The Second Formulation of the Categorical Imperative ETH337

this time we'll be talking about Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative and this time I'll be drawing on a short paper by honoré O'Neil which I have made available in the link to this presentation Conte famously gave several different formulations of his categorical imperative and he maintained that all of these formulations these distinct formulations were equivalent to one another scholars have since disputed whether that's in fact the case and they've given arguments that the formulations are in fact not equivalent but we're going to be focusing on just one of those formulations the so-called second formulation here's how Conte states the formulation himself he says 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 this statement of the principle seems to require two things of us first don't treat others or oneself merely as means and second treat others and oneself at the same time as ends in order to understand these two requirements we need to say a little something about means and ends so an end or ends are just the things for the sake of which we do stuff right so right now my end on my goal you might say is you're learning about the second formulation and I do a number of things for the sake of that goal right so for example one of my means one of the things that I'm doing to help me accomplish that end is to make this audio recording right so my end is your learning and one of my means is producing this audio recording in order to accomplish that end as another example consider running so I get up every morning and run a couple of miles and I do that because it's a means to my health right it's a way to maintain good cardiovascular health so running is the means and health is the end but sometimes can also be ends so for example in the case of running I really like running so it's also an end it's something for the sake of which I do other stuff so I buy running shoes and running pants and stuff like that for the sake of accomplishing this end of mine of running but running in turn is also a means to some further end health some means are just means right there are things that we just do or use just because we want something else so money for example for me that's just a means I don't care so much about having money for its own sake I'm only interested in money because of the stuff that it can do namely how it can help me accomplish some of my other ends like buying groceries right now I buy groceries with money I'm using money as a means to obtain my groceries and the groceries I want in order that I can eat some healthy foods and stay healthy and I want to stay healthy that's my end because I'm doing it for the sake of myself right for the sake of me so in this case I am the ultimate end right my well-being is the ultimate end and obtaining fresh groceries fresh vegetables and fruits that's a means to get that end and a means to get that means is getting some money right so some of our means our ends hence - and some of our means are also in support of further ends now sometimes we use other people as means right and conte is not telling us that we are never allowed to do that right so for example all of you right now we're listening to this recording are using me as it means right so you you're using me and my labour as a means to get a particular end that you have probably the end of understanding Kant's moral theory right I'm also using you as a means right your tuition dollars go to pay my salary so I'm using you as a means in order to obtain my salary which I then used to obtaining other stuff like groceries what Khan says you can't do is to use another person or yourself merely as a means right and lesson unpack what that's what that amounts to so we'll say that a person a uses another person B as a mere means when a involves B in a course of action to which B cannot give fully informed and voluntary rational consent right so you use you as a mere means when I involve you in some kind of plan that you can't consent to and we'll look at some examples of that to illustrate the principle so here are some examples of cases in which one person uses another person as a mere means so suppose that I want to get you to do something in accordance with some plan that I have but I don't think that you will be willing to do it so I decide to overcome your will by brute force so suppose that I want the room to myself and you're in here reading a book and I want you to leave but rather than try to give you a compelling reason for leaving I just pick you up and toss you out so this would be a case in which I use you as a mere means to get what I want what I want is the room all to myself and I employ you as though you were a mere instrument in order to accomplish that end in a sense I'm treating you as though you were a mere piece of furniture right a non rational creature i bypass your rationality by refusing to give you reasons and instead just picking you up and bodily throwing you out of the room this would be a wrong way to treat you because you're not a piece of furniture you're a human being who's capable of appreciating reasons another case in which I might use you as a mere means is where I want to get you to do something but I suspect that you wouldn't do it for the reason that I want you to do it right so suppose I want you to leave the room you're in here reading a book and I want you to leave the room so that you won't catch me spying on the neighbors right now I'm going to look out the window and spy what the neighbors are up to and I don't want you to see me so I want you to leave the room but instead of appealing to your rationality your reason by offering you my reasons for obtaining my end I just deceive you right I say hey there's a nice thick slice of chocolate cake out in the hallway maybe you should go check it out because I know you like chocolate cake so I lie to you I deceive you in order to get you to do what I want now here's a case in which I'm treating you like you're a mere instrument for my ends right what I want is to have the room to myself so I can illicitly spy on my neighbors without being observed by anyone and the way I obtain that goal is by deceiving you into leaving the room and again I'm bypassing your rationality by not supplying you with the real reason right so you can't consent to my plan because you don't know what my plan is you can't give your fully informed consent because part of my plan involves you being deceived about what my plan is so I'm using you as a mere instrument in that case lastly another kind of way that somebody might be used as a mere means is if they are coerced so suppose again that there's something I want you to do but I don't think that you'll be willing to do it for the reason I want you to do it so again I want you to leave the room you're sitting in here reading a book and the reason I want you to leave the room so that you won't see me kicking a puppy like I would never do this like in real life this is just an example but suppose that I want you to leave the room for that reason but I don't want to tell you that reason because I want you well out of the room before I start kicking the puppy but instead of just picking you up and throwing you out or deceiving you i coerce you by convincing you that it would be in your interest through like threats or cajole eree to leave the room so I say I'm gonna make you an offer you can't refuse either you leave the room or I'm gonna tear up that book you're reading which I know is your favorite book right so I coerce you I try to make it seem worth your while to leave because I threaten you or your property with some kind of you know action that you would find undesirable so again this is to use you as a mere means because I'm circumnavigating your rationality I'm not appealing to your capacity as a rational agent but I'm just trying to threaten or intimidate you in order to get you to do what I want you can't consent to this plan because part of the plan involves you being coerced or pushed around and it would be irrational for you to consent to such a plan so has sort of examples of this right overcoming the will by brute force right I might if I want the money that's in your pockets I could pick you up and just shake the money out and take it right or if I wanted to obtain your consent by deception right I might claim to be a collector for a charity in which case you would perhaps give me the money that's in your pockets or lastly securing compliance through coercion right I might make you an offer you can't refuse by threatening you with bodily harm or threatening your property if you don't give up the money that's in your pockets okay so the second formulation of the categorical imperative stresses the fact that persons are worthy of respect and persons deserve respect because we have some interesting features we can appreciate in act on the basis of reasons so to treat a creature who's rational who's capable of appreciating reasons as like a mere object is fundamentally to misrepresent their nature in a way that is deeply insulting so if I want you to leave the room and instead of asking you politely to leave I just pick you up and toss you out then I have treated you like a sack of potatoes like a piece of furniture and not like a human being and this is a deeply insulting way to treat human beings and it's deeply wrong it's deeply wrong because we are capable of being given reasons rather than just being moved around like pieces of furniture also persons deserve respect because we are ends in ourselves right so this means human beings the sake are the thing the for the sake of which everything else is done right so again consider my example about working so I work a job to get a salary the salary is an end but the salary is also a means for me to buy the things I need to sustain my life and to promote my health and I sustain my life and promote my health for my own sake I don't do it for the sake of anything else I am the ultimate end here and other human beings are ultimate ends just like I am it is morally wrong Khan believed to treat something that is an end in itself as though it could ever be merely a means and that would be to treat a creature that fundamentally deserves respect in a very very disrespectful way so it's wrong to treat us human beings persons as mere means because we are the things for the sake of which other things are worth pursuing right if you treat a human being or a person as a mere means you are representing a fundamental misunderstanding of the structure of values in the universe human beings have value period they don't have value because of something else we're intrinsically valuable and to treat us otherwise is to make a huge mistake it is wrong also to treat a person as a mere means because persons have autonomy right now so we can this means that we can decide whether a reason is good enough for us to act on human beings are capable of selecting reasons to act on and when I bypass your rationality by coercing you or deceiving you I'm treating you as though you can't pick the reasons that are good enough for you I'm treating you as though my reasons should be good enough for you rather than your reasons rather than tell you what my reasons are and I get you to sort of think about them for your own and come to your own autonomous decision I try to circumvent your rationality and that's wrong because you have autonomy okay so let's sum up here we have cons second for me and it requires us to respect persons as ends in themselves right so you have to treat others as ends in themselves but also you have to treat yourself that way you're not allowed to use yourself as I'm your instrument any more than you're allowed to use others that way so this principle applies to the agent who acts as well as those who are affected by her action and also the second formulation is supposed to be equivalent to the first formulation and when I gave the first formulation I kind of sketched why this it might be the case here's a brief sort of recap of that according to the second formulation you're not allowed to treat others or yourself as a mere means but if you act on a reason that's insufficient for your action so the first formulation prohibits doing that but if you act on such a reason you're treating yourself as though you don't really need reasons for acting and creatures who don't really need reasons for acting are irrational right so non-human animals they don't need reasons for acting they just do what they're inclined to do and if you act that way then you're treating your own person as though it were a non rational agent and that's a deeply insulting and morally wrong way to treat a person even if it's just yourself right who you're treating that way someone can kind of begin to see by reflecting on this idea of acting for reasons and being rational and autonomous how the first formulation can be kind of tied up to the second formulation okay so that's the second formulation of the categorical imperative

Channel: Gerald Marsh

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Length: 15min 5sec (905 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 03 2017