Aberystwyth University Notions of Socio Economic Justice Essay

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Prifysgol Aberystwyth University

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In his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant argues that autonomy, or the ability to self-govern oneself, is the basis for morality and justice.  Two contemporary philosophers, John Rawls and Robert Nozick, develop Kantian notions of autonomy to argue for different views of socio-economic justice (i.e. the distribution of wealth and goods for justice).  In your paper, explain how Rawls and Nozick develop two different notions of socio-economic justice from Kantian autonomy and why they are at odds with one another.  Examine the pros and cons of each side and determine which position (Rawlsian or Nozickian) is most just.  Finally, at the end of your paper, explain whether John Stuart Mill and/or Peter Singer (utilitarian philosophy) would support the socio-economic system that you argued was best and why.

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Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals Immanuel Kant Copyright © Jonathan Bennett 2017. All rights reserved [Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small ·dots· enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional •bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Every four-point ellipsis . . . . indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. Longer omissions are rerported between square brackets in normal-sized type.] In the title, ‘Groundwork’ refers not to the foundation that is laid but to the work of laying it. First launched: July 2005 Last amended: September 2008 Contents Preface 1 Chapter 1: Moving from common-sense knowledge to philosophical knowledge about morality 5 Chapter 2: Moving from popular moral philosophy to the metaphysic of morals 14 Chapter 3: Moving from the metaphysic of morals to the critique of pure practical reason 41 Groundwork Immanuel Kant Preface Preface hand, can each have an empirical part; indeed, they must do so because each must discover the laws ·for its domain·. For •the former, these are the laws of nature considered as something known through experience; and for •the latter, they are the laws of the human will so far as it is affected by nature. ·The two sets of laws are nevertheless very different from one another·. The laws of nature are laws according to which everything does happen; the laws of morality are laws according to which everything ought to happen; they allow for conditions under which what ought to happen doesn’t happen. •Empirical philosophy is philosophy that is based on experience. •Pure philosophy is philosophy that presents its doctrines solely on the basis of a priori principles. Pure philosophy ·can in turn be divided into two·: when it is entirely formal it is •logic; when it is confined to definite objects of the understanding, it is •metaphysics. In this way there arises the idea of a two-fold metaphysic— a metaphysic of nature and a metaphysic of morals. Physics, therefore, will have an empirical part and also a rational part, and ethics likewise, though here the empirical part may be called more specifically ‘practical anthropology’ and the rational part ‘morals’ in the strict sense. All crafts, trades and arts have profited from the division of labour; for when •each worker sticks to one particular kind of work that needs to be handled differently from all the others, he can do it better and more easily than when •one person does everything. Where work is not thus differentiated and divided, where everyone is a jack-of-all-trades, the crafts remain at an utterly primitive level. Now, here is a question worth asking: Doesn’t pure philosophy in each of its parts require a man who is particularly devoted to that part? Some people regularly mix up the empirical with the rational, suiting their mixture to the taste of the public Ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three branches of knowledge: •natural science, •ethics, and •logic. This classification perfectly fits what it is meant to fit; the only improvement it needs is the supplying of the principle on which it is based; that will let us be sure that the classification does cover all the ground, and will enable us to define the necessary subdivisions ·of the three broad kinds of knowledge·. [Kant, following the Greek, calls the trio Physik, Ethik and Logik. Our word ‘physics’ is much too narrow for Physik, which is why ‘natural science’ is preferred here. What is lost is the surface neatness of the Greek and German trio, and of the contrast between natural science and metaphysics, Physik and Metaphysik ] There are two kinds of rational knowledge: •material knowledge, which concerns some object, and •formal knowledge, which pays no attention to differences between objects, and is concerned only with the form of understanding and of reason, and with the universal rules of thinking. Formal philosophy is called •‘logic’. Material philosophy— having to do with definite objects and the laws that govern them—is divided into two parts, depending on whether the laws in question are laws of •nature or laws of •freedom. Knowledge of laws of the former kind is called •‘natural science’, knowledge of laws of the latter kind is called •‘ethics’. The two are also called ‘theory of nature’ and ‘theory of morals’ respectively. •Logic can’t have anything empirical about it—it can’t have a part in which universal and necessary laws of thinking are derived from experience. If it did, it wouldn’t be logic—i.e. a set of rules for the understanding or for reason, rules that are valid for all thinking and that must be rigorously proved. The •natural and •moral branches of knowledge, on the other 1 Groundwork Immanuel Kant Preface absolute necessity; •that the command: You are not to lie doesn’t apply only to human beings, as though it had no force for other rational beings (and similarly with all other moral laws properly so called); •that the basis for obligation here mustn’t be looked for in people’s natures or their circumstances, but ·must be found· a priori solely in the concepts of pure reason; and •that any precept resting on principles of mere experience may be called a practical rule but never a moral law. This last point holds even if there is something universal about the precept in question, and even if its empirical content is very small (perhaps bringing in only the motive involved). Thus not only are moral laws together with their principles essentially different from all practical knowledge involving anything empirical, but all moral philosophy rests solely on its pure ·or non-empirical· part. Its application to human beings doesn’t depend on knowledge of any facts about them (anthropology); it gives them, as rational beings, a priori laws—·ones that are valid whatever the empirical circumstances may be·. (Admittedly ·experience comes into the story in a certain way, because· these laws require a power of judgment that has been sharpened by experience— •partly in order to pick out the cases where the laws apply and •partly to let the laws get into the person’s will and to stress that they are to be acted on. For a human being has so many preferences working on him that, though he is quite capable of having the idea of a practical pure reason, he can’t so easily bring it to bear on the details of how he lives his life.) A metaphysic of morals is therefore indispensable, ·for two reasons, one •theoretical and one •practical·. One reason comes from •our wish, as theoreticians, to explore the source of the a priori practical principles that lie in our reason. The other reason is that •until we have the guide and supreme without actually knowing what its proportions are; they call themselves independent thinkers and write off those who apply themselves exclusively to the rational part of philosophy as mere ponderers. Wouldn’t things be improved for the learned profession as a whole if those ‘independent thinkers’ were warned that they shouldn’t carry on two employments at once—employments that need to be handled quite differently, perhaps requiring different special talents for each—because all you get when one person does several of them is bungling? But all I am asking is this: Doesn’t the nature of the science ·of philosophy· require that we carefully separate its empirical from its rational part? That would involve putting •a metaphysic of nature before real (empirical) natural science, and •a metaphysic of morals before practical anthropology. Each of these two branches of metaphysics must be carefully cleansed of everything empirical, so that we can know how much pure reason can achieve in each branch, and from what sources it creates its a priori teaching. ·The metaphysic of morals must be cleansed in this way, no matter who the metaphysicians of morals are going to be·—whether they will include all the moralists (there are plenty of them!) or only a few who feel a calling to this task. Since my purpose here is directed to moral philosophy, I narrow the question I am asking down to this: •Isn’t it utterly necessary to construct a pure moral philosophy that is completely freed from everything that may be only empirical and thus belong to anthropology? That there must be such a philosophy is self-evident from the common idea of duty and moral laws. Everyone must admit •that if a law is to hold morally (i.e. as a basis for someone’s being obliged to do something), it must imply 2 Groundwork Immanuel Kant Preface human will as such, which for the most part are drawn from ·empirical· psychology, whereas the metaphysic of morals aims ·at a non-empirical investigation, namely· investigating the idea and principles of a possible pure will. Without having the least right to do so, Wolff’s ‘universal practical philosophy’ does have things to say about laws and duty; but this doesn’t conflict with what I have been saying. For the authors of this intellectual project remain true to their idea of it ·in this part of its territory also: they· don’t distinguish •motives that are presented completely a priori by reason alone and are thus moral in the proper sense of the word, from •motives that involve empirical concepts—ones that the understanding turns into universal concepts by comparing experiences. In the absence of that distinction, they consider motives without regard to how their sources differ; they treat them as all being of the same kind, and merely count them; and on that basis they formulate their concept of obligation, ·so-called·. This is as far from moral obligation as it could be; but in a philosophy that doesn’t decide whether the origin of all possible practical concepts is a priori or a posteriori, what more could you expect? Intending some day to publish a •metaphysic of morals, I now present this •groundwork, ·this exercise of foundationlaying·, for it. There is, to be sure, no other basis for such a metaphysic than a critical examination of pure practical reason, just as there is no other basis for metaphysic than the critical examination of pure speculative reason that I have already published. [The unavoidable word ‘speculative’ (like norm for making correct moral judgments, morality itself will be subject to all kinds of corruption. ·Here is the reason for that·. For something to be morally good, it isn’t enough that it conforms to the ·moral· law; it must be done because it conforms to the law. An action that isn’t performed with that motive may happen to fit the moral law, but its conformity to the law will be chancy and unstable, and more often than not the action won’t be lawful at all. So we need to find the moral law in its purity and genuineness, this being what matters most in questions about conduct; and the only place to find it is in a philosophy that is pure ·in the sense I have introduced—see page 1·. So metaphysics must lead the way; without it there can’t be any moral philosophy. Philosophy ·that isn’t pure, i.e.· that mixes pure principles with empirical ones, doesn’t deserve the name of ‘philosophy’ (for what distinguishes •philosophy from •intelligent common sense is precisely that •the former treats as separate kinds of knowledge what •the latter jumbles up together). Much less can it count as ‘moral philosophy’, since by this mixing ·of pure with empirical· it deprives morality of its purity and works against morality’s own purposes. I am pointing to the need for an entirely new field of investigation to be opened up. You might think that ·there is nothing new about it because· it is already present in the famous Wolff’s ‘introduction’ to his moral philosophy (i.e. in what he called ‘universal practical philosophy’); but it isn’t. Precisely because his work aimed to be universal practical philosophy, it didn’t deal with any particular kind of will, and attended only to will in general and with such actions and conditions as that brings in; and so it had no room for the notion of •a will that is determined by a priori principles with no empirical motives, which means that it had no place for anything that could be called •a pure will. Thus Wolff’s ‘introduction’. . . .concerns the actions and conditions of the its cognate‘speculation’) is half of the dichotomy between practical and speculative. A speculative endeavour is one aimed at establishing truths about what is the case, implying nothing about what ought to be the 3 Groundwork Immanuel Kant Preface case; with no suggestion that it involves guesswork or anything like that. Two of Kant’s most famous titles—Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of In laying a foundation, however, all I am doing is seeking and establishing the supreme principle of morality—a self-contained and entirely completable task that should be kept separate from every other moral inquiry. Until now there hasn’t been nearly enough attention to this important question ·of the nature of and basis for the supreme principle of morality·. My conclusions about it could be •clarified by bringing the ·supreme· principle to bear on the whole system of morality, and •confirmed by how well it would serve all through. But I must forgo this advantage: basically it would gratify me rather than helping anyone else, because a principle’s being easy to use and its seeming to serve well don’t prove for sure that it is right. They are more likely merely to create a bias in its favour, which will get in the way of its being ruthlessly probed and evaluated in its own right and without regard to consequences. Practical Reason —are really short-hand for Critique of Pure Speculative Reason and Critique of Pure Practical Reason. respectively. That involves the speculative/practical contrast; there is no pure/practical contrast. The second of those two works, incidentally, still lay in the future when However, ·I have three reasons for not plunging straight into a critical examination of pure practical reason·. (1) It is nowhere near as important to have a critical examination of pure •practical reason as it is to have one of ·pure· •speculative reason. That is because even in the commonest mind, human reason can easily be brought to a high level of correctness and completeness in moral matters, whereas reason in its theoretical but pure use is wholly dialectical [= ‘runs into unavoidable self-contradictions’]. (2) When we are conducting a critical examination of pure practical reason, I insist that the job is not finished until •practical reason and •speculative reason are brought together and unified under a common concept of reason, because ultimately they have to be merely different applications of one and the same reason. But I couldn’t achieve this kind of completeness ·here· without confusing the reader by bringing in considerations of an altogether different kind ·from the matter in hand·. That is why I have used the title Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals rather than Critique of Pure Practical Reason. (3) A metaphysic of morals, in spite of its forbidding title, can be done in a popular way so that people of ordinary intelligence can easily take it in; so I find it useful to separate this preliminary work on the foundation, dealing with certain subtleties here so that I can keep them out of the more comprehensible work that will come later. [Here and throughout, ‘popular’ means ‘pertaining to Kant wrote the present work.] [Kant has, and uses in the present work, a well-known distinction between •‘analytic’ propositions (known to be true just by analysing their constituent concepts) and •‘synthetic’ propositions (can’t be known without bringing in something that the concepts don’t contain). In this next sentence he uses those terms in a different way—one that goes back to Descartes—in which they mark off not two •kinds of proposition but two •ways of proceeding. In the analytic procedure, you start with what’s familiar and on that basis work out what the relevant general principles are; synthetic procedure goes the other way—you start with general principles and derive familiar facts from them.] In the present work I have adopted the method that is, I think, the most suitable if one wants to proceed •analytically from common knowledge to settling what its supreme principle is, and then •synthetically from examining this principle and its sources back to common knowledge to which it applies. So the work is divided up thus: or suitable for ordinary not very educated people’. The notion of being widely liked is not prominent in its meaning.] 4 Groundwork Immanuel Kant Chapter 1 Moving from common-sense knowledge to philosophical knowledge about morality. Chapter 2 Moving from popular moral philosophy to the Chapter 1 metaphysic of morals. Chapter 3 Final step from the metaphysic of morals to the critical examination of pure practical reason. Chapter 1: Moving from common-sense knowledge to philosophical knowledge about morality •Moderation in emotions and passions, self-control, and Nothing in the world—or out of it!—can possibly be conceived that could be called ‘good’ without qualification except a GOOD WILL. Mental talents such as intelligence, wit, and judgment, and temperaments such as courage, resoluteness, and perseverance are doubtless in many ways good and desirable; but they can become extremely bad and harmful if the person’s character isn’t good—i.e. if the will that is to make use of these •gifts of nature isn’t good. Similarly with •gifts of fortune. Power, riches, honour, even health, and the over-all well-being and contentment with one’s condition that we call ‘happiness’, create pride, often leading to arrogance, if there isn’t a good will to correct their influence on the mind. . . . Not to mention the fact that the sight of someone who shows no sign of a pure and good will and yet enjoys uninterrupted prosperity will never give pleasure to an impartial rational observer. So it seems that without a good will one can’t even be worthy of being happy. calm deliberation not only are good in many ways but seem even to constitute part of the person’s inner worth, and they were indeed unconditionally valued by the ancients. Yet they are very far from being good without qualification—·good in themselves, good in any circumstances·—for without the principles of a good will they can become extremely bad: ·for example·, a villain’s •coolness makes him far more dangerous and more straightforwardly abominable to us than he would otherwise have seemed. What makes a good will good? It isn’t what it brings about, its usefulness in achieving some intended end. Rather, good will is good because of how it wills—i.e. it is good in itself. Taken just in itself it is to be valued incomparably more highly than anything that could be brought about by it in the satisfaction of some preference—or, if you like, the sum total of all preferences! Consider this case: Even qualities that are conducive to this good will and can make its work easier have no intrinsic unconditional worth. We rightly hold them in high esteem, but only because we assume them to be accompanied by a good will; so we can’t take them to be absolutely ·or unconditionally· good. Through bad luck or a miserly endowment from stepmotherly nature, this person’s will has no power at all to accomplish its purpose; not even the greatest effort on his part would enable it to achieve anything it aims at. But he does still have a good will—not as a 5 Groundwork Immanuel Kant mere wish but as the summoning of all the means in his power. The good will of this person would sparkle like a jewel all by itself, as something that had its full worth in itself. Its value wouldn’t go up or down depending on how useful or fruitless it was. If it was useful, that would only be the setting ·of the jewel·, so to speak, enabling us to handle it more conveniently in commerce (·a diamond ring is easier to manage than a diamond·) or to get those who don’t know much ·about jewels· to look at it. But the setting doesn’t affect the value ·of the jewel· and doesn’t recommend it the experts. But there is something extremely strange in this •idea of the absolute worth of the will—the mere will—with no account taken of any use to which it is put. It is indeed so strange that, despite the agreement even of common sense (·an agreement I have exhibited in the preceding three paragraphs·), you’re bound to suspect that there may be nothing to it but high-flown fancy, and that I have misunderstood what nature was up to in appointing reason as the ruler of our will. So let us critically examine the •idea from the point of view of this suspicion. We take it as an axiom that in the natural constitution of an organized being (i.e. one suitably adapted to life) no organ will be found that isn’t perfectly adapted to its purpose, whatever that is. Now suppose that nature’s real purpose for you, a being with reason and will, were that you should survive, thrive, and be happy—in that case nature would have hit upon a very poor arrangement in appointing your reason to carry out this purpose! For all the actions that you need to perform in order to carry out this intention of nature - and indeed the entire regulation of your conduct—would be marked out for you much more exactly and reliably by instinct than it ever could be by reason. And if nature had Chapter 1 favoured you by giving you reason as well as instinct, the role of reason would have been to let you •contemplate the happy constitution of your nature, to admire it, to rejoice in it, and to be grateful for it to its beneficent cause; not to let you •subject your faculty of desire to that weak and delusive guidance and to interfere with nature’s purpose. In short, nature would have taken care that reason didn’t intrude into practical morality and have the presumption, with its weak insight, to think out for itself the plan of happiness and how to get it. Nature would have taken over the choice not only of ends but also of the means to them, and with wise foresight she would have entrusted both to instinct alone. [Kant presents this paragraph in terms not of ‘you’ but of ‘a being’.] What we find in fact is that the more a cultivated reason devotes itself to the enjoyment of life and happiness, the more the person falls short of true contentment; which is why many people—especially those who have made the greatest use of reason—have a certain hostility towards reason, though they may not be candid enough to admit it. They have drawn many advantages from reason; never mind about its role in the inventions that lead to •ordinary luxuries; my interest is in the advantages of intellectual pursuits, which eventually seem to these people to be also a •luxury of the understanding. But after looking over all this they find that they have actually brought more trouble on themselves than they have gained in happiness; and eventually they come not to despise but to envy the common run of people who stay closer to merely natural instinct and don’t give reason much influence on their doings. ·So much for the drawbacks of well-being and happiness as one’s dominant aim in life·. As for those who play down or outright deny the boastful eulogies that are given of the happiness and contentment that reason can supposedly bring us: the judgment they are making doesn’t involve gloom, or 6 Groundwork Immanuel Kant ingratitude for how well the world is governed. Rather, it’s based on the idea of another and far nobler purpose for their existence. It is for achieving this purpose, not happiness, that reason is properly intended; and this purpose is the supreme condition, so that the private purposes of men must for the most part take second place to it. ·Its being the supreme or highest condition means that it isn’t itself conditional on anything else; it is to be aimed at no matter what else is the case; which is why our private plans must stand out of its way·. So reason isn’t competent to act as a guide that will lead the will reliably to its objectives and will satisfy all our needs (indeed it adds to our needs!); an implanted instinct would do this job much more reliably. Nevertheless, reason is given to us as a practical faculty, that is, one that is meant to have an influence on the will. Its proper function must be to produce a will that is good in itself and not good as a means. Why? Because •nature has everywhere distributed capacities suitable to the functions they are to perform, •the means ·to good· are, as I have pointed out, better provided for by instinct, and •reason and it alone can produce a will that is good in itself. This ·good· will needn’t be the sole and complete good, but it must be the condition of all others, even of the desire for happiness. So we have to consider two purposes: (1) the unconditional purpose of producing a good will, and (2) the conditional purpose of being happy. Of these, (1) requires the cultivation of reason, which - at least in this life—in many ways limits and can indeed almost eliminate (2) the goal of happiness. This state of affairs is entirely compatible with the wisdom of nature; it doesn’t have nature pursuing its goal clumsily; because reason, recognizing that its highest Chapter 1 practical calling is to establish a good will, can by achieving that goal get a contentment of its own kind (the kind that comes from attaining a goal set by reason), even though this gets in the way of things that the person merely prefers. So we have to develop •the concept of a will that is to be esteemed as good in itself without regard to anything else, •the concept that always takes first place in judging the total worth of our actions, with everything else depending on it, •a concept that is already lodged in any natural and sound understanding, and doesn’t need to be taught so much as to be brought to light. In order to develop and unfold it, I’ll dig into the concept of duty, which contains it. The concept of a good will is present in the concept of duty, ·not shining out in all its objective and unconditional glory, but rather· in a manner that brings it under certain subjective •restrictions and •hindrances; but •these are far from concealing it or disguising it, for they rather bring it out by contrast and make it shine forth all the more brightly. ·I shall now look at that contrast·. ·My topic is the difference between doing something from duty and doing it for other reasons. In tackling this, I shall set aside without discussion two kinds of case—one for which my question doesn’t arise, and a second for which the question arises but is too easy to answer for the case to be interesting or instructive. Following those two, I shall introduce two further kinds of case·. (1) I shan’t discuss actions which—even if they are useful in some way or other—are clearly opposed to duty, because with them the question of doing them from duty doesn’t even arise. (2) I shall also ignore cases where someone does A, which really is in accord with duty, but where what he directly wants isn’t to perform A but to perform B which somehow leads to or involves A. ·For example: he (B) unbolts the door so as to escape from the fire, and in so doing he (A) enables 7 Groundwork Immanuel Kant others to escape also. There is no need to spend time on such cases·, because in them it is easy to tell whether an action that is in accord with duty is done •from duty or rather •for some selfish purpose. (3) It is far harder to detect that difference when the action the person performs—one that is in accord with duty—is what he directly wanted to do, ·rather than being something he did only because it was involved in something else that he directly wanted to do·. Take the example of a shop-keeper who charges the same prices for selling his goods to inexperienced customers as for selling them to anyone else. This is in accord with duty. But there is also a prudential and not-duty-based motive that the shop-keeper might have for this course of conduct: when there is a buyers’ market, he may sell as cheaply to children as to others so as not to lose customers. Thus the customer is honestly served, but we can’t infer from this that the shop-keeper has behaved in this way from duty and principles of honesty. His own advantage requires this behaviour, and we can’t assume that in addition he directly wants something for his customers and out of love for them he charges them all the same price. His conduct of his policy on pricing comes neither from duty nor from directly wanting it, but from a selfish purpose. [Kant’s German really does say Chapter 1 involves the ‘indirectness’ of (2) or that of (3).] (4) It is a duty to preserve one’s life, and moreover ev- eryone directly wants to do so. But because of ·the power of· that want, the often anxious care that most men have for their survival has no intrinsic worth, and the maxim Preserve yourself has no moral content. Men preserve their lives according to duty, but not from duty. But now consider this case: Adversities and hopeless sorrow have completely taken away this unfortunate man’s relish for life. But his fate has not made him ·passively· •despondent or dejected. He is strong in soul, and is •exasperated at how things have gone for him, ·and would like actively to do something about it. Specifically·, he wishes for death. But he preserves his life without loving it, not led by any want or fear, but acting from duty. For this person the maxim Preserve yourself has moral content. We have a duty to be charitably helpful where we can, and many people are so sympathetically constituted that without any motive of vanity or selfishness they •find an inner satisfaction in spreading joy and •take delight in the contentment of others if they have made it possible. But I maintain that such behaviour, done in that spirit, has no true moral worth, however amiable it may be and however much it accords with duty. It should be classed with ·actions done from· other wants, such as the desire for honour. With luck, someone’s desire for honour may lead to conduct that in fact accords with duty and does good to many people; in that case it deserves •praise and •encouragement; but it doesn’t deserve •high esteem, because the maxim ·on which the person is acting· doesn’t have the moral content of an action done not because the person likes acting in that way but from duty. [In this context, ‘want’ and ‘liking’ and ‘desire’ are used first that the shop-keeper isn’t led by a direct want and then that he is. His point seems to be this: The shop-keeper does want to treat all his customers equitably; his intention is aimed at precisely that fact about his conduct (unlike the case in (2) where the agent enables other people to escape but isn’t aiming at that at all). But the shop-keeper’s intention doesn’t stop there, so to speak; he wants to treat his customers equitably not because of what he wants for them, but because of how he wants them to behave later in his interests. This involves a kind of indirectness, which doesn’t assimilate this case to (2) but does distinguish it from a fourth kind of conduct that still isn’t morally worthy but not because it 8 Groundwork Immanuel Kant Chapter 1 to translate Neigung, elsewhere in this version translated as ‘preference’; [a painful ailment made worse by alcohol and rich food] can choose other translations mostly use ‘inclination’.] to enjoy what he likes and put up with the consequences, because according to his calculations (this time, anyway) he hasn’t sacrificed present pleasure to a possibly groundless expectation of the ‘happiness’ that health is supposed to bring. But even for this man, whose will is not settled by the general desire for happiness and for whom health plays no part in his calculations, there still remains—as there does for everyone—the law that he ought to promote his happiness, not from wanting or liking but from duty. Only by following this could his conduct have true moral worth. No doubt this is how we should understand the scriptural passages that command us to love our neighbour and even our enemy. We can’t be commanded to feel love for someone, or to simply prefer that he thrive. There are two sorts of love: •practical love that lies in the will and in principles of action, and •pathological love that lies in the direction the person’s feelings and tender sympathies take. [Kant uses Now consider a special case: This person has been a friend to mankind, but his mind has become clouded by a sorrow of his own that has extinguished all feeling for how others are faring. He still has the power to benefit others in distress, but their need leaves him untouched because he is too preoccupied with his own. But now he tears himself out of his dead insensibility and acts charitably purely from duty, without feeling any want or liking so to behave. Now, for the first time, his conduct has genuine moral worth. Having been deprived by nature of a warm-hearted temperament, this man could find in himself a source from which to give himself a far higher worth than he could have got through such a temperament. It is just here that the worth of character is brought out, which is morally the incomparably highest of all: he is beneficent not from preference but from duty. To secure one’s own happiness is a duty (at least indirectly), because discontent with one’s condition—bundled along by many cares and unmet needs—could easily become a great temptation to transgress against duties. But quite apart from duty, all men have the strongest and deepest desire [Neigung] for happiness, because in the idea of happiness all our desires are brought together in a single sum-total. But the injunction ‘Be happy!’ often takes a form in which it thwarts some desires, so that a person can’t get a clear and secure concept of •the sum-total of satisfactions that goes under the name ‘happiness’. So it isn’t surprising that the prospect of •a single satisfaction, definite as to what it is and when it can be had, can outweigh a fluctuating idea ·such as that of happiness·. For example, a man with the gout ‘pathological’ simply to mean that this is a state that the person is in; from Greek pathos = ‘that which happens to a person’; no suggestion of abnormality. His point is that being a loving person is no more morally The latter of these cannot be commanded, but the former can be—and that is a command to do good to others from duty, even when you don’t want to do it or like doing it, and indeed even when you naturally and unconquerably hate doing it. ·So much for the first proposition of morality: •For an action to have genuine moral worth it must be done from duty.· The second proposition is: •An action that is done from duty doesn’t get its moral value from the purpose that’s to be achieved through it but from the maxim that it involves, ·giving the reason why the person acts thus·. significant than being a stupid person or a right-handed person.] 9 Groundwork Immanuel Kant So the action’s moral value doesn’t depend on whether what is aimed at in it is actually achieved, but solely on the principle of the will from which the action is done, irrespective of anything the faculty of desire may be aiming at. From what I have said it is clear that the purposes we may have in acting, and their effects as drivers of the will towards desired ends, can’t give our actions any unconditional value, any moral value. Well, then, if the action’s moral value isn’t to be found in •the will in its relation to its hoped-for effect, where can it be found? The only possible source for it is •the principle on which the will acts—and never mind the ends that may be achieved by the action. For the will stands at the crossroads, so to speak, at the intersection between •its a priori principle, which is formal, and •its a posteriori driver—·the contingent desire that acts on it·—which is material. In that position it must be determined by something; and if it is done from duty it must be determined by the formal principle of the will, since every material principle—·every contingent driver of the will·—has been withdrawn from it. The third proposition—a consequence of the first two—I would express as follows: •To have a duty is to be required to act in a certain way out of respect for law. (1) As for what will result from my action, I can certainly prefer or be drawn to it, but I can’t have respect for it; to earn my respect it would have to be something the will does, not merely something that its doings lead to. (2) Similarly, I can’t •respect any want or preference: if the preference is mine, the most I can do is to •endorse it; if it is someone else’s I can even •love it—i.e. see it as favourable to my interests. What can get respect and can thus serve as a command is •something that isn’t (1) a consequence of my Chapter 1 volition but only a source for it, and isn’t (2) in the service of my preferences but rather overpowers them or at least prevents them from being considered in the choice I make; •this something is, in a word, law itself. Suppose now that someone acts from duty: the influence of his preferences can’t have anything to do with this, and so facts about what he might achieve by his action don’t come into it either; so what is there left that can lead him to act as he does? If the question means ‘What is there objectively, i.e. distinct from himself, that determines his will in this case?’ the only possible answer is law. And if the question concerns what there is in the person that influences his will—i.e. what subjectively influences it—the answer has to be his respect for this practical law, and thus his acceptance of the maxim I am to follow this law even if it thwarts all my desires. (A maxim is a subjective principle of volition. The objective principle is the practical law itself; it would also be the subjective principle for all rational beings if reason fully controlled the formation of preferences.) So an action’s moral value doesn’t lie in •the effect that is expected from it, or in •any principle of action that motivates it because of this expected effect. All the expected effects—something agreeable for me, or even happiness for others—could be brought about through other causes and don’t need •the will of a rational being, whereas the highest good—what is unconditionally good—can be found only in •such a will. So this wonderful good, which we call moral goodness, can’t consist in anything but the thought of law in itself that only a rational being can have—with the will being moved to act by this thought and not by the hoped-for effect of the action. When the person acts according to this conception, this moral goodness is already present •in him; we don’t have to look for it •in the upshot of 10 Groundwork Immanuel Kant his action.1 [In passages like this, ‘thought’ translates Vorstellung does it conform to •duty to make a false promise? No doubt it often is •prudent, ·but not as often as you might think·. Obviously the false promise isn’t made prudent by its merely extricating me from my present difficulties; I have to think about whether it will in the long run cause more trouble than it saves in the present. Even with all my supposed cunning, the consequences can’t be so easily foreseen. People’s loss of trust in me might be far more disadvantageous than the trouble I am now trying to avoid, and it is hard to tell whether it mightn’t be more prudent to act according to a universal maxim not ever to make a promise that I don’t intend to keep. But I quickly come to see that such a maxim is based only on fear of consequences. Being truthful from •duty is an entirely different thing from being truthful out of •fear of bad consequences; for in •the former case a law is included in the concept of the action itself (·so that the right answer to ‘What are you doing?’ will include a mention of that law·); whereas in •the latter I must first look outward to see what results my action may have. [In the preceding sentence, Kant speaks of a ‘law for me’ and of results ‘for me’.] To deviate from the principle of duty is certainly bad; whereas to be unfaithful to my maxim = ‘mental representation’.] So we have a law the thought of which can settle the will without reference to any expected result, and must do so if the will is to be called absolutely good without qualification; what kind of law can this be? Since I have robbed the will of any impulses that could come to it from obeying any law, nothing remains to serve as a ·guiding· principle of the will except conduct’s universally conforming to law as such. That is, I ought never to act in such a way that I couldn’t also will that the maxim on which I act should be a universal law. In this context the ·guiding· principle of the will is conformity to law as such, not bringing in any particular law governing some class of actions; and it must serve as the will’s principle if duty is not to be a vain delusion and chimerical concept. Common sense in its practical judgments is in perfect agreement with this, and constantly has this principle in view. Consider the question: May I when in difficulties make a promise that I intend not to keep? The question obviously has two meanings: is it •prudent to make a false promise? 1 Chapter 1 It might be objected that I tried to take refuge in an obscure feeling behind the word ‘respect’, instead of clearing things up through a concept of reason. Although respect is indeed a feeling, it doesn’t come from outer influence; rather, it is a •feeling that a rational concept creates unaided; so it is different in kind from all the •feelings caused from outside, the ones that can come from desire or fear. When I directly recognize something as a law for myself I recognize it with respect, which merely means that I am conscious of submitting my will to a law without interference from any other influences on my mind. The will’s being directly settled by law, and the consciousness of this happening, is called ‘respect’; so respect should be seen as an effect of the law’s operation on the person’s will, not as a cause of it. Really, respect is the thought of a value that breaks down my self-love. Thus it is not something to be either desired or feared, though it has something analogous to both ·desire and fear·. The only thing that can be respected is law, and it has to be the law that we •impose on ourselves yet •recognize as necessary in itself. •As a law it makes us subject to it, without consulting our self-love; which gives it some analogy to fear. •As imposed on us by ourselves, it is a consequence of our will; which gives it some analogy to preference. ·This is really the only basic sense of the term ‘respect’·. Any •respect for a person is only •respect for the law (of righteousness, etc.) of which the person provides an example. Our respect for a person’s talents, for instance, is our recognition that we ought to practice until we are as talented as he is; we see him as a kind of example of a •law, because we regard it as our •duty to improve our talents. ·So respect for persons is a disguised form of respect for law·. All moral concern (as it is called) consists solely in respect for the law. 11 Groundwork Immanuel Kant of prudence may be very advantageous to me, though it is certainly safer to abide by it. How can I know whether a deceitful promise is consistent with duty? The shortest way to go about finding out is also the surest. It is to ask myself: •Would I be content for my maxim (of getting out of a difficulty through a false promise) to hold as a universal law, for myself as well as for others? ·That is tantamount to asking·: •Could I say to myself that anyone may make a false promise when he is in a difficulty that he can’t get out of in any other way? Immediately I realize that I could will •the lie but not •a universal law to lie; for such a law would result in there being no promises at all, because it would be futile to offer stories about my future conduct to people who wouldn’t believe me; or if they carelessly did believe me and were taken in ·by my promise·, would pay me back in my own coin. Thus my maxim would necessarily destroy itself as soon as it was made a universal law. So I don’t need to be a very penetrating thinker to bring it about that my will is morally good. Inexperienced in how the world goes, unable to prepare for all its contingencies, I need only to ask myself: Can you will that your maxim become a universal law? If not, it must be rejected, not because of any harm it might bring to anyone, but because there couldn’t be a system of •universal legislation that included it as one of its principles, and •that is the kind of legislation that reason forces me to respect. I don’t yet see what it is based on (a question that a philosopher may investigate), but I at least understand these two: •It is something whose value far outweighs all the value of everything aimed at by desire, •My duty consists in my having to act from pure respect for the practical law. Chapter 1 Every other motive must yield to duty, because it is the condition of a •will that is good in itself, and the value of •that surpasses everything. And so in the common-sense understanding of morality we have worked our way through to its principle. Admittedly, common sense doesn’t have the abstract thought of this principle as something universal, but it always has the principle in view and uses it as the standard for its judgments. It would be easy to show how common sense, with this compass in its hand, knows very well how to distinguish •good from •bad, •consistent with duty from •inconsistent with duty. To do this it doesn’t have to be taught anything new; it merely needs (Socrates-fashion) to have its attention drawn to the principle that it already has; and thus ·we can see· that neither science nor philosophy is needed in order to know what one must do to be honest and good, and even to be wise and virtuous. That’s something we might well have assumed in advance: that the knowledge of what every person is obliged to do (and thus also what everyone is obliged to know) is everyone’s business, even the most common person’s. We can’t help admiring the way common sense’s ability to make •practical judgment outstrips its ability to make •theoretical ones. In •theoretical judgments, if common sense ventures to go beyond the laws of experience and perceptions of the senses, it falls into sheer inconceivabilities and self-contradictions, or at least into a chaos of uncertainty, obscurity, and instability. On the other hand, it is just when common sense excludes ·everything empirical—that is·, all action-drivers that bring in the senses—that its ability to make •practical judgments first shows itself to advantage. It may then start splitting hairs, quibbling with its own conscience or with other claims concerning what should be called right, or wanting to satisfy itself about the exact worth of certain actions; and the great 12 Groundwork Immanuel Kant thing about these activities of common sense is that in them it has as good a chance of getting it right as any philosopher has—perhaps even a better chance, because the philosopher doesn’t have any principle that common sense lacks and his judgment is easily confused by a mass of irrelevant considerations so that it easily goes astray. ·Here are two ways in which we could inter-relate common-sense morality and philosophy·: (1) We could go along with common-sense moral judgments, and bring in philosophy—if at all—only so as to make the system of morals more complete and comprehensible and its rules more convenient for use, especially in disputation. (2) We could steer common sense away from its fortunate simplicity in practical matters, and lead it through philosophy into a new path of inquiry and instruction. From what I have said, isn’t it clear that (1) is the wiser option to take? Innocence is indeed a glorious thing, but it is very sad that it doesn’t take care of itself, and is easily led astray. For this reason, even wisdom—which consists in •doing and allowing more than in •knowing—needs science [Wissenschaft], not as something to learn from but as something that will ensure that wisdom’s precepts get into the mind and stay there. [‘Knowing’ translates Wissen, which is half plausible, and which refuse to give way to any command. This gives rise to a natural dialectic—·an intellectual conflict or contradiction·—in the form of a propensity to argue against the stern laws of duty and their validity, or at least to cast doubt on their purity and strictness, and, where possible, to make them more accordant with our wishes and desires. This undermines the very foundations of duty’s laws and destroys their dignity—which is something that even ordinary practical reason can’t, when it gets right down to it, call good. In this way common sense is driven to go outside its own territory and to take a step into the field of practical philosophy. It doesn’t do this because of any speculative (= ‘theory-building’) need, which is something that never occurs to it so long as it is satisfied to remain merely healthy reason. [Kant’s phrase translated here as ‘common sense’ is gemeine Menschvernunft, which contains Vernunft = ‘reason’. Putting its bits together it could be taken to mean ‘general human reason’, but ‘common sense’ is about right.] Rather, it is driven to philosophy in order to become •informed and clearly •directed regarding the source of its principle and how exactly it differs from the maxims based on needs and preferences. It does this so as to escape from the embarrassment of opposing claims, and to avoid risking the loss of all genuine moral principles through the ambiguity in which common sense is easily involved—·the ambiguity between the moral and prudential readings of questions about what one ought to do·. Thus when common-sense moral thought develops itself, a dialectic surreptitiously occurs that forces it to look to philosophy for help, and the very same thing happens in common-sense theoretical thinking. It is true of each kind of ordinary or common-sense thought: each can come to rest only in a complete critical examination of our reason. the word translated as ‘science’, an overlap that Kant surely intended. The ‘science’ in question here is presumably metaphysics.] Chapter 1 ·Without that help, they are not likely to ‘stay there’, and here is why·. Against all commands of duty that a man’s reason presents to him as deserving of so much respect, he feels in himself a powerful •counter-weight—namely, his needs and preferences, the complete satisfaction of which he lumps together as ‘happiness’. Reason issues inexorable commands without promising the preferences anything ·by way of recompense·. It ignores and has no respect for the claims ·that desire makes·—claims that are so impetuous and yet so 13 Groundwork Immanuel Kant Chapter 2 Chapter 2: Moving from popular moral philosophy to the metaphysic of morals Although I have derived our existing concept of duty from the ordinary ·commonsensical· use of our practical reason, that doesn’t at all imply that I have treated it as an empirical concept. On the contrary, if we attend to our experience of men’s doings, we meet frequent and—I admit—justified complaints that we can’t cite a single sure example of someone’s being disposed to act from pure duty—not one!— so that although much is done that accords with what duty commands, it always remains doubtful whether it is done from duty and thus whether it has moral worth. That is why there have always been philosophers who absolutely denied the reality of this ·dutiful· disposition in human actions, attributing everything ·that people do· to more or less refined self-interest. This hasn’t led them to question the credentials of the concept of morality. Rather, they ·have left that standing, and· have spoken with sincere regret of the frailty and corruption of human nature, which •is high-minded enough to accept the idea ·of duty·—an idea so worthy of respect—as a source of commands, •is too weak to follow this idea ·by obeying the commands·, and •employs reason, which ought to be its source of laws, only to cater to the interests that its preferences create—either singly or, at best, in their greatest possible harmony with one another. It is indeed absolutely impossible by means of experience to identify with complete certainty a single case in which the maxim of an action—however much it might conform to duty—rested solely on moral grounds and on the person’s thought of his duty. It sometimes happens that we make a considerable sacrifice in performing some good action, and can’t find within ourselves, search as we may, anything that could have the power to motivate this except the moral ground of duty. But this shouldn’t make us confident that the true determining cause of the will was actually our •sense of duty rather than a secret impulse of •self-love masquerading as the idea of duty. For we like to give ourselves credit for having a more high-minded motive than we actually have; and even the strictest examination can never lead us entirely behind the secret action-drivers—·or, rather, behind the •pretended action-driver to where the •real one secretly lurks·—because when moral worth is in question it is not a matter of visible actions but of their invisible inner sources. ·The claim that the concept of duty is an empirical one is not only false but dangerous·. Consider the people who ridicule all morality as a mere phantom of human imagination overreaching itself through self-conceit: one couldn’t give them anything they would like better than the concession that the concepts of duty have to come wholly from experience (for their laziness makes them apt to believe that the same is true of all other concepts too). This concession would give them a sure triumph. I am willing to admit—out of sheer generosity!—that most of our actions are in accord with duty; but if we look more closely at our thoughts and aspirations we keep encountering •the beloved self as what our plans rely on, rather than •the stern command of duty with its frequent calls for self -denial. One needn’t be an enemy of virtue, merely a cool observer who can distinguish •even the most intense wish for the good from •actual good, to wonder sometimes whether true virtue is to be met with anywhere in the world; especially as one gets older and one’s 14 Groundwork Immanuel Kant power of judgment is made wiser by experience and more acute in observation. [Kant was 60 years old when he wrote this work.] What, then, can stop us from completely abandoning our ideas of duty, and preserve in us a well-founded respect for its law? Only the conviction that •Even if there never were any actions springing from such pure sources, that’s not the topic. Our concern is not •with whether this or that was done, but •with reason’s commanding—on its own initiative and independently of all appearances—what ought to be done. So our concern is •with ·a kind of· actions of which perhaps the world has never had an example; if you go purely by experience you might well wonder whether there could be such actions; and yet they are sternly commanded by reason. Take the example of pure sincerity in friendship: this can be demanded of every man as a duty; the demand comes independently of all experience from the idea of reason that acts on the will on a priori grounds; so it isn’t weakened in the slightest by the fact—if it is a fact—that there has never actually been a sincere friend. When this is added: •If we don’t want to deny all truth to the concept of morality and to give up applying it to any possible object, we have to admit that morality’s law applies so widely that it holds •not merely for men but for all rational beings as such, •not merely under certain contingent conditions and with exceptions but with absolute necessity ·and therefore unconditionally and without exceptions·, —when this becomes clear to us, we see that no experience can point us towards even the possibility of such apodictic laws. [This word, like the German apodiktisch, comes from Greek mean- Chapter 2 like ‘utterly unbreakable, unconditional, permitting no excuses or excep- For what could entitle us to accord unlimited respect to something that perhaps is valid only under contingent human conditions? And how could laws for •our will be held to be laws for •the will of any rational being (and valid for us only because we are such beings), if they were merely empirical and didn’t arise a priori from pure though practical reason? One couldn’t do worse by morality than drawing it from examples. We can’t get our concept of morality initially from examples, for we can’t judge whether something is fit to be an example or model of morality unless it has already been judged according principles of morality. ·This applies even to •the model that is most frequently appealed to·. Even •Jesus Christ must be compared with our ideal of moral perfection before he is recognized as being perfect; indeed, he says of himself ‘Why callest thou me (whom you see) good? There is none good (the archetype ·or model· of good) but one, i.e. God (whom you don’t see)’ [Matthew 19:17; the bits added in parentheses are Kant’s]. But ·don’t think that with God the father we have at last found the example or model from which we can derive our concept of morality·. Where do we get the concept of God as the highest good from? Solely from the idea of moral perfection that reason lays out for us a priori and which it ties, unbreakably, to the concept of a free will. ·Some have said that the moral life consists in ‘imitating Christ’, but· imitation has no place in moral matters; and the only use of examples there is •for encouragement—i.e. showing beyond question that what the law commands can be done—and •for making visible ·in particular cases· what the practical rule expresses more generally. But they can never entitle us to steer purely by examples, setting aside their true model which lies in reason. tions’.] ing, roughly, ‘clearly demonstrated’. Kant uses it to mean something 15 Groundwork Immanuel Kant Well, then, there are moral concepts that are established a priori, along with the principles of morality. Would it be a good idea to set these out in abstract form? Given that •there is no genuine supreme principle of morality that doesn’t rest on pure reason alone independently of all possible experience, ·and thus given that •the a priori concepts and principles I have mentioned are the whole foundation for morality·, I don’t think there should be any question about whether they should be presented abstractly. At any rate, there should be no question about that if we want our knowledge of them to be distinguished from ordinary knowledge and to merit the label ‘philosophical’. But these days the question may arise after all. For if we conducted a poll on the question: Which would you prefer—•pure rational knowledge of morality, separated from all experience and bringing with it a metaphysic of morals, or •popular practical philosophy? it is easy to guess on which side the majority would stand! Catering to the notions of the man in the street is all very well after we have made a fully satisfactory job of ascending to the principles of pure reason—first providing a metaphysical basis for the doctrine of morals and then getting it listened to by popularizing it. But it’s utterly absurd to aim at popularity [here = ‘being accessible by the common man’] at the outset, where everything depends on the correctness of the fundamental principles. There is a real virtue—a rare one!—in genuine popularization of philosophy; but the procedure I have been describing, ·in which popularity is sought at the outset·, involves no such virtue. It is not hard 2 Chapter 2 to be generally comprehensible if one does it by dropping all basic insight and replacing it with a disgusting jumble of patched-up observations and half-reasoned principles. Shallow-minded people lap this up, for it is very useful in coffee-house chatter, while people with better sense feel confused and dissatisfied, and helplessly turn away. Philosophers who see right through this hocus-pocus call people away from sham ‘popularity’ and towards the genuine popularity that can be achieved on the basis of hard-won insights; but they don’t get much of a hearing. When we look at essays on morality written in this beloved style, what do we find? Sometimes •human nature in particular is mentioned (occasionally with the idea of a rational nature in general); now •perfection shows up, and now •happiness; •moral feeling here, •fear of God there; a •little of this and a •little of that—all in a marvellous mixture. It never occurs to the authors to ask: Can the principles of morality be found in knowledge of human nature (knowledge that we can get only from experience)? If they can’t—if the principles are a priori, free from everything empirical, and to be found in pure rational concepts with not a trace of them anywhere else—shouldn’t we tackle the investigation of them as a separate inquiry, as pure practical philosophy or (to use the dread word) as a metaphysic of morals,2 dealing with it on its own so as to bring it to completion and make the popularity-demanding public wait until we have finished? ·The answer to that last question is ‘Yes, we should’, because· a completely self-contained metaphysic of morals, with no admixture of anthropology or theology or physics or. . . .occult qualities. . . ., is not only an essential basis for all theoretically sound and definite •knowledge of duties, We can if we wish divide the philosophy of morals into ‘pure’ (metaphysics) and ‘applied’ (meaning ‘applied to human nature’), like the divisions of mathematics and logic into pure and applied. This terminology immediately reminds us that moral principles are not based on what is special in human nature but must stand on their own feet a priori, and that they must yield practical rules for every rational nature, and accordingly for man. 16 Groundwork Immanuel Kant but also a tremendously important help towards actually •carrying out its precepts. For the pure thought of duty and of the moral law generally, unmixed with empirical inducements, has a •stronger influence on the human heart purely through reason—this being what first shows reason that it can be practical—than all other action-drivers that may be derived from the empirical field; so much •stronger that reason, aware of its dignity, despises the empirical inputs and comes to dominate them. In contrast with this, a mixed theory of morals—assembled from action-drivers involving feelings and preferences and from rational concepts—is bound to make the mind vacillate between motives that •can’t be brought together under any principle and that •can lead to the good only by great good luck and will frequently lead to the bad.3 only is it necessary in developing a moral theory but also important in our practical lives that we derive the concepts and laws of morals from pure reason and present them pure and unmixed, determining the scope of this entire practical but pure rational knowledge (the entire faculty of pure practical reason). [What follows is meant to flow on from that fifth point; Kant wrote this paragraph as one sentence.] This ·determination of scope · is to be done not on the basis of principles of human reason that non-moral philosophy might allow or require, but rather (because moral laws are to hold for every rational being just because it is rational) by being derived from the universal concept of rational being. To apply morals to men one needs anthropology; but first morals must be completely developed as pure philosophy, i.e. metaphysics, independently of anthropology; this is easy to do, given how separate the two are from one another. For we know—·and here I repeat the fifth of the points with which I opened this paragraph·—that if we don’t have such a metaphysic, it is not merely •pointless to ·try to· settle accurately, as a matter of theory, what moral content there is in this or that action that is in accord with duty, but •impossible to base morals on legitimate principles even for ordinary practical use, especially in moral instruction; and that’s what is needed for pure moral dispositions to be produced and worked into men’s characters for the purpose of the highest good in the world. What I have said makes ·five things· clear: that •all moral concepts have their origin entirely a priori in reason, and this holds as much for the most ordinary common-sense moral concepts as for ·the ones used in· high-level theorizing; that •moral concepts can’t be formed by abstraction from any empirical knowledge or, therefore, from anything contingent; that •this purity ·or non-empiricalness· of origin is what gives them the dignity of serving as supreme practical principles; that •any addition of something empirical takes away just that much of their influence and of the unqualified worth of actions ·performed in accordance with them·; and that •not 3 Chapter 2 I have been asked. . . .why teachings about virtue containing so much that is convincing to reason nevertheless achieve so little. . . . The answer is just this: the teachers themselves haven’t brought their concepts right out into the clear; and when they wish to make up for this by hunting all over the place for motives for being morally good so as to make their medicine have the right strength, they spoil it. Entertain the thought of an act of honesty performed with a steadfast soul, with no view towards any advantage in this world or the next, under the greatest temptations of need or allurement. You don’t have to look very hard to see that conduct like this far surpasses and eclipses any similar action that was affected—even if only slightly—by any external action-driver. It elevates the soul and makes one want to be able to act in this way. Even youngish children feel this, and one should never represent duties to them in any other way. 17 Groundwork Immanuel Kant In this study I have already moved •from common moral judgment to philosophical moral judgment, and am now advancing by natural stages ·within the realm of philosophical moral judgment, specifically·: •from popular philosophy to metaphysics. Popular philosophy goes only as far as it can grope its way by means of examples; metaphysics is not held back by anything empirical, and, because it has to stake out the whole essence of rational knowledge of this kind, it will if necessary stretch out as far as ideas ·of reason·, of which there can’t be any examples. In making this advance we must track and clearly present the practical faculty of reason, right from •the universal rules that set it up through to •the point where the concept of duty arises from it. Everything in nature works according to laws. Only a rational being has a will—which is the ability to act according to the thought of laws, i.e. to act on principle. To derive actions from laws you need reason, so that’s what will is— practical reason. When •reason is irresistible in its influence on the will, the actions that a rational being recognizes as objectively necessary are also subjectively necessary; i.e. the will is an ability to choose only what reason recognizes, independently of preferences, as practically necessary, i.e. as good. But when •unaided reason isn’t enough to settle the will, the will comes under the influence of subjective 4 Chapter 2 conditions (certain action-drivers) that don’t always agree with the objective conditions—in short, the will is not in complete accord with reason. In this case (which is the actual case with men) the actions that are recognized as •objectively necessary are •subjectively contingent, and if such a will is determined according to objective laws that is because it is constrained. . . .i.e. is following principles of reason to which it isn’t by its nature necessarily obedient. When the thought of an objective principle constrains a will, it is called a ‘command’ (of reason), and its verbal expression is called an ‘imperative’. All imperatives are expressed with an ‘ought’, which indicates how an objective law of reason relates to a will that it constrains. An imperative says that it would be good to do or to refrain from doing something, but it addresses this to a will that doesn’t always do x just because x is represented to it as good to do. Practical good is what determines the will by means of the thoughts that reason produces—and thus not by subjective causes but objectively, on grounds that are valid for every rational being just because it is rational. This contrasts with the thought that it would be nice to act in a certain way; the latter influences the will only by means of a feeling that has purely subjective causes, which hold for the senses of this or that person but not as a principle of reason that holds for everyone.4 When the faculty of desire is affected by feelings, we speak of what the person •prefers, which always also indicates a •need. When a contingently determinable will is affected by principles of reason, we say that it has an •interest. Interests are to be found only in a dependent will, one that isn’t of itself always in accord with reason; we can’t make sense of the idea of God’s will’s having interests. But even the human will can have an interest without acting on it. The interest that one merely has is a practical interest in the •action; the interest on which one acts is a pathological interest in the •upshot of the action. [See the note on ‘pathological’ on page 9.] Whereas the former indicates only the effect on the will of principles of reason •in themselves, the latter indicates the effect on it of the principles of reason •in the service of the person’s preferences, since ·in these cases· all reason does is to provide the practical rule through which the person’s preferences are to be satisfied. In the former case, my focus is on the action; in the latter, it is on whatever is pleasant in the result of the action. We saw in chapter 1 that when an action is done from duty, attention should be paid not to any interest in its upshot but only to the action itself and the law which is its principle in reason. 18 Groundwork Immanuel Kant Chapter 2 this but ·I don’t care, because· my conduct is guided by other maxims that are opposed to the objective principles of practical reason). A hypothetical imperative merely says that the action is good for some purpose that one could have or that one actually does have. In the •former case it is a problematic practical principle, in the •latter it is an assertoric one. The categorical imperative, which declares the action to be objectively necessary without referring to any end in view. . . .holds as an apodictic practical principle. Anything that could come about through the powers of some rational being could be an end ·or goal or purpose· for some will or other. So ·there are countless possible ends, and therefore· countless hypothetical imperatives, i.e. principles of action thought of as necessary to attain a possible end in view. Every science has a practical segment in which •some purpose is set forth as a problem, and •imperatives are offered saying how that purpose can be achieved. So we can give these imperatives the general label ‘imperatives of skill’. The practical part of a science is concerned only with •what must be done to achieve a certain purpose; it doesn’t address the question of •whether the purpose is reasonable and good. The instructions to a physician for how to make his patient thoroughly healthy, and to a poisoner for how to bring certain death to his victim, are of equal value in that each serves perfectly to achieve the intended purpose. Since in early youth we don’t know what purposes we may come to have in the course of our life, parents •try above all to enable their children to learn many kinds of things, and •provide for skill in the use of means to any chosen end. For any given end, the parents can’t tell whether it will actually come to be a purpose that their child actually has, but ·they have to allow that· some day it may do so. They are Objective laws of the good would apply to a perfectly good will just as much to as to any other; but we shouldn’t think of them as constraining such a will, because it is so constituted that it can’t be determined to act by anything except the thought of the good. Thus no imperatives hold for God’s will or for any holy will. The ‘ought’ is out of place here, for the volition is of itself necessarily at one with the law. Thus, what imperatives do is just to express the relation of •objective laws of volition •in general to the •subjective imperfection of the will of this or that •particular rational being—the will of any human, for example. All imperatives command either •hypothetically or categorically. The •former expresses the practical necessity of some possible action as a means to achieving something else that one does or might want. An imperative would be categorical if it represented an action as being objectively necessary in itself without regard to any other end. Since every practical law represents some possible action as •good, and thus as •necessary for anyone whose conduct is governed by reason, what every imperative does is to specify some action that is •necessary according to the principle of a will that has something good about it. If the action would be good only as a means to something else, the imperative is hypothetical; but if the action is thought of as good in itself and hence as •necessary in a will that conforms to reason, which it has as its principle, the imperative is categorical. The imperative thus says of some action I could perform that it would be good, and puts the practical rule into a relationship with my will; ·and it is no less an imperative if· I don’t immediately perform the ·commanded· action simply because it is good (I don’t know that it is good, or I do know 19 Groundwork Immanuel Kant so focused on this that they commonly neglect to form and correct their children’s judgment about the worthwhileness of the things that they may make their ends. But there is one end that can be supposed as actual in all rational beings to which imperatives apply, i.e. all rational beings that are dependent [see footnote 4 above]; and thus one purpose that they not only can have but that we can assume they all do have as a matter of natural necessity. This purpose is happiness. The hypothetical imperative that declares some action to be practically necessary for the promotion of happiness is an assertoric imperative. We should describe it not as •necessary to a problematic purpose, one that is merely possible, but as •necessary to a purpose that we can a priori and with assurance assume for each person, because it belongs to his essence. Skill in the choice of means to one’s own greatest welfare can be called ‘prudence’ in the narrowest sense.5 Thus the imperative that refers to the choice of means to one’s own happiness (i.e. the precept of prudence) is still only hypothetical; it commands the action not outright but only as a means to another end. ·After those two kinds of hypothetical imperative· we come at last to one imperative that commands certain conduct •immediately, and not •through the condition that some purpose can be achieved through it. This imperative is 5 6 Chapter 2 categorical. It isn’t concerned with what is to result from the conduct, or even with what will happen in the conduct (its •matter), but only with the •form and the principle from which the conduct follows. What is essentially good in the conduct consists in the frame of mind—·the willingness to obey the imperative·—no matter what the upshot is. This may be called ‘the imperative of morality’. Volition according to these three principles is plainly distinguished by the dissimilarity in the pressure they put on the will. As an aid to getting this dissimilarity clear, I believe we shall do well to call them, respectively, rules of skill, advice of prudence, commands (laws) of morality. For it is only law that carries with it the concept of a necessity (·‘This action must be performed’·) that is unconditional and objective and hence universally valid; and commands are laws that must be obeyed even when one would prefer not to. Advice also involves necessity, but it’s a necessity that can hold only under a subjectively contingent condition (i.e. whether this or that man counts this or that as part of his happiness). Whereas the categorical imperative isn’t restricted by ·or made dependent on· any condition. As absolutely (though practically) necessary, it can be called a ‘command’ in the strict sense. We could also call the first imperatives ‘technical’ (relevant to arts and skills), the second ‘pragmatic’ (relevant to well-being), and the third ‘moral’ (relevant to any free conduct whatsoever, i.e. to morals).6 The word ‘prudence’ may be taken in two senses, that of (1) ‘worldly prudence’ and that of 2 ‘private prudence’. (1) refers to a man’s skill in influencing others so as to get them serve his purposes. (2) is the insight to bring all these purposes together to his own long-term advantage. Any value that (1) has ultimately comes from (2); and of someone who is ‘prudent’ in sense (1) but not in sense (2) we might better say that he is over-all not prudent but only clever and cunning. This seems to me to be the right meaning for the word ‘pragmatic’. For constraints are called ‘pragmatic’ when they don’t strictly flow from the law of states as necessary statutes but rather from provision for the general welfare. A history is composed ‘pragmatically’ when it teaches prudence—i.e. instructs the world how it could look after its advantage better (or not worse) than it has in the past. 20 Groundwork Immanuel Kant Chapter 2 •if I fully will the effect, I must also will the action The question now arises: •How are all these imperatives possible? This question doesn’t ask, for any kind of imperative, •How can the action that the imperative commands be performed? Rather, it asks, •How are we to understand the constraint that the imperative puts upon the will in setting it its task? ·We shall see that there is not much of a problem about this for the first of the three kinds of imperative, and the same is true—though with slight complications—of the second·. (1) How an imperative of skill is possible requires no particular discussion. If someone wills an end, and if reason has decisive influence on his actions, then he also wills any steps he can take that are indispensably necessary for achieving that end. What this proposition implies about the will is analytic, and here is why: When I will x as to-be-brought-about-by-me, I already have—·as a part of that act of will·—the thought of the means to x, i.e. the thought of my causality in the production of x. And the imperative extracts from the concept of willing x the concept of actions necessary for the achievement of x. (Of course, truths about what means are necessary for achieving x are synthetic propositions; but those are only about how to achieve x and not about the act of the will.) ·Here’s an example of this interplay between analytic and synthetic propositions·. Mathematics teaches that •to bisect a line according to an infallible principle, I must make two intersecting arcs from each of its extremities; and this is certainly a synthetic proposition. But if I know that that’s the only sure way to bisect the line, the proposition necessary to produce it is analytic. For •conceiving of something as an effect that I can somehow bring about is just the same as •conceiving of myself as acting in this way. (2) If only it were as easy to give a definite concept of happiness, the imperatives of prudence would perfectly correspond to those of skill and would likewise be analytic. For then we could say that, with prudence as with skill, whoever wills the end wills also (necessarily according to reason) the only means to it that are in his power. Unfortunately, however, the concept of happiness is so indefinite that, although each person wishes to attain it, he can never give a definite and self-consistent account of what it is that he wishes and wills ·under the heading of ‘wanting happiness’·. The reason for this is that all the •elements of the concept of happiness are empirical (i.e. must be drawn from experience), whereas the •·completed· idea of happiness requires ·the thought of· an absolute whole—the thought of a maximum of well-being in my present and in every future condition. Now it is impossible for a finite being—even one who is extremely clear-sighted and capable—to form a definite ·and detailed· concept of what he really wants here ·on this earth·. ·Consider some of the things people say they aim for·! •Wealth: but in willing to be wealthy a person may bring down on himself much anxiety, envy, and intrigues. •Great knowledge and insight: but that may merely sharpen his eye for the dreadfulness of evils that he can’t avoid though he doesn’t now see them; or it may show him needs ·that he doesn’t know he has, and· that add to the burden his desires already place on him. •Long life: but who can guarantee 21 Groundwork Immanuel Kant him that it wouldn’t be a long misery? •Health: but often enough ill-health has kept him from dissolute excesses that he would have gone in for if he had been perfectly healthy! In short, he can’t come up with any principle that could with complete certainty lay down what would make him truly happy; for that he would need to be omniscient. So in his pursuit of happiness he can’t be guided by detailed principles but only by bits of empirical advice (e.g. concerning diet, frugality, courtesy, restraint, etc.) which experience shows to be usually conducive to well-being. It follows from this •that imperatives of prudence can’t strictly speaking command (i.e. present actions objectively as practically necessary); •that they should be understood as advice rather than as commands of reason; •that the problem: Settle, for sure and universally, what conduct will promote the happiness of a rational being is completely unsolvable. There couldn’t be an imperative that in the strict sense commanded us to do what makes for happiness, because happiness is an ideal not of reason but of imagination, depending only on empirical grounds. ·This means that whether a person will achieve happiness depends on countlessly many particular facts about his future states·; and there is absolutely no chance of picking out the actions that will produce the right infinite totality of consequences that will constitute happiness. If the means to happiness could be stated with certainty, this imperative of prudence would be an analytic practical proposition, for it would then differ from the imperative of skill only in ·the way described in paragraph (1) above, namely·: the imperative of skill is addressed merely to a purpose that a person may have, while the purpose of the imperative of prudence—·namely happiness·—is given for every person. That leaves them the same in this respect: each commands the means to something that the person is assumed to have as a willed purpose, Chapter 2 so each commands the willing of the means to someone who wills the end; and so each is analytic. So there is no difficulty about how such an imperative is possible. [Both here, and at the start (2) of the discussion of imperatives of prudence, Kant makes it pretty clear that such imperatives are not actually analytic because of the indeterminateness about what happiness amounts to, though they would be analytic otherwise. He evidently thinks that if there is only this barrier to their being analytic, their status as nearly analytic (so to speak) makes them unproblematic.] (3) On the other hand, the question of how the imperative of morality is possible does call for an answer, for this imperative is not hypothetical, and so what it presents as objectively necessary can’t be based on any presupposed purpose as in the case of hypothetical imperatives. But don’t lose sight of the fact that it can’t be shown empirically—can’t be shown by producing an example—that there are any imperatives of morality; perhaps every imperative that seems to be categorical is tacitly hypothetical. For example, Someone says ‘You oughtn’t to promise anything deceitfully’ and we ·take this to be categorical; we· assume •that an action of this kind must be regarded as in itself bad and thus that the imperative prohibiting it is categorical. (The alternative is to think •that the necessity involved in this prohibition is mere advice about how to avoid something else that is bad, along the lines of ‘You oughtn’t to promise falsely, in case people find out about it and your credit rating is wrecked’.) But we can’t point with certainty to any example in which the will is directed by the law alone without any other action-drivers, ·i.e. in which the will obeys a categorical imperative·. In a given case this may appear to be so, but it’s always possible that a fear of disgrace and perhaps also a dim sense of other dangers may have had a secret influence 22 Groundwork Immanuel Kant on the will. ·We can’t rule this out on empirical grounds·: who can prove by experience that something doesn’t have a cause ·of a certain sort· when experience can only show us that we don’t perceive such a cause? In such a case—·i.e. when other incentives are secretly affecting the will·—the so-called ‘moral imperative’, which appears to be categorical and unconditional, is in fact only a pragmatic injunction that calls on us to attend to our own advantage. it) involves the necessity that we require of a law.) ·I have spoken of one thing we are up against when trying to show the possibility of categorical imperatives, namely that we must do this a priori, without being able to appeal to any empirical evidence that such imperatives do actually exist·. Now for a second point about getting insight into the possibility of a categorical imperative or law of morality, namely: there’s a very solid reason why it will be hard to do this, because this imperative is an a priori synthetic •practical proposition.7 ·We know already that· it is hard to see that •theoretical propositions of this sort—·i.e. ones that are synthetic and known a priori ·—are possible, so we must be prepared for at least as much difficulty when it comes to •practical ones. In approaching this task, let us first ask: Doesn’t the mere concept of a categorical imperative provide us with the form of words expressing the proposition—the only ·kind of· proposition—that can be a categorical imperative? ·Don’t think that answering Yes to this ends our task·. For even when we know •how the imperative sounds—·i.e. how it is worded·—the question of •how such an absolute command is possible will require difficult and special labours to answer; I shall get into these in the final chapter. When I have the general thought of a hypothetical imperative, I can’t tell just from this thought what such an imperative will contain. To know that, I have to know what the condition is. But when I have the thought categorical With each of the other two kinds of imperative, experience shows us that imperatives of the kind in question do exist, and the inquiry into their possibility is the search only for •an explanation of them, not for •evidence that they exist. It is not so with categorical imperatives. Our investigation of their possibility will have to proceed purely a priori—starting with no empirical presuppositions, and in particular without the advantage of the premise that such imperatives actually exist. ·That they do exist is one of the things we may hope to establish through our inquiry into their possibility·. (In the meantime—·though this is an aside·—this much at least may be seen: the categorical imperative is the only one that can be taken as a practical law, while all other imperatives may be called principles of the will [here = ‘movers of the will’] but not laws. This is because what is merely necessary-for-attainingsome-chosen-end can be regarded as itself contingent, ·as can be seen from the fact that· when we give up the end in question we get rid of the instruction stated in the imperative. In contrast with this, an unconditional command leaves the will no freedom to choose the opposite, so that it (and only 7 Chapter 2 ·When I affirm a categorical imperative·, I connect the action with the will a priori, and hence necessarily, without making this conditional on the person’s preferring to achieve this or that end. (Though I do this objectively, i.e. under the idea of a reason that has complete control over all its subjective motivators.) So this is a practical proposition that doesn’t analytically derive the willing of an action from some other volition already presupposed (for we don’t have the perfect will that would be needed for there always to be such a volition, ·namely a volition to obey the moral law·) Rather, the proposition connects the action directly with the concept of the will of a rational being as something that •isn’t contained in it ·so that the connection •isn’t analytic·. 23 Groundwork Immanuel Kant imperative, I know right away what it will contain. For all the imperative contains is the law, and the necessity that the maxim conform to the law; and the law doesn’t contain any condition limiting it (·comparable with the condition that is always part of a hypothetical imperative·). So there is nothing left for the maxim to conform to except the universality of a law as such, and what the imperative represents as necessary is just precisely that conformity of maxim to law.8 So there is only one categorical imperative, and this is it: ·Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law·. Now if all imperatives of duty can be derived from this one imperative as a principle, we’ll at least be able to show what we understand by the concept of duty, what the concept means, even if we haven’t yet settled whether so-called ‘duty’ is an empty concept or not. The universality of law according to which effects occur constitutes what is properly called nature in the most general sense,. . . .i.e. the existence of things considered as determined by universal laws. So the universal imperative of duty can be expressed as follows: Act as though the maxim of your action were to become, through your will, a universal law of nature. I want now to list some duties, adopting the usual division of them into •duties to ourselves and •duties to others, and into •perfect duties and •imperfect duties.9 8 9 Chapter 2 (1) A man who has been brought by a series of troubles to the point of despair and of weariness with life still has his reason sufficiently to ask himself: ‘Wouldn’t it be contrary to my duty to myself to take my own life?’ Now he asks: ‘Could the maxim of my action ·in killing myself· become a universal law of nature?’ Well, here is his maxim: For love of myself, I make it my principle to cut my life short when prolonging it threatens to bring more troubles than satisfactions. So the question is whether this principle of self-love could become a universal law of nature. If it did, that would be a nature that had a law according to which a single feeling •created a life-affirming push and also •led to the destruction of life itself; and we can see at a glance that such a ‘nature’ would contradict itself, and so couldn’t be a nature. So the maxim we are discussing couldn’t be a law of nature, and therefore would be utterly in conflict with the supreme principle of duty. (2) Another man sees himself being driven by need to borrow money. He realizes that no-one will lend to him unless he firmly promises to repay it at a certain time, and he is well aware that he wouldn’t be able to keep such a promise. He is disposed to make such a promise, but he has enough conscience to ask himself: ‘Isn’t it improper and opposed to duty to relieve one’s needs in that way?’ If he does decide to make the promise, the maxim of his action will run like this: A maxim is a subjective principle of acting, and must be distinguished from the objective principle, which is the practical law. The maxim contains the practical rule that reason comes up with in conformity with the state the person (the subject) is in, including his preferences, his ignorances, and so on; so it is the principle according to which the subject acts. The law, on the other hand, is the objective principle valid for every rational being, and the principle by which the subject ought to act; that is, it is an imperative. Please note that I reserve the ·serious, considered· division of duties for a future metaphysic of morals, and that the present division is merely one I chose as an aid to arranging my examples. . . 24 Groundwork Immanuel Kant Chapter 2 as a rational being, he necessarily wills that all his abilities should be developed, because they serve him and are given to him for all sorts of possible purposes. (4) A fourth man, for whom things are going well, sees that others (whom he could help) have to struggle with great hardships, and he thinks to himself: What concern of mine is it? Let each one be as happy as heaven wills, or as he can make himself; I won’t take anything from him or even envy him; but I have no desire to contribute to his welfare or help him in time of need. If such a way of thinking were a universal law of nature, the human race could certainly survive—and no doubt that state of humanity would be better than one where everyone chatters about sympathy and benevolence and exerts himself occasionally to practice them, while also taking every chance he can to cheat, and to betray or otherwise violate people’s rights. But although it is possible that that maxim should be a universal law of nature, it is impossible to will that it do so. For a will that brought that about would conflict with itself, since instances can often arise in which the person in question would need the love and sympathy of others, and he would have no hope of getting the help he desires, being robbed of it by this law of nature springing from his own will. Those are a few of the many duties that we have (or at least think we have) that can clearly be derived from the single principle that I have stated on the preceding page. We must be able to will that a maxim of our action become a universal law; this is the general formula for the moral evaluation of our action. •Some actions are so constituted that their maxim can’t even be thought as a universal law of nature without contradiction, let alone being willed to be such. It’s easy to see that an action of that kind conflicts with stricter or narrower (absolutely obligatory) duty. •With When I think I need money, I will borrow money and promise to repay it, although I know that the repayment won’t ever happen. ·Here he is—for the rest of this paragraph—reflecting on this·: ‘It may be that this principle of self-love or of personal advantage would fit nicely into my whole future welfare, ·so that there is no prudential case against it·. But the question remains: would it be right? ·To answer this·, I change the demand of self-love into a universal law, and then put the question like this: If my maxim became a universal law, then how would things stand? I can see straight off that it could never hold as a universal law of nature, and must contradict itself. For if you take a law saying that anyone who thinks he is in need can make any promises he likes without intending to keep them, and make it universal ·so that everyone in need does behave in this way·, that would make the promise and the intended purpose of it impossible—no-one would believe what was promised to him but would only laugh at any such performance as a vain pretence.’ (3) A third finds in himself a talent that could be developed so as to make him in many respects a useful person. But he finds himself in comfortable circumstances, and would rather indulge in pleasure than take the trouble to broaden and improve his fortunate natural gifts. But now he asks whether his maxim of neglecting his gifts, agreeing as it does with his liking for idle amusement, also agrees with what is called ‘duty’. He sees that a system of nature conforming with this law could indeed exist, with everyone behaving like the Islanders of the south Pacific, letting their talents rust and devoting their lives merely to idleness, indulgence, and baby-making—in short, to pleasure. But he can’t possibly will that this should become a universal law of nature or that it should be implanted in us by a natural instinct. For, 25 Groundwork Immanuel Kant other actions, the maxim-made-universal-law is not in that way internally impossible (·self-contradictory·), but it is still something that no-one could possibly will to be a universal law of nature, because such a will would contradict itself. It’s easy to see that an action of that kind conflicts w...
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Rawls and Nozick’s View of Socioeconomic Justice – Outline
Thesis Statement: Rawls views of social justice are based on equality principles while Nozick
views are based on entitlement principles.
I.

According to Immanuel Kant, autonomy is the basis of morality and justice
Rawls’ View of Social Justice

II.

A. Rawls views social justice in terms of social contract
B. According to Rawls, this principle of justice was made behind the veil of ignorance
Nozick’s View of Social Justice

III.

A. Nozick’ view of justice is that no person or group is entitled to the social and economic
assets in the society
B. The distribution should be done in legitimate ways for justice to prevail
IV.

Pros and Cons of Rawls View
A. One of the pros of this view is that all people are recognized as having equal rights to the
basic liberties
B. The disadvantage of Rawls view is that it does not recognize the differences in
responsibility between the members of the society
Pros and Cons of Nozick’s View

V.

A. Nozick’s view acknowledges the non-interference of people as they pursue their
happiness
B. Distribution of resources at one time may have been done poorly because of the
circumstances that were present at that time
VI.

Why Rawls and Nozick’s Views are Odd with One another
A. Rawls and Nozick depart on how the properties should be distributed

B. According to Nozick, distribution of properties should be based on entitlement
VII.

Just Position
A. In my view, Rawls’ view of the social justice is the most just
B. After a few years, visible differences between the two groups of people are noted

VIII.

Conclusion


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Rawls and Nozick’s View of Socioeconomic Justice
According to Immanuel Kant, autonomy is the basis of morality and justice. Autonomy is
the ability for humans to govern themselves. This principle enables them to act independently.
Particularly, Kant talks of humans having autonomy of will. The autonomy makes them rational
beings. Will is a natural necessity (Kant 7). Non-rational beings don’t have it. Because of this,
they cannot act without the influence of the rational beings. When people are denied an
opportunity to exercise their free will, justice does not prevail. That is not morality. People
should have morality for them to live in harmony. Morality cannot be achieved in any other way
apart from allowing the rational beings to exercise their will. Human beings are endowed with
reason (Kant 13). The reason gives them ability to evaluate the various laws choices and decide
which of the choices is moral. In this regard, universal laws cannot lead to morality. They just
constrain the individual’s actions. More so, they make it hard for people to realize their personal
value. As a result, happiness diminishes. Happiness prevails when people are left to act on their
will. According to Kant, Freedom should regard as a very vital property for the rational beings.
Rawls expands the Kantians view of social justice by saying that people must do rational
reflection to determine what is good (Rawls 289). Subsequently, people pursue what is rational
for them. According to him, justi...


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