Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? Episode 06: "MIND YOUR MOTIVE"

Funding for this program provided by additional funding provided by Now we turn, to the hardest philosopher that we're going to read in this course today we turn to Immanuel Kant who offers a different account of why we have a categorical duty to respect the dignity of persons and not to be use people as means merely even for good ends. Kant excelled at the university of Königsberg at the age of sixteen at the age of thirty one he got his first job as an unsalaried lecturer paid on commission based on the number of students who showed up at his lectures this is a sensible system that Harvard would do well to consider luckily for Kant he was a popular lecturer and also an industrious one and so he eked out a meager living it wasn't until he was fifty seven that he published his first major work but it was worth the wait the book was the critique of pure reason perhaps the most important work in all of modern philosophy and a few years later Kant wrote the groundwork for the metaphysics of morals which we read in this course I want to acknowledge even before we start that Kant is a difficult thinker but it's important to try to figure out what he's saying because what this book is about is well, it's about what the supreme principle of morality this number one, and it's also it gives us an account one of the most powerful accounts we have of what freedom really is so let me start today. Kant rejects utilitarianism he thinks that the individual person all human beings have a certain dignity that commands our respect the reason the individual is sacred or the bearer of rights according to Kant, doesn't stem from the idea that we own ourselves, but instead from the idea that we are all rational beings we're all rational beings which simply means that we are beings who are capable of reason.

we're also autonomous beings which is to say that we are beings capable of acting and choosing freely now, this capacity for reason and freedom isn't the only capacity we have. we also have the capacity for pain and pleasure for suffering and satisfaction Kant admits the utilitarians were half a right of course we seek to avoid pain and we like pleasure Kant doesn't deny this what he does deny is Bentham's claim that pain in pleasure are our sovereign masters he thinks that's wrong. Kant thinks that it's are national capacity that makes us distinctive, that makes us special that sets us apart from and above mere animal existence.

it makes us something more than just physical creatures with appetites. Now we often think of freedom as simply consisting in doing what we want or in the absence of obstacles to getting what we want that's one way of thinking about freedom. but this isn't Kant's idea of freedom Kant has a more stringent demanding notion of what it means to be free and though stringent and demanding, if you think it through it's actually pretty persuasive Kant’s reason is as follows when we, like animals seek after pleasure or the satisfaction of our desires of the avoidance pain when we do that we aren't really acting freely.

why not? we're really acting as the slaves of those appetites and impulses I didn't choose this particular hunger or that particular appetite, and so when I act to satisfy it I'm just acting according to natural necessity and for Kant, freedom is the opposite of necessity there was an advertising slogan for the soft drink Sprite a few years ago the slogan was obey your thirst there there's a Kantian insight buried in that Sprite advertising slogan that in a way is Kant's point when you go for Sprite, or Pepsi you're really you might think that you're choosing freely sprite versus Pepsi but you're actually obeying something, a thirst, or maybe a desire manufactured or massaged by advertising you're obeying a prompting that you yourself haven't chosen or created and here it's worth noticing Kant’s specially demanding idea of freedom what way of acting, how can my will be determined if not by the prompting sub nature or my hunger or my appetite, or my desires? Kant's answer: to act freely is to act autonomously and to act autonomously is to act according to a law that I give myself not according to the physical laws of nature or to the laws of cause and effect which include my desire, to eat or to drink or to choose this food in a restaurant over that now what is the opposite what is the opposite of autonomy for Kant he invest a special term to describe the opposite of autonomy heteronomy is the opposite of autonomy when I act heteronomously I'm acting according to an inclination or a desire that I haven't chosen for myself so freedom is autonomy is this specially stringent idea that Kant insists on.

now why is autonomy the opposite of the acting heteronomously or according to the dictates of nature Kant’s point is that nature is governed by laws laws of cause and effect for example suppose you drop a billiard ball it falls to the ground we wouldn't say the billiard ball is acting freely why not? it's acting according to the law of nature according to the laws of cause and effect the law of gravity and just as he has an unusually demanding and stringent conception of freedom, freedom as autonomy, he also has a demanding conception of morality to act freely is not to choose the best means to a given end it's to choose the end itself for its own sake and that's something that human beings can do and that billiard balls can’t insofar as we act on inclination or pursue pleasure we fact as means to the realization of ends given outside us we are instruments rather than authors of the purposes we pursue that's the heteronomous determination of the will on the other hand insofar as we act autonomously according to law we give ourselves we do something for its own sake as an end in itself when we act autonomously we cease to be instruments to purposes given outside us we become what we can come to think of ourselves as ends in ourselves. this capacity to act freely Kant tells us is what gives human life its special dignity.

respecting human dignity means regarding persons not just as means but also as ends in them and this is why it's wrong to use people for the sake of other people's well being or happiness this is the real reason Kant says that utilitarianism goes wrong this is the reason it's important to respect the dignity of persons and to uphold their rights. so even if there are cases remember John Stuart Mill said well in the long run if we uphold Justice and respect the dignity of persons we will maximize human happiness. What would Kant's answer be to that?

what would his answer be? even if that were true even if the calculus worked out that way even if you shouldn't throw the Christians to the lions because in the long run fear will spread, the overall utility will decline, the utilitarian would be upholding Justice and rights and respect for persons for the wrong reason for a purely contingent reason for an instrumental reason it would still be using people even where the calculus works out for the best in the long run, it would still using people as means rather than respecting them as ends in themselves. so that's Kant's idea of freedom as autonomy and you can begin to see how it's connected to his idea of morality but we still have to answer one more question what gives an act it's moral worth in the first place if it can't be directed at utility or satisfying wants or desires, what do you think gives an action it's moral worth?

this leads us from Kant’s demanding idea of freedom to his demanding idea of morality. What does Kant say? what makes and action morally worthy consists not in the consequences or in the results that flow from it what makes an action morally worthy has to do with the motive with the quality of the will with the intention for which the act is down what matters is the motive and the motive must be of a certain kind.

so the moral worth of an action depends on the motive for which it's done and the important thing is that the person do the right thing for the right reason a goodwill isn't good because of what it affects or accomplishes, Kant writes, it's good in itself even if by its utmost effort to goodwill accomplishes nothing it would still shine like a jewel for its own sake as something which has its full value in itself and so for any action to be morally good it's not enough that it should conform to the moral law it must also be done for the sake of the moral law. the idea is that the motive confers the moral worth on an action and the only kind of motive that can confirm moral worth on an action is the motive of duty well what's the opposite of doing something out of a sense of duty because it's right, well for Kant the opposite would be all of those motives having to do with our inclinations and inclinations refer to all of our desires, all of our contingently given wants preferences impulses and the like only actions done for the sake of the moral law for the sake of duty only these actions have moral worth now I want to see what you think about this idea but first let's consider a few examples Kant begins with an example of a shopkeeper he wants to bring out the intuition and make plausible the idea that what confers moral worth on an action is that it be done because it's right he says suppose there's a shopkeeper and an inexperienced customer comes in the shopkeeper knows that he could give the customer the wrong change could shortchange the customer and get away with it at least that customer wouldn't know but the shopkeeper nonetheless says well if I shortchange this customer word may get out my reputation would be damaged and I would lose business so I won't shortchange this customer the shop keeper does nothing wrong he gives a correct change but does this action have moral worth? Kant says no.

it doesn't have moral worth because the shopkeeper only did the right thing for the wrong reason out of self-interest that's a pretty straightforward case. then he takes another case the case of suicide. he says we have a duty to preserve ourselves now, for most people who love life, we have multiple reasons for not taking our own lives so the only way we can really tell the only way we can isolate the operative motive for someone who doesn't take his or her life is to think to imagine someone who's miserable and who despite having an absolutely miserable life nonetheless recognizes the duty to preserve one's self and so does not commit suicide.

the force of the example is to bring out the motive that matters and the motive that matters for morality is doing the right thing for the sake of duty. let me just give you a couple of other examples the better business bureau what's their slogan, the slogan of the better business bureau? honesty is the best policy it's also the most profitable.

this is the better business bureaus full page ad in the new York times honesty it's as important as any other asset because a business the deals in truth, openness and fair value cannot help but do well come join us and profit from it What would Kant say about the moral worth of the honest dealings that members of the better business bureau. What he says that here's a perfect example that if this is the reason that these companies deal honestly with their customers their action lacks moral worth this is Kant’s point or couple of years ago at the university of Maryland there was a problem with cheating and so they initiated an honor system and they created a program with local merchants that if you signed the honor pledge not to cheat you would get discounts often to twenty five percent of local shops now what would you think of someone motivated to uphold an honor code with all the discounts it's the same as Kant’s shopkeeper the point is what matters is the quality of the will the character of the motive and the relevant motive to morality can only be the motive of duty not the motive of inclination. and when I act out of duty and when I resist as my motive for acting inclinations or self-interest even sympathy and altruism, only then am I acting freely.

only then and I acting autonomously, only then is my will not determined or governed by external considerations. that's the link between Kant’s idea of freedom and of morality. now I want to pause here the see if all of this is clear or if you have some questions or puzzles they can be questions of clarification or they can be challenges if you want to challenge this idea that only the motive of duty confers moral worth on the action action what do you think I actually have two questions of clarification the first is there seems to be an aspect of this that makes it sort of self-defeating in that once you’re conscious of what morality is you can sort of alter your motive to achieve that end of morality give me an example what do you have in mind the shopkeeper example if he decides that he wants to give the person of money is to do the right thing and he decides that’s his motive to do so because he was the moral then isn't that sort of defeating trying to isn't that sort of defeating the purity of his action if morality is determined by his motive is his motive is to act morally so you're imagining a case not of the purely selfish calculating shopkeeper but of one who says well he may consider shortchanging the customer but then he says not, while my reputation might suffer if word gets out, but instead he says actually I would like to be the kind of honest person who gives the right change to customers simply because it's the right thing to do or simply because I want to be moral because I want to be moral I want to be a good person and so I'm going to conform all of my actions to what morality requires it's a subtle point, it's a good question Kant does acknowledge you're pressing Kant on an important point here, Kant does say there has to be some incentive to obey the moral law it can't be a self-interested incentive that would defeat it by definition so he speaks of a different kind of incentive from an inclination he speaks of reverence for the moral law so if that shopkeeper says I want to develop a reverence for the moral law and so I'm going to act, so I'm going to do the right thing then I think he's there, he's there as far as Kant’s concerned because he's formed his motive his will is conforming to the moral law once he sees the importance of it so it would count it would count and secondly very quickly what stops morality from becoming completely objective in this point?

what stops morality from becoming completely subjective, yea, like how can if there's, if morality is completely determined by your morals then how can you apply this or how can it be enforced? that's also a great question, what's your name? my name's Ahmady.

Ahmady? all right if acting morally means acting according to a moral law out of duty and if it's also to act freely in the sense of autonomously it must mean that I'm acting according to a law that I give myself that's what it means to act autonomously Ahmady is right about that but that does raise a really interesting question if acting autonomously means acting according to a law I give myself that's how I escape the chain of cause and effect and the laws of nature what's to guarantee that the law I give myself when I'm acting out of duty is the same as the law that Ahmady is giving himself and that each of you gives yourselves well here's the question how many moral laws from Kant’s point of view are there in this room are there a thousands or is there one he thinks there's one which in a way does go back to this question all right what is the moral law, what does it tell us so what guarantees, it sounds like it to act autonomously is to act according to one's conscience according to a law one gives oneself but what guarantees that we, if we all exercise our reason we will come up with one and the same moral law? that's what Ahmady wants to know.

here's Kant's answer, the reason that leads us to the law we give ourselves as autonomous beings is a reason it's a kind of practical reason that we share as human beings it's not idiosyncratic the reason we need to respect the dignity of persons is that we're all rational beings we all have the capacity for reason and it's the exercise of that capacity for a reason which exist undifferentiated in all of us that makes us worthy of dignity, all of us and since it's the same capacity for reason unqualified by particular autobiographies and circumstances it's the same universal capacity for reason that delivers the moral law it turns out that to act autonomously is to act according to a law we give ourselves exercising our reason but it's the reason we share with everyone as rational beings not the particular reason we have given our upbringing, our particular values our particular interests it's pure practical reason in Kant's terms which legislates apriori regardless of any particular contingent or empirical ends. Well what moral law would that kind of reason deliver? what is its content?

to answer that question you have to read the groundwork and we'll continue with that question next time. For Kant, morally speaking suicide is on a par with murder it's on a par with murder because what we violate when we take a life when we take someone's life, our's or somebody else's, we use that person we use a rational being we use humanity as a means and so we fail to respect humanity as an end today we turn back to Kant, but before we do remember this is the week by the end of which all of you will basically get Kant, figure out what he's up to you're laughing no, it will happen Kant's groundwork is about two big questions, first what is the supreme principle of morality second how is freedom possible? two big questions now, one way of making your way through this dense philosophical book is to bear in mind a set of opposition or contrasts or dualisms that are related.

today I’d like to talk about them today we're going to answer the question, what according to Kant, is the supreme principle of morality and in answering that question in working our way up to Kant’s answer to that question, it will help to bear in mind three contrasts or dualisms that Kant sets out the first you remember had to do with the motive according to which we act and according to Kant, only one kind of motive is consistent with morality the motive of duty doing the right thing for the right reason what other kinds of motives are there Kant sums them up in the category inclination every time the motive for what we do is to satisfy a desire or a preference that we may have, to pursue some interest we're acting out of inclination now let me pause to see if if in thinking about the question of the motive of duty of good will see if any of you has a question about that much of Kant's claim. or is everybody happy with this distinction what do you think? go ahead.

when you make that distinction between duty and inclination is there ever any moral action ever? I mean you could always kind of probably find some kind of some selfish motive, can't you? maybe very often people do have self-interested motives when they act Kant wouldn't dispute that but what Kant is saying is that in so far as we act morally that is in so far as our actions have moral worth what confers moral worth is precisely our capacity to rise above self-interest and prudence and inclination and to act out of duty some years ago I read about a spelling bee and there was a young man who was declared the winner of the spelling bee a kid named Andrew, thirteen years old the winning word, the word that he was able to spell was echolalia does anyone know what echolalia is?

it's not some type of flower no, it is the tendency to repeat as an echo, to repeat what you've heard anyhow, he misspelled it actually but the judges misheard him they thought it spelled it correctly and awarded him the championship of the national spelling bee and he went to the judges afterward and said actually I misspelled it I don't deserve the prize and he was regarded as a moral hero and he was written up in the new York times misspeller is the spelling bee hero there's Andrew with is proud mother and but when he was interviewed afterwards listen to this, when he was interviewed afterwards he said quote the judges said I had a lot of integrity but then he added that part of his motive was quote I didn't want to feel like a slime all right what would Kant say? I guess it would depend on whether or not that was a marginal reason or the predominant reason in whether not and why he decided to confess that he didn't actually spell the word correctly good and what's your name. Vasco.

that's very interesting is there anyone else who has a view about this? does this show that Kant’s principle is too stringent too demanding what would Kant say about this? yes I think that Kant actually says that it is the pure motivation that comes out of duty that gives the action moral worth, so it's like for example in this case he might have more than one motive, he might have a motive of not feeling like a slime and he might have to move of doing the right thing in and of itself out of duty and so while there's more than one motivation going on there does not mean that action is devoid of moral worth just because he has one other motive so because the motive which involves duty is what gives it moral worth.

goo, and what's your name? Judith well Judith I think that your account actually is true to Kant it's fine to have sentiments and feelings that support doing the right thing provided they don't provide the reason for acting so I think Judith has actually a pretty good defense of Kant on this question of the motive of duty, thank you now let's go back to the three contrasts it's clear at least what Kant means when he says that for an action to have moral worth it must be done for the sake of duty not out of inclination but as we began to see last time there's a connection between Kant’s stringent notion of morality and especially demanding understanding of freedom and that leads us to the second contrast the link between morality and freedom a second contrast describes two different ways that my will can be determined autonomously and heteronomously according to Kant I'm only free when my will is determined autonomously which means what? according to a law that I give myself we must be capable, if we're capable of freedom as autonomously, we must be capable of acting accordingly 0:37:26.

0laws that's given or imposed on us but according to a law we give ourselves but where could such a law come from? a law that we give ourselves? reason, if reason determines my will then the real becomes to power to choose independent of the dictates of nature or inclination or circumstance so connected with Kant’s demanding notions of morality and freedom is especially demanding notion of reason well how can reason determine the will there are two ways and this leads to the third contracts Kant says there are two different commands of reason in a command of reason Kant calls an imperative an imperative is simply an ought one kind of imperative, perhaps the most familiar kind, is a hypothetical imperative.

hypothetical imperatives use instrumental reason if you want x then do y it's means ends reason. if you want a good business reputation then don't shortchange your customers word may get out. that's a hypothetical imperative.

if the action would be good solely as a means to something else Kant writes, the imperative is hypothetical if the action is represented as good in itself and therefore as necessary for a will which of itself accords with reason then the imperative categorical. that's the difference between a categorical imperative and a hypothetical one a categorical imperative commands categorically which just means without reference to or dependents on any further purpose and so you see the connection among these three parallel contrasts to be free in the sense of autonomous requires that I act not out of a hypothetical imperative but out of the categorical imperative so you see by these three contrasts Kant reasons his way brings us up to you he's derivation of the categorical imperative well this leaves us one big question what is the categorical imperative? what is the supreme principle of morality what does it command of us?

Kant gives three versions three formulations of the categorical imperative. I want to mention two and then see what you think of them. the first version the first formula he calls the formula of the universal law act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law and by maxim what does Kant mean?

he means a rule that explains the reason for what you're doing a principle for example promise keeping suppose I need money, I hundred dollars desperately and I know I can't pay it back anytime soon I come to you and make you a promise, a false promise, one I know I can't keep please give me a hundred dollars today lend me the money I will repay you next week is that consistent with the categorical imperative, that false promise Kant says no and the test the way we can determine that the false promise is at odds with categorical imperative is try to universalize it. universalize the maxim upon which you're about to act if everybody made false promises when they needed money then nobody would believe those promises there would be no such thing as a promise and so there would be a contradiction the maxim universalized would undermine itself that's the test that's how we can know that the false promise is wrong well what about the formula of the universal law you find it persuasive? what do you think?

I have a question about the difference between categoricalism and a hypothesis that if you're going to act. . Between categorical in hypothetical imperatives?

right. if you’re going to act with a categorical imperative so that the maxim doesn't undermine itself it sounds like I am going to do X because I want y I'm going to not lie in dire need because I want the world to function in such a way that promises kept. I don't want to liquidate the practice of promises.

Right. it sounds like justifying a means by an ends it seems like an instance of consequentialist reasoning you're saying. and what's your name?

Tim. well Tim John Stuart Mill agreed with you he made this criticism of Kant he said if I universalize the maximum and find that the whole practice of promise keeping would be destroyed if universalized I must be appealing somehow to consequences if that's the reason not to tell a false promise so John Stuart Mill agreed with that criticism against Kant but John Stuart Mill was wrong you're in good company though you're in good company, Tim Kant is often read as Tim just read him as appealing to consequences the world would be worse off if everybody lied because then nobody could rely on anybody else's word therefore you shouldn't lie that's not what Kant is saying exactly although it's easy to interpret him as saying that I think what he's saying is that this is the test this is the test of whether the maxim corresponds with the categorical imperative it isn't exactly the reason it's not the reason the reason you should universalize to test your maxim is to see whether you are privileging your particular needs and desires over everybody else's it's a way of pointing to this feature to this this feature to this demand of the categorical imperative that the reasons for your actions shouldn't depend or their justification on your interests, your needs, your special circumstances being more important than somebody else's that I think is the moral intuition lying behind the universalization test so let me spell out the second Kant’s second version of the categorical imperative perhaps in a way that's more intuitively accessible than the formula of universal law it's the formula of humanity as an end Kant introduces the second version of the categorical imperative with the following line of argument we can't base the categorical imperative on any particular interests, purposes, or ends because then it would be only relative to the person whose ends they were but suppose there was something whose existence has in itself and absolute value an end in itself then in it and in it alone would there be the ground of a possible a categorical imperative well, what is there that we can think of as having it's end in itself Kant’s answer is this I say that man and in general every rational being exists as an end in himself not nearly as a means for arbitrary use by this or that will and here Kant distinguishes between persons on the one hand and things on the other rational beings are persons the don't just have a relative value for us but if anything has they have an absolute value an intrinsic value that is rational beings have dignity they're worthy of reverence and respect this line of reasoning leads Kant to the second formulation of the categorical imperative which is this act in such a way that you always treated humanity whether in your own person or in the person of any other never simply as a means but always at the same time as an end so that's the formula of humanity as an end the idea that human beings as rational beings are ends in themselves not open to use merely as a means when I make a false promise to you I mean using you as a means to my ends to my desire for the hundred dollars and so I'm failing to respect you, I'm failing to respect your dignity I'm manipulating you now consider the example of the duty of against suicide murder and suicide are at odds with the categorical imperative why? if I murdered someone I'm taking their life for some purpose.

either because I'm a hired killer or I'm in the throws of some great anger or passion well I have some interest or purpose that is particular for the sake of which I'm using them as a means murder violates the categorical imperative for Kant, morally speaking suicide is on a par with murder it's on a par with murder because what we violate when we take a life when we take someone's life our's or somebody else's we use that person we use a rational being we use humanity as a means and so we fail to respect humanity as an end and that capacity for reasons that humanity that commands respect that is to ground of dignity that humanity that capacity for a reason resides undifferentiated in all of us and so I violate that dignity in my own person if I commit suicide and in murder if I take somebody else's life from a moral point of view they're the same and the reason they're the same has to do with the universal character and ground of the moral law the reason that we have to respect the dignity of other people has not to do with anything in particular about them and so respect, Kantian respect is unlike love in this way it's unlike sympathy it's unlike solidarity or fellow feeling for altruism because love and those other particular virtues are reasons for caring about other people have to do with who they are in particular but respect for Kant respect is respect for humanity which is universal for a rational capacity which is universal and that's why violating it in my own case is as objectionable as violating it in the case of any other questions or rejections? I guess I'm somewhat worried about Kant’s statement that you cannot use a person as a means because every person is an end in and of themselves because it seems that that everyday in order to get something accomplished for that day I must use myself as a means to some end and I must use the people around me as a means to some ends as well for instance suppose that I want to do well in a class and I have to write a paper I have to use myself as a means to write the paper suppose I want to buy something, food. I must go to the store, use the person working behind the counters as a means for me to purchase my food.

You're right, that's true what's your name? Patrick Patrick you're not doing anything wrong you're not violating the categorical imperative when you use other people as a means that's not objectionable provided when we deal with other people for the sake of advancing our projects and purposes and interests, which we all do, provided we treat them in a way that is consistent with respect for their dignity and what it means to respect them is given by the categorical imperative. are you persuaded?

do you think that Kant has given a compelling account a persuasive account of the supreme principle of morality? re-read the groundwork and we'll try to answer that question next time. don't miss the chance to interact online with other viewers of Justice join the conversation, take a pop quiz catch up on lectures you've missed, and learn a lot more.

Visit justiceharvard.