Lecture 6

Kantian ethicsImmanuel Kant (1724-1804)

What is freedom?

Utilitarianism and pleasure.

Libertarian “freedom”.

Freedom (cont.)

Is getting what you want an indication of freedom?

Freedom and duty

What is duty (obligation)?

Are freedom and duty opposites?

Freedom (cont.)

Seeking pleasure is to act heteronomously, according to externally given laws.

Rational beings have the capacity to act autonomously, according to laws we give ourselves, not through inclination but from duty.

Freedom (cont.)

We act autonomously when our will (motive/intention) is determined by duty, not by inclination.

Two examples: shopkeeper; moral misanthrope.

The human will

What sort of ‘laws’ should we give ourselves if our action is to be ‘moral’?

Kantian ethics (‘deontology’)

Good intentions:Having a ‘good will’ is ethically more

important than the consequences one’s action brings about; a good will suffices to confer moral worth on an action.

Imperatives

Categorical vs. hypothetical imperatives:- Means to ends vs. ends in themselves.

Categorical imperative

The right action is that done in accordance with the following principle:

Act only upon that maxim which you could wish to be a universal law

‘Maxim’: your reason or principle for acting

Example

Promising: is it right to make a promise if I intend to break it?

What if I borrowed $50 from you and promised to pay it back although I have no intention of paying you back?

Categorical imperative II

Alternative formulation:‘Act in such a way that you always

treat humanity … as an end and never merely as a means’.

Examples: promise keeping; prostitution; selling human organs.

Example

2005: German parliament’s ‘Air Security Law’.

2006: German Constitutional Court annulled the law because it would infringe the right to human dignity.