PHIL 281 Topics in Ethics: Kant’s Moral Philosophy (M3)
ASSIGNMENT 5
Directions: The answers to the essay questions should include a critical analysis and an in depth
examination of the issue in question. A critical analysis should NOT be simply an explanation of
the arguments or of the view in question but should also include your assessment of whether the
author’s arguments are good or bad, and why. It should also include an explanation of your
personal view and a philosophical defense of it.
Short answers should be only a few sentences (50 words or less). Mid-size answers should be
one paragraph (100 words). Long answers should be about a page in length (200-250 words).
Format: The document should have 1-inch margins. The answer should be in Times New
Roman size 12 font and double-spaced. Please write out the complete question. The questions
can be single-spaced and bold. The answers MUST be double spaced! Please make sure you put
your name, the assignment #, the title of the course, and the date. Also number your pages.
Due: Monday, August 22 by 6:00 am
1. Kant claims that the moral principle is derived from pure reason. How can this principle
be reduced to the doctrine of happiness? (Include Kant’s distinction between moral and
natural happiness and the distinction between pathological and moral pleasure.) Midsize
2. What is the difference between the doctrine of right and the doctrine of virtue? Midsize
3. What is the difference between the duty of right and the duty of virtue? Midsize
4. What are the ends that are also duties? Explain as thoroughly as possible the two ends of
duties: (1) to seek my perfection and (2) to seek the happiness of others. (Why can’t the
ends as duties be to seek my happiness and the perfection of others?) Long
5. Why does Kant claim that we do not have a moral obligation for the following: (1) moral
feelings, (2) conscience, (3) love of one’s neighbor, (4) respect of oneself (self-esteem)?
Midsize
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Metaphysics of Morals
Part II Doctrine of Virtue
Presupposition
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A philosophy of any subject (a system of rational knowledge from
concepts) requires a system of pure rational concepts independent of any
conditions of intuition, that is, a metaphysics” (141).
Does a doctrine of virtue need a metaphysics?
Does a Doctrine of Virtue Require a Metaphysics?
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Yes and no.
Everyday morality can be conducted through feelings (from the heart),
however, in order to provide purity and certainty, we need pure reason and
thus a metaphysics.
Kant says, “But in fact no moral principle is based, as people sometime
suppose, on any feeling whatsoever” (142).
Moral Law and Virtue
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Background Explanation: Remember that Kant is a deontologist and thus what is essential for
his philosophy is the moral law that commands us to act in a certain way.
Ends are the purpose or goal of our actions. They have to do with consequentialism not
deontology.
Kant clearly repudiates any concern for the consequences of our actions. Consequences are
neither necessary nor sufficient for morality. Remember, all you need is a good will.
However, part of life necessarily entails acting towards certain goals or ends. Thus, the key to
the doctrine of virtue is to align our ends with our duty.
Our ends should correspond to the categorical imperative or the the practical moral law.
By doing this we make our incentive (desires) to cohere with our moral duties – it
is the merging of incentives (the empirical and a posteriori) with rational
motivations (purely rational or a priori).
Ends are Special
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An end is an object of choice.
“Now, I can indeed be constrained by others to perform actions that are
directed as means to an end, but I can never be constrained by others to
have an end: only I myself can make something my end” (146).
“Another can coerce me to do something that is not my end (but only a
means to another’s end) but not to make this my end; and yet I can have
no end without making it an end for myself” (146).
“to have an end that I have not myself made an end is self-contradictory,
an act of freedom which is yet not free.”
Doctrine of Right vs. Doctrine of Virtue
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The part of the general doctrine of duty that brings inner freedom, rather
than outer freedom, under laws is a doctrine of virtue.
The doctrine of right dealt with the formal conditions of outer freedom.
“But ethics goes beyond this and provides a matter (an object of free
choice), an end of pure reason which it represents as end that is also
objectively necessary, that is, an end that, as far as humans are concerned,
it is a duty to have” (146).
In other words, Doctrine of Virtue deals with ends that are are also
more duties.
Duty of Virtue
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“Only an end that is also a duty can be called a
duty of virtue” (148).
Duty of Right vs. Duty of Virtue
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Duty of right may have external constraints.
Duty of virtue is based only on self-constraint.
Duty of virtue then is ethic proper and it is based on the notion of having
the strength (fortitude) to obey the moral law.
Duty of right: the elements are law, capacity, and will.
Duty of virtue: law, capacity, will, self-constraint and end (not the ends one
has but the ends one ought to have).
Ends That Are Also Duties
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First: One’s own perfection.
Second: The happiness of others.
(1) Seek One’s Own Perfection-Wide Obligation
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(1.1) Perfection in understanding: Cultivate one’s faculties, especially that
which is most special: the understanding.
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(1.2) Inner Morally Practical Perfection: To cultivate morality in us. Kant
says, “The greatest perfection of a human being is to do his duty from
duty” (155).
Duties as Virtues are Wide
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Seek your own perfection could mean a lot of different things depending on one’s situation.
Notice that this is very different from the categorical imperative in which there are no exception.
In the case of virtues, context matter for Kant (This is something few philosophers have paid
attention to).
Kant writes, “With regard to natural perfection, accordingly, there is not law of reason for actions
only a law for maxims of actions, which runs as follows: ‘Cultivate your powers of mind and body
so that they are fit to realize any ends you might encounter”.
”But this duty is merely an ethical one, that is, a duty of wide obligation. No rational principle
prescribes specifically how for one should go in cultivating one’s capacities. Then, too, the
different situations in which human beings may find themselves make a man’s choice of the
occupation for which he should cultivate his talents very much a matter for him to decide as he
chooses” (154-5).
Cultivating morality: some limitations
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It is important that we understand some limitations. We can act from duty, and this is very
important; however, Kant warns us that the ultimate motivations of our actions will always
remain hidden to us.
I will call this a kind of ignorance Moral Fallibilism.
Kant writes: “For a human being cannot see into the depths of his own heart so as to be quite
certain, in even a single action, of the purity of his moral intention and the sincerity of his
disposition, even when he has no doubt about the legality of the action. … In the case of any
deed it remains hidden from the agent himself how much pure moral content there
has been in his disposition” (155).
(2) Seek the Happiness of Others-Wide Duty
2.1 Natural well-being-Benevolence
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Natural happiness concerns the happiness of the
natural pleasures.
natural welfare.
Duty to be beneficence.
Kant writes, “For, a maxim of promoting others’
happiness at the sacrifice of one’s own happiness,
one’s true needs, would conflict with itself if it
were made a universal law. Hence this duty is only
a wide one; the duty has in it a latitude for doing
more or less, and not specific limits can be
assigned to what should be done. – The law holds
only for maxims, not for determinate actions”
(156).
2.2 Moral well-Being
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Moral happiness concerns the happiness of
consciousness-moral rectitude- knowing that you did
the right thing.
Moral unhappiness can be devastating. Kant notes,
“Although the pain one feels from the pangs of
conscience has a moral source it is still a natural affect,
like grief fear, or any other state of suffering” (156).
I cannot control an individual’s decisions, and thus I
cannot prevent others from this unhappiness.
However, I can and I should “refrain from doing
anything that, considering the nature of a human
being, could tempt him to do something for which his
conscience could afterwards pain him, to refrain from
what is called giving scandal.”
Duty and Happiness
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Moral Happiness vs. Natural Happiness
How is moral happiness possible?
When a person overcomes his or her incentives to perform his or her moral
duty he or she becomes filled with contentment - “a state of contentment
and peace of the soul” - of having performed his or her duty.
“Virtue is its own reward” (142).
Kant on Moral Happiness
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“When it comes to my promoting happiness as an end that is also a duty,
this must therefore be the happiness of other human beings, whose
permitted end I thus make my own end as well. It is for them to decide
what belongs to their happiness; but it is open to me to refuse them many
things that they think will make them happy but that I do not, as long as
they have no right to demand them from me as what is theirs” (151).
With respect to my own natural happiness, Kant says: “But then it is not
my happiness but the preservation of my moral integrity that is my end
and also my duty” (152).
Why can’t it be the opposite?
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Why can’t the ends that are also duties be to seek the perfection of others
and to seek one’s own happiness?
I cannot seek the perfection of others because such perfection can only be
obtained through choosing the right ends, something which only the
individual can do. I can never choose the ends for another.
My natural happiness cannot be something I command of myself because
it is something that I already desire by natural instinct. Moreover, morality
does not necessarily coincide with my natural happiness.
Deficiency of Virtue vs. Vice
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Kant distinguishes between a weakness of the will and vice.
With respect to imperfect duties - such as cultivating one’s talents – not
completing these duties illustrates weakness of the will but not necessarily
a vice.
Kant calls it a deficiency of moral worth.
Cultivating one’s talent has merit but failing to do so does not lead to
culpability of transgressions.
Transgressions are actions contrary to duties.
Unintentional transgressions are deficiency of the will; intentional
transgressions are vices.
The Highest End
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The highest unconditional end of practical reason is that virtue be its own
end and its own reward.
The Supreme Principle of the Doctrine of Virtue
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Act in accordance with a maxim of ends that it can be a universal
law for everyone to have.
Not needed for Morality
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Kant argues that we do not have a moral obligation to have the following feelings:
(1) moral feelings, (2) conscience, (3) love of one’s neighbor, (4) respect of oneself
(self-esteem).
He writes, “There is no obligation to have these because they lie at the basis of
morality, as subjective conditions of receptiveness to the concept of duty, not as
objective conditions of morality” (159).
Moreover, we have these naturally and thus they cannot be commanded..
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