Kants Understanding of Skepticism and Imperatives Immanuel Kants

Kant’s Understanding of Skepticism and Imperatives: Immanuel Kant’s (1743 -1804): Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals: Survey of Section II: Transition from popular moral philosophy to the metaphysic of morals. 1

Section II. Kant begins section II with problems of moral skepticism (pgs. 25 -29): 1. Moral skepticism: a problem which troubles moral epistemology; it persistently troubles the quest for knowledge, challenging any theory of knowledge by questioning whatever than be any knowledge or justified belief at all. 2

Section II. Kant writes: “Although many things are done in conformity with what duty prescribes, it is nevertheless always doubtful whether they are done strictly from duty, so as to have a moral worth. Hence there have, at all times, been philosophers who have altogether denied that this disposition actually exists at all in human actions, and have ascribed everything to a more or less refined selflove. Not that they have on that account questioned the soundness of the conception of morality; on the contrary, they spoke with since regret of the frailty and corruption of human nature, which though noble enough to take as its rule an idea so worthy of respect, is yet too weak to follow it, and employs reason, which ought to give it the law only for the purpose of providing for the interests of the inclinations. . In fact, it is absolutely impossible to make out by experience with complete certainty a single case in which the maxim of an action, however right in itself, rested simply on moral grounds and on the conception of duty (pg. 25 -6). 3

Section II. 2. Several forms of moral skepticism as according to Kant: A. Form # 1: Skeptic can deny there is any moral knowledge or justified moral belief. B. Form # 2: Amoralism: Even if you can offer an objection to the existence or reality of moral knowledge, you still have to contend with the amoralist who argues that justified moral belief is outside the scope of morality. This notion implies non-cognitivism (in morality) and a radical view of moral motivation. 4

Section II. 2. Several forms of moral skepticism (The Problem of the Mind): C. Form # 3: As an evaluator it is impossible to know the thoughts of another. How is it possible to know the thoughts of another or that another has thoughts at all? D. Form # 4: As an evaluator it is impossible to know the agent’s motivating reason for his moral action. 5

Section II. 2. Several forms of moral skepticism (The Problem of the Mind): E. Form # 5: As an evaluator it is impossible to know the agent’s motivating reason for action is his knowledge and respect for what the moral obligation requires. F. Form # 6: It is impossible for the agent himself to know that his action. 6

Section II. Kant offers two responses to Skeptic claims regarding the knowledge of moral motivation: 1. Argument from agent’s self-knowledge; 2. Argument from best explanation of agent’s action. Let’s take a closer look at these responses! 7

Section II. 1. Argument from agent’s self-knowledge: While the evaluator may have difficulty knowing whether the agent was motivated by his moral reason, the agent himself has authority over the contents of his mental life, including motives. In essence, the agent himself would know what he thinks, wants, and what is motivating reasons are, especially the reason for which acts. Therefore, while the skeptic may have a point as an evaluator, he can’t deny the agent’s access to his own mind. [I would add that if the skeptic was to deny the possibility of the agent knowing his own mind, then how can the skeptic himself argue that he knows there is no moral justified belief; This is self-defeating]. 8

Section II. 2. Argument from Best Explanation of Agent’s Action: A. Since the function of any hypothesis is to provide an explanation of a phenomenon by answering the explanatory why-question about it, the hypothesis counts as knowledge if it successful in answering the explanatory why-question. Therefore, the correct hypothesis that supplies knowledge of the agent’s motivating reason is the one that offers the best explanation of the agent’s action. 9

Section II. 2. Argument from Best Explanation of Agent’s Action: B. For example: In the case of the non-philanthropist, we can judge correctly that his action has moral worth if we can establish the hypothesis that he acted from duty; we can establish that if we know motives from which he might have acted. We know that such benevolent action is noting his own interest; it actually conflicts with it. And given his depressed and withdrawn behavior we know that he has not feelings of sympathy for others. Thus, the best explanation for his benevolent action is that he does it from duty. [This is an interesting case because a virtue ethicist like G. E. M. Anscombe would say that the person who is naturally inclined to do it is more virtuous than the one who does it out of duty but whose moral character is not predisposed to do it]. 10

Section II. 3. Now we can apply the result of the explanation to the following argument in order to reach our evaluative judgment of the moral worth of an action: A. If agent acts for a moral reason, his motivating reason is purely moral; it is a moral motive. B. If agent acts for that purely morally motivating reason, agent acts from duty. C. Agent’s action has moral worth if agent acts from duty. D. Since we know that agent acts from duty, we know that his action has moral worth. 11

Regarding the use of examples, Kant states the following: “Even the Holy One of the Gospels must first be compared with our ideal of moral perfection before we can recognise Him as such; and so He he says of Himself, ‘Why call ye Me (whom you see) good; none is good (the model of good) but God only (whom ye do not see? ). ’ But whence have the conception of God as the supreme good? Simply from the idea of moral perfection, which reasons frames a priori (independent of all experience), and connects inseparably with the notion of a free-will” (pg. 28). 12

Kant distinguishes between holy and non-holy will. To be sure, the human will is a non-holy will (pg. 30 -4). 1. Pure, Holy Will: The agent’s action is determined solely by what reason demands. 2. Impure, Unholy Will: The agent’s action is not determined solely by reason: instead the agent is subject to the non-rational motives of inclination as well as to the motives of prudence. Therefore, action determined by duty is action under constraint because there are other possible conflicting non-rational motives for action. The human will is not by nature obedient to reason. 13

Kant writes: “For the pure conception of duty, unmixed with any foreign addition of empirical attractions, and, in a word, the conception of the moral law, exercises on the human heart, by way of reason alone (which first becomes aware with this that it can of itself be practical), an influence so much more powerful than all other springs which may be derived from the field of experience, that in the consciousness of its worth, it despises the latter, and by degrees become their master; whereas a mixed ethics, compounded partly of motives drawn from feelings and inclinations and partly also of conceptions of reason, must make the mind waver between motives which cannot be brought under any principle, which lead to good only by accident, and very often also to evil” (pp. 30 -31). 14

Commands and Imperatives: Kant writes: “For the pure conception of duty, unmixed with any foreign addition of empirical attractions, and, in a word, the conception of the moral law, exercises on the human heart, by way of reason alone (which first becomes aware with this that it can of itself be practical), an influence so much more powerful than all other springs which may be derived from the field of experience, that in the consciousness of its worth, it despises the latter, and by degrees become their master; whereas a mixed ethics, compounded partly of motives drawn from feelings and inclinations and partly also of conceptions of reason, must make the mind waver between motives which cannot be brought under any principle, which lead to good only by accident, and very often also to evil” (pp. 30 -31). 15

Commands and Imperatives: 1. Rules which constrain our will are commands. 2. Imperatives express commands. 3. Therefore, imperatives express constraints on human will. 4. Imperatives are prescriptive (ought) judgments. 5. There are no imperatives or prescriptions for a holy or pure will because the volition is already of itself necessarily in unison with the law. 16

Commands and Imperatives (pp. 32 -43): Kant writes: “Everything in nature works according to laws. Rational beings alone have the faculty of acting according to the conceptions of laws, that is according to principles, i. e. , have a will. Since the deduction of actions from principle requires reason, the wil is nothing but practical reason. If reason infallibly determines the will, then the actions of such a being which are recognised as objectively necessary also, i. e. , the will is a faculty to choose that only which reason independent on inclination recognizes as practically necessary, i. e. , as god. But if reason of itself does not sufficiently determine the will, if the latter is subject also to subjective conditions (particular impulses) which do not always coincide with the objective conditions; in a word, if the will does not itself completely accord with reason (which is actually the case with men), then the actions which objectively are recognised as necessary are subjectively contingent, and the determination of such a will according to objective laws is obligation, that is it say, the relation of the objective laws to a will is not thoroughly conceived as the determination of the will of a rational being by principles of reason, but which the will from its nature does not of necessity follow” (pg. 32 -3). 17

Commands and Imperatives: Types of Imperatives: Hypothetical and Categorical: 1. Hypothetical Imperatives: These express commands to adopt the means to a given desired end. The prescribed action is instrumentally valuable and ought to be done if the agent wants to achieve the end for which the action should serve as a means. 18

Commands and Imperatives: A. Types of Hypothetical Categories: 1. Rules of Skill (technical): given some send, these rules specify the means to achieve it. 2. Happiness and Counsels of Prudence (pragmatic): Given happiness as the end, these counsels specify the means to achieve it. However, the concept of happiness is not determinate enough to dictate specific actions as means. 3. Hypothetical imperatives are contingent because there is no reason to act for this reason if one does not happen to want 19 the end for which it is a means.

Commands and Imperatives: 1. Categorical Imperatives express objective commands of morality. They prescribe an action which reason demands independent of any other end. The action is ought to be done because morality requires it. a. Only categorical imperatives are practical laws. b. Laws involve necessity as opposed to hypothetical imperatives because the latter are contingent upon the pre-given ends (some possible purpose or happiness). 20

One Categorical Imperative: 1. Principle of Universalizability: “Act only according to the maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. ” 2. Principle of Humanity: “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of another, always as an end and never as a means only” 3. Principle of the Autonomy of the Will: “Act so that the will through its maxims could regard itself at 21 the same time as a universal legislator. ”

Significant Quotes: “…it may be discerned beforehand that the categorical imperative alone has the purport of practical law: all the rest may indeed be called principles of the will but not laws, since whatever is only necessary for the attainment of some arbitrary purpose may be considered as in itself contingent, and we can at any time be free from the precept if we give up the purpose: on the contrary, the unconditional command leave the will no liberty to choose the opposite; consequently it alone carries with it that necessity which we require in a law” (pp. 41 -42). 22

Significant Quotes: “When I conceive a hypothetical imperative in general I do not know beforehand what it will contain until I am given the condition. But when I conceive a categorical imperative I know at once what it contains. For as the imperative contains besides the law only the necessity that the maxims shall conform to this law, while the law contains no conditions restricting it, there remains nothing but the general statement that the maxim of the action should conform to a universal law, and it is this conformity alone that the imperative properly represents as necessary” (pp. 42 -43). 23

Significant Quotes: “A maxim is a subjective principle of action, and must be distinguished from the objective principle, namely, practical law. The former contains the practical rule set by reason according to the conditions of the subject (often its ignorance or its inclinations), so that it is the principle on which the subject acts; but the law is the objective principle valid for every rational being, and is the principle on which it ought to act, that is, an imperative” (pp. 42 -43; footnote). 24