Kant-Handout 3.0 (Grounding for the Metaphysics of Moral First Section)
1. Questions remaining after Locke:
That morals are based on our own ideas did not mean that moral principles can be just anything we like.
2. A Deontological view:
2.1.The word "deontology" comes form the Geek deon, meaning "necessary," "binding," or "must."
2.2.Deontological theory:
2.2.1. Obligation or duty is the basic moral concept.
2.2.2. The concept of duty is logically independent of the concept of good.
3.2.3. Moral necessity is expressed by "ought."
2.3. The common feature of deontological ethical theories:
2.3.1. Concerned with moral obligation--what is right, rather than with ends or consequences.
3. The distinction between good without qualification and good as qualified with reference to something else:
3.1. A good will: Nothing is without qualification morally good in this world or beyond this world, except a "good will."
3.1.1. A good will--A will that acts for the sake of duty. A good will is purely good itself.
3.1.1.1. One does what is obligatory from the motive of duty, rather than from impulses and inclinations.
3.1.1.2. A good will is not something given to us but something that we must achieve by our own efforts.
4. Duty, good well and the action with moral worth:
If the action without any inclination at all, but solely from duty, then this action has moral worth.
5. Reason:
Reason for Kant is strictly speaking our ability to deal with what must universally be the case.
A maxim: A maxim is a subjective principle of volition. Everything we do deliberately is governed by one or another explicit or implicit general principle of the kind that Kant calls a "maxim." The categorical imperative: "act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." (e.g. Tiles, p. 170)
6. Kant’s basic principle:
Do those actions that persons behind an imaginary veil of ignorance would unanimously agree should be done.
7. Respect moral universality
7.1. To illuminate what human dignity and worthiness are.
7.2. To prove that moral law is the same as natural law: both have necessity and universality.
7.2.1. Moral universality entails that moral laws are to be obeyed, regardless of the individual.
"Act only according to that maxim, which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law"(p. 174).
8. Universal moral law:
9. From a maxim to a universal law:To say that the moral law must be universal is to say that every particular moral law must be objective and impersonal.
9.3.1. A maxim may be thought of as an intermediate between the abstract universal moral law and the concrete individual action.9.3.2.The maxim that governs an act determines the moral worth of the act.
9.3.3. I should act on the following kind of maxim:
9.3.3.1. My maxim should be universalizable without contradiction, that is, such that it can be proposed as a maxim for all persons in such circumstances.
9.3.3.2. When it is universalized, the subjective maxim becomes an objective moral law.
9.3.4. To determine the rightness of a considered action, I have only to ask myself the simple question whether I could will that the maxim governing my action should become a universal law, governing not merely this particular action of mine, but the actions of all agents in similar circumstances.
9.3.5. An action can be permissible for me only if it is permissible for anyone in my situation.