NORMATIVE

ETHICS I

Ethics
Social Science Department
College of Education and Liberal Arts
Adamson University
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NORMATIVE ETHICS I

AGENDA
What is Normative Ethics?
What is Virtue Ethics?
What is Kantian Ethics?
 WHAT IS KANTIAN
ETHICS?
What is good is not equivalent to what is right

Centered in duty – deontological – deon means duty – duty to follow – based on Immanuel Kant (I.K.) – emotion is not
the basis of morality, it is our reason

Nature of morality – emotions – determine what is right/wrong ; nature of morality – negative

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 NORMATIVE ETHICS I
Immanuel Kant (1724—
1804)

• German philosopher whose comprehensive

and systematic work in epistemology (the
theory of knowledge), ethics, and
aesthetics greatly influenced all subsequent
philosophy, especially the various schools
of Kantianism and idealism.
• Kant was one of the foremost thinkers of
the Enlightenment and arguably one of the
greatest philosophers of all time.
• Kant’s entire system of morality is based
upon a rejection of Hume’s claim. For
Kant, reason is what makes us capable of
morality to begin with.
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I.K. – philosopher during enlightenment – put great emphasis of reason; reason – why we need to consider that
everyone has equal value – equal rights and responsibility – this is rational – autonomy/individuality

PRESENTATION TITLE
According to A – human being are only the rational animals – animals – no sense of humor = no reason

Hume’s law – one cannot derive a moral claim from fact claims

I.K. – used their own reason – freedom to do

--- reason – foundation of morality

Enlightenment – when the person is knowledgeable

-- Values of enlightenment – utilitarian, fraternity, and liberty --- these are from French revolution

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PRESENTATION TITLE

“A good will is good not

because of what it effects
or accomplishes, nor
because of its fitness to
attain some proposed end;
it is good only through its
willing, i.e. Good in itself.”
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals
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Good will = good/right actions

PRESENTATION TITLE

What makes an action:

1. Consequences – does not make the action right/wrong – proposed end – objective
2. Intention – not the intention – it is good only because of the action
3. Action
4. Moral agent
In the case of Maria and
Charlotte…

Suppose that Maria, who is very poor,

has promised to pay back a loan she
received from Charlotte, who is very rich
and who doesn’t need the money at all.
Even though there is a sense in which
more good would be accomplished if
Maria could keep the money – since that
money would make much more of a
positive difference to her than it would to
Charlotte – it would still be wrong of her
to keep it.
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 PRESENTATION TITLE
In the case of M (nang-utang) and C (the rich tita):

Money from C is more beneficial to M than C

Intention of M can be good – can be good in away the money would help M in her everyday life --
however – goodness does not make the action is right

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Kantian Ethics
• a form of deontological ethics – an ethical theory that defines right
independently of the good.
• whether or not a contemplated course of action is morally permissible
will depend on whether or not it conforms to what he terms the moral
law, the categorical imperative.
• Our duties can be understood in terms of respecting this imperative,
even if respecting the moral law leads to bad effects rather than good
ones.
Kantian Ethics (K.E.) – have reason – have duty to follow moral law

Moral law:
1. The categorical imperative – to follow – using our own reason: imperative – command/orders
 Based on reason – a command based on reason
 Necessary
 If u follow categorical imperative – u are doing a morally action

2. Hypothetical imperative
 Based on desire – do a command based on desire
 Contingent – can/cannot do it – based on ur desire

Notes on duty vs inclination:

Animals, after all, act on inclination. What differentiates us from them is our capacity to use reason, to make
rational judgments about what we ought to do.

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Categorical versus Hypothetical
Imperatives
• The moral law is categorical rather than hypothetical and it is an imperative.
Imperatives are commands or orders.
• A hypothetical imperative is a contingent command, one that we ought to
follow given our desires, for example.
“Go to the doctor”
• A categorical imperative, however, binds us no matter what our desires are.
“Don’t just use someone for your own purposes”
• This is the nature of morality – obligations bind independent of our desires;
they are not based in desire but in reason.
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Duty versus Inclination
• Kant believed that when we act well and are solely motivated by good
inclination, our actions lack moral worth.
• A person can exhibit moral worth while still experiencing
psychological conflict. What is important to moral worth is whether or
not the sense of duty is what is motivating our action.
• If a person acts rightly because of duty and not simply because he
desires the good, or had an inclination to seek it then: “…for the first
time does his conduct have real moral worth.”

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Suppose you are visited in the
hospital by your friend Smith…

You are now convinced more than ever that he is a

fine fellow and a real friend – taking so much time
to cheer you up, traveling all the way across town,
and so on. You are so effusive with your praise and
thanks that he protests that he always tries to do
what he thinks is his duty, what he thinks will be
best. You at first think he is engaging in a polite
form of self-deprecation, relieving the moral
burden. But the more you two speak, the more clear
it becomes that he was telling the literal truth: that it
is not essentially because of you that he came to see
you, not because you are friends, but because he
thought it his duty…
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 PRESENTATION TITLE
Has a duty and desire – action is moral worth
Has a duty but no desire – action is moral worth
Has no duty but has desire – action is not moral worth

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Duty versus Inclination
• Stocker clearly intends that we be put off by this. What we want in a friend is
someone who doesn’t regard his kindnesses to us as a matter of duty but, instead,
someone who wants to spend time with us, who is inclined to help, irrespective of
duty. Anything less than this, the thought goes, is a diminished form of friendship.
• Smith visits out of duty does not rule out a positive inclination to visit as well. The
problem is not that he is visiting out of duty, but that this seems to imply that he
is doing so grudgingly or resentfully, and that is what is disturbing. Absent those
negative feelings, however, and the case Stocker presents does not seem so
objectionable.
• Emotions such as pathological love can be very good indeed – but they have no moral
worth.
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Duty
• Note that there is a difference between (1) following a rule and (2)
behaving in such a way that our actions happen to conform to a rule.
• Moral worth consists in following the moral law, the categorical
imperative.

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The Categorical Imperative
• Formulation one:
Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the
same time will that it should become a universal law.
• Formulation two:
Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your
own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an
end and never simply as a means.

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FORMULATION
ONE
Act only according to that
maxim whereby you can at the
same time will that it should
become a universal law.

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The case of a man who needs
to borrow money, though he
knows he cannot repay it…

He wants to promise to repay, even though he

knows he cannot. Is this morally permissible? Well,
first we need to describe the prospective action
from the point of view of the agent; that is, the
agent, in trying to determine what to do, needs to
first formulate a maxim describing the action in
question. In this case, the maxim would look
something like this (in Kant’s words): “…when I
believe myself to be in need of money, I will
borrow money and promise to pay it back, although
I know that I can never do so.”
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Formulation One
• Kant argued that in thinking about whether or not to perform an
action, we are to first formulate a maxim describing the action. We
then test the maxim against the categorical imperative. Roughly, if it
fails, then the action is impermissible; if it passes the test, then the
action is permissible.
• In testing this against the first formulation of the categorical
imperative, we then ask, what if this were a universal law? What if
everybody did this?

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Universal Law

(1) “Can we will (2) “Can we will

that everyone do that everyone be
this?” allowed to do
this?”

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Contradiction in Conception
• Self-contradictory or Logical contradiction: we cannot will this to be
universal because we cannot even conceive of a world in which
everyone makes lying promises successfully – universal lying would
undermine trust in communication. This is why it is termed a
contradiction in conception.
• Practical Contradiction: When this is universalized, however, people
wouldn’t be able to get loans because no one would lend them money
if they couldn’t rely on the promises– thus, the frustration of the
agent’s purposes. And therein lies the practical contradiction.

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Suppose that Robert is
considering a donation to
charity…

Suppose that Robert is considering a

donation to charity but is very reluctant, because he
would rather spend the money on a new stereo, so
he considers a maxim something like “I will not
give anything to charity.” This is not
universalizable because if Robert is rational he will
realize that he would not want to live in a world in
which no one gave to charity – such a world would
be depressing indeed. Further, Robert should
realize that he might, himself, come to need the
benevolence of others and then would certainly
want there to be some charity in the world. 24
Contradiction in the Will
• On the standard Paton interpretation some maxims, when universalized,
do not produce logical contradictions but, rather, simply practical ones;
that is, they produce states that no rational agent would want.
• When an agent tests a maxim that generates a contradiction in the will,
the purpose that is undermined by universalization of the maxim is a
purpose that is “...essential to the will,” rather than a purpose that is
actually specified in the maxim itself.
• What is essential to the will? It requires the capacity for autonomous
decision-making; and it also requires having our basic needs met in
order to be autonomous agents.
FORMULATION
TWO
Act in such a way that you treat
humanity, whether in your own
person or in the person of another,
always at the same time as an end
and never simply as a means.

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For instance…

(1) A passenger uses a bus driver if he

boards her bus in order to get across
town;
(2) A wife lies to her husband so that
his birthday party will be a surprise;
(3) A mugger punches a victim in
order to rob his belongings.

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Formulation Two
• In using a person as a means, one necessarily disregards the person’s
interests; while treating them as an end, one necessarily considers the
person’s interests.
• Since having interests is essential to being a person, treating a person
as a means is tantamount to treating a person not as a person, while
treating a person as an end is tantamount to treating a person as a
person.
• Kant is not saying that we can never use another person as a means to
our own ends; he is not saying that it is always wrong to do so. As
long as they are treated with respect as autonomous, rational, beings.

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