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Kant: Lecture Notes

The primary purpose of the Groundwork is: “the search for and establishment of the supreme principle of morality” (Preface).

· The first section of the text attempts this by appealing to moral common sense as a way of establishing the basis for a more rigorous account of the commitments of common moral sense.

· The second section attempts a new beginning; it does so by bypassing “popular moral philosophy” and by employing a philosophical theory of the will to lay the ground for “metaphysics of morals.”

The first section of the text formulates provisionally the supreme principal of morality, while the second section generates an additional three formulas:

First Formula

· FUL The Formula of Universal Law: “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law” (paragraph 13).

and its variant:

· FLN The Formula of the Law of Nature: “Act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature.”

Second Formula

· FH The Formula of Humanity as End in Itself: “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or that of another, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” (par. 45).

Third Formula

· FA The Formula of Autonomy: “. . . the idea of the will of every rational being as a will giving universal law” or “Choose only in such a way that the maxims of your choice are also included as universal law in the same volition.”

and its variant:

· FRE The Formula of the Realm of Ends: “Act according to the maxim of a universally legislative member of a merely potential realm of ends.”

Key Concepts

· Apriori v. Aposteriori

· Good Will (pars. 1-4)

· Maxim(par. 10)

· Categorical v. Hypothetical Imperative (pars. 17-23; 31)

· Autonomy

· Acting from Duty (par. 5)

· Respect for Law

· Self-Love v. Self-Respect

· Self-Regard v. Self-Conceit

· Reason v. Inclination

1. In the Beginning: Good Will

Before beginning one’s reading of the text, one must, at least understand the distinction between apriori and aposteriori. This distinction is fundamental to Kant’s approach.

· Apriori : In our context, apriori refers, literally, to “prior to and independent of experience.”

· Aposteriori : In our context, aposteriori refers, literally, to “justification based on experience.”

Hence, Kant is claiming that the fundamental principle of morality is an apriori principle, one that a person deduces from first principles and not from any sort of sense based experience.

Good Will

Recall that in this section Kant is dealing with “common rational moral cognition.” This mode of cognition is pre-philosophical. It presupposes that to be a moral agent one must be able to recognize what morality demands and to acknowledge the value of complying with those demands.

Thus, Kant begins the text discussing the nature of a good will, a concept that he believes is presupposed by moral action, but has not yet been given the philosophic precision it requires.

· Good will: the only unqualified good in the world (par. 1). He will attempt to clarify this by placing the good will next to other sorts of goods.

· Gifts of Nature: things which generally belong to the natural endowments of a person.

· Gifts of Fortune: things that are contingent; things one strives after: power, wealth, etc.

Note Well: Kant ascribes “happiness” to gifts of fortune. That is, for Kant “happiness” is a qualified good, for, by itself, it may have a corrupting influence on a person. Kant holds this because he believes that human beings have an innate nature that, when they acquire certain gifts of fortune, they infer that they deserve these gifts, that is, that in some way these gifts bestow a greater moral quality upon the one who possesses them.

2. Acting from Duty

Next, Kant proceeds to develop the good will itself. He will do this by explicating the concept of duty, which, he says, “contains that of a good will, though under certain subjective limitations and hindrances, which, however, far from hiding it and making it unrecognizable, rather raise it up by contrast and all it to shine forth the more brightly” (par. 5).

Note Well:

· Kant says that the concept of duty contains that of a good will. This leads him to claim that there are actions that are “in conformity with duty” and actions that done “from duty (par. 5).

· An act “conforms to duty” if complies with what duty requires, regardless of one’s motives for doing it: “the necessity of acting from pure respect for the practical law is what constitutes duty” (par. 14).

· Act done “from duty” are acts which Kant characterizes as containing moral worth, the sort of worth, he claims, that generates esteem. These sorts of acts derive from the good will. Kant discusses the meaning of acting from duty in his four examples:

The example is the shopkeeper who lacks any immediate inclination to deal with the young shopper fairly. The shopkeeper conforms his actions out of self-interest to his duty. The other three involve agents who do act in accord with duty: to preserve one’s life, to act beneficently, and to promote one’s happiness.

For Kant, acts done from duty “with repugnance” are acts that involve a “hidden hatred of the moral law.” He considers act done from duty as those done willingly, with a desire to do them, and hence with a feeling of pleasure. The key, for Kant, is whether the desire to act from duty arises from freedom, from reason recognizing the action as necessary or from some other contingent inclination.

The motive of duty is not, like the shopkeeper’s motive of calculated prudence, something that prompts us to do an action we do not value for itself but only do reluctantly for the sake of its consequences. That is, to act from duty is to recognize the inherent moral value of the act, and that recognition gives rise to a direct desire to perform the action for its own sake.

3. The Maxim

Paragraph 10: the first sentence contains two points:

1. It indicates that the moral worth of an action does not depend on what it accomplishes.

2. The moral worth of an action is located in the “maxim” or “principle of volition.”

Understanding the nature of maxims:

Kant, here, is dealing with the act of a promise. His points seem to be the following:

· To keep my promise is a requirement of duty.

· To keep my promise because of the projected consequences of breaking my promise is to violate a principle of duty.

· To say that keeping my promise has moral worth is to say that my action is valuable for its own sake, especially if keeping it generates certain inconveniences for me.

To state all of this in Kantian terms: My “maxim” or “principle of volition” is to keep my promises; the esteem owed to my action is based on my keeping my promises despite my experiencing incentives not to. Kant holds that my action is to be esteemed, not for the end or consequences, but solely on the fact that I have opted to observe the “maxim” that promises are to be kept, and that I fulfilled that “maxim” from the motive of duty.

*Note well: A “maxim” always universalizes a specific action. Why? Because a specific act itself is specific and can’t be universalized.

* Maxims, let us say, are bearers of moral guidance, or life-rules. So, in the case of the man whose life has become one of sorrow and adversity, his action, when he "preserves his life without loving it, not from inclination or fear but from duty" is said to have a "maxim" that "has a moral content." By contrast, when, in happier days, he acted to preserve his life from immediate inclination, the maxim of his action had "no moral content" (par. 6). This leads to Kant’s claim that "an action done from duty has its moral worth ... in the maxim from which the action is concluded.”

4. Respect for Law

This is going to be the longest and perhaps most difficult section because of the number of additional concepts that are bound up with respect.

First, most of what we will cover is not in our text but is derived from another of Kant’s works. In that work Kant is attempting to establish a moral theory of sensibility. The key element here, for us, is his claim that respect, when properly understood, will be seen to function as an incentive that influences the will. Respect, here, is understood as a moral incentive and as the feeling that arises when the moral law checks our desires. For Kant, this aspect of respect is grounded in reason and is, thus, the source of human dignity.

Since the concept of an incentive is a technical term for Kant, it deserves comment. He defines it as ‘a subjective determining ground of the will of a being whose reason does not by its nature necessarily conform with the objective law’ (KpV 5: 72). It is a subjective determining ground of the will in the sense that it is the motivational state of the subject that is operative on a particular occasion. Thus, an incentive must be a kind of determining ground of the will, or a kind of motivation from which human beings can act. Though incentives are ‘subjective’ in the above sense, they can include reasons that are objectively valid: respect for the law is the operative incentive in morally worthy conduct, and hence its ‘subjective determining ground.’

This feeling is most easily explained as the experience of constraints that the moral law imposes on our inclinations. Thus, Kant stresses that it originates as a ‘negative effect’ of our moral consciousness. When the moral law determines the will, it frustrates the inclinations, and ‘the negative effect on feeling … is itself feeling’ (KpV 5: 73). In short, the feeling of respect is an emotion that is the effect of, and follows from, the determination of the will by the moral law, when the latter limits the inclinations.

Kant also tries to spell out a sense in which this feeling is an incentive in moral conduct by showing how this originally negative effect is at the same time a positive source of motivation. In us the inclinations present obstacles that we must control, or overcome, when we act morally. Respect promotes the satisfaction of our moral interests by counteracting these obstacles. Kant holds that it is an incentive toward good conduct in that it offsets the influence of contrary motives, and thus moves us toward something that we must at some level find good.

Now, the following passage from Kant, will set-up our final points and move us toward some practical applications of Kant’s thought:

All the inclinations together … constitute self-regard (solipsismus). This is either the self-regard of love for oneself [Selbstliebe], a predominant benevolence toward oneself (philautia), or that of satisfaction with oneself (arrogantia). The former is called, in particular, self-love [Eigenliebe]; the latter, self-conceit [Eigendünkel]. Pure practical reason merely infringes upon self-love … But it strikes down self-conceit altogether. (KpV 5: 73)

Let’s first extract each concept: self-regard: self-love (benevolence toward oneself) and self-conceit (satisfaction with oneself). The moral law (pure practical reason) intrudes on self-love but destroys self-conceit.

Now, under the heading “Self-Regard” we find both “self-love” and “self-conceit.” We are told by Kant that the moral law “checks” self-love – that is, controls it – and as a result “reasonable self-love” emerges. On the other hand, we are told that the moral law “strikes-down” self-conceit, which suggests that self-conceit is directly at odds with the moral law.

Self-love is a love of oneself that manifests itself as interest in one's own welfare and in the satisfaction of one's own desires. It comprises inclinations directed at ends outside the self, such as goods and activities that produce satisfaction or well-being, the means to such ends, and so on, as well as the disposition to regard such inclinations as reasons for action.

On the other hand, the object of self-conceit is best described as personal worth or esteem, or importance in the opinions of others. It is a desire to be highly regarded, or a tendency to esteem oneself over others. It should be stressed that it is a natural inclination, specifically for a kind of esteem that depends on the opinions either of oneself or of others, and on one's standing relative to others, and which operates independently of one's moral consciousness. It turns out for this reason to be a comparative form of value that one only achieves at the expense of others—for example, by surpassing them, or by being perceived to surpass them in certain qualities. Briefly, the object of self-conceit is a form of esteem or personal importance that you can only achieve when you deny it to some others.

Thus, and this is the most important aspect of self-conceit:

This propensity to make oneself, on subjective determining grounds of choice [Willkür], into the objective determining ground of the will [Wille] in general can be called self-love; and if self-love makes itself lawgiving and the unconditional practical principle, it can be called self-conceit … [S]elf-conceit … prescribes the subjective conditions of [self-love] as laws.

People naturally place a special importance on themselves, and often make a concern for others conditional on its congruence with their own interests. Kant's remarks suggest that, when moved by self-conceit, you act as though others should accord your interests the same priority that you give them, and you put your desires forward as conditions on the satisfaction of theirs.

Though self-conceit aims at increasing one's welfare, it does so by claiming a certain kind of value for one's person relative to others. How could you possibly get other rational individuals, with desires of their own, to treat your desires as reasons for their actions? Self-conceit attempts to get others to defer to your interests by claiming a special value for your person and by ranking yourself higher.

In this way, it seeks a kind of respect that moves in one direction. When you treat a person with respect, you attribute a value to his or her person which limits how you may act. Self-conceit would have others act as though your interests outweigh theirs and refuses to return the respect that it demands. This indicates that it is at root a desire to dominate others. It is an outgrowth of self-love in that those who manipulate others in this way both protect their own interests and increase the means available for getting what they want.

Self-conceit is a desire for a kind of respect that claims something like an absolute value for oneself. But this is thought to ground preferential treatment or deference from others; it is not reciprocal; and its aim is to further the satisfaction of one's inclinations. It is as though you take your inclinations to confer a value on your person that sets you above others. This prevents you not only from recognizing their humanity, but your own as well, in that you have taken inclinations, rather than rational nature, as the ultimate source of value in your person.

Hence, the moral law, for Kant, and the respect that it is owed, are components of our rational natures. The moral law is an “internal mode of humility” that strikes down one’s self-conceit, while at the same time providing the ground for how one ought to understand oneself and others.

5. Additional Thoughts

a. Reason: “To make use of one’s own reason means no more than to ask oneself, whenever one is supposed to assume something, whether one could find it feasible to make the ground or the rule on which one assumes it, into a universal principle for the use of reason.”

b. Wisdom: “Wisdom, as the idea of practical use of reason that conforms perfectly with the law, is no doubt too much to demand of human beings. But also, not even the slightest degree of wisdom can be poured into a [person] by others; rather he or she must bring it forth him or herself. The precept for reaching it contains three leading maxims: 1. Think for oneself; 2. Think into the place of the other person; 3. Always think consistently with oneself.”

5. Back to the Imperatives

Now, with all of the above covered, let’s re-read and reflect on the imperatives.