The question of choosing one's moral path in life is never an easy one. Within the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, however, is one method of doing just that.
What is right, and what is wrong? Furthermore, is it always possible to tell the difference between the two?
In reality, the answer to this question depends on who is being asked.
For instance, if one was to ask the 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, one of the most influential philosophical minds of the last several hundred years, he likely would have responded that the answer to this last question is yes, absolutely.
The Key to Morality
Kant focused a great deal of his philosophical thought in determining this very thing. What he developed became perhaps the most important system for determining morality ever created by man – The Categorical Imperative.
Kant developed what would become the Categorical Imperative over the course of three works: Groundworks of the Metaphysic of Morals, Critique of Practical Reason and Metaphysics of Morals (published in 1785, 1788 and 1797, respectively). Within these works, Kant developed a system of three questions (formulations, he called them), which should be asked of any action before it is taken in order to decide upon the morality of the action.
According to Kant, in order to determine the morality of any situation we must:
- Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law.
- Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.
- So act as though you were, through your maxims, a law making member of a kingdom of ends.
Putting the Categorical Imperative into Practice
According to the first formulation, one must ask themselves if the action they are about to engage in corresponds to a rule (or maxim, as he calls it), which should be applied universally. So, if one was to consider kicking a small child (just an example), one would have to first formulate a maxim based on this planned action: “It is good to kick small children.” Then one would have to decide if it would be a good thing for this rule to apply to everyone. The question must be asked, would it be a good thing for everyone to think that it was okay to kick small children? If the answer is no (which it most likely is), then this action can be stated to be immoral, and therefore the urge to kick this particular child should not be indulged, whether or not it is deserved.
Kant argues that this first formulation applies also when the universalization of a maxim creates a logical contradiction. For instance, if one were to create the universalized Maxim: “It is always morally right to steal,” then Kant argues that in order for this maxim to exist at all, personal property must exist (for you can't steal something that is not owned by someone else), and if personal property does exist, but it is a universal law that stealing is permissible, then personal property cannot exist. Thus, there is a contradiction.
This line of reasoning tends to get pretty complicated, and is thus generally avoided whenever possible.
The second formulation is fairly easy to understand. It simply states that we should never use people for our own benefit, thinking nothing of them as people (as in slavery). Instead, we should see the benefit of others as our end goal, rather than the means.
The third formulation is Kant's idea of a combination of the first two. It simply begs the question that if we were suddenly cast into the position of having our own maxims become laws for everyone, what laws would we seek to create? Only those that would benefit all of mankind should be made, and those therefore are the only ethical laws. Would any but the most disturbed individual make a law legalizing the kicking of small children? Probably not.
Within this framework, the categorical imperative seems for the most part to be both simple and intuitive.
Questioning the Categorical Imperative
One issue that is often addressed in regard to this topic revolves around a response Kant once gave to a man who came to him with a logical question concerning the Categorical Imperative:
The question was this:
What if one is approached by a murderer, who asks the location of the man he intends to kill? If, as the categorical imperative would state, it is morally unacceptable to lie under any circumstance (all three formulations suggest this), then would one be morally forced to tell the truth to the killer?
Kant's answer to this question: Yes. It is wrong to lie, even to a murderer. For it is the murderer who is responsible for his own crimes, not you, even though you may have aided him indirectly. Also, Kant argued (in his response, entitled “On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives”) that if one attempts to lie to the murderer, saying “the man you are looking for is in his house,” while believing this to not be true, and yet the man for some reason did happen to be in his house, thus enabling the murderer to kill him – well, in this situation, according to Kant, the person lying to the murderer would be indirectly responsible for the death.
While to many this defense of the categorical imperative may seem rather illogical, it seems difficult to argue with a man such as Kant, who spent the course of an entire, very prolific career in formulating these philosophies and all of their consequences.
Truly accept it or not, in creating the Categorical Imperative Kant’s heart seemed to be in the right place.
References:
Kant, Immanuel. “The Critique of Pure Reason.”
Kant, Immanuel. “On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives.”
“Immanuel Kant.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
