Kant's "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals" presents Kant's belief that ethical laws can be universalized as truth in the same way as physics and verifiable formal knowledge. "Deontology" (Kant's school of thought) espouses that certain conditions must be in place in order for "truth" claims to be "apoditic," meaning necessary and universal. For example, in order to differentiate between the two claims "murder is wrong" and "murder is wrong is true" a certain distinction must be made. The way that this is done is by discerning between a volition and an action. A good volition - or good will - is the only true good. If one's volition is good, Kant teaches, then one's actions will subsequently be so as well. Even if a certain outcome is not good, the action that produced that outcome is still good as long as the will influencing that action was good. The good of volition, which is the highest form of good according to Kant, is the most important factor in human action. But what if my "good will" is only aimed at accomplishing good for me, and not for another?
Will and action in the human mind, according to deontolgy, are dictated by reason, which produce Kant's idea of the three propositions of "duty" and his categorical imperative. The post would not be fitting for Dr J's class blog without some sort of reference to an axe murderer, so here it is. Going back to the question just posed above, if an axe murderer appears at my door and wants to kill either myself or my friend, how selfless should I be? Will my reason call me to save myself, or will my "good will" influence me to protect my friend? Must good will be a selfless will, or can it be self-preservingly selfish?
To answer the question of can good will be “selfish” or forever linked to altruistic actions, one must examine what good will is? To Kant, good will is simply doing what is right for the correct moral reasons without consideration of the consequences. So to answer the question of should your “duty” be to protect your friend, one must examine the nature of duty. Duty is defined by Kant as “the necessity to act out of reverence for the law”. The Law in this case needs to be defined. Is it proper to protect yourself when you are attacked? If so, then who takes priority when you are with a group and are attacked? According to Kant, your responsibility would be to protect your friend as the purpose-protecting your friend- was more moral then leaving your friend to be attacked. So in the end Kant’s moral philosophy can be defined as being altruistic and selfless in your actions.
ReplyDeleteYour axe murderer question is intriguing, and for me it poses this question: Is one's duty strictly bound to the limits of what he/she can accomplish? Of all the propositions we covered in class last Thursday, none of them addressed that duty will be different between individuals. In fact Kant, as we all know, deems these duties to be universal, i.e., the same for everyone. This is a little hard to apply because Kant states that he is not providing content for what to do in specific situations, but from what I understand it seems possible that one can be given a duty that they cannot accomplish. I would think that both protecting yourself and protecting your friend are equally important, protecting your friend for obvious reasons and protecting yourself (to live to protect another day). So if your duty is to save both yourself and your friend and one of you dies, does this mean you failed your duty? Even if protecting your friend is the sole duty, if you fail do you get points for trying??
ReplyDeleteI think the above question of if you failed your duty if one of you dies is not necessarily measured by if that duty is met successfully, but by how much of your will you put in to try and achieve it, which would again come back to his universal idea of good will being the most important aspect to ethics. As to the other question of whether your duty is measured to what you can accomplish, it seems as though Kant’s claim that duties are universal reflect the idea that everyone has to be accountable for their duties as an individual. However, in ethical situations such as the one above in which the duty is choosing between you and another individual, the duty would involve exceeding what you think is your limit (the limit being taking care of only one of you). So, it would seem that your duty would be measured by your will to achieve what would be the harder task, to save both of you, even if you fail.
DeleteI think that one of somebody's first duty would be the duty to self-preservation. Even though it is a good duty to try and protect your friend and be there for them, you have to have the basic self-preservation duty otherwise you wouldn't be able to survive. I like Justin's question about if your duty is to protect yourself and your friend and your friend dies, did you fail your duty? I think that Kant would say yes you failed your duty, but because you had good will to do your duty it wasn't a moral wrong. Because you attempted to do your duty and had a good will behind it, your ethically in the clear with Kant.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest beef with Kant's work so far comes back to one of his examples of what "the good will" is. In it, he says that our actions must be manifested through the sake of duty alone, free of self-interest. On the surface, one could automatically think that saving another human being from a murderer would be a completely selfless act, done for the purpose of protecting an individual. But one could also argue that an underlying reason that you saved the guy from being sliced up was for personal satisfaction or glory. In this instance, the act of saving another person could be traced back to being selfish, which would actually not make it a morally "good" thing at all, even though it seems to be.
ReplyDeleteIf an axe murderer came to my house, and my friend and I were about to be murdered, I believe that Kant would say it is good to protect my friend and protect myself from the attacker. My instinct is to protect my friend, which is not an action based on self-preservation. The "good will" in this case is aimed at doing well for someone lose, not just yourself. However, also, I believe that Kant would also agree that allowing yourself to be murdered is not the morally right thing to do, regardless of whether your friend were there. Kant states that some actions can still be good even if they are done out of self interest, but the only way to achieve morally good actions is if it is based on a sense of duty. I believe that basic self-preservation is considered a duty, because it is a requirement for life. Either way, I believe that Kant would justify defending yourself and a friend from a murderer is morally right.
ReplyDeleteI personally don't think Kant would take into consideration either altruism or self-preservation into his judgment of a particular action, merely whether or not the action in question follows his formulations of his categorical imperative. To take the example of the axe murderer at my door, while it might be both altruistic AND self-preserving to lie to send the axe murderer away, Kant would still find such an action immoral.
ReplyDelete