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Submitted by:
DIWAKAR MISHRA
2010JE0994
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INTRODUCTION:
Deontological ethics or deontology is an approach to ethics that
determines goodness or rightness from examining acts, rather than
third-party consequences of the act as in consequentialism, or
the intentions of the person doing the act as in virtue ethics.
Deontologists look at rules and duties.According to deontology, we have
a { to act in a way that does those things that are inherently good as
acts ("truth-telling" for example), or follow an objectively obligatory rule.
Deontological ethics is commonly contrasted
with consequentialist or teleological ethical theories, according to which
the rightness of an action is determined by its
consequences. [4] However, there is a difference between deontological
ethics and moral absolutism.[5] Deontologists who are also moral
absolutists believe that some actions are wrong no matter what
consequences follow from them. Immanuel Kant, for example, argued
that the only absolutely good thing is a good will, and so the single
determining factor of whether an action is morally right is the will, or
motive of the person doing it. If they are acting on a bad maxim, e.g. "I
will lie", then their action is wrong, even if some good consequences
come of it.
Immanuel Kant's theory of ethics is considered deontological for several
different reasons. First, Kant argues that to act in the morally right way,
people must act from duty ({). Second, Kant argued that it was not
the consequences of actions that make them right or wrong but the
motives of the person who carries out the action.Kant's argument that to
act in the morally right way, one must act from duty, begins with an
argument that the highest good must be both good in itself, and good
without qualification. Something is "good in itself" when it isintrinsically
good, and "good without qualification", when the addition of that thing
never makes a situation ethically worse. Kant then argues that those
things that are usually thought to be good, such
as intelligence,perservance and pleasure, fail to be either intrinsically
good or good without qualification. Pleasure, for example, appears to not
be good without qualification, because when people take pleasure in
watching someone suffering, this seems to make the situation ethically
worse.
ABOUT IMMANUEL KANT:
Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in the Prussian city of Königsberg
(Germany). He studied and worked at the local university until three
years before his death and never travelled further than fifty miles outside
of the city. He was a philosopher and scientist, working in many areas
including mathematics, astrophysics, geography and anthropology. He
wrote several dense, difficult-to-read but highly influential texts regarding
metaphysics, meta- and practical morality, science, history and politics.
He was the first recorded scholar to suggest that some of the faint
nebulae visible with a telescope are actually separate universes. His
new ideas about the nature of reality and free will were widely
condemned at the time in which he published his works but have
remained prominently influential to this day.
Kant͛s Ethics (DEONTOLOGY):
It is rare for a philosopher in any era to make a significant impact on any
single topic in philosophy. For a philosopher to impact as many different
areas as Kant did is extraordinary. His ethical theory has been as
influential as, if not more influential than, his work in epistemology and
metaphysics. Most of Kant¶s work on ethics is presented in two works.
The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) is Kant¶s ³search
for and establishment of the supreme principle of morality.´ In The
Critique of Practical Reason (1787) Kant attempts to unify his account of
practical reason with his work in the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant is the
primary proponent in history of what is called deontological ethics.
Deontology is the study of duty. On Kant¶s view, the sole feature that
gives an action moral worth is not the outcome that is achieved by the
action, but the motive that is behind the action. The categorical
imperative is Kant¶s famous statement of this duty: ³Act only according to
that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become
a universal law.´
Reason and Freedom
For Kant, as we have seen, the drive for total, systematic knowledge in
reason can only be fulfilled with assumptions that empirical observation
cannot support. The metaphysical facts about the ultimate nature of
things in themselves must remain a mystery to us because of the
spatiotemporal constraints on sensibility. When we think about the
nature of things in themselves or the ultimate ground of the empirical
world, Kant has argued that we are still constrained to think through the
categories, we cannot think otherwise, but we can have no knowledge
because sensation provides our concepts with no content. So, reason is
put at odds with itself because it is constrained by the limits of its
transcendental structure, but it seeks to have complete knowledge that
would take it beyond those limits.
Freedom plays a central role in Kant¶s ethics because the possibility of
moral judgments presupposes it. Freedom is an idea of reason that
serves an indispensable practical function. Without the assumption of
freedom, reason cannot act. If we think of ourselves as completely
causally determined, and not as uncaused causes ourselves, then a ny
attempt to conceive of a rule that prescribes the means by which some
end can be achieved is pointless. I cannot both think of myself as
entirely subject to causal law and as being able to act according to the
conception of a principle that gives guidance to my will. We cannot help
but think of our actions as the result of an uncaused cause if we are to
act at all and employ reason to accomplish ends and understand the
world.
So reason has an unavoidable interest in thinking of itself as free. That
is, theoretical reason cannot demonstrate freedom, but practical reason
must assume for the purpose of action. Having the ability to make
judgments and apply reason puts us outside that system of causally
necessitated events. ³Reason creates for itself the idea of a spontaneity
that can, on its own, start to act±without, i.e., needing to be preceded by
another cause by means of which it is determined to action in turn,
according to the law of causal connection,´ Kant says. (A 533/B 561) In
its intellectual domain, reason must think of itself as free.
The Duality of the Human Situation
The question of moral action is not an issue for two classes of beings,
according to Kant. The animal consciousness, the purely sensuous
being, is entirely subject to causal determination. It is part of the causal
chains of the empirical world, but not an originator of causes the way
humans are. Hence, rightness or wrongness, as concepts that apply to
situations one has control over, do not apply. We do not morally fault t he
lion for killing the gazelle, or even for killing its own young. The actions
of a purely rational being, by contrast, are in perfect accord with moral
principles, Kant says. There is nothing in such a being¶s nature to make
it falter. Its will always conforms with the dictates of reason. Humans are
between the two worlds. We are both sensible and intellectual, as was
pointed out in the discussion of the first Critique. We are neither wholly
determined to act by natural impulse, nor are we free of non-rational
impulse. Hence we need rules of conduct. We need, and reason is
compelled to provide, a principle that declares how we ought to act when
it is in our power to choose.
Two problems face us however. First, we are not wholly rational beings,
so we are liable to succumb to our non-rational impulses. Second, even
when we exercise our reason fully, we often cannot know which action is
the best. The fact that we can choose between alternate courses of
actions (we are not determined to act by instinct or reason) introduces
the possibility that there can be better or worse ways of achieving our
ends and better or worse ends, depending upon the criteria we adopt.
The presence of two different kinds of object in the world adds another
dimension, a moral dimension, to our deliberations. Roughly speaking,
we can divide the world into beings with reason and will like ourselves
and things that lack those faculties. We can think of these classes of
things as ends-in-themselves and mere means-to-ends, respectively.
Ends-in-themselves are autonomous beings with their own agendas;
failing to recognize their capacity to determine their own actions would
be to thwart their freedom and undermine reason itself. When we reflect
on alternative courses of action, means-to-ends, things like buildings,
rocks, and trees, deserve no special status in our deliberations about
what goals we should have and what means we use to achieve them.
The class of ends-in-themselves, reasoning agents like ourselves,
however, do have a special status in our considerations about what
goals we should have and the means we employ to accomplish them.
Moral actions, for Kant, are actions where reason leads, rather than
follows, and actions where we must take other beings that act according
to their own conception of the law, into account.
The Good Will
The will, Kant says, is the faculty of acting according to a conception of
law. When we act, whether or not we achieve what we intend with our
actions is often beyond our control, so the morality of our actions does
not depend upon their outcome. What we can control, however, is the
will behind the action. That is, we can will to act according to one law
rather than another. The morality of an action, therefore, must be
assessed in terms of the motivation behind it. If two people, Smith and
Jones, perform the same act, from the same conception of the law, but
events beyond Smith¶s control prevent her from achieving her goal,
Smith is not less praiseworthy for not succeeding. We must consider
them on equal moral ground in terms of the will behind their actions.
The only thing that is good without qualification is the good will, Kant
says. All other candidates for an intrinsic good have problems, Kant
argues. Courage, health, and wealth can all be used for ill purposes,
Kant argues, and therefore cannot be intrinsically good. Happiness is not
intrinsically good because even being worthy of happiness, Kant says,
requires that one possess a good will. The good will is the only
unconditional good despite all encroachments. Misfortune may render
someone incapable of achieving her goals, for instance, but the
goodness of her will remains.
We might be tempted to think that the motivation that makes an action
good is having a positive goal±to make people happy, or to provide
some benefit. But that is not the right sort of motive, Kant says. No
outcome, should we achieve it, can be unconditionally good. Fortune
can be misused, what we thought would induce benefit might actually
bring harm, and happiness might be undeserved. Hoping to achieve
some particular end, no matter how beneficial it may seem, is not purely
and unconditionally good. It is not the effect or even the intended effect
that bestows moral character on an action. All intended effects ³could be
brought about through other causes and would not require the will of a
rational being, while the highest and unconditional good can be found
only in such a will.´ (Ibid., 401) It is the possession of a rationally guided
will that adds a moral dimension to one¶s acts. So it is the recognition
and appreciation of duty itself that must drive our actions.
Duty
What is the duty that is to motivate our actions and to give them moral
value? Kant distinguishes two kinds of law produced by reason. Given
some end we wish to achieve, reason can provide a hypothetical
imperative, or rule of action for achieving that end. A hypothetical
imperative says that if you wish to buy a new car, then you must
determine what sort of cars are available for purchase. Conceiving of a
means to achieve some desired end is by far the most common
employment of reason. But Kant has shown that the acceptable
conception of the moral law cannot be merely hypothetical. Our actions
cannot be moral on the ground of some conditional purpose or goal.
Morality requires an unconditional statement of one¶s duty.
Kant believes that reason dictates a categorical imperative for moral
action. He gives at least three formulations of the Categorical
Imperative.
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Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of
another, always as an end and never as a means only.´ (Ibid., 429)
What are Kant¶s arguments for the Categorical Imperative? First,
consider an example. Consider the person who needs to borrow money
and is considering making a false promise to pay it back. The maxim
that could be invoked is, ³when I need of money, borrow it, promising to
repay it, even though I do not intend to.´ But when we apply the
universality test to this maxim it becomes clear that if everyone were to
act in this fashion, the institution of promising itself would be
undermined. The borrower makes a promise, willing that there be no
such thing as promises. Thus such an action fails the universality test.
The argument for the first formulation of the categorical imperative can
be thought of this way. We have seen that in order to be good, we must
remove inclination and the consideration of any particular goal from our
motivation to act. The act cannot be good if it arises from subjective
impulse. Nor can it be good because it seeks after some particular goal
which might not attain the good we seek or could come about through
happenstance. We must abstract away from all hoped for effects. If we
remove all subjectivity and particularity from motivation we are only left
with will to universality. The question ³what rule determines what I ought
to do in this situation?´ becomes ³what rule ought to universally guide
action?´ What we must do in any situation of moral choice is act
according to a maxim that we would will everyone to act according to.
The second version of the Categorical Imperative invokes Kant¶s
conception of nature and draws on the first Critique. In the earlier
discussion of nature, we saw that the mind necessarily structures nature.
And reason, in its seeking of ever higher grounds of explanation, strives
to achieve unified knowledge of nature. A guide for us in moral matters
is to think of what would not be possible to will universally. Maxims that
fail the test of the categorical imperative generate a contradiction. Laws
of nature cannot be contradictory. So if a maxim cannot be willed to be a
law of nature, it is not moral.
The third version of the categorical imperative ties Kant¶s whole moral
theory together. Insofar as they possess a rational will, people are set off
in the natural order of things. They are not merely subject to the forces
that act upon them; they are not merely means to ends. They are ends
in themselves. All means to an end have a merely conditional worth
because they are valuable only for achieving something else. The
possessor of a rational will, however, is the only thing with unconditional
worth.
Criticisms:
One of the biggest difficulties with Kantian ethics is that it discounts
outcome as a valid factor in evaluating the moral worth of an action.
While it is not necessarily wise to rely solely on outcome (as in
utilitarianism), it is problematic to discount the outcome altogether - as
we saw in the dilemma of lying (to the psychotic killer).
The life and dignity of every human individual is inviolable (sacred) -
based on the formula of humanity. This means that it would be
impermissible to enslave 20 people regardless of whether or not it meant
that 80 people with disabilities would be aided by the slaves and lead
much better lives. This seems like an advantage Kantian ethics has over
utilitarianism. But what if killing one person would save the lives of 3
million people who will otherwise die? This would also be impermissible
according to Kantian principles.
At times Kantian moral duty seems to conflict with our natural
inclinations/common sense. If we obey the moral law rather than our
intuitions we are acting morally.
Deontological ethics is mostly concerned with what not to do - the
categorical imperative can only guide our conduct in so far as advising
us against morally wrong acts. It does not tell us what to live/aim for or
what to value.
REFRENCES:
Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals.
Wikipedia.
