ice cream cone then go to baskin-robbins okay so hypothetical commands or imperatives always have a conditional structure that in other words they are if-then statements okay if you want to do well on the quiz then you ought to study the lecture notes if you want a good steak then you ought to go to Ruth's Chris but if you have no interest in the ice cream cone no interest in doing well on the quiz no interest in having a steak then those imperatives do not apply to you all right but that's why Cox says that imperatives of morality are not hypothetical but must be categorical categorical means universal and necessary okay so when I say one ought not to tell lies I do not mean only if they don't want to get caught I don't mean that you ought to keep your promises only if you want people to trust you or light you I mean you ought to do it no matter what and that's why imperatives of morality for cops must be categorical not hypothetical okay and after all the only reason I know that if you want a tasty ice cream cone you should go to baskin-robbins is because I have experienced their ice cream cones with my sentences okay but a categorical imperative can never be based upon my sensory perceptions precisely because of what I said a moment ago sensory perception or experience of the world is always particular and contingent never Universal and necessary so the point of this book is to discover the supreme principle of morality the categorical imperative and as we will see in the next couple of days there is only one categorical imperative however there are three formulations of it okay I can express the supreme principle in three different ways each of which emphasizes a different aspect of it okay all right so that's the background now we're going to turn to the first part of the groundwork of the metaphysics of morals okay cough begins this admittedly challenging work especially to new emissions in philosophy with a very straightforward claim Kant begins by saying that there is but one thing in the world or even outside of this world that can be called good in itself does anybody know what that is I can't say that good is good it doesn't tell me anything he says the good will only the good will can be called unconditionally good because consider there are many things which we call good I might say that intelligence is a good thing or generosity or patience or cleverness or strength but what if it is the cleverness and strength of a criminal what if I use my intelligence to harm other people then I cannot say that intelligence is intrinsically good it is good only given the qualification that it is used for a good purpose but if my will is good in other words if my intentions are good even if things turn out poorly I am still a good person or my will retains its goodness if I try to help you let's say you're drowning and I pull you out of the water and I accidentally sprained your arm and you sue me for it that would be in very poor taste because my intention was to save your life okay I didn't intend or expect that I was going to injure your arm by pulling you out of the deep end of the pool okay likewise if my intention is to harm you let's say I walk up and push you and just as I push you a grand piano falls from the tenth floor of a building onto the spot that you were formerly standing I just saved your life but you're not necessarily going to thank me for it because my intention wants to push you onto the ground okay well I think that what you're getting at is this cops theory is a non-consequentialist theory okay in other words moral judgments for cons have to do with our intentions the will the content of the will and not the outcome of the action okay now the falling principle says that the end does not justify the means and Kant would agree with that wholeheartedly okay in other words or for example even if my intention is to end world hunger if the only way for me to do that is to steal from Bill Gates I can't do it because stealing is universally and necessarily prohibited okay so yes cops ethical theories strictly accords with the Pauling principle okay and we'll see why all right well here's what we need to do the first part or section of the groundwork of the metaphysics of morals basically establishes three propositions okay and these are in your notes and the first proposition states the following only action that proceeds from duty has moral worth okay now there's a lot act into that in opposition what does he say what does it mean to say that my action proceeds from duty to understand that we have to draw a distinction between actions that proceed from duty versus actions which merely conform to do me or accord with duty for example if I make you a promise and I fulfill that promise but the only reason I fulfill that promise is because I want to avoid the ill consequence of not doing so then I'm not I'm not keeping my promise because it's the right thing to do I'm not proceeding from my duty to keep promises I am doing what I should do but for the wrong reason my action merely accords with duty but it does not proceed from duty so when Cobb says that only action that proceeds from duty has moral worth he's saying that even if I do what Duty prescribes if I do it for any other reason then it's being a duty then my will cannot be called good if I pay you money back that I owe you but only because I secretly want you to lend me more money tomorrow but not because I have a moral obligation to pay back my debt even though I'm doing exactly what duty Rhys I'm not doing it because duty prescribes it okay so Koch has begun by saying that the only unconditionally good thing is the goodwill okay and that only action which proceeds from duty has moral worth which ultimately means that unless my action proceeds from the recognition that I have a duty to do something my will cannot be called good at best maybe it is neutral at worst perhaps it is evil okay all right the second proposition actually before I talk about the second proposition let me just give you Khan's example okay to further illustrate the first proposition imagine that there is a shopkeeper okay sterling and he works in the French Quarter and he realizes that because he has so many drunk tourists coming into his shop then he could easily overcharge them and they either wouldn't think about it or care about it or know any better okay so he can charge different patrons different prices and thereby make a bigger profit okay but he also knows that if he does this for long enough his shop will get a bad reputation and his business will suffer so let's assume that he makes the decision to charge all his customers the same price no matter what and that is what he ought to do that's the right thing to do but if he is doing it only to maintain the reputation of his business but not because it is the right thing to do then his dude then his action does not proceed from duty it proceeds from his inclination to maintain a good reputation okay so we must always bear in mind this distinction between duty and inclination the only action that proceeds from duty has moral worth and therefore the agents will can be called good even if I do exactly what duty prescribes if my action proceeds not from duty but from an inclination because I have some other motivation to do so like paying you back money so I can secretly borrow more later and not pay you back then my action lacks moral worth okay all right the second proposition stays that an action that proceeds from Duty has its moral worth not from the purpose to be attained but from the maxim by which it is determined so here we are introduced to the term Maxim a Maxim is what Todd calls a subjective principle of volition and other words your Maxim is the reason you do something okay you and I might both do exactly the same thing okay let's say that you and I enter into a contract and we both fulfill our terms but you do it because you recognize the moral obligation to keep your promises I do it only because I want to maintain a good reputation we have differing Maxim's for the same action okay your Maxim is the principle that motivates you to do something and so action that does proceed from duty has moral worth not because of what I attained or because of what I achieved for example actually paying back a debt or keeping my promise but only from the maxim upon which my action is based okay in other words what matters is not what I do but why I do it okay and so Khan says this your will okay and by will he means the kind of causality belonging to a rational being right I mean there is a kind of natural cause a latina into things like when I throw over the chalk in there and it comes down that is what he calls heteronomous causality because it is not the chalk that decides to come back down but the force of gravity acting upon the chalk and necessitate or necessitates it coming down okay so the will is your causal principle it is what causes you to do something the reason you do something originates in your freedom the reason an object does something is because it is necessitated by Nature okay so imagine this here's your will okay and it is sort of situated between two motivating factors or two possible grounds of motivation on the one hand there is an a posterior I or based on my senses incentive okay so sure I have an incentive to pay back the money I owe Eve and that incentive might simply be getting you to lend me more money but on the other side of my will is an a priori principle now the a posteriori incentive it what is what he calls a material principle because it has content if the motivation of my will is wanting to get a good reputation then that is a Content rich motivation something specific I hope to achieve an incentive other than simply doing the right thing okay so I might be what my will might be motivated by a material incentives getting something out of it okay but if so then the will cannot be called good on the other hand if I pay back the money I owe you not because I want you to like me or because I want you to lend me more money later or because I want a good reputation but simply because I recognize that there is an a priori principle namely the categorical imperative which commands me to pay back my debts then the will can be called good okay all right the third proposition is that Duty is the necessity of acting from respect for the moral law by which he means the categorical imperative okay so what have we said that the only thing which can be called good without further qualification is the goodwill the goodwill proceeds from duty and what is duty duty is the necessity of acting from respect for the moral law the categorical imperative okay now I know it's going to take a little bit of time for you to become familiar and comfortable with his terminology and to be able to put it all together and then cement that's natural okay but for now just think of it this way we looked at different traditions so far all of which have said that goodness means this or that okay for Aristotle's goodness is virtue because virtue leads to happiness which is a rational end Aquinas says that goodness is promoting the fundamental goods indicated by my natural inclinations the contract theorists say that the good is self-interest and so I ought to participate in social contracts because that is the most viable strategy for securing self-interest the utilitarians have said that goodness means happiness to care emphasis saying that goodness means caring for others or report responding to the perceived needs of those for whom I care Todd is saying that goodness means nothing but doing one's duty which is to have a good will the only thing which is good is the goodwill the goodwill is good when it proceeds from duty and duty is the necessity that I act from respect for the moral law rather than simply to get something out of doing so okay and so by the end of the first part Kant tells us what the categorical imperative states in its first formulation the first formulation of the categorical imperative says that one ought to act such that one's maxim can be will as a universal law act such that your Maxim can be will as a universal law so what does that leave let's say okay that I need to borrow five dollars from you but I know that the only way you're going to lend me five dollars is if I promise to pay you back now I know that I can't pay you back and so I asked myself is it morally permissible for me to make a lying promise to you am i morally permitted to say if you lend me five dollars today I'll pay you back tomorrow knowing that I cannot do so okay so what is my Maxim my Maxim is to tell a lie in order to get five dollars okay and so when Cobb says that you should act only on the basis of that Maxim which you can will to be a universal law he is saying that you must attempt to take your personal Maxim okay your subjective principle and raise it to the level of a universal law so I asked myself what would happen if everyone always lied in order to get what they want would I be able to borrow the five dollars from you know why not and you would know that I was lying if I knew that in order to get what people want they always will tell a lie with the same regularity of the laws of nature okay just as certainly is what comes up comes down when people want something they lie to get it then nobody is going to lend anybody anything and I can't achieve my original purpose of borrowing the five dollars from you so when the maxim when raised to the level of universality contradicts itself I know that the action is prohibited I cannot morally do it when the maxim contradicts itself okay take another example if you asked me a question and let's say that telling you the truth is going to be uncomfortable for me either because it's gonna get me in trouble or it's gonna hurt your feelings or something so I asked myself can I tell a lie in order to extricate myself from this difficult situation so I raised my maxim to the level of a universal principle of nature what would happen if everybody lied all the time would anybody believe anyone no if I knew in advance that everyone is going to lie when it is convenient for them to do so then you're not going to believe me when I give you an answer and so I can't get away with my lie the only way for lying to succeed is on the presumption of truth-telling you have to assume that I'm going to tell you the truth in order for me to successfully lie to you but everybody knew that universally people lie when it's conducive to their comfort then there is no more line when everybody lives there can be no lies if everybody steals there can be no stealing okay when the maxim contradicts itself which means makes it impossible for the agent to achieve his or her original intention then I know the action is prohibited I can't do it okay so tomorrow we'll pick up with the second part of the groundwork in the metaphysics of morals okay all right give me a moment to take your attendance

Channel: Michael B Brezinsky, Ph.D.

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Length: 55min 25sec (3325 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 02 2014