Kant’s Moral Philosophy: Understanding Formal Ethics
Critique of Practical Reason: Moral Formalism
Pure reason answers, “What can I know?” Practical reason answers, “What should I do?” Pure reason is concerned with how things are; practical reason is concerned with how human behavior should be. It is not interested in motives but in the principles that have to move them to that behavior, which is rational and therefore moral. Theoretical reason makes judgments, while practical reason makes imperatives or commands.
The Formalism of Kant’s Moral Ethics
Kant’s moral ethics presents a novelty in the history of philosophy. Before, all ethics were material; he introduces formal ethics. Kant critiques material ethics, where ethical content or the supreme good is marked in advance by someone outside of the person (happiness, pleasure, or good and evil). For Kant, material ethics has two factors:
- A content: It tells the man what to do.
- A few media: It tells man how he has to act.
Kant establishes the ethical criticism of this:
- It is empirical: The content is based on experience (e.g., “Do something and be happy.”) Kant states that ethics must be universal and cannot come from experience; it must be a priori (not all humans can agree on the concept of freedom).
- It is hypothetical: For example, “If you want to pass your studies…” It formulates hypotheses and is not categorical.
- It is heteronomous: It gets the law from outside; the man is not autonomous (he cannot establish his own laws).
Formal Ethics
Formal ethics is empty of content; it does not set any end and does not tell us what to do but how to act. Kant proposes a breach of material ethics:
- A priori ethics: Universal and necessary for all men, not based on experience.
- Categorical ethics: Judgments must be absolute, without condition.
- Autonomous ethics: The subject determines itself to act, not imposed by law.
It is based on duty (how we do things). Every human being fills it with content. Duty is the need for action out of respect for the law, not for the utility or satisfaction that compliance can provide, but out of respect for it. Kant distinguishes three types of action:
- Contrary to duty: “A businessman puts predatory pricing.”
- Under duty (legal): “A merchant offers fair prices by law.”
- On duty (morality): “We do not charge extortionate prices because we should not charge them.”
The duty for duty’s sake (the last one) is the only good action. The moral value of action lies not in the intended purpose but in the highest principle, the one that determines its performance. The requirement to act morally is expressed in an imperative, which must be categorical. This categorical imperative is formulated in various ways:
- “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
- “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end but always at the same time as an end.”
We must distinguish two aspects:
- What reason is: A priori law. The moral law says that what “should be” must be a priori of experience. Moral experience is concrete, and the moral law must be universal. It expresses what is to happen, not what happens. Before we experience, notions of good or bad are not based on experience but must be based on reason.
- What comes from the will: The imperatives. The will is good in itself; it is autonomous, is given its own laws (mandatory), and it is the moral duty of man. You do not have inclinations because it would not be autonomous (not looking for things like happiness or friends). The will is the only moral legislator; the law dictates the will itself. Kant does not provide rules of conduct but rational criteria for determining the validity of the rules.
The Postulates
Kant asserts the impossibility of objective knowledge about the soul, God, or freedom. The field of affirmation of these realities is practical reason; they are not objects of scientific knowledge and are supported as postulates. To be clear about what a postulate is, we must distinguish:
- Axiom: Self-evident propositions that need not be shown (e.g., “Any amount is equal to itself.”)
- Theorem: Statements that are not obvious but can be demonstrated (e.g., the Pythagorean Theorem).
- Postulate: Statements that are not obvious and are not demonstrable, but we must admit to say something.
According to Kant, these realities are not obvious, cannot be proved, but must be admitted to make morality possible:
- Freedom: To make autonomous morality possible, freedom is necessary because otherwise, morality would be impossible.
- Immortality of the soul: The will pursues something unattainable in this life: to attain virtue. This is unattainable in an existence limited by what God requires of immortality.
- God: It is the perfect marriage between being and should be, between virtue and happiness.