The Absolute Moral Philosophy of Immanuel Kant

This article deals with the roots of Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy, the particular disagreement towards it and defense of the philosopher based on his own article “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives.”

German philosopher Immanuel Kant states in his article, “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives” that universality of the telling the truth must not have any exceptions, because it is a moral duty to all mankind.

Indeed the article is a reply to another philosopher; Benjamin Constant who claims that the moral principle, “It is a duty to tell the truth” should be taken into consideration according to the circumstances.(1)  In the quoted passage Constant creates a well-known example to discuss Kant’s universal morality idea: How far it is a moral duty to tell a murderer the place where his prey is hidden? Are we morally obliged to tell the truth even if it would cause a death? In the text, Constant briefly states that “no one has a right to a truth which injures others.”(2)  Apparently he seems to emphasis on the predictable consequences much more than the strict ‘duty definition.’ In his argument, Constant seems to be coherent and obviously right according to general public opinion both in his own time and today. An ordinary man surely hides his friend –whatever he is innocent or not- from a murderer and does not tell the truth if the armed murderer is at the door. Because, morality is something belongs to conscience; it does not perceived as a universal rule.

Another similar example considering the situation could be realized as: a friend of yours gives his gun to you and asks to hide it. So that, you promise to do it. It is your duty anymore to keep and hide it until he asks his property back. Then one day, your friend comes back with a great anger towards someone else and wants his gun back immediately. You can realize that he is so frustrated that if he gets the gun he would probably kill or wound the target person (or someone else). What you would do? Turn the gun back, because it is your moral duty to be loyal to your promise; at the beginning your friend trusted you and commended his gun. Or you would keep the gun, even if you are categorized as “breach of trust”, in order to prevent any possible crimes? Benjamin Constant and general public opinion suggests not giving the gun back, if one is sure it would cause an injury or death. The morality stands here for saving lives; not to keep the promise, which seems to be an equal situation to the example of Constant.

On the other hand, Kant is totally at the opposite side of that argument. However, his theory of categorical imperative should be also taken into consideration in order to understand the universality of moral rules.

Kant achieves the categorical imperative, which forms a principle base of his moral philosophy, by determining the limits of pure reason. In his best known work Critique of Pure Reason, his whole theory is established upon what pure reason can institute alone without the effect of the senses or any other faculties. Through this process, briefly, Kant categorize the knowledge of universe according to what reason is able to judge and decide in order to form a standard of logic. First of all he eliminates the metaphysical concepts totally and concretes on Hume’s skepticism to form a methodology. Secondly, Kant formulates two significant distinctions between a priori (independent of experience) and a posteriori (from experience) knowledge and between analytic and synthetic judgments. He defines analytic judgment as “the concept in the predicate is contained in the concept in the subject”(3)  and synthetic judgment, as “the predicate concept contains information not contained in the subject concept” .(4)

Therefore, he concludes that human mind could and should only have the knowledge of ‘a priori synthetic judgments’ such as mathematics or the principles of science.

Because knowledge must have superiority to experience; it should be universal in order to form a ‘timeless standard’ for all human communities around the world. Therefore experience is unreliable, it may change from person to person, from time to time.

After instituting the theory of reason upon ‘a priori knowledge’, in a way by ‘universal limits’ of pure reason, universal moral requirements of human would be defined as well. The limitation is also eligible for moral judgments and Kant classifies human morality according to maxims.

Human actions could be categorized as well: a hypothetical and categorical. Hypothetical action is described such as a particular circumstance: if one is thirsty, he/she should drink something. On the other hand, a categorical action needs to be judged and decided according to absolute requirements. Thus, it must be fulfilled by his famous formulation:

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” (5)

Consequently Kant expresses that moral judgments should be based on categorical imperatives; because, hypothetical imperatives are such subjective considerations that cannot be relied on universally. He believes only these judgments according to universal laws would be appropriate to human morality. Hence, the relation between human mind and morality in Kant’s theory is coherent that in both concepts he demands and suggests a moderate solution: “Choose a universal maxim and follow it.”

The key point of that standardization is the ignorance of consequences. According to Kant, the individual cannot be accused of the consequences of his/her decisions as far as the maxim is realized. At the beginning of the article there are two similar examples regarding that theory. As you can remember in both cases, the possibility of murder or at least an injury would be highly predicted. By all means of that knowledge and morality system, Kant suggests the individual ‘to do his duty’, which is absolutely to say the hiding place of the person / or give the gun back. Kant believes that the person following the universal maxim of telling truth cannot be accused of the results even if the person dies because of the given information, etc. :

“For instance, if by telling a lie you have prevented murder, you have made yourself legally responsible for all the consequences; but if you have held rigorously to the truth, public justice can lay no hand on you, whatever the unforeseen consequences may be.”(6)

Then Kant obviously adds that, there must be no exceptions in telling the truth. If one lies to someone, he brakes the general contract and lies to all:

“This is because truthfulness is a duty which must be regarded as the ground of all duties based on contract, and the laws of these duties would be rendered uncertain and useless if even the least exception to them were admitted.”(7)

Consequently, in regard of all the steps of Kant’s theory, in his defense (or you may say ‘answer’) towards Benjamin Contrast, Kant fills in the “blanks” caused in other philosophers’ minds and strengthens his moral philosophy. Because eliminating all the factors of senses likes as conscience, which the article mentioned and enclosed with ordinary person’s morality, Kant’s morality values judge according to only universal reasoning which creates universal maxims regardless of the unpredictable consequences.

Endnotes:

(1) Kant, Immanuel “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives”; Peter Singer, “How are we to live?” Prometheus Books; 1995 Pg:280
(2) I.b.i.d
(3) www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/kant/section1.html
(4) I.b.i.d
(5) Kant, Immanuel; translated by James W. Ellington [1785] (1993). Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals 3rd ed., Hackett. pp.p30.
(6) Kant, Immanuel “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives”; Peter Singer, “How are we to live?” Prometheus Books; 1995 Pg:281
(7)I.b.i.d

SOURCES

Kant, Immanuel “Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)”, translated by J. W. Ellington, Indianapolis, 1981.

Singer, Peter “How are we to live?: ethics in an age of self-interest” Prometheus Books; New York, 1995

Thedor W.Adorno, ‘Kants, “Kritik der reinen Vernunft” Suhrkamp, 1995; Cogito, Translated by Mine Haydaroğlu no:41-42, İstanbul: 2005; Yapı Kredi Kültür Sanat Yay.

www.sparknotes.com