Second Section of Kant’s Metaphysical Ethics

1. Self-love and humanity:

1.1. The Will is at the across road:  inclination or reason:

Self-love makes us turn to act according to inclination. [note from your instructor -doing so, it might cause us lost freedom and autonomy, e.g. if cutting in line is my inclination, and if everyone has this inclination, then, there will be no line].   

Loving for humanity is the action done from duty and with moral worth. [doing so, we follow the reason, and have freedom and autonomy].

1.2. The significance of moral law is that “it must hold not merely for men but for all rational beings generally” (p.20).

2.  Categorical Imperative: "The Supreme Principle of Morality" (p.21):

2.1. Investigating whether the principles of morality can be sought at all in the knowledge of human nature (which can be had only from experience).

“It is clear from the forgoing that all moral concepts have their seat and origin completely a priori in reason and in deed in the most ordinary human reason just as much as in the most highly speculative. They cannot be abstracted from any empirical, and hence merely contingent, cognition.   In this purity of their origin lies their very worthiness to serve us as supreme practical principles; and to the extent that something empirical is added to them, just so much is taken away from their genuine influence and from the absolute worth of the corresponding actions” (p.23).

2.2. The true freedom/autonomy comes when one works according to nature law [similarly, according to moral law].

2.3. “The representation of an objective principle insofar as it necessitates the will is called a command (of reason, and the formula of the command is called an imperative” (p.24)

2.4. All imperative are expressed by an ought.

[Note from your instructor-Kant wants a) to illuminate what human dignity and worthiness are; b). to prove that moral law is the same as natural law: both have necessity and universality; c) moral universality entails that moral laws are to be obeyed, regardless of the individual; d) Moral necessity is expressed by "ought."]

2.4. Hypothetical imperative and categorical imperative:

Hypothetical imperative: A hypothetical imperative says that “an action is good for some purpose, either possible or actual” (p.25).

Categorical imperative: A categorical imperative is “not concerned with the matter of the action and its intended result, but rather with the form of the action and the principle from which it follows; what is essentially good in the action consists in the mental disposition, let the consequences be what they may.  This imperative may be called that of morality” (p. 26)

The categorical imperative is limited by no condition, and can quite properly be called a command since it is absolutely, though practically, necessary” (p. 26)

“Act only according to the maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” (p.30)

[four examples pp. 30-32]

3.  From a maxim to a universal law:  

3.1. A maxim may be thought of as an intermediate between the abstract universal moral law and the concrete individual action.

3.2.The maxim that governs an act determines the moral worth of the act.

3.3. I should act on the following kind of maxim:

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.

3.3.2. When it is universalized, the subjective maxim becomes an objective moral law.

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.

3.5. An action can be permissible for me only if it is permissible for anyone in my situation.

 [Note from your instructor-The significance of the Categorical Imperative: a) the theoretical significance: It provides an objective criterion for moral rightness; b) an act is morally right if and only if its maxim is universalizable; c) the practical significance: We all tend to make exceptions to general rules when our own interests are involved; d) the Categorical Imperative helps us to separate our own interests from a determination of the morally right course of action; e) In morality we are not to count our own "I" differently from the way we count the "they" of other people.

4. The Kingdom of ends:

            4.1. We must be able to will that a maxim of our action become a universal law.

“We have thus at least shown that if duty is a concept which is to have significance and real legislative authority for our actions, then such duty can be expressed only in categorical imperatives but not at all in hypothetical ones” (p.33).

“For duty has to be a practical, unconditioned necessity of action; hence it must hold for all rational beings (to whom alone an imperative is at all applicable) and for this reason only can it also be a law for all human wills” (p. 33).

4.2. Means and End:

Act to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end in itself, never as a means only.

4.2.1. The difference between things/animals and persons:

4.2.2. “For the ends of any subject who is an end in himself must as far as possible be my ends also, if that conception of an end in itself is to have its full effect in me”(p.37).

4.3. Three practical principles (pp.37-38):

4.4. Kingdom:

Kingdom: A systematic union of different rational beings through common laws (p. 39)

“For all rational beings stand under the law that each of them should treat himself and all others never merely as means but always at the same time as an end in himself. Hereby arises a systematic union of rational beings through common objective laws, i. e., a kingdom that may be called kingdom of ends (certainly only a ideal, inasmuch as these laws have in view the very relation of such beings to one another as ends and means” (p. 39).

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5. The strength and the weakness of Kantian Approach:

5.1. The main strength of a Kantian approach is that it seeks to limit the means available for the pursuit of good consequences. Being contrast, in the Aristotelian approach, if an evil is trivial, easily reparable, or sufficiently outweighed by the consequences, there can be an adequate justification for permitting it.

5.2. The main weakness of a Kantian approach is that, although it provides an effective decision-making procedure for resolving some practical problems, it cannot be applied to all problems.