Chris reminded us that the other day was the 200-year anniversary of Kant’s death. I didn’t get this done in time, but here is a brief overview of Kant’s ethics – what I, at least, think is valuable and distinctive about his approach. I don’t claim that my account is particularly original, although do I think it differs from the way Kant is usually presented. Nor do I say that there are no good objections to his view, but at least I hope to show that it isn’t as mysterious as it sometimes appears. Here goes….
Let’s start by thinking about the structure of utilitarianism. This moral theory begins by telling us what is objectively, intrinsically valuable or good, namely, utility – that is, happiness or pleasure, with details spelled out by the particular theory. It then identifies morality as the requirement that we maximize that good. Notice that the good it begins with is pre-moral in the sense that identifying it does not depend on making any prior moral assessments. This way, utilitarianism can give a powerful (and non-circular) answer to the question what is the point of morality? Utilitarians answer: to produce as much of that objective goodness as possible. And they can try to embarrass anyone who rejects such an answer by arguing that other types of moral theory would, at least sometimes, require us to act in a way that produces less overall value and is therefore less good.
There are many well-known objections to utilitarianism. One standard objection points out that some pleasures (or sources of pleasure) are themselves morally reprehensible, for example, the pleasure that a racist or homophobe gets in beating up his victim. In such cases, the objection goes, morality does not require us to weigh the pleasure he gets against the pain of his victim, no matter how they balance out. The immorality of his action is not in any way mitigated by the fact that he took pleasure in doing it. But if we are to rule out certain kinds of pleasure on moral grounds, we need some kind of standard for making that assessment. And that standard cannot be utilitarianism itself. If utilitarians embrace a view that says that we should only maximize the morally acceptable pleasures, they have abandoned the logical structure of defining morality as maximizing a pre-moral good, since the good they are now concerned with is no longer pre-moral.
Kant’s ethical theory attempts to avoid this circularity by denying that morality is concerned with maximizing any pre-moral good – in fact, he denies that there is any such pre-moral good in the first place that could be maximized.
For utilitarians, a state of affairs of the world in which there is more utility is intrinsically superior to any state of affairs that has less. But for Kant, no state of the natural world is intrinsically superior to any other. Value is introduced into the world only through their connection to agents. Agents give themselves ends. That means they take one state of affairs to be better than another and commit themselves to bringing it about, i.e., they will an end. When they do this rationally and reasonably, those states of affairs become valuable. Other ends, although not actually willed, can be valuable if reason requires that an agent should will them. In either case, it is only through its connection to rational and reasonable willing that an end comes to be valuable.
Obviously, the crucial question is when is an act of willing rational (and reasonable, although I’ll now stop repeating this phrase)? But before we can answer that question, a few preliminary points are crucial. First, whenever we will, we will an end – we have some goal or other that we are trying to bring about. Second, Kant thinks of willing as acting on the basis of a reason, that is, a (purported) justification for why that end appears worth bringing about. Of course, sometimes our reason for some action may be a bad reason, and the action is irrational or unreasonable. Having a will implies having the capacity to act on the basis of (good) reasons. The package of end and reason-for-end is our principle of action, or our “maxim”. Finally, there is no assumption that our reasons are transparent to others (or even to ourselves, at least retrospectively). Sometimes we act without explicit deliberation, and we are unsure what the maxim of our action was. Still, in order to attribute some bit of behavior to someone as an action, we must suppose that there was a maxim as their principle of action.
So, when is a maxim (and therefore its action) rational? Suppose we thought that a maxim needed to have features A, B, and C in order to be rational. This would imply that the end specified by a maxim that has those features – the goal of the rational action – would be objectively valuable. If so, this would also imply that the end that a rational maxim specifies, and the reason for that end, must be such that everyone could act on them as well. If it were impossible for everyone to act on that maxim, it couldn’t specify an objectively valuable end. That means, in addition to properties A, B, and C, a rational maxim also has property U – universalizability. The maxim must be such that everyone could act on it without undermining the attainment of the end it specifies.
Now what are A, B, and C? How do we distinguish the rational maxims from the unreasonable and irrational ones? The obvious answer would be that the rational maxims are the ones that aim at the states of affairs that are objectively good and valuable. Utilitarianism, as we have seen, specifies that we aim at the state of affairs that maximizes utility since that is what is objectively valuable. But – and here is the key – Kant denies that there is any common end that all rational actions aim at. More precisely: the only way to specify what is in common among all rational ends is to invoke moral vocabulary. In other words, there is no pre-moral good at which all moral actions aim. So, there is no A, B, or C. All that we have left to distinguish the rational maxims is that they have property U – we can adopt them and act on them, while at the same time willing that everyone adopt and act on them, as well, without those two acts of willing interfering with one another. And this, of course, is one version of Kant’s categorical imperative – his foundational principle of morality.
It is sometimes thought that Kant insists that we must try to get everyone to act on the same maxims. This is incorrect (at least for most maxims). When a maxim has property U, that means that we may act on it, since by doing so, we confer value on the end it specifies. But this does not necessarily mean that we have to try to get everyone to pursue that end, as well. All it means is that we could (and they could) without undermining each other. There are some exceptions to this, since there are some requirements of all agents, but in general, Kant thinks, it is reasonable for people to pursue many different sets of goals.
It is also sometimes thought that Kant claims that acting on unreasonable maxims – those that don’t have property U and can’t be willed as universal laws – is impossible or self-defeating. That is not his view. It is (often) possible to act on them and sometimes, even, to succeed in accomplishing what one intends. But because those acts of willing are unreasonable, they do not confer value on those ends, and may very well interfere with the attaining of truly valuable ends. When one acts on maxims that cannot be universalized, one is trying to accomplish an end that can only be achieved on the condition that others refrain from acting on that same maxim. In effect, one is using their restraint in order to accomplish the end of the maxim.
I said before that one great advantage of utilitarian theories is that they can explain the point of morality clearly: to maximize some pre-moral good. And I’ve stressed that Kantian ethics denies that there is any pre-moral good that morality is concerned with maximizing. That leaves open the question what is the point of Kantian morality? What are its goals? At one level, the answer is that moral actions aim at many different goals. Moral actions aim at whatever goals moral maxims aim at, and as I’ve stressed, there is no single (pre-moral) property that all moral ends share. At another level, however, the structure of value gives us a way to characterize the point of morality. When we act morally, we are respecting the capacity of ourselves and others to confer value on ends through reasonable and rational acts of will – we are treating ourselves and them as “ends in themselves,” Kant says. When we act on maxims that cannot be universalized, in contrast, we are using them as means to accomplish our own subjective ends.
What does respecting others as ends in themselves require? First, it requires respecting their capacity to will rationally – and therefore to confer value on ends. If one fails to value this capacity and acts in a way that destroys or interferes with it, one is, in effect, undermining the possibility of the world coming to have value. This is why things like killing and manipulating other people by making false promises are wrong. Second, when someone has rationally willed an end, respecting them as ends in themselves requires recognizing that that end has come to be objectively valuable. Now here things get tricky for two reasons. First, we must be very careful in specifying precisely the end that is willed and therefore valuable. There is a difference between my valuing “writing a great novel” and “my writing a great novel,” so respecting me may require different things depending on which of those I actually value. Second, permissible ends may conflict with each other, and therefore respecting others may require adjusting ones ends in light of the ends of others. There is, however, no general formula for how this is to be done. At a bare minimum, however, respecting others requires not interfering with the pursuit of their ends, at least unless one is pursuing some other permissible end. And sometimes respecting others requires more, such as actually providing assistance in pursuit of their ends. Again, exactly what is required depends on the details of what is valued and why. But at this point, we are into applications of the theory, not its structure, and I will not pursue this further here.
Finally, Kant contrasts the idea of something having a price with something having dignity. Something has a price, he says, when it can be replaced by something else as its equivalent. But something “raised above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity.” It is our freedom and our reason – our ability to give ourselves ends for reasons – that makes us ends in ourselves, and therefore gives us dignity. And above all else, Kantian ethics is committed to the equal dignity of all people.
{ 25 comments }
bill carone 02.16.04 at 10:13 pm
Thanks for the post!
Any comments on what Kant would think of virtue ethics?
Albert Law 02.16.04 at 10:28 pm
What would Kant think of counter-intelligence operations where one intelligence service tries to mislead another intelligence service?
Also, how did Kant come to say that the death penalty is justified? I heard about that and it rather puzzled me.
Is it accurate to state that if an ethical system takes context and consequences into account, it’s not Kantian?
bob mcmanus 02.16.04 at 10:36 pm
Still thinking about it. Will be for a while. Really good, especially about respecting the values of others. “Judge not”
I am disappointed in reading an entire post about Kant’s ethics without encountering “God” or “immortality”, or having it tied into the first book or system.
Yes, I am currently under the influence of Palmquist, but years ago when I first read Practical, even tho it is not explicitly mentioned much, I always had the understanding that Kant was a religious thinker.
bza 02.16.04 at 11:18 pm
bob macmanus: Yes, I am currently under the influence of Palmquist, but years ago when I first read Practical, even tho it is not explicitly mentioned much, I always had the understanding that Kant was a religious thinker.
I think that would be a very misleading thing to say about Kant. He’s quite explicit in his claims that religious belief is not a proper basis for morality; that it is only insofar as they provide support for morality that one has any reason at all to hold religious beliefs; and that such beliefs do not qualify as knowledge. Far from Kant being seen as a religious thinkier, most people think that his defense of religion is rather anemic. It’s worth noting here that shortly before his death Kant admitted to an acquaintance that he steadily and gradually lost religious faith over the course of his life.
albert law: Also, how did Kant come to say that the death penalty is justified? I heard about that and it rather puzzled me.
Kant also thought that masturbation was immoral, for what it’s worth. When talking about moral systems it’s useful to distinguish between the principles of the system and the specific conclusions that the author of the system purports to derive from those principles. The validity of the latter is only indirectly related to the validity of the former. That is to say, although most people would think that it’s absurd to claim that masturbation is immoral, that doesn’t necessarily impugn the principles of Kantian ethics; it might just mean that Kant himself could go wrong in thinking through the consequences of his own principles. In fact, it seems much more likely that the prejudices of one’s time and place are going to make themselves felt in the application of principles to particular cases than in the contemplation of those principles in the abstract.
Is it accurate to state that if an ethical system takes context and consequences into account, it’s not Kantian?
No. Context and consequence are of obvious relevance in deciding whether an action is consistent with respect for humanity. Jon gave a nice desscription of what a maxim is. Look at what he wrote, then think about how delicate a task it can be faithfully to describe the reason why one does what one does; sensitivity to context and consequence are quite important here. What’s not Kantian is to take those factors as foundational for morality.
Jonathan Ichikawa 02.17.04 at 12:01 am
Thanks for this post. I wonder if you’d care to comment on any or all of the following:
(1) How do maxims that we usually think of as having nothing to do with morality fit in? Is it impermissible for me to act on the maxim “leave early to avoid traffic,” merely because it isn’t universalizable?
(2) What about Kant’s emphasis on good will? I’m surprised not to see it here — do you think it’s detachable from the main points of his moral philosophy? (I’m thinking of his claim that there’s no moral worth in doing one’s duty out of inclination.)
bob mcmanus 02.17.04 at 12:05 am
“He’s quite explicit in his claims that religious belief is not a proper basis for morality;”
Ok this is tough for me. Not religious belief as dogma or history of course. But let us suppose the Categorical Imperative is the only logical way for a free will to act, thereby giving us our morality. And that freedom of the will is also an absolutely necessary postulate of the Cat Imp.
And that, as demonstrated in Pure Reason, that God, free will, and immortality are not approachable as knowledge. And that these are the only named and necessary things not approachable as knowledge, other than those things such as space and time discussed in Pure Reason.
I felt in Practical that he was using much the same method as in Pure, destroying all false idols leaving us only what is essential.Essential.
That freedom of the will was not merely a “necessary postulate”, a fiction that could be discarded, but in some sense a transcendental reality, an actual existent. And so with God and immortality.
And I would call any system that depends on transcendence, whether a vague theism or Southern baptism, religious.
I could cite other stuff, like the progress of the three main works, knowledge — morality — aesthetics/spirituality, but the spirit of Kant is not the spirit of Hume.
Kieran Healy 02.18.04 at 2:27 am
Testing
Matthew 02.18.04 at 9:49 am
Thank you for the post!! I have become really interested in this recently, and I was looking for a good version of Kant’s ethical writings. So this summary is very welcome.
Apparently the bugger has (pre-emptively) stolen my nascent theory of ethics. Damn!
Albert Law 02.18.04 at 4:54 pm
bza,
Thanks for the answers. Here’s a related question:
“The validity of the latter is only indirectly related to the validity of the former. That is to say, although most people would think that it’s absurd to claim that masturbation is immoral, that doesn’t necessarily impugn the principles of Kantian ethics”
If you agree that:
that which cannot be universalised is immoral
contraception cannot be universalised
then: contraception is immoral
It doesn’t get straighter than that. If you accept Kant’s principle you either have to think that contraception ( the end of which is not to have children ) can be universalised ( I don’t know how you would do that ) or you have to accept the conclusion.
My question about the death penalty wasn’t snarky, I wanted to know how he went about justifying that.
bza 02.18.04 at 5:47 pm
albert law: You’re close to getting the logic of what’s going on, but there’s a bit more to it than you say. Consider the argument:
“If p, then q. Furthermore, p is true. Therefore, q.”
(In the case of, say, masturbation, the first premise would be “if the practice of self-abuse can’t be universal, then it is morally wrong.” The second would be “the practice of self-absue can’t be universal.” The conclusion would be “self-abuse is morally wrong.”)
Now, if you think “q” is false, then you have to conclude either that “p implies q” is false, or that “p” is false (or both).
Which premise you conclude is false determines whether you think you have a refutation of Kantian ethics here. If you think “p implies q” is what is false, then you think that the Kantian conception of moral wrongness is false. If you think instead that it’s “p” that is false, then you aren’t disagreeing with Kant over the principle of his system; you’re disagreeing instead with his judgment about what falls under that principle.
In other words, there’s a difference between accepting Kant’s principles and agreeing with him in the application of those principles.
Jeremy Pierce 02.18.04 at 7:15 pm
What would Kant think of counter-intelligence operations where one intelligence service tries to mislead another intelligence service?
He’d say they’re immoral. Lying is always wrong, even to protect the innocent from a murderer. He makes this quite explicit. There are ways to change his system to prevent this, but it’s a serious change to the system.
Also, how did Kant come to say that the death penalty is justified? I heard about that and it rather puzzled me.
Contrary to bza’s suggestion, I think this does flow right out of the fundamental principles of Kant’s theory. It also happens that Kant’s justification for the death penalty is the primary one most of its proponents have.
The basic idea is that when you do something you’re in effect indicating that you believe that’s one of the permissible acts. If you lie, then you’re in effect giving permission for others to lie to you. If you kill someone, then you’re in effect giving permission to kill you. An alternate way to make the same point is that you give up your right to life by killing someone. That doesn’t guarantee the death penalty, but it permits it.
What requires the death penalty is the requirement not to treat people as a means to an end but as ends in themselves. To punish a murderer on a utilitarian basis is necessarily treating the person as a means to an end — increased happiness. That’s always wrong, on Kant’s view. Trying to improve or protect society or reform a criminal is always going to be wrong. Trying to reform a criminal is even worse, because it doesn’t respect the fact that the person made the choice to approve of that particular action and wouldn’t want us to change them to be different.
Retribution is the only justification for punishment that makes sense on Kant’s view. You can punish someone only if they deserve it and only because they deserve it. No other reason for punishment is adequate. Why would someone deserve death? What other punishment is equal to the crime? Well, the crime is the most significant way someone can mistreat someone in terms of means-to-end disrespect for dignity. Robbing someone of life itself is therefore the worst crime against a person. In these cases, the punishment should fit the crime, Kant says.
It’s funny to me that someone would form a prior commitment to the idea that the death penalty is immoral and therefore judge a moral viewpoint in terms of whether it allows a death penalty. How can you have the prior moral commitment if you don’t have a prior moral view? Evaluating Kant’s view based how it conflicts with some other view’s conclusion is just confusion about what’s going on here.
Jeremy Pierce 02.18.04 at 7:18 pm
On the God/religion question, I think it’s misleadiong to say that Kant denies religion as a basis for morality. He thinks morality provides a transcendental argument for God, but the reason he thinks that is because he thinks morality makes no sense unless its basis is God. So God is the basis for morality. Religion isn’t the way to find out which particular acts are right or wrong, but that doesn’t mean God isn’t the basis of morality.
Jeremy Pierce 02.18.04 at 7:24 pm
How do maxims that we usually think of as having nothing to do with morality fit in? Is it impermissible for me to act on the maxim “leave early to avoid traffic,†merely because it isn’t universalizable?
Kant just says these are maxims with absolutely no moral value. That doesn’t mean they have no value whatsoever. They have value in pursuing other ends. That’s why he calls them hypothetical imperatives. They genuinely are valuable to you in pursuing your other ends, but they’re not of moral value (i.e. valuable in themselves).
What about Kant’s emphasis on good will? I’m surprised not to see it here — do you think it’s detachable from the main points of his moral philosophy? (I’m thinking of his claim that there’s no moral worth in doing one’s duty out of inclination.)
That’s an independent issue from what this post discusses. One is the proper motivation for doing an action, in terms of which you can evaluate whether someone has done a morally worthy action. If the motivation is wrong, then the action has no moral value (though it may have value). The other is which actions are the ones that are morally right, whether done from the right reasons or for other reasons. Either way, the action is right. Motivation just determines whether your doing it has moral value. Its being the right action isn’t sufficient for that.
Jeremy Pierce 02.18.04 at 7:33 pm
Albert: On the contraception issue, a latter day Kantian might say the same thing many say about lying to save some innocent’s life. The basic idea is to retain Kant’s universalizability while denying his absolutism. The trick is to make your description of the action more specific. Lying is too general. Lying to save an innocent vs. lying to protect your own public image are two very different actions, and they should be evaluated differently.
Contraception might be broken down similarly, though I’m quite sure my way of doing it wouldn’t be the same as that of most other people. Of course, this assumes that contraception is sometimes wrong, which I’m willing to grant but most people won’t. I’m not sure how a Kantian who doesn’t grant that would solve it. I’d have to think about that more.
Albert Law 02.18.04 at 10:05 pm
Jeremy,
“It’s funny to me that someone would form a prior commitment to the idea that the death penalty is immoral and therefore judge a moral viewpoint in terms of whether it allows a death penalty. How can you have the prior moral commitment if you don’t have a prior moral view?”
I’m on the fence about the death penalty.
“The trick is to make your description of the action more specific.”
It’s the intention that matters and the intention is “not to have children”. Whether it’s “not to have children right now/right here” doesn’t matter.
“The basic idea is to retain Kant’s universalizability while denying his absolutism.”
Something can be universal without being absolute? English isn’t my first language but I’d still like you to tel me the fundamental difference there is between something that is universal and something that is absolute. Merriam-Webster gives me equivalent definitions.
Thanks for the death penalty explanation.
“Lying is too general”. Don’t you mean “too categorical”?
BZA,
“If you think instead that it’s “p†that is false, then you aren’t disagreeing with Kant over the principle of his system; you’re disagreeing instead with his judgment about what falls under that principle.”
Do you think that masturbation/contraception/homosexuality can be universalised? Do you think they fall under his principle?
charlotte pressler 02.18.04 at 11:17 pm
albert law writes, re Kant & contraception: “It’s the intention that matters and the intention is ‘not to have children’. Whether it’s ‘not to have children right now/right here’ doesn’t matter.”
But this formulation is not fine-grained enough to serve as a statement of the maxim of the person using contraception. This might be better stated as: “not to have children until I can provide them with a stable home”; “not to have children unless I can support them adequately”; or “not to have children if I have good reason to believe any child I bear/beget will suffer catastrophically from birth defects” — and surely all of these maxims are universalizable. Nor would their universalizability prevent persons in better circumstances from forgoing contraception and having children.
My versions do take into account the particular circumstances of the individual using contraception. But so does one of Kant’s best-known examples, from the _Metaphysics of Morals_. Kant writes: “A [person] finds in himself a talent which could, by means of some cultivation, make him in many respects a useful man. But he finds himself in comfortable circumstances, and prefers indulgence in pleasure to troubling himself with broadening and improving his fortunate natural gifts. Now, however, let him ask whether his maxim of neglecting his gifts … agrees also with what is called duty …. He cannot possibly will that this should become a universal law of nature…”
Crucially, Kant’s example depends on the man in question having “fortunate natural gifts,” a circumstance by no means universal, as well as on the maxim that all the faculties of a rational being should be developed. What is required by Kantian universalizability, then, is not that all people should act alike, whatever their circumstances, but that anyone in my circumstances would be justified in acting on the same maxim that I do. The maxim of a person using contraception might well meet that standard.
Albert Law 02.19.04 at 12:02 am
Pressler,
What about the person who just doesn’t want to have children or who could provide a child with a stable home without defects and be able to support them but prefers working on his/her career right now? What about homosexuality and masturbation?
Adam Rice 02.19.04 at 12:10 am
This is all fascinating. Not sure where to start.
On universalizability:
Does this necessarily mean “would work if everybody did it” or can it mean “would work if anybody did it?” It’s an important distinction.
On contraception:
If you already have two kids and have done your bit for posterity, how could any Kantian say that contraception in your case would be immoral? Taking the contraception=bad notion to the extreme requires us to imagine that not only contraception but abstention is bad, and that failing to have as many children as biologically possible is bad. Whereas I think many reasonable people might say the opposite.
Jeremy writes
This strikes me as half-right, but the other half is a doozy. To give the death penalty to a killer on this logic lowers you to his level. This is not “do unto others as ye would be done”, this is “do unto others as they have done”
bza 02.19.04 at 12:26 am
albert law: As a general matter, I don’t see any problem, by Kantian lights, with contraception, homosexuality, or masturbation.
jeremy pierce: As you note, Kant doesn’t think religion should ground our judgments about the rightness or wrongness of specific acts. He also says that the existence or non-existence of God is irrelevant to the existence of basic moral principles. He further says that our obligation to be moral is independent of religion. So what function does religion have in Kant’s system, given that it’s unrelated to the existence of moral norms or their bindingness on us? Only the following, very restricted role (and here things become very obscure): Religious faith is supposed to explain how one can remain moral no matter how adverse, as a result of circumstance, the results of remaning moral seem to be. At first glance, this looks like a depiction of religion as a mere psychological necessity, which shouldn’t please the theistically inclined. But I think that that’s probably not quite the right reading. Note that such “ethical faith” is, for Kant, a form of belief that is not supposed to inform our thinking about the world except insofar as it helps us be moral. It’s not the reason one is moral, and it shouldn’t serve as a basis for holding any other beliefs. Nevertheless it’s supposed to be necessarily bound up with the disposition to act morally. The only plausible way to read this, as far as I can see, is to see such religious belief as something like the way in which a moral agent articulates their determination to be moral, which articulation helps preserve a moral disposition. I for one find that to be a rather watery sort of religious belief, but the closer you look at Kant’s arguments here, the more the religous belief he describes looks like a way of giving metaphorical expression to an intrinsically non-religious moral mindset.
bob mcmanus 02.19.04 at 1:17 am
“I for one find that to be a rather watery sort of religious belief, but the closer you look at Kant’s arguments here,”
Actually, Kant is very close to Kierkeggaard. Belief in God is absolutely unjustifiable, and absolutely necessary
Albert Law 02.19.04 at 2:28 am
Bza,
So contraception, homosexuality and masturbation can all be universalised? This is what I want to know. I guess I expressed myself very poorly in the last two comments.
bza 02.19.04 at 7:55 pm
Warning: post contains pedantry.
bob mcmanus: “Actually, Kant is very close to Kierkeggaard. Belief in God is absolutely unjustifiable, and absolutely necessary.”
There’s the rub: what we mean by “necessary.” The main discussion of this is, if I remember correctly, in the Second Critique, around 5:125 (Akademie pagination). I might as well note in passing that the convention is to refer to the three Critiques as “First Critique,” etc., rather than as “Pure Reason,” “Practical Reason,” as you were doing. (I’m not trying to be snotty to someone engaged in self-study. I just thought you might want to know, both because it’ll forestall a moment of confusion if you’re talkign to an academic about this and because, people being as they are, it’ll probably gain you a more serious hearing.)
Anyway, in that discussion Kant says that the necessity of religious belief is not an “objective necessity,” which in the context of his moral philosophy is pretty much synonymous with obligation (see, e.g., 4:412 in the Groundwork. I can’t think of a cite for this in the Second Critique offhand, but there are passages; I think they’re a little after 125). Instead, the necessity of religous belief is a “subjective necessity,” which is the way that Kant refers to things that are results of contingent features of our make-up. (This sort of contrast between subjective and objective necessity is used in the theoretical philosophy as well. See section 19 of the B Edition Deduction in the First Critique: psychological assocation à la Hume is merely subjectively necessary, while full-blown cognitive judgment is objectively necessary. This is a different sense of objective and subjective necessity, because we’re no longer talking about moral norms, but the contrast is still the same. “Objective necessity” is Kant’s term for substantive correctness; “subjective necessity” characterizes that which is merely a consequence of our internal make-up and so neither correct nor incorrect.)
So religious belief isn’t, for Kant, anything that one should have, for any sense of “should.” Insofar as we must have it, it’s simply a consequence of our nature. This is why Kant can seem to be saying that it’s merely a psychological necessity. I think that one can argue that the connection between religious belief and a moral stance isn’t merely psychological (I tried to do so in my previous post), but even so one can’t rescue any sense in which there’s a reason why one should, in Kant’s eyes, have a religious belief. Indeed, he denies just that.
There’s a further point, which makes the position of religion in Kant’s system even more tenuous. In my preivous post I tried to point out–although I wasn’t as explicit as I should have been–that, when one looks at the explanation Kant gives of why a moral stance leads to having religious belief, it isn’t clear why that subjective necessity leads uniquely to something we would recognize as a particularly religious attitude. The suspicion is, I think, well-founded that it was only because existentialism, for example, hadn’t come along yet that it could seem to Kant that a conviction that it’s possible to remain moral is equivalent to a specifically religious attitude.
bza 02.19.04 at 8:00 pm
also to bob: I meant to recommend a book to you as well. Since you got into Kant though an interest in Rawls, you should definitely pick up a copy of Rawls’s lectures on the history of moral philosophy. They’re beautifully done, and a good guide not only to Kant but to a number of earlier moral philosophers. (And they make for a surprisingly fluent and pleasant read, in marked contrast to A Theory of Justice, etc.)
bob mcmanus 02.19.04 at 8:20 pm
bza: thank you. Saved the post, will use it. Maybe try to refute it, and probably fail. Have decided that Steven Palmquist has a serious agenda in his work on Kant, and will use him more critically now.
When I read the Second Critique twenty years ago, I thought Kant was just throwing religion at the end of his books to avoid censorship problems. I guess calling Kant Kierkeggaard in disguise is just as ignorant.
Albert Law 02.19.04 at 10:05 pm
Come on Bza, can they be universalised?
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