In obeying those moral laws which we can consistently and rationally will as universal laws, we follow the so-called Categorical Imperative, which can be rephrased: “Always act in such a way that the maximum of your action at the moment is approved as a universal law.”
This is similar to the ancient Golden Rule of the Bible and India Mahabharataaccording to which we should treat others as we would like to be treated. But whereas the Golden Rule is based on personal desire, which is subjective (eg, I may be a masochist or I am willing to tolerate some mistreatment), the Categorical Imperative is based on reason, which is objective.
Hypothetical and Categorical Imperatives
Hypothetical imperatives are practical rules for achieving the desired result, for example, “If you want to lose weight, you need to control what you eat.” If you don’t want a specific result, you don’t have to follow the rules. In this case, the hypothetical imperatives are conditional and conditional. In contrast, Categorical Imperatives are universal moral commands that bind everyone regardless of their goals, for example, “Thou shalt not lie,” “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not commit.” suicide.”
Hypothetical imperatives answer to the lower faculty of desire, which aims at pleasure. Categorical imperatives respond to the higher faculty of the will to act rationally and independently, regardless of consequences or personal feelings, following the laws that legislate for themselves.
For Kant, true moral action must be motivated by duty, not by any desired outcome. Thus, Kantian ethics is sometimes described as deontological or duty (Greek, deon“duty”) and contrasts it with consequentialism (eg, utilitarianism), which is based on results. For Kant, moral systems based on outcomes or desires operate on hypothetical imperatives rather than actual moral law.
Some examples of the categorical imperative
Kant gives some examples to distinguish the categorical imperative. Imagine that a person in financial need borrows money and promises to pay it back, knowing full well that he never will. If this practice became universal, promises of repayment would no longer be believed and the practice of lending would end.
When we help someone, our action must be out of duty if it is to have moral value. If I help someone out of a desire, for example, out of sympathy or because it makes me happy, I am still doing something good, but my action has no moral value if it is neither principled nor trustworthy. Imagine a grocer who always gives the right change, but only to avoid getting caught and losing his reputation. His behavior, although not blameworthy, has no moral value. If he knows that he cannot be caught, he may start acting dishonestly. Because his behavior is not born out of duty, it is rational and conditional, it is not categorical.
For Kant, the paradigm of moral value is the person who hates life and intends to kill himself, but survives purely out of duty. Since this person has no desire for selfishness, he acts only out of duty and not alone.compatibility to duty”. Likewise, and contrary to opinion, one hard-hearted person has no other motivation relative to duty has a moral value “beyond all comparison.”
The formation of the categorical imperative humanism
The Universalizing Design is the first formulation of the Categorical Imperative. The second definition is the term humanity, or the concept of an end in itself: “Always treat the humanity in yourself and others as an end and never as a means.”
Like Aristotle, Kant argued that anything that has instrumental value derives that value from the end it serves. Thus, for anything to have value it must have an end that has intrinsic value, that is, an idea that is an end in itself. For Aristotle, this was the “highest good.” happinessor eudaimonia. For Kant, it was a rational being that could freely determine its goals. In all of nature, man is only an end in himself and therefore should be treated as such.
We can only use others (like waiters and taxi drivers) as tools if we respect their own goals and agency and treat them as rational beings with their own goals, not as tools to achieve our goals. You can hire a servant if you pay them and treat them well, and if the servant is willing because it is in their best interest to work for you. Although Kant never used the term humanity to condemn the transatlantic slave trade, his moral philosophy laid the groundwork for later abolitionists.
Benjamin Constant’s Invitation to Kant
In the aftermath of the Reign of Terror (1793-1794), a period during the French Revolution marked by mass executions of perceived enemies, the Swiss writer Benjamin Constant designed a thought experiment to undermine Kantian ethics.
Imagine an ax murderer at your door asking where your friend who has taken refuge in your house is hiding. Although according to Kant, a liar it is always wrong, it is pointless to reveal the truth and location of your friend to the murderer. In this scenario, the duty to protect your friend clearly outweighs any duty to tell the truth. Moreover, the murderer has forfeited any right to the truth by intending to commit grave injustice.
Kant answered Constant in his 1797 essay On the Presumptive Right to Lie from Benevolent Motives and dug in his heels. Even under such circumstances, it would be wrong to lie. The morality of an action is not determined by its consequences, but by its principles. No one knew that lying to a secret friend is more beneficial than harmful. While the person will be responsible for the consequences of telling a lie, the consequences of telling the truth will be on the murderer. Moreover, to lie to the murderer is to treat him as a means to an end, denying him the status of a rational being capable of free and rational action.
The only problem with Kantian ethics – and a possible solution
Kant’s strict application of the Categorical Imperative led him to condemn many acts and behaviors that would no longer be condemned at all, such as premarital sex and masturbation. He called masturbation as an “unnatural vice” for its natural purpose sex is to give birth.
The categorical imperative is certainly a good rule of thumb, but it must admit of exceptions. Exceptions are also a matter of judgment and reason—even more so than the rules themselves.
This concept of equality is something that Aristotle, the father of good ethics, already understood – for example, when he eloquently says:
Justice calls us to be compassionate to the weakness of human nature; think less of the laws than of the man who made them, and less of what he said than what he meant; do not consider the defendant’s actions as much as his intentions; not this or that detail as much as the whole story; do not ask what a person is like now, but what he always or usually was.
The fact is that those who want to break the rules of justice need justice themselves.
Neil Burton is the author of a new book German Greece: German Philosophy and German Philosophers.
