Transcript PHI 110 Ethics - Jeff Robinson | Stand Firm For Truth

Two Modes of Ethics
• Consequentialist -• Deontological --
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
II. Immanuel Kant
•
•
•
•
•
•
Born in Konigsburg, Prussia (Germany)
April 22, 1724–February 12, 1804
Never traveled more than 100 miles away from his birthplace
Never married
Taught at the University of Konigsberg
First modern philosopher to be an academic philosopher
• The primary area in which Kant wrote was ethical theory
• Credited for the most comprehensive intellectual revolution since the
Enlightenment with the composition of A Critique of Pure Reason
(1781). It is comparable to the works of Plato and Aristotle in
importance. 2
“2” Federer, W. J. (2001). Great Quotations : A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Quotations Influencing Early and Modern World
History Referenced according to their Sources in Literature, Memoirs, Letters, Governmental Documents, Speeches, Charters,
Court Decisions and Constitutions. St. Louis, MO: AmeriSearch. (Libronix Digital Library System [CD-ROM].
Significance of Kant
• Philosophy is now categorized into PreKantian and Post-Kantian.
• Here’s the significance: Previous to Kant,
philosophers asked questions related to the
various kinds and applications of knowledge.
Kant took a step back and asked the earthshattering question =
Instead of asking about how to attain knowledge Kant asked,
“IF knowledge is possible, what would there have to be in
order to make it possible?
*This came to be known as the “Transcendental Method”
David Hume
“If we take in our hand any volume of
divinity or school metaphysics, let us
ask this question, “Does it contain any
abstract reasoning about quantity or
number?” No. “Does it contain any
experimental reasoning concerning
matter of fact or existence?” No.
Commit it then to the flames for it can
be nothing but sophistry and illusion.”
Importance of David Hume
Awoke Kant from his “…dogmatic
slumbers.”
Kant’s Christianity
• Kant sought to rescue Christianity
from the Enlightenment.
• Why did Kant believe that Christianity
needed to be rescued?
• The Empiricists and Rationalists had
done a number on Christian theism and
Christian ethics. Thus, Kant REALLY
tried to be Christian in his philosophy.
Immanuel Kant on Christianity
“The existence of the Bible, as a book for the
people, is the greatest benefit which the
human race has ever experienced. Every
attempt to belittle it is a crime against
humanity.”651
651 Kant, Immanuel. Henry H. Halley, Halleys Bible Handbook (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1927, 1965), p. 19.
“In the life and the Divine doctrine of
Christ which are recorded in the
Gospel, example and precept conspire
to
call men to the regular discharge of
every moral duty for its own sake, and
to the universal practice of pure virtue.
“He can’t be wrong whose life is in the
right.””
• “The Sermon on the Mount, in particular, comprises so
pure a doctrine of religion, which Jesus obviously had
the intention of introducing among the Jews, that we can
not avoid considering it the Word of God.”
• “Beyond doubt, Christ is the Founder of the first true
Church; that is, that Church which, purified from the
folly of superstition and the meanness of fanaticism,
exhibits the moral kingdom of God upon the earth as far
as can be done for man.”652
–
652 Kant, Immanuel. An Inquiry into the Existence of God, Stephen Abbott Northrop, D.D., A Cloud of Witnesses (Portland,
Oregon: American Heritage Ministries, 1987; Mantle Ministries, 228 Still Ridge, Bulverde, Texas), p. 263.
–
Federer, W. J. (2001). Great Quotations : A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Quotations Influencing Early and Modern
World History Referenced according to their Sources in Literature, Memoirs, Letters, Governmental Documents, Speeches,
Charters, Court Decisions and Constitutions. St. Louis, MO: AmeriSearch.
Kant’s Christianity: Summary
• Thus, it is clear to see Kant’s devotion
to Christianity. However, in his quest
to defend Christianity, Kant removed
several of the key pillars of the
Christian faith.
• For instance, Kant denied the
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Kant’s Awakening
As mentioned previously, Kant tried to
rescue “Science and reason” from the
onslaught of the two primary schools
of philosophy (Sproul).
This came when he was “Awakened
from his dogmatic slumber” by the
writings of the skeptic David Hume.
Kant’s Goal: Philosophical
Reconciliation/Integration
Rationalism: Parmenides, Plato, Plotinus, Augustine, Descartes,
Leibniz, etc.
Empiricism: Heraclites, Aristotle, Aquinas, Bacon, Locke,
*Kant tried to synthesize these two schools.
Rationalism: a priori “Before experience”
Empiricism: a posteriori “After/post experience”
Philosophies rooted in Kantian thought
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Idealism
Marxism
Logical Positivism
Analytical Philosophy
Existentialism
Phenomenology
Pragmatism
Relativism
Pluralism
= “All the movements of the 19th and 20th century trace their thoughts to
SOME aspect of Kant’s philosophy”
– R.C. Sproul
Q# So what did Kant
actually teach?
KANT & “The Categorical
Imperative”
1. The Formula of Universal Law: Act
only on that maxim whereby you can at
the same time will that it should
become universal law.
KANT & “The Categorical
Imperative”
1. The Formula of Universal Law
2. Every human being must be treated as
an end as opposed to a means
3. You must act as if you are the moral
authority of the universe
A “maxim” is a general rule by which the agent
intends to act and which explains what he is doing
.
at the time.
First, you decide what rule you would be following if
you do that action (ex: If you are currently driving
10 miles an hour over the speed limit, then your
maxim would be, ‘Whenever I am in this situation, I
should drive 10 miles an hour over the speed
limit.’);
Next, you ask yourself if you would be willing (or truly
want) to have everyone else follow that same rule
(which would make it a universal law);
And, lastly, if you could truly be willing for everyone to
follow your little rule (maxim), then you are
contemplating a permissible act (if not, the maxim
and action must be rejected).
For Kant, moral rules have no exceptions (which is
why they are “absolute”).
A paraphrase of the first formulation of the CI could
be stated as a question: Would I really want it to be
a law that everyone else in the world must do what
I am doing right now?
If your answer is No, I would not it to be a law that
everyone else in the world must drive 10 mph over
the speed limit (or tell a little white lie to your best
friend or fail to return a tool you borrowed from your
neighbor or look out for your own interests only and
so forth), then I should not be doing that thing
either, because I have already reasoned out that
such behavior would be morally wrong.
Criteria for Right Action
1. A Good Will – it is without qualification. It is enough for
“proving” the existence of God. A good will is an end in
itself.
2. Duty – moral obligation.
Q# What obligates us?
Hume = human nature.
Kant disagrees. He claims it has to be Universal,
Unconditional, based on reason and not sentiment.
*Kant does not at all take into account the outcome.
If you have no inclination because of a sense of duty,
your action has no moral worth.
The moral worth of an action resides in the
motive of the action, not the result of the
action.
*My respect for the moral law restrains my
inclination.
CI – Plank # 2
2. Formula of the End in Itself: Act in such
a way that you always treat humanity,
whether in your own person or in the
person of another, never as a mere
means but always at the same time as
an end in itself.
PERSONS v. OBJECTS
Kingdom of Ends
Q# What is an end in itself? = People (rational beings who are
both giving the moral law to themselves AND following
it).
*We are this kingdom of ends, people who autonomously
give themselves the moral law. In order to be a member of
the kingdom of ends, you have to have inclinations that
lead you away from the moral law.
Q# What are these “lower inclinations?”
If we were perfect…
If I was perfect, duty would be wholly
unnecessary. Duty constrains the will
against our fallen desires. With the absence
of a “sin nature,” duty would have no moral
worth because there would be no tension.
What separates us from
animals?
“
Morality is the only
thing that for a rational
being can be an end in
itself.”
Ch. 36, p.235
Q# Is God ever subject to
another’s will?
= No! God is the ruler of this kingdom of
ends.
*The illustration of the Kingdom of Ends is a
way of pointing out how we are not God.
Jack Bauer and Nina Myers
situation
DUTY
It is your DUTY to do the Right Thing
because it is the Right Thing – No
Exceptions!
Consequences do not matter!!!
Making you or someone else happy does not matter!!!
All that matters is that you chose to do the right thing!
*TOTAL OPPOSITE OF UTILITARIANISM
If you have done the right thing and something bad happens,
it’s not your fault – because you did the right thing.
But if you did the wrong thing (such as lied) and something bad
happens, it IS your fault that something bad happened,
because YOU chose to do the wrong thing; your lie (or
whatever) was the cause of the bad thing happening.
Duties (Negative-Positive)
Because Perfect Duties can be performed only one way
(i.e., Don’t do it!), Perfect Duties always win out if there
is a conflict between duties (since you can always find
another way to fulfill an imperfect Duty). Furthermore,
there will never be a conflict between Perfect Duties.
• What makes Duty a moral good?
• My lower inclinations?
• No temptation to deviate from the
universal law of duty would mean that
adherence to it cannot be classified as a
“good.”
• Duty implies an imperfection of the human
will
Q# Does God have a duty?
• Kant would adamantly say “NO!!!”
• Duty implies an imperfection in the
will
• God has no imperfections
• Therefore, God does not have a Duty
Why refrain from vice?
The reason WHY we refrain from
torturing prisoners of war, stealing,
and indiscriminately smacking
people in the face is because of
their inherent worth as a person.
Who is Free?
To be free is to do be someone
who does what is right.
*Freedom is a prerequisite to morality
If one is not free, one cannot be moral
Freedom
• Kant denies Bentham’s claim that “pain
and pleasure are our masters.”
• Kant = Our reason sets us apart from
creatures with mere physical appetites
*When we seek after pleasure and avoid
pain, we are not free = we are slaves to
our desires = acting according to natural
necessity
Freedom
• Freedom is the opposite of Necessity
• Sprite commercial “OBEY YOUR
THRIST!”
*To act freely is to act
autonomously…to act according to a
law I give myself. Not according to
the laws of nature or the laws of
cause & effect.”
What is Autonomy?
• Opposite of Heteronomy
• Heteronomy: To act according to
desires I haven’t chosen for myself.
*Nature
*Giving wrong change - Motive?
*Not cheating on tests - Motive?
*Plagiarism - Motive?
Suicide
Review: Kant’s Three
Contrasts
• Motives =
• Determination of will =
• Imperatives
Q# Why do we legislate
moral laws?
= Because of the inherent worth of the human person
Human beings as moral beings have dignity.
= A human being, as moral, is beyond the estimation of
worth.
= We legislate moral laws out of respect for the human
person.
*This respect emanates from the inherent worth of human
beings.
Q# What gives a person “worth?”
= Kant - Because they were created in the image of God
Noumenal vs. Phenomenal
1. Phenomenal/world – The “world
of sense.”
*I can only know how the chair appears to me, not
what it really “is.”
*This is all that human knowledge is designed to
process.
*The mind creates a framework of the world
*This is the totality of the world.
Noumenal vs. Phenomenal
2. Noumenal world – The world of “things in
themselves.”
*This is where freedom of the will exists. In this world, my will
is perfect. Why? The will is PERFECTLY free since there is
no outside influence. There are no “desires,” only the reason
of the will.
“Your mind makes it real” - Morpheus, The Matrix
*Provides the foundation that allows the phenomenal world to
function
*HERE IS A KEY OF THE IMPORTANCE OF NONMATTER!!!!!
*This is the law of “Would.” This is what I “Would” do.
*Kant is concerned about a “Circulatory of reasoning.”
P.252
Kant on Reason
• Reason must constrain the will and put shackles on it, tie it
up and force it in an action.
• Reason constrains the will by objective principles. The
objective principles are themselves commandments. We
have to formulate them and put them into language. The
formulation of these commandments he calls
“Imperatives.”
• *A Commandment represents an action as objectively
necessary.
Kant on Reason
• If it is a hypothetical imperative, we don’t know
what the end will be.
• Categorical imperative is the supreme principle of
morality. You have to will that your maxim be the
universal law.
• *It is different than utilitarianism b/c it doesn’t
care about the result whereas utilitarianism is
fueled by the end result.
Q# What is Freedom?
• Freedom – to have autonomy of the will vs. doing
whatever one wants. It is a will subject to duty to
the moral law.
• Q# What is duty? = The chains that constrain the
will. = To be free is to do be someone who does
what is right.
Q# How does Reason motivate?
= We do not know how. We simply know that it does
Kant: God’s Existence
“Immanuel Kant, the eighteenth-century
Enlightenment philosopher, did not trust pure reason
to prove the existence of God, but he did trust the
existence of moral law to prove God’s existence.
According to Kant, the human desire to do what is
righteous even in the face of death points to
something beyond death. If we are willing to put
aside self-preservation to do what is right, then a
resurrection and a judgment holding us accountable
and rewarding or punishing us for actions in this life is
evident. Human virtue in the face of death points to a
resurrection and judgment, which in turn indicates the
existence of God.”
“The Fool Will Not Believe” by Dr. Malcolm B. Yarnell, III c2000, Kant, Critique of Practical Reason. Cf.,
Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2d edn (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), pp. 183-84.
Review
Q# What constrains the will?
Q# What is it that helps us distinguish
between right and wrong?
“In his creative synthesis, Kant became a philosophical
agnostic about reality. He argued that the mind knows only
after a construction is made and not before it. For him,
only what appears (the phenomenal) to one is known, not
that which really is (the noumenal). In addition, Kant
asserted that whenever one attempts to apply the categories
of the mind (such as unity or causality) to the noumenal
(real) world, hopeless contradictions and antinomies arise.”
“One consequence of Kant’s revolt against reason is his
fact/value dichotomy. For him, the “objective” world of
fact is the phenomenal world of experience, while the
“subjective” world of will cannot be known by pure reason.
Instead, the subjective world is known by practical reason,
or a morally postulated act of the will. For him, even
though it is not possible to think that God exists, one must
live as if God does exist. Thus, Kant philosophically
questioned the objectivity and rationality of divine
revelation. He placed religion in the realm of the postulated
rather than the known. That gave rise to the moral
imperative that lies behind Kant’s use of “moral reason” as
the ground for determining what is essential to true
religion. For Kant that reason demanded that he conclude
that miracles do not occur.”28
–
–
2828. Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, translated with introduction by Theodore
M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson, pp. 83-84.
Geisler, N. L., & Nix, W. E. (1996, c1986). A general introduction to the Bible (Rev. and expanded.) (141).
Kingdom of Ends
“In the kingdom of ends, people are treated as means
but never as ends. Since we all have imperfections,
we are all part of this kingdom of ends. Another
reason why we are a part is because we have a duty.
Duty itself implies that something has to be done.
Duty would not be difficult if there were no
temptations to neglect it. Our humanity is a proof of
our duty. Our duty is proof of our imperfection.
Since God has no imperfections, He cannot be said
to have a duty as does mankind. Instead, God is the
King or head of this kingdom of ends. Ultimately,
our duty is directed towards God.”
There is individual liberty but without a moral set of
presuppositions under-girding the thought process.
If one appealed to the average Westerner based on
whether they would have the whole world act
based upon the premise or moral rules used by the
individual, the response would undoubtedly be
much different than in Kant’s day. It is likely that
many would answer something like this:
I don’t care what the rest of the world
does. I’ll lie, cheat and steal but just
stay one step ahead of the crowd. I’ll be
smart about it because I know how to
do it and a man’s got to survive
somehow.
Interestingly, the end product would be little different
than that of postmodernism. When “Every man does
that which is right in his own eyes,” society will
inevitably break down. Thus, Kant’s appeal to a
universal moral code could be and undoubtedly WAS
effective in a modernist “Christianized” society.
However, applied in the current postmodern culture
pervading the West, the probable outcome would be
frighteningly close to anarchy.
Kant would say…
Anarchical reasoning is a twisting of
logic and a moral perversion…
*Postmodern rebuttal: Since there are
no moral absolutes, there can be no
moral perversion.
Results of Critique of Pure
Reason
Kant does not think that we can conclusively know
anything about:
1. God –
2. Freedom of the Will –
3. Immortality of the Soul –
He would answer “yes” to the existence of each of
these subjects but would say that we have no way
of knowing. “There has to be,” would be his
answer.