The Life of Joy

Imagine an individual—”Joy”—who lived her life,

from beginning to end, under the motto “Do what
feels the best.” Now, imagine that Joy happened to
be constituted by nature in such a way that helping
others and doing the right thing always elicited the
greatest possible feeling.

CHALLENGE:

Why might someone argue that Joy’s life of deeds

serving others had no genuine moral worth?
 Perfume and the Challenge
of Radical Contingency
In the novel Perfume, the misanthrope Grenouille is
born with an uncanny olfactory sense and an ability
to manufacture aromas capable of inducing intensely
euphoric experiences in those who smell them. In the
course of the story, Grenouille goes on a killing
spree in order to harvest materials for his “magnum
opus” perfume. Grenouille is eventually captured,
though not before completing his perfume. At his
trial, waiting to be executed, he releases his perfume
before the angry mob, who experience such intense
euphoria that they immediately forget their demand
for justice and revere him as divine, including the
father of one of the victims, who bends to one knee
and praises Grenouille as his son.
The Ethics of Duty

According to some ethical theories, actions are morally right

or wrong in regardless of empirical contingencies about the
consequences to which they might lead. One such non-
consequentialist theory – namely, deontology - holds that
there are absolute moral laws, rules, and duties to which all
ideal action must conform—e.g. respecting the dignity and
autonomy of all human beings—and that actions are morally
right or wrong to the extent that they are performed with the
intention of obeying these laws.
Kantian Ethics:
Morality and Practical Reason

An example of this form of deontology can be found

in the rationalist moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant,
who argued that morality consists in the recognition
of and obedience to unconditional laws generated
by the application of human reason to practical
affairs. In sum, for Kant, morality is a matter of
rationality in our practical lives.
A Good Will

KEY PASSAGE: “A good will is not good because

of its effects or accomplishments, and not because
of its adequacy to achieve any proposed end: it
is good only by virtue of its willing—that is, it is
good in itself.”

CHALLENGE: What does Kant mean by this?

Furnish your own exampel to make your point.
A Good Will

KEY PASSAGE: “The moral worth of [an] action

lies not in the effect to be expected from it; thus
also not in any principle of action which needs to
get its motive from this expected effect. For all
these effects (agreeableness of one’s condition,
indeed even the furthering of the happiness of
others) could be brought about through other
causes, and for them the will of a rational being
is therefore not needed”
A Good Will

Kant attempts to derive the foundational

principle of this rationalist ethics by
analyzing the one thing that has
unconditional moral value: namely, a good
will.
THINK: According to Kant the concept of a good
will contains that of duty: that is to say, a good
will is a will that acts for the sake of duty.

But what does it mean to act “for the sake of

duty”?

CHALLENGE: If duty requires doing action X,

then is performing that action X sufficient to have
a good will?
KEY PASSAGE: “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.”
 Duty vs. Inclination:
[T]here are some souls so sympathetically attuned that, even
without any other motive of vanity or utility to self, take an
inner gratification in spreading joy around them, and can take
delight in the contentment of others insofar as it is their own
work. But I assert that in such a case the action, however it
may conform to duty and however amiable it is, nevertheless
has no true moral worth, but is on the same footing as other
inclinations, e.g., the inclination to honor, which, when it
fortunately encounters something that in fact serves the
common good and is in conformity with duty, and is thus
worthy of honor, deserves praise and encouragement, but not
esteem; for the maxim lacks moral content, namely of doing
such actions not from inclination but from duty.
 In order to generate a deed with genuine moral
worth--i.e. An action done for the sake of duty--
maxims must be formulated with a view to satisfying
The the Categorical Imperative: a formal principle of
reason that determines how all rational beings would
Categorical necessarily act in all cases.
Imperative Hypothetical Imperative: A merely conditional
principle that determines how one would act IF they
had some contingent end:

e.g. "If I want to achieve X, then I ought to phi"

The First MAKE IT INTUITIVE: Why would one
Formulation: think that morally good maxims must
The Formula always be universalizable?
of Universal
Try to use the example of Joy’s maxim to
Law make your case.
 You’ve fallen on hard times and you need money. Your
cousin is a billionaire, and could easily give you the
How does this money without any impact on his life. He offers to give
violate you an interest-free loan, which you must pay back.
Conveniently, your cousin also has a rare short-term
FUL-Internal memory condition, and will forget the loan after
& enough time has passed. You take the loan and
promise to pay him back, knowing that you won’t.
FUL-Practical? Predictably, your cousin forgets about the loan, and
continues living his life just as happily as he would
have if he hadn’t given you the loan. You never pay
him back.
 KEY PASSAGE: “A...man, for whom things are going well, sees
that others (whom he could help) have to struggle with great
How does this 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
violate 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
FUL-Practical? of need.” If such a way of thinking were a universal law of
nature, the human race could certainly survive...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.”
 FUL-INTERNAL. NO INTERNAL CONTRADICTIONS: The
maxim itself must be conceptually coherent and contain no
Two internal contradictions, such that it is logically conceivable that
constraints it is a law of nature.

imposed by FUL-PRACTICAL. MUST BE PRACTICALLY SOUND: Even if the

the maxim is logically concievable as a law of nature, it must also
be practically coherent to will to live in that world in which the
Formula of maxim is a universal law. In sum, it must be possible for you to
Universal Law: rationally desire to live in the world where your maxim is a
universal law, which requires that there is no contradiction
between your maxims and features of the world in which your
maxim is universalized. That is to say, the maxim’s ability
to achieve its inteded purposes cannot be undermined in
that world.
 You’ve fallen on hard times and you need money. Your
cousin is a billionaire, and could easily give you the
How does this money without any impact on his life. He offers to give
violate you an interest-free loan, which you must pay back.
Conveniently, your cousin also has a rare short-term
FUL-Internal memory condition, and will forget the loan after
& enough time has passed. You take the loan and
promise to pay him back, knowing that you won’t.
FUL-Practical? Predictably, your cousin forgets about the loan, and
continues living his life just as happily as he would
have if he hadn’t given you the loan. You never pay
him back.
A ‘HOBBESIAN’ DISPOSITION AS LAW OF NATURE?

Kant’s Answer: “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.”

The world in which the maxim was universalized would be similar to Hobbes’s state of
nature, in which self-interested agents compete against eachother for scarce resources in a
hostile natural environment.
According to Hobbes, life in the state of nature would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and
short.”
Kant and Respect for Humanity

The Second Formulation of the

Categorical Imperative
 CHALLENGE: Your friend is struggling from
The Formula depression after being rejected at a casting audition
for a musical. To help make her feel better, you tell
of Humanity: her that she has an “amazing singing voice”: to your
ear, she has a terrible voice. Your fib cheers her up.

The Little Provided your intended end was to make her feel
White Lie? better, and assuming that your lie succeeds in
achieving this end, was your lie morally
acceptable?
 CHALLENGE: Your friend is struggling from
The Formula depression after being rejected at a casting audition
for a musical. To help make her feel better, you tell
of Humanity: her that she has an “amazing singing voice”: to your
ear, she has a terrible voice. Your fib cheers her up.

The Little Provided your intended end was to make her feel
White Lie? better, and assuming that your lie succeeds in
achieving this end, was your lie morally
acceptable?
APPLYING KANTIAN ETHICS

CLASS DEBATE
 CHALLENGE
The Second 1. Without knowing what happened
Formulation: next, did you see anything morally
wrong in the video clip? Does your
answer depend upon what happens
The Formula next?
of Humanity
2. Assume that the woman swings
safely as planned: Does this change
your response?
 “A person, an end in itself, is a free cause, which is to say a
first cause. By contrast, a thing, a means, is merely a mediate
CHALLENGE: cause, a link in the chain…Any action that prevents or diverts
you from making this initiating decision is one that treats you
as a mediate rather than a first cause, hence as a mere
Christine means, a thing, a tool."
Korsgaard, a
contemporary "Coercion and deception all do this. And deception treats you
as a mediate cause in a specific way: it treats your reason as
Kant scholar and a mediate cause. The false promiser thinks: if I tell her I will
ethicist at Harvard pay her back next week, then she will choose to give me the
University: money. Your reason is worked, like a machine: the deceiver
tries to determine what levers to pull to get the desired results
from you. Physical coercion treats someone’s person as a tool;
lying treats someone’s reason as a tool. This is why Kant finds
it so horrifying; it is a direct violation of autonomy.”
 Vienna, Austria 1943. There is a Nazi officer at the door asking
if you are harboring Jewish fugitives. There is a Jewish family
living in your attic. What are you morally obligated to do?

DEBATE: THINK: How might a Kantian try to consistently maintain that it

Kant and would actually be permissible to lie to the Nazi while
maintaining the Formula of Humanity?
Dealing with
THINK: Do you agree that this strategy is ultimately consistent
Evil with the Formula of Humanity?

THINK: Even if logically consistent, what practical dangers are

posed by implementing this strategy?

(Indeed, dangers that might explain the origin of there being a

Nazi at your doorstep in the first place!)
 For Kant, to possess Humanity is not a bio-physiological matter
of being Homo Sapiens.

Humanity Rather, it is a matter of possessing Rational Autonomy: That is,

the capacity to determine our actions according to rational
deliberation.
as To be Human, and thus to be deserving of respect, is thus to
Rational be a free rational being.

Autonomy If one was incapable of overriding their sensible inclinations,

then according to Kant they would not possess rational
autonomy

Thus, Kant claims that: "Freedom...is independence from

inclinations."
Can
Autonomy CHALLENGE:
Be Can you think of a case in which an action that might otherwise
violate the humanity of another person can be justified insofar
Impaired? as their autonomy is impaired?
 “Irrational behaviour arises as a consequence
Can of emotional reactions evoked when faced with
difficult decisions, according to new research at
Autonomy UCL (University College London), funded by the
Wellcome Trust. The UCL study suggests that
Be rational behaviour may stem from an ability to
override automatic emotional responses, and
Impaired? that this ability can be
intermittently compromised by extreme duress,
temporary brain damage, and substance use.”
KANT AND INFORMATION
ETHICS
When to Tell the Truth? "Last week, James Comey notified Congress and the
public that the FBI will be resuming its investigation of Hillary Clinton and her aide
Huma Abedein in light of new emails discovered during a separate investigation.
With little more than a week until November 8th, the timing is disastrous for the
Clinton campaign."

"While Comey has emphasized that it is still unclear whether any of the new
information will be of any significance, FBI officials have confirmed that the
investigation will not be completed before election day on November 8th, thereby
leaving voters in the dark about the potential ramifications of the investigation.
Trump has exploited the uncertainty caused by the revelation, telling the public
that the announcement is an indication that an indictment is imminent. Recent
polling analysis from Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight indicates that Trump’s statistical
chances of winning have almost doubled since Comey’s announcement. Once
praised for refusing to let politics sway his integrity as an investigator—(as a lifelong
Republican he prosecuted many members of his own party)—Comey is now being
accused by many of his former supporters of gross negligence and reckless
endangerment of the democratic process.”
Polling from 538 suggested that people were confused by
the FBI's announcement, and that this confusion made
an impact on voting decisions.

CHALLENGE: Using the notion of negative responsibility,

how could a consequentialist argue that James Comey’s
decision to notify the public of the re-opening of the
investigation was morally problematic?

Now consider: Do you agree?

Formula of Universal Law: “Act only in accordance with that maxim
through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law”

CHALLENGE:

1. Using the Formula of Universal Law, how might one argue

that it would have been wrong if Comey had withheld the status
of the investigation?

2. Turn the tables: How could one argue that Comey would have
been justified in withholding the information while still
satisfying the Formula of Universal Law?
Formula of Humanity: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your
own person or in any other person, never merely as a means, but always at the same
time as an end in itself.”

CHALLENGE

1. Using the Formula of Humanity, how might one argue that it

would have been wrong if Comey had decided to withhold the
status of the investigation?

2. Turn the tables: How could one argue that Comey would have
been justified in withholding the information from the public while
still upholding the Formula of Humanity?
THE RIGHT TO LIFE AND THE
RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENSE

KANTIAN ETHICS
AND
GUN RIGHTS
The Right to Life
In the wake of a series of grisly mass shootings, America has
and The Right become more divided than ever on the subject of gun control.
to Bear Arms: Some argue that we ought to prohibit civilian gun ownership
entirely , claiming that the evidence overwhelming demonstrates
that countries that have prohibited guns have dramatically
ESTABLISHING lower rates of gun-related fatalities. Such advocates argue that
the recreational benefits of gun ownership, as well as any
CONTEXT marginal effectiveness of gun ownership in deterring crimes, are
far outweighed by the harms of a gun owning society.
 POLL:

Suppose that Policy X would:

i) Impose a total ban on all firearms

INTUITION
PUMP ii) Thereby prevent people from marginalized
communities often targeted for violence using guns in
self-defense

iii) Would GUARANTEE a lower yearly rate of gun-

related fatalites (including, homicides, suicides, and
accidental gun deaths)
 Consider the following examples taken from Michael Huemer (2003):

SCENARIO1

A killer breaks into a house, where two people—“the victim” and “the accomplice”—
are staying. (The “accomplice” need have no prior interaction with the killer.) As the
The Right to Life killer enters the bedroom where the victim is hiding, the unwitting accomplice enters
through another door and proceeds, for no reason at all, to hold the victim down. The
and The Right killer then stabs the victim to death.

to Bear Arms SCENARIO 2

Same as in example 1, except that the victim has a gun by the bed, which he would,
if able, use to defend himself from the killer. As the killer enters the bedroom, the
victim reaches for the gun. The accomplice grabs the gun and runs away, with the
result that the killer then stabs his victim to death.

THINK: (i) In your view, is there a morally relevant similarity between example 1
and example 2? If the action depicted in 1 is wrong, do you think the action in 2
is wrong for similar reasons?
The Right to Life Scenario 3: Citizen wants to own a gun for self-defense. State
and The Right forcibly prevents Citizen from having a gun (or confiscates
Citizen's gun). Citizen is then victimized by a criminal.
to Bear Arms
What is the moral status of the State's gun prohibition?
The Right to Life
and The Right to
Bear Arms:
The debate over gun prohibition turns upon a more
fundamental philosophical question: Is it morally
RAISE A
acceptable to curtail an individual’s freedom in
DISRUPTING order to prevent bad things from happening?
"SO WHAT?"
QUESTION
 Michael Huemer (2003) argues that the harms of gun ownership
would have to be far greater than the evidence suggests in
order to override our right to own a gun. Central to Huemer’s
The Right to Life account is a distinction between derivative rights and
fundamental rights. A derivative right is a right that derives its
and The Right force from other rights; A fundamental right is a right whose
to Bear Arms force is independent of other rights. Huemer argues that we
have a derivative right to own a gun insofar as we have a
fundamental right to life (and thus to self-defense). Appealing to
the examples we just discussed, Huemer claims that preventing
one's ability to defend themselves “is about as serious a wrong
as killing.”
 To the extent that gun prohibition would impede the ability
The Right to Life of individuals to protect themselves, Huemer concludes that
and The Right “The analogy between the accomplice’s action in this case and a
to Bear Arms general firearms prohibition should be clear...If the accomplice’s
action in example 2 is a major violation of the right of self-
defense, then gun prohibition seems to be about equally serious
as a violation of the right of self-defense.”
Huemer’s argument, in outline form, is as follows:
1. It is wrong to murder a person, even to prevent several other killings. (premise)

2. A violation of a person or group’s right of self-defense, predictably resulting in the death of one of the victims, is
morally comparable to murder. (premise)

3. If it is wrong to commit a murder to prevent several killings, then it is wrong to commit a rights-violation comparable to
murder to prevent several killings.

4. Therefore, it is wrong to violate a person or group’s right of self-defense, predictably resulting in the death of one of
the victims, even to prevent several killings. (from 1, 2, 3)

5. Therefore, it is wrong to violate a group of people’s right of self-defense, predictably resulting in the deaths of many
of the victims, even to prevent several times as many killings. (from 4)

6. Gun prohibition would violate a group of people’s right of self-defense, predictably resulting in the deaths of many of
the victims.

CONCLUSION: Therefore, gun prohibition is wrong, even if it would prevent several times as many killings as it contributed
to. (5, 6)
 The Categorical Imperative determines how all
rational beings would necessarily act in all cases.

The Acting for the sake of duty entails

Categorical deliberately choosing maxims that pass certain
rational constraints or “tests” imposed by the
Imperative Categorical Imperative. The Categorical Imperative
has different formulations emphasizing different
requirements of reason.
Maxims and Moral Worth
For Kant, voluntary actions are judged right or
wrong not by their consequences, but by the
motivational profile behind the action.
For Kant, all voluntary actions have a maxim - or
motivational principle - that implicitly serve as a
guide for action.
Form of a Maxim: I may do action A in
conditions C in order to achieve end E.
E.g. I may lie to someone in order to avoid hurting
their feelings
 The first formulation of the categorical
imperative emphasizes the rational consistency
The First and unconditional applicability that all genuine
Formulation: moral principles must exhibit.

The Formula
of Universal The Formula of Universal Law (FUL):
“Act only on that maxim by which you can at
Law the same time will that it should become a
universal law.”

Korsgaard: "What if everybody did that?""

 The second formulation of the categorical imperative
emphasizes the respect owed to all other human
The Second persons as autonomous rational beings capable of
Formulation: making their own decisions and setting their own
ends and goals:

Formula of Humanity: “Act in such a way that you

The Formula treat humanity, whether in your own person or in any
of Humanity other person, never merely as a means, but always
at the same time as an end.”
 CHALLENGE:

(a) Appealing to the Second Formulation of the Categorical

Imperative--which demands that we never treat people as mere
means but also always as an end in themselves--how might one
The Right to Life argue on Kantian grounds that gun prohibition/restriction would
be morally unacceptable, even if it lead to the elimination of
and The Right gun deaths and an overall decrease in the amount of human
to Bear Arms suffering?

(b) Appealing to First Formulation of the Categorical Imperative

- which demands that we are able to universalize our action
guiding principles - how might one argue against the right to
own guns?
KANT AND SEXUAL ETHICS
 • You watch pornography without determining the working conditions
What does it mean of the actors
to treat another • Nadia imagines someone else while having sex with her partner; she
person merely as a never shares this fact
means?
• Vincent pursues casual sex with people who have certain aesthetic
What does it mean features, as these are desirable to him
to treat someone • Grace and Frank are developmentally mature adults with typical
as an end in itself? cognitive faculties. Grace consents to acts of violent sexual
submission with Frank that involve bodily injury.
 "We say that a man loves someone when he has an inclination towards
another person. If by this love we mean true human love, then it admits of no
distinction between types of persons, or between young and old. But a love
that springs merely from sexual impulse cannot be love at all, but only
Is Sexual Desire a appetite. Human love is good will, affection, promoting the happiness of
others and finding joy in their happiness."
Violation of
Humanity? "But it is clear that, when a person loves another purely from sexual desire,
none of these factors enter into the love. Far from there being any concern
for the happiness of the loved one, the lover, in order to satisfy his desire
and still his appetite, may even plunge the loved one into the depths of
misery. Sexual love makes of the loved person an object of appetite; as soon
as that appetite has been stifled, the person is cast aside as one casts away
a lemon which has been sucked dry."
 "Sexual love can, of course, be combined with human love and so carry with
Is Casual Sex a it the characteristics of the latter, but taken by itself and for itself, it is nothing
Violation of more than appetite. Taken by itself it is a degradation of human nature; for
as soon as a person becomes an object of appetite for another, all motives
Humanity? of moral relationship cease to function, because as an object of appetite for
another a person becomes a thing and can be treated and used as such by
every one."
 • You watch pornography without determining the working conditions
What does it mean of the actors
to treat another • Nadia imagines someone else while having sex with her partner; she
person merely as a never shares this fact
means?
• Vincent pursues casual sex with people who have certain aesthetic
What does it mean features, as these are desirable to him
to treat someone • Grace and Frank are developmentally mature adults with typical
as an end in itself? cognitive faculties. Grace consents to acts of violent sexual
submission with Frank that involve bodily injury.
 Nussbaum emphasizes the importance of context in evaluating
whether objectification is taking place, and whether it is
Is Sexual occurring in a morally problematic way.
Objectification Nussbaum claims that there can be cases of objectification that
a Violation of are benign or even positive. This is because Nussbaum claims
Humanity? that objectification is not harmful when it occurs within the realm
of “equality, respect and consent.” She gives the example of
lying with a lover in bed, and using his stomach as a pillow (so
treating him as an object). She claims that there is nothing
impermissible or harmful about this interaction, provided it is
done with his consent.
 Intuition check: Provided that a sexual act is
Is Consent consensual for all involved parties, does this
guarantee that the sexual act is morally
Sufficient? permissible? Or do you think there are at least
some sexual acts that are mutually consensual
for all involved parties and yet are in some
way morally problematic?
 In one of the most extraordinary trials in German criminal history,
Is Consent Armin Meiwes admitted that he had met a 43-year-old Berlin
engineer, Bernd Brandes, after advertising on the internet, and had
Sufficient? chopped him up and eaten him. It was, he said, something he had
wanted to do for a long time. "I always had the fantasy and in the
end I fulfilled it," Meiwes told the court on the first day of his trial for
murder.

Meiwes had fantasised about killing and devouring someone,

including his classmates, from the age of eight. The desire grew
stronger after the death of his mother in 1999, prosecutor Marcus
Köhler said. In March 2001 Meiwes advertised on the internet for a
"young well-built man, who wanted to be eaten". Brandes replied.

Meiwes defense is that his victim actually agreed to be killed and

eaten. Crucial to the case is a gruesome videotape made by Meiwes
of the entire evening, during which Brandes apparently makes clear
his consent.
 For Kant, morally legitimate consent must be
rational consent, which means that it must
satisfy the Categorical Imperative

Is Consent Thus, for Kant, it is not possible to rationally

Sufficient? consent to being used as a mere means to an
end – this would violate the Formula of
Humanity

Thus, for Kant, nominal consent – or merely

agreeing to something – is not sufficient to
make an agreement morally permissible
 Hilkje Charlotte Hänel denies that nominal consent is
sufficient to make a sexual act morally permissible:

Is Consent "Ideology can bring it about that women consent due to

specific [ideological] schemas, such as the one that makes it
Sufficient? seem as though women owe sex to men; indeed, they might
believe in the same schemas as men."

Kantian "[G]rowing up in a system that socializes women into being

submissive (and enjoy it!) can render them incapable of
Feminism distinguishing their real desires from their false desires. A
woman might be so deeply influenced by the ideology that
she actually believes that submission is her real
desire...Thus, in sexist ideology, consent—even enthusiastic
consent—becomes questionable."
 (I) Do you agree that consent has to meet certain criteria in
Kantian order to be morally legitimizing?
Feminism (II) Why might we think that there are dangers to this way of
thinking?
ANNOUNCEMENT

FEEDBACK: Once both Short Paper assignments

have been submitted, everyone will receive one
feedback dossier from me. My feedback will
address both expository writing and
argumentative writing evidenced in your Short
Paper Assignments, with a view towards your
Final Paper.
ANNOUNCEMENT

EXTENSIONS FOR SHORT PAPER 2:

If you need an extension for Short Paper 2, you

may take it at your own discretion. No later
than April 15th. Keep in mind that the sooner
you get your second Short Paper to me, the
sooner you'll receive your feedback dossier.
Intuition Pump:
Moral Phenomenology as a Source of Evidence
‘What is it like’ to Respect Humanity?

• Consider a time in your life where you believe you showed respect
for another person.

• Describe what was happening from the first-person perspective:

Did you engage in a series of rational inferences about what you
ought to do? Or were you moved by a feeling or other emotional
experience?
KANT'S RATIONALIST MORAL PSYCHOLOGY: When explaining the difference between
acting from duty and according to duty, Kant presents the example of two philanthropists:
One that experiences pleasure in spreading joy to his fellow humans beings, and one who
helps other people out of duty. Of the latter, Kant claims:

"Suppose, then, that the mind of this philanthropist were overclouded by his own grief, which
extinguished all sympathy with the fate of the others, and that while he still had the means to
benefit others in distress their troubles did not move him because he had enough to do with his
own; and suppose that now, when no longer incited to it by any inclination, he nevertheless tears
himself out of this deadly insensibility and does the action without any inclination, simply from
duty."
KANT'S RATIONALIST MORAL PSYCHOLOGY

Kant then asks if we should not consider that the begrudging philanthropist action would have
a greater moral worth if nature had designed him to feel pleasure at the idea of helping
others.

For Kant, it is the very reluctance of his act that allows us to see that it was done from duty and
not from some self-serving inclination:

“By all means! It is just then that the worth of character comes out, which is moral and
incomparably the highest, namely, that he is beneficent not from inclination but from duty.” (G:
AA 4: 399).
KANT'S RATIONALIST MORAL PSYCHOLOGY

CHALLENGE: Do you think Kant's

account of moral action is
psychologically realistic?
 And yet, for as much as Kant's moral framework turns upon the
concept of rational self-determination, a second interpretive
REASSESSING constraint lies in his decisive and sustained appeal to the necessity of
KANT'S feeling in the generation of moral deeds. As Kant claims in a footnote
tucked away in the Groundwork:
RATIONALIST
MORAL
PSYCHOLOGY KEY PASSAGE: "In order for a sensibly affected rational being to will
that for which reason alone prescribes the “ought,” it is
admittedly required that his reason have the capacity to induce a
feeling of pleasure or of delight in the fulfillment of duty, and
thus there is required a causality of reason to determine sensibility in
conformity with its principles."
THE NECESSITY OF 'MORAL FEELING'?
KEY PASSAGE: “Every determination of choice proceeds from the representation of the
possible action, through the feeling of pleasure or displeasure...in the action...to the deed; And
here the sensitive condition [...] is either a pathological or a moral feeling. [A pathological
feeling] is that feeling which precedes the representation of the law; [A moral feeling] is that
which can only follow the representation of the law.”

[Metaphysics of Morals 6:399]

 Kant later came to develop this appeal to feeling into a
more nuanced account of the “feeling of respect”—
understood as the subjective effect that the representation of
the moral law must have on our sensible constitution as
human beings, which has both a “humiliating” and an
THE FEELING “elevating” character. Consider his claim in the Critique of
Practical Reason:
OF RESPECT
[T]he moral law, since it is a formal determining ground
through pure practical reason...is also a subjective
determining ground—that is, an incentive—to this action
inasmuch as it has influence on the sensibility of the subject
and effects a feeling conducive to the influence of the law
upon the will.
Intellectualist Model
“Intellectualists” hold that a purely intellectual apprehension of the moral law
must be sufficient for moral motivation if we are to preserve rational freedom.

The Intellectualist's favored passage:

“If the determination of the will occurs in accordance with the moral law but only
by means of a feeling of any kind whatsoever, which must be presupposed in
order that the law may become a determining ground of the will, and if the
action thus occurs not for the sake of the law, it has legality but not morality”
(Pr. R 5:72)
Intellectualist Model
Andrews Reath: “If the moral law determines choice by exerting a force that is
stronger than the alternatives, moral conduct will result from the balance of
whatever psychological forces are acting on the will […] Morality would then
become an empirically explainable natural phenomenon; and one would lose the
notion that pure reason is practical, since one could account for moral conduct
entirely in terms of natural desires.”
THE INTELLECTUALIST MODEL
Challenge for Intellectualist: Why is feeling necessary for Kant?

Reath’s "Epiphenomenalist" Solution:

“When the moral law determines the will, it frustrates the inclinations […] and this interaction
between practical reason and sensibility gives rise to the feeling of respect […] In short, the
feeling of respect is an emotion that is the effect of, and follows from, the determination of the
will by the moral law […] The resulting moral emotion ends up being something like the way in
which we experience the activity of pure practical reason [...] While an affect
is produced when the moral law determines the will, it is not this affect that motivates.”
OVERCOMING THE PATHOLOGICAL SELF:
CONSTRAINT AND FEELING
Since any time we act for the sake of duty, our desires will be frustrated, then it follows
that acting or the sake of duty will always involve some effect on feeling:

KEY PASSAGE: "[A]ll inclination rests on feeling, so that what infringes upon all the
inclinations...has, just by this, a necessary influence on feeling.”
OVERCOMING THE PATHOLOGICAL SELF:
HUMILIATION
Kant calls the negative effect on feeling associated with the frustration of our pathological
desires 'Humiliation':

KEY PASSAGE: "Now, what in our own judgment infringes upon self-conceit humiliates. Hence
the moral law unavoidably humiliates every human being when he compares with it the
sensible propensity of his nature."

"Hence, as submission to a law, i.e., as a command (proclaiming constraint for the sensibly
affected subject), this feeling contains within itself no pleasure, but rather—to this extent—
displeasure, in the action."
OVERCOMING THE PATHOLOGICAL SELF:
HUMILIATION
Kant calls the negative effect on feeling associated with the frustration of our pathological
desires 'Humiliation':

KEY PASSAGE: "Now, what in our own judgment infringes upon self-conceit humiliates. Hence
the moral law unavoidably humiliates every human being when he compares with it the
sensible propensity of his nature."

"Hence, as submission to a law, i.e., as a command (proclaiming constraint for the sensibly
affected subject), this feeling contains within itself no pleasure, but rather—to this extent—
displeasure, in the action."
THE NECESSITY OF FEELING: THE "EPIPHENOMENALIST"
SOLUTION

Call this the epiphenomenalist account of the status of feeling in moral motivation. On this view,
moral feeling is to be seen as motivationally inefficacious side-effect of an self-contained and
purely intellectual motivational process—that is to say, the feeling of respect is understood to
be epiphenomenal to the recognition and execution of dutiful action.

The necessity of feeling on this account is external to moral motivation itself: it is necessary only
as a by-product.

Strictly speaking, then, insofar as the purely intellectual apprehension of the law is sufficient
to generate moral action, Reath concludes that “moral motivation does not require, or
occur, through any feeling” (Reath 2006: 12).
THE NECESSITY OF FEELING: THE "EPIPHENOMENALIST"
SOLUTION
THE NECESSITY OF FEELING: THE 'EPIPHENOMENALIST' SOLUTION

THINK: Setting aside matters of interpretive accuracy, do you think the epiphonomenalist
model provides a plausible account of moral action?
SHORTCOMINGS OF THE INTELLECTUALIST READING:
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE FEELING OF RESPECT
Kant also describes a positive side to the feeling of respect that appears to do heavy
lifting in the generation of moral deeds:

"[T]he subjective effect on feeling, inasmuch as pure practical reason is the sole cause of it, can
thus be called self-approval with reference to pure practical reason" (CrPr 5:81).
Affectivist Model

Richard McCarty: “The strongest reason intellectualists deny the causal role of
moral feelings in Kantian moral motivation lies in their conviction that such
"deterministic" affective mechanisms are incompatible with the presumed
freedom of rational agency."
[...] However, Kant considers freedom itself a kind of causality, and so would find
no absurdity in identifying the determining cause of a free action. And if the
"intellectual causality" of freedom employs affective mechanisms in generating
action, then motivating moral feelings are entirely compatible with [rational]
freedom"
DESIRE, PLEASURE, AND FREEDOM:
KANT'S ACCOUNT OF AGENCY

According to Kant, our capacity to perform any action is grounded in our capacity to actualize
our ideas – Kant calls this capacity the faculty of desire:

“The faculty of desire is the faculty to be by means of one’s representations the cause of the
objects of these representations” (MM 6:211).
DESIRE, PLEASURE, AND FREEDOM:
KANT'S ACCOUNT OF AGENCY

In other words, the faculty of desire refers to the mind’s ability to actualize the objects
of certain representations—specifically, Kant tells us, the objects
of pleasurable representations. As Kant tells us in a lecture on metaphysics:

"The faculty of desire rests on the principle: I desire nothing but what pleases, and avoid
nothing but what displeases...But representations cannot be the cause of an object where we
have no pleasure or displeasure in it. This is therefore the subjective condition by which alone a
representation can become the cause of an object (LM 29:894).
DESIRE, PLEASURE, AND FREEDOM:
KANT'S ACCOUNT OF AGENCY

Kant appears to be claiming that desires and feelings of pleasure are present in all actions,
including non-moral acts and moral deeds alike.

However, does this not yield a contradiction?

“If the determination of the will occurs in accordance with the moral law but only by means
of a feeling of any kind whatsoever, which must be presupposed in order that the law
may become a determining ground of the will, and if the action thus occurs not for the sake of
the law, it has legality but not morality”
(Pr. R 5:72)
DESIRE, PLEASURE, AND FREEDOM:
KANT'S ACCOUNT OF AGENCY

According to McCarty, the intellectualist's charge of incompatibility against such a mechanistic

account turns upon a conflation of what are in Kant's view two distinct levels of our volitional
faculty:

1. The will proper [Wille], understood as the purely intellectual faculty of recognizing practical
laws

2. The executive faculty of choice [Willkür] in accordance with such laws, through which the
sensibly-affected subject implements the deliverances of the will into action.
The 'Election' Model:
Another Intellectualist Strategy
Some Intellectualists accept that the Kantian moral agent can only choose to actualize a
pleasurable idea, but reject the balance of forces model insofar as it is thought to
undermine rational autonomy.

Election Model: I can only choose to actualize a pleasurable idea of action. The idea of doing
some non-moral act X happens to cause me pleasure. The idea of doing something out of duty,
however, also causes me pleasure. Reflecting on my candidate options for pleasure according
to rational principles, I freely elect to pursue the pleasurable choice associated with the idea
of acting for the sake of duty, which in turn causes me to move to actualize this duty. Since the
choice was ultimately determined by reason, the fact that pleasure was necessary does not
compromise moral agency.
ACTION, DESIRE, AND PLEASURE:
KANT'S ACCOUNT OF ACTION
Kant tells us that when the faculty of desireis mediated by way of a subject’s faculty of
reason—that is, insofar as the subject represents by means of concepts—then the faculty of
desire is called “choice” [Willkür]. As “the faculty of doing as one pleases,” Kant claims that
choice is “the capacity for desiring according to concepts, insofar as the ground determining it
lies in itself and not in its object” (MM 6:213). As a species of desiring in general, then, choice
is always grounded in and initiated by a pleasurable representation:

" [T]he determining ground of choice consists in the conception of an object in relation to the
subject, whereby the faculty of desire is determined to realize the object. Such a relation to the
subject is called pleasure in the reality of an object (CrPr 5:21).
KANT'S ACCOUNT OF AGENCY
McCarty agrees with Reath that in order for actions to be chosen for the sake of duty, the
moral law must command the rational assent of the Wille immediately and without the
contribution of any sensible influence. But according to McCarty, this is only the beginning of
the motivational process for Kant. For in addition to one's legislative recognition of the moral
law as the all-sufficient reason for action, the actual execution of a corresponding moral deed
always depends upon a subsequent Choice. It is here in the operation of choice, McCarty
claims, that affective mechanisms are necessary in order to execute the dictates of the Wille.
For the Sake of Duty

KEY PASSAGE: “Now if an action done out of

duty is supposed to exclude totally the influence
of [self-interested] inclinations...then nothing
remains that could determine the will except...the
law.”
“What is left therefore is the maxim, to obey this
sort of law even when doing so is prejudicial to all
my inclinations.”
Affectivist Model

➢ Accept that feelings play a necessary role in generating moral actions

➢ Explain consistency with rational autonomy by showing how moral feeling

is different from pathological feelings

➢ Moral feeling, unlike pathological feelings, is somehow causally dependent

upon one’s rational recognition of the law
ANNOUNCEMENT

➢ Short Paper #2 Due Next Wednesday

➢ Abstract Due By The End of the Week

The 'Crooked Timber' of Humanity

Kantian Moral Psychology and

the Problem of Evil
"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever
made"

- Immanuel Kant, Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose

THE 'CROOKED TIMBER' OF HUMANITY: THE PATHOLOGICAL SELF

For Kant, we always enter the moral scene as beings with selfish desires that conflict with
duty:

"[W]e find our nature as sensible beings so constituted that the matter of the faculty of desire
(objects of inclination, whether of hope or fear) first forces itself upon us, and we find our
pathologically determinable self, even though it is quite unfit to give universal law through its
maxims, nevertheless striving antecedently to make its claims primary and originally valid, just
as if it constituted our entire self" (CrPr 5:74).
 The Corruption of the Will:
"Sensible Inclination"

A Good Will for Kant is one that acts according to maxims that are determined purely by one’s
intellectual recognition of the moral law – that is, by our faculty of Reason.
By contrast, a motive of the will that is determined by empirical contingencies, such as contingent
desires, impulses, instincts - or what Kant refers to collectively as Sensible Inclination - would not
have genuine moral worth. For this would make the will determined by a force that is alien to
one’s recognition of duty.
KANT'S RATIONALIST MORAL PSYCHOLOGY
Rational Self-Determination Thesis - The condition of the possibility of morality is one's capacity
to determine one's actions according to self-legislated rational laws and “independent of any
determination of alien causes.” Indeed, for Kant: “Autonomy of the will is the sole principle
of all moral laws and of duties in keeping with them.”
THE "HYPER-RATIONALIST" CARICATURE OF KANT

Kant's emphasis on rational autonomy has lent itself to a well-established

caricature of Kant as providing an implausibly rationalistic and antiseptic
picture of moral psychology, wherein pure practical reason is pit against the
corrupting antagonist of emotion and feeling.
THE NECESSITY OF 'MORAL FEELING'?
KEY PASSAGE: “Every determination of choice proceeds from the representation of the
possible action, through the feeling of pleasure or displeasure in taking an interest in the action
or in its effect, to the deed; And here the sensitive condition [...] is either a pathological or a
moral feeling. [A pathological feeling] is that feeling which precedes the representation of the
law; [A moral feeling] is that which can only follow the representation of the law.”

[Metaphysics of Morals 6:399]

THE
PROBLEM: 1. Morality as Rational Self-Determination - The condition of the
possibility of morality is one's capacity to determine one's
TWO actions according to self-legislated rational laws
INTERPRETIVE
CONSTRAINTS 2. The Necessity of Feeling – Kant claims that feeling is required
to act for the sake of duty
THE CHALLENGE FOR THE KANTIAN: In what sense can moral
PROBLEM action be rationally self-determined and yet also require moral
feeling?
Intellectualist Model

➢ Maintain that rational recognition of duty is sufficient to generate moral

action

➢ Deny that feelings play a motivational role in generating moral action

➢ Explain Kant’s insistence on the necessity of feeling as a necessary side effect

of moral motivation.
THE NECESSITY OF FEELING: THE INTELLECTUALIST SOLUTION

Andrews Reath: Because all human beings have pathological desires that must be thwarted
when we act out of duty, then “the determination of the will by moral law will always be
accompanied by an affect” (Reath 2006: 12).

E.G. Lightning will always be accompanied by thunder, but this does not mean that lightning is
caused by thunder

In the same way, Reath argues that “while an affect is produced when the moral law
determines the will, it is not this affect that motivates” (Reath 2006: 12).
'MORAL FEELING' AS CAUSALLY EFFICACIOUS
KEY PASSAGE: “Every determination of choice proceeds from the representation of the
possible action, through the feeling of pleasure or displeasure in taking an interest in the action
or in its effect, to the deed; And here the sensitive condition [...] is either a pathological or a
moral feeling. [A pathological feeling] is that feeling which precedes the representation of the
law; [A moral feeling] is that which can only follow the representation of the law.”

[Metaphysics of Morals 6:399]

Affectivist Model

➢ Accept that feelings play a necessary role in generating moral actions

➢ Explain consistency with rational autonomy by showing how moral feeling

is different from pathological feelings

➢ Moral feeling, unlike pathological feelings, is somehow causally dependent

upon one’s rational recognition of the law
Affectivist Model
As McCarty reads Kant, between the representation of an action and the executed deed there
must be choice-determining affective forces of pleasure or displeasure that are caused by the
thought of performing the action

The moral integrity of the motivational process only turns upon how the mechanistic forces enter
into the motivational process. Provided that the choice-determining feelings are somehow
dependent upon one's prior recognition of the moral law, the resulting action can be seen as
the product of a rational cause, and thus as a legitimate moral deed.
Affectivist Model

By virtue of the affective mechanisms standing in a suitable causal relationship with the
representation of the moral law, the autonomy of reason as an intellectual causality can be
made consistent with the necessity of affective forces.

As such, McCarty concludes contra Reath that “there is no reason to assume, as many
intellectualists have, that introducing an affective mechanism into Kantian moral motivation
threatens the freedom of moral agency.”

Since the causal sequence begins with the purely rational recognition of
duty“affectivists need not deny that Kantian moral motivation initially arises from
an intellectual recognition of the moral law.”
APPLYING THE AFFECTIVIST MODEL: How might an affectivist explain the difference in
moral status between Anton's action and the other two cases?

Beast of the Field A silverback gorilla forms a mental representation of killing the offspring
of his competitors. Insofar as actualizing this "idea" poses strategic benefits, the gorilla has
been conditioned by adaptive mechanisms to feel pleasure at this idea. This feeling of
pleasure moves the gorilla to kill his competitor's offspring.

Anton's Respect for Humanity The thought of buying the shoes fills Anton with pleasure. on
inquiring about the shoes, Anton discovers that they are a brand name manufactured by a
corporation known for operating exploitative child sweatshops. The idea of not buying the
shoes in order to respect the dignity of exploited people’s causes him to feel pleasure. This
feeling moves him to not buy the shoes.

The Life of Joy Joy forms an idea of helping a lost child stranded on the side of the
freeway. This idea causes Joy to feel pleasure. This feeling moves Joy to help the child.
The 'Balance of Forces' Model
Balance of Forces: The idea of doing some non-moral act X happens to cause me pleasure.
This pleasure exerts a certain amount of force on my faculty of choice. The idea of doing
something out of duty, however, causes me to feel pleasure that happens to exert a greater
amount of force. The overriding strength of this pleasure in turn determines my choice, and
causes me to move to actualize this duty.

THINK: Why might one argue that the balance of forces model fails to preserve human
freedom and the autonomy of reason?

THINK: Why might one argue that the balance of forces model makes it impossible to hold
someone morally blameworthy for actions that violate the moral law?
Rational Freedom as the Locus of Moral
Responsibility
Kant: "Freedom is independence from inclinations...as determining our faculty of choice"

We tend to think that people are only morally responsible for their actions if their actions were
self-determined through their own rational agency.

INTELLECTUALIST CHALLENGE TO AFFECTIVISM: If dutiful action/wrongdoing is just the

consequence of some contingent pathological inclination having a greater or weaker force than
that of a moral feeling, then it seems that we couldn't hold someone responsible for that action.
Our moral lives would be subject to radical contingency.
Rational Freedom as the Locus of Moral
Responsibility
CHALLENGE: If "Freedom is independence from inclinations," and thus if freedom is acting
solely according to reason, then how might this lead to problems for the idea that we are
responsible for those sensibly-determined actions that violate the moral law?
Kant and the Problem of Evil
THE PROBLEM:

First Lemma: We are only morally responsible insofar we are free rational agents

Second Lemma: To exercise rational freedom just is to be determined by the moral law

Implication: No morally responsible agent can commit an evil action; Evil is never imputable to
a morally responsible agent
Kant and the Problem of Evil
First Lemma: Moral Responsibility Requires Rational Freedom

We can only be morally responsible for our actions if we possess the

ability to self-determine our actions through our rational faculties
Kant and the Problem of Evil
Second Lemma: Rational Freedom Just Is Moral Action

We only possess rational freedom insofar as we are determined by

the moral law; Thus, free rational action always conforms to the moral
law.

THINK: Why would a Kantian endorse the second lemma?

Kant and the Problem of Evil
Second Lemma: Rational Freedom Just Is Moral Action

If Anton chooses to buy the shoes, knowing their origins, on account of the fact
that they fill him with pleasure, then his action would be determined by sensible
inclination, and not by pure practical reason.

Reason wouldn't be autonomous if our choices were determined by pathological

feelings
Kant and the Problem of Evil
Second Lemma: Rational Freedom Just Is Moral Action

KEY PASSAGE: "[I]f one had insight into the possibility of freedom...one would also have insight
into not merely the possibility but even the necessity of the moral law as the supreme practical
law of rational beings...for, the two concepts are so inseparably connected that one could even
define practical freedom as independence of the will from anything other than the moral law
alone."
Kant and the Problem of Evil
Second Lemma: Rational Freedom Just Is Moral Action

KEY PASSAGES: "F]reedom can never be located in the fact that the rational subject is able to
make a choice in opposition to his (legislative) reason"

"Only freedom in relation to the internal legislation of reason is properly a capacity; the
possibility of deviating from it is an incapacity"

"Freedom is the capacity to actively will that which is known to be good and is in our power;
but to [freedom] does not necessarily belong the capacity to will that which is known to be evil
and whose avoidance is in our power. This [latter] is not actually a capacity, but rather the
possibility of a passivity." (3868)
Kant and the Problem of Evil
THE PROBLEM: Free transgression of the moral law is impossible; Transgression of the
moral law can only be a result of the lack of freedom

C.f. Karl Leonard Reinhold: "If the moral law announces to us no other freedom than that
which consists in the self-activity of reason, then the capacity [for a morally responsible agent]
to act immorally is not only an incapacity, but is simply impossible."

"[The categorical imperative]....can therefore never be transgressed. Its not having been
followed cannot be a transgression. It is, rather, a necessary result of the circumstance that
human choice, in certain cases, has no negative freedom, no independence of sensible
incentives—is no human choice—and that positive freedom in these cases is not effective,
practical reason is not [free]."
Kant and the Problem of Evil
THE PROBLEM:

First Lemma: We are only morally responsible insofar we are free rational agents

Second Lemma: We are only free rational agents insofar as we follow the moral law;
Rationally free agents always act according to the moral law.

Implication: No morally responsible agent can commit an evil action; We are never
responsible for moral wrongdoing
The Negative Account:
Evil as the Lack of Rationality
ONE PROPOSED SOLUTION: THE 'NEGATIVE' ACCOUNT OF EVIL

1. Accept that 'imputable' evil is impossible; Evil is never the result of rational freedom

2. Explain evil as the lack of practical rationality

Michelle Kosch sums up this account as follows: "If practical reason is the source of moral
goodness, for Kant, then it seems moral evil can be dealt with quickly: it is a failure to achieve
maximal practical rationality due to some cognitive or voluntative limitations of finite agents,
never a genuinely free choice. "
Kant and the Problem of Evil
THE 'NEGATIVE' ACCOUNT OF EVIL

On 'negative' readings of the place of evil within the Kantian framework, evil is never a
result of a free choice; It is a failure of practical reasoning that can be traced to some
cognitive limitation or defect in one's capacities to act according to reason.

This akin to a Kantian variation on Socratic Intellectualism, according to which no one

ever knowingly chooses vice: vice is a result of ignorance.

Likewise, on the Kantian picture, evil would result from the failure to deploy one's
rational faculties; Evil is a result of practical irrationality.

THINK: What problems might the negative account of evil face?

Eichmann's Kant
"[H]e suddenly declared with great emphasis that he had lived his whole life according to
Kant's moral precepts, and especially according to a Kantian definition of duty. This was
outrageous, on the face of it, and also incomprehensible, since Kant's moral philosophy is so
closely bound up with man's faculty of judgment, which rules out blind obedience. To the
surprise of everybody, Eichmann came up with an approximately correct definition of the
categorical imperative: "I meant by my remark about Kant that the principle of my will must
always be such that it can become the principle of general laws" (which is not the case with
theft or murder, for instance, because the thief or the murderer cannot conceivably wish to live
under a legal system that would give others the right to rob or murder him). Upon further
questioning, he added that he had read Kant's Critique of Practical Reason."
Eichmann's Kant
INTUITION PUMP: How do we make sense of Eichmann's evil decisions in light of the fact that
he appears to have read and, in some sense, 'understood' Kant?

CONTRA KANT: How might this suggest that rationality is not the primary locus for morality?

PRO KANT: How might it only underscore that reason can become corrupted by non-rational
influences?
Eichmann's Fall from Kant: The Cog Theory
ARENDT: "He then proceeded to explain that from the moment he was charged with carrying
out the Final Solution he had ceased to live according to Kantian principles, that he had known
it, and that he had consoled himself with the thought that he no longer "was master of his own
deeds," that he was unable "to change anything."
Negative Solution 1:
Evil as Lack of Practical Rationality

PROPOSED SOLUTION: Insofar as he is embedded in a totalitarian regime, Eichmann is simply

not in possession of the rational faculties needed to properly recognize and execute the moral
law.

The Cog Theory Eichmann's evil was the result of an absence of practical reason, as his actions
are determined by external forces – like a cog in a machine. This is in line with Eichmann's own
description of his actions as originating in an "obedience of corpses"

THINK: Why might one think this model provides an inaccurate account of Eichmann's actions?
Eichmann's Distorted Kant: The Führer as Moral
Law
ARENDT: "What he failed to point out in court was that in this "period of crimes legalized
by the state," as he himself now called it, he had not simply dismissed the Kantian formula as no
longer applicable, he had distorted it to read: Act as if the principle of your actions were the
same as that of the legislator or of the law of the land.'

"Or, in Hans Frank's formulation of "the categorical imperative in the Third Reich," which
Eichmann might have known: "Act in such a way that the Führer, if he knew your action, would
approve it."

CHALLENGE FOR THE COG THEORY: The ability to construct a rival moral law suggests the
presence of rational capacities. So, in what sense can Eichmann's evil be said to result from the
absence of practical reason?
Negative Solution 2:
Inclination as Corrupting Temptation

PROPOSED SOLUTION: Eichmann has 'online' rational faculties, recognizes the moral law, but
is subsequently 'corrupted' by the 'temptation' of countervailing pathological feelings and
inclinations – e.g. the desire to feel validated by his community, the desire for self-
preservation, etc.

Thus, Eichmann's distorted 'moral law' was the result of something other than the exercise of
rationality – namely, feeling and inclination.

DEBATE: Do you think this model provides an accurate account of Eichmann's actions? Or does
it only scapegoat feelings? Do you think reason plays a greater role in evil than this account
suggests?
LAWFUL EVIL? THE POSITIVE USE OF REASON IN EVIL ACTION:

ARENDT: "Just as the law in civilized countries assumes that the voice of
conscience tells everybody "Thou shalt not kill," even though man's natural
desires and inclinations may at times be murderous, so the law of Hitler's land
demanded that the voice of conscience tell everybody: "Thou shalt kill," although
the organizers of the massacres knew full well that murder is against the normal
desires and inclinations of most people."
RATIONALIZATION AND EVIL:
THE POSITIVE USE OF REASON IN EVIL ACTION:

ARENDT: "Evil in the Third Reich had lost the quality by which most people recognize it -
the quality of temptation."

"Many Germans and many Nazis, probably an overwhelming majority of them, must
have been tempted not to murder, not to rob, not to let their neighbors go off to their
doom...and not to become accomplices in all these crimes by benefiting from them. But, God
knows, they had learned how to resist temptation."
The Trial of Adolf Eichmann:
Rationality and the Problem of Evil
LAWFUL EVIL? THE POSITIVE USE OF REASON IN EVIL ACTION:
These passages suggest that:

(I) Evil is not a mere absence of moral conscience, but a positive 'inversion' of moral conscience,
whereby moral transgression itself becomes law and the feeling of respect
becomes the corrupting temptation

(II) As opposed to Evil being a matter of passive determination by forces external to one's
rationality, such that reason is simply bypassed in the generation of evil, reason itself makes
an active contribution in carrying out this moral inversion.
Kant and 'Positive' Evil
Kant himself appeared to hold a 'positive' conception of evil, according to which evil is
not a 'negative' absence of rational agency, but the result of some 'positive' exercise of
our agency that is distinct from dutiful action:

"Nothing is … morally (i.e. imputably) evil but that which is our own deed."

"‘Evil can have originated only from moral evil (not just from the limitations of our nature)’"

"[T]he lack of the agreement of the power of choice (Willkür) with [the moral law] is possible
only as a consequence of a real and opposite determination of the power (p.45) of choice, i.e.
of a resistance on its part … or again, it is only possible through an evil power of choice (eine
böse Willkür)"
RECONSTRUCTIVE PAPER TOPIC
Kant and the Problem of Evil:
An Inconsistent Triad?

1: We are only morally responsible insofar we have the

capacity for rational freedom

2: Rational freedom just is determination by the moral law

3: Evil is the result of the free choice of a rational being

Kant and the Problem of 'Positive' Evil:
Mischelle Kosch (Cornell): "Kant had good reasons for wanting, in some sense, to say that
moral evil is a free choice of the will, and that freedom is not exclusively a capacity to
adopt maxims in accordance with the moral law."So what Kant does...throughout his moral-
philosophical works, is to try to steer a path between acknowledging a freedom that has no
law corresponding to it...and denying that there can be such a capacity. But no such path
exists. The end result is a situation in which the notion of autonomy and that of moral
responsibility that Kant had intended to join together in fact stand in tension with one
another. Kant's successors would have to decide which of the two to preserve."
Eichmann's Kant
INTUITION PUMP: How do we make sense of Eichmann's evil decisions in light of the fact that
he appears to have read and, in some sense, 'understood' Kant?

CONTRA KANT: How might this suggest that rationality is not the primary locus for morality?

PRO KANT: How might it only underscore that reason can become corrupted by non-rational
influences?