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Kant in his work “Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals” continues his project of articulating the scope and limits of the domain of metaphysics via a search for, and a discovery of, a fundamental formal principle of morality He also gives an account of the transcendental philosophy involved in the three formulations of the categorical imperative ( the prime example of synthetic a priori judgments in the realm of morality).
In this work, Kant refers to the ancient division of Philosophical disciplines into physics, ethics, and logic but it is not clear here as to who among the Ancients he is talking about. Aristotle’s division of the sciences into the theoretical, practical and productive does not quite support such a division. Depending upon one’s view, Kant can be construed as improving upon the role of Aristotelian Metaphysics in this debate by claiming that every science has both a formal part, in which the principles of the science are the focus, and a material part in which the empirical content of the science is contained. Insofar as moral science is concerned the formulations of the categorical imperative and the transcendental philosophy of the will associated with it are the focus of the Groundwork. The account of the Empirical aspect of Morality is then left to a later work entitled “Anthropology: from a Pragmatic Point of View”.
The Kantian system of Morality is built upon the transcendental element of a good-will which is part of the nature of a human rational agent. Finer and finer moral distinctions are articulated beginning with that between doing an action in accordance with the categorical imperative and doing an action constituted by the categorical imperative. Kant illustrates this distinction by giving an example of a shopkeeper who refrains from shortchanging strangers and children he serves in his shop because, in the long run, such actions would not be good for business. Such an action, Kant argues, may be instrumentally good but he argues that it is not categorically good and this can easily be proved by appealing to those circumstances where the shopkeeper merely changed their mind about what is good for business and adopted a policy of shortchanging children and strangers in his shop(perhaps because his shop was the only shop in the village). General outrage at this phenomenon of not being universally honest with one’s customers would then be founded on an understanding of the universal law of the categorical imperative and this might even eventually result in competitors setting up businesses with more honest business practices–thus proving the power of the ought system of concepts in moral contexts. There are a number of problems with instrumental imperatives relating to the so-called long term good for a business and one is that the “long term good” being referred to here is more often than not founded on a selfish principle, a principle-based on self-love, as Kant puts it. Happiness is often a long term aim and is connected to instrumental reasoning of this sort . For Kant, this is merely the principle of self-love in disguise. Of course, such a principle can be used instead of the more universal categorical imperative and insofar as reason is being used here it is solely for the purposes of examining whether the means to the end of happiness is causally efficacious. In the instrumental case the end in itself is not examined in any critical objective spirit, a spirit which would question whether the agent of the action deserved the happiness involved. The worth of the action is directly connected to the categorical goodness of the will defined in terms of the three formulations of the categorical imperative and the logical characteristics of such judgment, namely universality, and necessity. Insofar as universality and necessity are the logical characteristics of such ought-oriented judgments, they are objective, but descending to the account of the empirical content of such judgments we can find Kant speaking in terms of an opposition between the subjective and the objective, the subjective being where the subject is not involved or committed to the so-called “object of the action”. In instrumental cases of action furthermore, the “measure” of the rationality of the action is not in terms of the maxim of the action(which may be regarded as “subjective”) but rather in terms of its causal consequences(such as happiness), thus opening up a logical gap between cause and effect (which must be logically independent of each other). The maxims involved in such instrumental reasoning can therefore not be universalised in the way that the maxims constituted by the categorical imperative can be . For Kant, such instrumentally oriented maxims might be “Objective” in the sense of “causally determined” but they are not objective in the logical sense of being universally valid for all acting agents. Maxims that are universalisable and necessary are the product of the absolute in Kant’s system, the absolute of a good-will which is a priori and is related to experience in the logical sense of being its “organiser” or “principle”. In other words, the “good-will” here denotes a way of acting(given that experience can involve a doing as well as a suffering).
According to Kant, our everyday knowledge of the categorical imperative is not universal and perhaps not even widespread, indeed he even considers the logical possibility that no pure moral action has ever been performed. Kuehn, one of the biographers of Kant, has the following to say on this topic:
“Kant, in other words, does not intend to deal with the everyday situations or ordinary moral agents. He deals, rather, with an ideal of pure reason that is entirely a priori. This ideal which he calls the categorical imperative is not given in “experience”. It is an a priori synthetic practical proposition whose very possibility is difficult to “see”. Indeed Kant ends his book by emphasising that “we do not..comprehend the practical unconditioned necessity of the moral imperative”. We only “comprehend its incomprehensibility” and this “is all that can be fairly required of a philosophy that strives in its principles to the very boundary of human reason.”(Manfred Kuehn, “Kant: A Biography” p 285-6)
Kant’s Political Philosophy which is largely a political application of his moral Philosophy conceives of a state of humankind one hundred thousand years in the future which he calls a “Kingdom of Ends”. This teleological end-state in which reason and the categorical imperative is fully installed in the minds of the species he calls man is constituted by the categorical imperative. The length of time that this process will take testifies to the “incomprehensibility” of the categorical imperative and also indicates the power of how things are over how things ought to be. The link between these two logical realms is that of the will and its domain of operation, the domain of action. Here Kant is not referring to a notion of the General Will but rather to the individual will and its freedom to choose what it ought to do, to make true what was not true before. If the will is good and the maxims are therefore good in the sense of being universal and necessary then we are, according to Kant, in the realm of the morally good. We are the only authority that can be held responsible for the maxims we choose to embrace as the maxims of our actions.
Kant is invoking the idea of Freedom which, he elaborates upon in his Groundwork
“We must presuppose it if we want to think of a being as rational and endowed with consciousness of his causality with respect to actions, that is, with a will, and so we find that…we must assign to every being endowed with reason and will this property of determining himself to action under the idea of freedom.”(Kant’s Practical Philosophy P. 96)
This remark, when taken in the context of Political Philosophy and in the context of the further contention in the Groundwork that we cannot embrace the universality of the moral law for everyone if we are prone to make exceptions of ourselves, suggests the concept of equality. This concept of equality is in fact constituted by the moral law which many would argue is the source of the concept of equality that is operating in our legal systems. We are, according to Kant’s moral reasoning free to choose both the maxim of our action and whether to perform the action in question under the condition of equality. Many Political Philosophers will readily recognise the importance of the combination of these two ideas of freedom and equality to the formation of the concept of Human Rights. This is the same concept we encounter in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It should also be recognised in this context that Kant conceived of the founding of such an institution of a United Nations in the late 1700s in order to solve the political problem of international conflict and war.
It is clear to all discerning commentators that Kant’s Political Philosophy is entwined with his Ethics and Philosophical Psychology, two of the realms of consideration involved in our putative progress toward a distant kingdom of ends. The nature of man, Kant argues in this context, is to be antagonistic toward his fellow man because of an inherent ambivalent disposition toward being simultaneously social and unsociable. Humankind, it is argued, needs a master but does not wish to be mastered by any being but himself. The laws of the polis are predicated upon the above conditions and the telos of a possible kingdom of ends is built into the very structure of laws that when the kingdom of ends approaches will no longer be imperatives in the sense they are today. The laws might wither away as imperatives as progress, and perhaps History comes to an end. Of course significant events will continue to occur internationally.
Kant, in an essay entitled “What is Enlightenment?” adds an “Anthropological” account of man’s role in what he called the Age of Enlightenment(to be distinguished from an enlightened age in which the Kingdom of Ends has been established). He discusses our collective characteristics in no uncertain terms:
“It is because of laziness and cowardice that so great a part of humankind, after nature has long since emancipated them from other people’s direction(naturaliter maiorennes) nevertheless gladly remains minors for life, and that it becomes so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor! If I have a book that understands for me, a doctor who decides upon a regimen for me and so forth, I need not trouble myself at all.”(Practical Philosophy p17)
This combination of the descriptive thesis of the “crooked timber of humanity” and the moral challenge daring humanity to use their reason provides then the educational message Kant wishes to proclaim on behalf of the progress of mankind during the Age of Enlightenment. Freedom, of course, is the key component in freeing ourselves from this so-called “self-incurred minority”:
“For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but Freedom, namely freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters. But I hear from all sides the cry: Do not argue! The officer says Do not argue but drill! The tax official: Do not argue but pay! The clergyman: Do not argue but believe!…The public use of one’s reason must always be free and it alone can bring about enlightenment among human beings.” (PR P18)
Kant is arguing here not for civil disobedience in matters of tax, religion and military matters but rather for a climate of debate about all matters of concern for men living in society. One should pay one’s taxes ,believe and march when required but all such activities can be accompanied by healthy discussions about the reasons for obedience. Kant, we recall, was himself subject to an injunction to cease using his reason publicly in matters of religion, by his Emperor no less. He obeyed Emperor Fredrik whilst he was still alive but continued his critical religious discussion in Enlightenment spirit after Fredrik’s death. In continuing writing on religious matters Kant was merely embracing his own vision for the Age of Enlightenment. Kant was of course well aware of the tendency for Governments, since the writings of Hobbes, to treat its citizens like cogs in a huge machine and not accord them the dignity they deserved in matters of morality and freedom. This was one of the reasons why Kant urged us to dare to use our reason and overcome our natural laziness and cowardice. Freedom, for Kant, then, is the idea of reason that turns the giant wheel of the progress of civilisation.
This challenge to use one’s reason also echoes once again the thesis of the Groundwork that it is not the consequences of one’s actions we should be calculating when one is acting morally, but rather the “principle of the will”(PR P 55). Consequences are what the lazy and cowardly man fears the most and relates to desires and inclinations that can steer us away from doing what is experienced painfully as our duty. Dutiful action in a context of reasoned debate then is the highest unconditioned good that can be found in the arena of moral action. The mind for many scientifically inclined Philosophers such as Hobbes resembles a machine that works in accordance with laws, but for Kant moral consciousness is constituted by the moral law because man is a being who has the capacity to act constitutively in the name of these laws. Reason in such contexts derives particular actions from the moral law because it can represent these laws in thought. However, it is because we are also so constituted by our desires and inclinations steering us toward our own comfort and happiness that the moral law takes the form of an imperative–the form of an ought-statement. The mind of a moral agent represents an objective principle as that which ought to be instantiated via the performing of a particular action. Kant represents well the complex constitution of the human mind in terms of three systems of cognition that can all relate to action, namely Sensibility, Understanding, and Reason. When Reason and Understanding are operative, the law constitutes grounds for acting that are universally valid for every rational being.
Principles of action, according to the Groundwork, can both also be what Kant calls rules of skill or counsels of prudence and in both cases the ought statements relate to the means to achieve some end which can in fact be morally wrong or even evil as is the case of the poisoner who behaves like a doctor in administering a substance (to kill his enemy rather than cure a patient) or the case of the poisoner who “prudently ” murders his parents in order to inherit their fortune and lead a comfortable happy life. In both cases, it is the inclinations of the faculty of Sensibility that steers the outcome (consequences) and are thereby the “conditions” of the action. In the case of actions steered by the faculties of the Understanding and Reason and the categorical imperative the grounds of the action are not “conditioned” by the “causes” of the “inclinations” but rather the grounds of the action are “constituted” by what is unconditioned and necessary. This reasoning process overrides sensible inclinations as in the case of the subject who considers poisoning someone but abandons the course of action because it is categorically wrong(not constituted by the categorical imperative). Imperatives of skills such as the building of a house are “world-building” skills and when they are not in contradiction with the moral law, they shape the world we live in positively. The proposition expressing the relation of means to ends(adding a house to an existing village or city) is according to Kant an analytic proposition that has the hypothetical form of “If I will the effect, I must will the action to bring the effect about”. It is obvious that there is nothing necessary about the antecedent. In this proposition the necessity lies in the relation of the means to the end, i.e. I might change my mind about willing the effect or the end and in such circumstances willing the means becomes otiose. Prudential propositions concerning prudential actions, on the other hand, are directed to one’s personal happiness and are designated as synthetic judgments in Kant’s system. Here the end of happiness is so indeterminate, i.e. we do not very often have accurate knowledge of what it is that would make us happy because what we think we know seems to vary with the circumstances. If I am ill I believe I will be happy when my health returns. Becoming healthy I realise how poor I am and believe that if I become rich I will be happy. When I become rich I become aware of the possibility of losing all my money and enter the political arena in an attempt to avoid this possible consequence of political decisions(cf Cephalus in the Republic). Becoming politically powerful merely makes me aware of the possibility of losing power and the dangers that possibility brought with it in unstable political systems. This sequence of events demonstrates the relativity of the concept of happiness which can only be universally valid under the categorical unconditioned imperative that contributes to making us worthy of being happy.
One of the cases of the categorical imperative discussed in the Groundwork is “one ought not to promise anything deceitfully”. This statement is not to be analysed hypothetically, e.g. “one ought not to make lying promises lest if this comes to light one loses one’s credibility”. Kant clearly distinguishes here between different kinds of judgments guiding the will: synthetic judgments of prudential counsel, analytic judgments of rules of skill and the synthetic a priori judgments of the categorical imperative e.g. “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law”. It is this formulation that helps to define our duties in the realm of action. Kant further distinguishes two kinds of duties. Firstly, there are duties the defiance of which constitute fully-fledged practical contradictions and secondly, there are duties the defiance of which can be thought without contradiction but which make the world an unnecessarily difficult place in which to live.
The Moral Law rests on a philosophical foundation: a foundation of absolute worth which Kant also conceives of in terms of an end-in-itself in a second formulation of the categorical imperative that can also be found in the Groundwork. Kant, in this context, insists that the rational human being:
“exists as an end in itself, not merely as a means to be used by this or that will at its discretion: instead he must in all his actions, whether directed to himself or also to other rational beings, always be regarded at the same time as an end“(PR p79)
Associated with this idea of an end is a telos or teleological terminating point of a civilization in which all humans have evolved into moral beings daring to use their reason in relation to both beliefs and actions. This terminating point Kant calls the Kingdom of Ends:
“By a kingdom of ends, I understand a systematic union of various rational beings through common laws. Now laws determine ends in terms of their universal validity if we abstract from the personal differences of rational beings as well as from all the content of their private ends we shall be able to think of a whole of all ends in systematic connection, in that is, a kingdom of ends which is possible in accordance with the above principles.”(PR p83)
A rational being becomes then a citizen of this kingdom and both aids in the creation of these laws as well as himself being subject to its laws, i.e. he is both citizen and sovereign in this ideal kingdom. Partly because of this dual characteristic the law is deemed worthy of respect but also perhaps because the will is a law unto itself and the source of the dignity of a rational human being. This property of the will being a law unto itself, a causa sui, is equated by Kant with practical reason and related intimately to the practical freedom of the individual. Kant returns here to one of his terms of the Enlightenment and contrasts this autonomy or freedom with what he terms heteronomy, or acting in accordance with the principle of self-love and the subjective prudential interests that constitute such self-love. Heteronomy is in turn connected with the world of sense in which I can have an interest in being well when sick, rich when poor, in being politically active to protect one’s fortune, being anxious about losing one’s power, etc. etc. The world of sense is, in more senses than one a Heraclitean world, forever changing. The world of understanding and reason, on the other hand, is a world of permanence in which a deceitful promise is always and forever wrong and evil. We are, Kant insists denizens of the world of sense and citizens of the world of understanding in virtue of being a possessor of the power of Reason, an active power in contrast to the passive receptive capacity of Sensibility. Intelligent beings inhabit the intellectual world of the Understanding. This is one of the reasons why the rational human being conceives of practical law in terms of an imperative expressed in ought premises in a practical syllogism:
“The human being who in this way regards himself as an intelligence, thereby puts himself in a different order of things and in a relation to determining grounds of an altogether different kind when he thinks of himself as an intelligence endowed with a will, and consequently with causality, that when he perceives himself as a phenomenon in the world of sense(as he also really is) and subjects his causality to external determination in accordance with laws of nature. Now he soon becomes aware that both can take place at the same time, and indeed must do so. For that a thing in appearance(belonging to the world of sense)is subject to certain laws from which as a thing or being in itself it is independent contains not the least contradiction: that he must represent and think of himself in this two-fold way, however, rests as regards the first on consciousness of himself as an object affected through the senses and as regards the second a consciousness of himself as an intelligence that is as independent of sensible impressions in the use of reason(hence as belonging to the world of understanding)” (PR p103)
It is via the practical law of action then, that the self as noumenon becomes conscious of itself as an end in itself, or as a potential citizen of a Kingdom of ends. This self cannot be cognised completely but rather stands as Kant puts it at the end of his work “Groundwork” at the very boundary of human reason and at the boundary of what Kant calls an archetypal world. The only other super-sensible being in Kant’s Philosophy is that of God who governs the natural world with laws of nature in a deterministic system that cannot be conceived by us because:
“it is impossible through metaphysics to proceed by sure inferences from knowledge of this world to the concept of God and to the proof of his existence, for this reason: that in order to say that this world was possible only through a God(as we must think this concept) we would have to cognise this world as the most perfect whole possible and, in order to do so, cognise all possible worlds as well(so as to be able to compare them with this one), and would therefore have to be omniscient. Finally, however, it is absolutely impossible to cognise the existence of this being from mere concepts, because every existential proposition, that is, every proposition that says of a being of which I frame a concept, that it exists–is a synthetic proposition, that is one by which I go beyond that concept and say more about it than was thought in the concept, namely, that to this concept in the understanding there corresponds an object outside the understanding which it is absolutely impossible to elicit by any reference.”(PR P252)
What is lacking here is “a precisely determined concept of this original being”(PR p252). It is only, Kant argues, via the practical concept of the highest good as given by the moral law that we can determine the properties of a supreme being who is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and externally existing.
The idea of God, in other words, for Kant, is not something that could fill his mind with awe and admiration:
“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more often and the more steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not need to search for them and merely conjecture them as though they were veiled in obscurity or in the transcendent region beyond my horizon: I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence. The first begins from the place I occupy in the external world of sense and extends the connection in which I stand into an unbounded magnitude with worlds upon worlds, and systems of systems, and moreover into the unbounded times of their periodic motion, their beginning and their duration. The second begins from my invisible self, my personality,, and presents me in a world which has true infinity, but which can be discovered only by the understanding, and I cognize that my connection with that world(and thereby with all these visible worlds as well) is not merely contingent as in the first case, but universal and necessary. The first view of a countless multitude of worlds annihilates as it were my importance as an actual creature, which after it has been for a short time provided with vital force(one knows not how) must give back to the planet(a mere speck in the universe) the matter from which it came. the second, on the contrary infinitely raises my worth as an intelligence by my personality, in which the moral law reveals to me a life independent of animality and even of the whole sensible world, at least so far as this may be inferred from the purposive determination of my existence by this law, a determination not restricted to the conditions and boundaries of this life but reaching into the infinite.”(PR p269)
Our explanations of the scope and limits of our life begin with an immediate consciousness of my existence that involves the starry heavens without and the moral law within me. In the case of the universe outside of me, I am somehow sensibly aware of unbounded space and time which in turn quickens in me a feeling of my finite animal life on this speck of a planet. In the case of the latter, I become aware of infinity via the power of understanding that any active consciousness possesses and that transcends the sensible world of space and time. The idea of God is conspicuous by its absence in the above conclusion of the Critique of Practical Reason. It has been clearly replaced by Enlightenment man, finite in his matter but embracing the infinite in the forms of his moral/practical understanding and the idea of freedom. There is a suggestion here not merely of a matter-form(hylomorphic ) relation but also of a theoretical understanding of man in which the powers of Sensibility, space and time, are built upon and transformed by the powers of the understanding and reason. If this is a correct interpretation, then Kant is here demonstrating an Aristotelian commitment to the philosophical psychology that is required to support his moral theory. The concepts of the goodwill and the moral law are indeed innovations but they fit neatly into the incomplete moral puzzle left by the ethical speculations of Aristotle: speculations on areté(virtue) and eudaimonia(flourishing life). Kant’s theory leaves no space for a theoretical view of God’s existence but he believes that we can practically hope for a just God to reward the life led responsibly, the life constituted by the moral law. Enlightenment man, then, understands his physical place in the universe but transcends this finitude with an understanding and reason that can bring about the comprehension of the infinitude of his own powers. In the Third Critique, the Critique of Judgment, this view of Enlightenment man is reiterated in a context of witnessing the power of a mighty waterfall. The first moment of such an experience makes man aware of his finitude and puniness in the face of such sublime physical power. The second moment is a moment of transcendence in which man becomes aware of himself as a moral power in an intellectual universe, a power that transcends any physical power. The intellectual world supervenes in the second moment and the sensible world shrinks into the background of one’s consciousness of one’s own existence. In this account, we see no space for an idea of God but it is nonetheless clear that Kant is not arguing that God is any sense dead or non-existent. Kant was not a God-intoxicated philosopher like Spinoza or Leibniz but neither was he an atheist. Kant clearly argues that our moral dispositions give rise to a faith in God’s existence that springs from a Hope for a flourishing life as a consequence of leading a worthy moral life. The future Kingdom of Ends may sometimes look to be a very secular vision but it also has a theological dimension that realizes our hopes in terms of the sacred and the holy.
Enlightenment man has Enlightenment duties and these are systematically outlined in Kant’s last work “The Metaphysics of Morals”. The moral revolution of Kant’s duty-based ethics reveals clearly the limitations of Aristotelian virtue theory which apart from the absence of the idea of mans freedom in the realm of his responsibilities, also poses difficulties in relation to the questions as to how and why the law binds man to the Good as well as difficulties relating to the Rights of Man that emerge when the systems of Law and Morality converge.
The Metaphysics of Morals is in two parts: the metaphysical a priori principles of the doctrine of Right and the metaphysical a priori principles of the doctrine of Virtue. In an early section entitled “On the Relation of the Faculties of the Human Mind to Moral Laws” Kant presents his views on the Philosophical Psychology that is required to sustain an Enlightened moral theory:
“the faculty of desire is the faculty to be, by means of one’s representations, the cause of the objects of these representations. The faculty of a being to act in accordance with its representations is called life”(PR p373)
Insofar as we take pleasure in a representation this is nothing cognitive but simply a relation to a subject in the form of a feeling. Not being cognitive capacities, pleasure and displeasure cannot have explanations beyond what consciousness they have in certain circumstances. The connection of desire to pleasure forms what Kant calls an interest. Desire is also related to understanding and consciousness in the following ways:
“The faculty of desire in accordance with concepts, insofar as the ground determining it to action lies within itself and not in its object, is called a faculty to do or refrain from doing what one pleases. Insofar as it is joined with one’s consciousness of the ability to bring about its object by one’s action it is called choice: if it is not joined with this consciousness it is called a wish. The faculty of desire whose inner determining ground, hence even what pleases it, lies within the subject’s reason is called the will. The will is, therefore, the faculty of desire considered not so much in relation to action(as choice is) but rather in relation to the ground determining choice to action. The will itself, strictly speaking, has no determining ground: insofar as it can determine choice, it is instead practical reason itself.. That choice which can be determined by pure reason is called free choice. That which can be determined only by inclination(sensible impulse stimulus) would be animal choice…. Freedom of choice is thus independence from being determined by sensible impulses: this is the negative concept of freedom. the positive concept of freedom is that of the ability of pure reason to be of itself practical. But this is not possible except by the subjection of the maxim of every action to the condition of its qualifying as universal law… And since the maxims of human beings, being based on subjective causes, do not of themselves conform with those objective principles, reason can prescribe this law only as an imperative that commands or prohibits absolutely.”(PR P374-5)
The above is a sketch of the Philosophical psychology involved in action and its relation to the laws of freedom and these remarks also serve to assist us in distinguishing juridical laws regulating external action from internal ethical laws that are the determining ground of action. In the case of juridical law, freedom is involved in the external use of choice whereas ethical law is determined internally by the law of freedom and its relation to the will, and laws of reason. For humans whose choices are intellectually determined by the categorical imperative, such choices transforms contingent action into necessary action: action we must do or are obligated or duty bound to do. In such circumstances, certain actions then become permitted or forbidden. Now moral feelings of pleasure/displeasure may be involved in moral action but these are subjective and merely affect the mind. Feelings in themselves cannot authorize moral action because they are not “active” in the correct ontological sense. The kind of activity that constitutes moral action is marked by Kant via his use of the word “deed” which is a consequence of the freedom and responsibility of the agent or person who then has these deeds imputed to him/her as a moral personality. This imputation involves judgments of rightness or wrongness as determined by the moral law and its demands:
“Laws proceed from the will, maxims from choice. In man, the latter is a free choice: the will which is directed to nothing beyond the law itself, cannot be called free or unfree, since it is not directed to actions but immediately to giving laws for the maxims of actions(and is, therefore, practical reason itself). Only choice is therefore called free.”(PR 380)
External laws, then, clearly involve the call of duty but being external they further require the incentive of the moral law for the legal contract between the Law and the citizen body to be not just a social contract but a moral contract that will lead to a Kingdom of Ends in which all citizens can lead a flourishing life. It is in this context that Rights emerge because Rights are predicated upon the condition that my fellow citizens have duties to respect my rights as I have a duty to respect theirs. Duty, therefore, is the unconditional ground of all Right. This is partly also why there exists an asymmetrical relation between law and morality which expresses itself in the primacy of morality, making it the regulator of law but not vice versa: laws can be corrected on moral grounds but moral laws cannot be corrected on legal grounds. This is why in the Kingdom of Ends in which the idea of duty may be an incentive in everyone’s choice of actions, legal systems would shrink proportionately in accordance with the prevalence of this form of moral awareness. Given that, according to Kant, we are one hundred thousand years away from this pure cosmopolitan state of society we meanwhile require both moral imperatives and coercion of the law for pathological lawbreakers in order for society to “flourish”. We, therefore, have an external duty to both obey and respect laws of the land–an obligation Socrates clearly on behalf of Philosophy accepted in his refusal to accept an invitation to escape from prison.
Kant defines “The Universal Principle of Right” in the following way:
“Any action is right if it can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law, or if on its maxims the freedom of choice of each can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with moral law.”(PR p 387)
So, the concept of Right is connected to duty but also to regulating practical relations between the members of a citizen body. The form of this regulation must, however, not reside in feelings or the imaginative activity of wishing which without the use of understanding and reason do not take into consideration the freedom of others to lead a flourishing rational life. Whoever disregards the freedom of anyone else to lead such a life wrongs this person because they too have a right to such a life. The source of such judgments lies not in any empirical reference to an external law but rather in a normative reference to understanding, reason, and the choices a man makes in accordance with a pure practical reason that is both universal and necessary. Should a moral agent choose not to do what one ought to do(as defined by the categorical imperative), and in so doing infringes upon the freedom of others, then, Kant argues, the legal concept of right justifies coercion.
Kant discusses both private rights of ownership and public Rights in this context, both of which involve enforceability by the State via coercion. In the latter case he refers to a general united will that is constituted by three governmental institutions: the sovereign legislative authority of the people, the executive ruling authority, and the judicial authority in he form of a judge and fair legal processes. Kant has the following to say:
“These are like the three propositions in a practical syllogism: the major premise, which contains the law of that will: the minor premise which contains the command to behave in accordance with the law, that is, the principle of subsumption under the law: and the conclusion which contains the verdict(sentence), what is laid down as right in the case at hand.”(PR457)
It is in this context that Kant then introduces the next major element of his theory of rights, namely equality. No one can be superior to the general will and demand that others be bound by it but not oneself. Power resides in the three founding institutions of the state or commonwealth none of which can be identified with one superior person or one superior group of persons. Kant refers interestingly in this context to the role of the people in the legal process, a role in which representatives of the people form a jury of peers that decides upon the guilt or innocence of a defendant that has been accused of breaking the law and wronging either an individual, group of individuals or even the State as a whole. This image of a tribunal that decides in accordance with due process is an interesting image that occurs in all three Critiques in various forms.
It is via these institutions of Right that the State manifests its freedom or “preserves itself in accordance with laws of freedom”(PR P461). Citizens who find themselves in such a Commonwealth may not be happy because, Kant argues, happiness may come more easily in a state of nature or even in a despotic state:
“By the well being of a state is understood instead that condition in which its constitution conforms most fully to principles of right: it is that condition which reason, by a categorical imperative, makes it obligatory for me to strive after.”(PR P461)
The General Will of the people is, according to Kant, sovereign and has no duties to the people but only rights which the people are obligated to fulfil. The organ of the people–a ruler or government might, therefore, breach the moral law with relative impunity, i.e. the people will have no right to to displace him but only the right to complain about breaches. Any attempt to attack the person or the life of the ruler ought, argues Kant, to bring the death sentence because the attack is nothing less than an attack on the fatherland–an act of high treason. Rulers have rights to impose taxes on the people but only, Kant insists, for the purposes of their own preservation. The poor have a right to be supported by the wealthy, Kant also argues.
Kant claims the following in relation to the rights of nations with respect to each other:
“Now morally practical reason pronounces in us its irresistible veto:-there is to be no war, neither war between you and me in a state of nature, nor war between us as states, which, though they are internally in a lawful condition, are still externally(in relation to one another) in a lawless condition: for war is not the way in which everyone should seek his rights. So the question is no longer whether perpetual peace is something real. Instead one must act as if it is something real, though perhaps it is not: we must work toward establishing perpetual peace and put an end to the heinous waging of war.”(PR p491)
The second part of the Metaphysics of Morals discusses the doctrine of virtue and begins by maintaining that inner freedom is the condition of the possibility . Here Kant clearly envisages a homo noumenon playing the role of a master over a homo phenomenon conceived of as a cauldron of sensible affects and passions. Homo noumenon uses reason to govern the unruly homo phenomenon. There is no logical space for external mastery in the realm of the duties of virtue as there is for the duties of right. The imperative of the former duties of virtue is quite simply the duty to “know thyself!”. This knowledge involves, amongst other things knowing that, because one is a homo phenomenon and therefore guilty of much wrongdoing in the course of one’s life, the wronged in turn will wish for vengeance in the same way in which we being wronged will wish for vengeance from those who have wronged us. To avoid seeking vengeance upon oneself for one’s wrongdoings, Kant argues it is better to form a duty to forgive others . The spirit of this attitude is not one of meek toleration but rather that of a knowledge-driven attitude that sees the whole spectrum of human behaviour both systematically and humanistically. Such an attitude obviously gives rise in turn to a general attitude or duty to respect others as ends in themselves. This also entails that I have a duty to respect even the most vicious of men and the undoubted humanity that must be part of their moral personality. Having dealt with this more shadowy aspect of man’s personality Kant moves on to consider friendship in a way similar to the way in which Aristotle did:
“Friendship(considered in its perfection) is the union of two persons through equal mutual love and respect–It is easy to see that this is an ideal of each participating and sharing sympathetically in the others well being through the morally good will that unites them, and even though it does not produce the complete happiness of life, the adoption of this ideal in their disposition toward each other makes them deserving of happiness: hence human beings have a duty of frIendship”(pr 584-5)
Kant interestingly and perhaps somewhat paradoxically applies the physical concepts of attraction and repulsion to human social relations and requires an ideal balance of love and respect if the ideal of friendship is to be realized or actualized. Presumably because of the difficulty in establishing this ideal balance Kant modifies the above claim to the duty to a duty to “strive for” friendship. Kant evokes Aristotle’s words in this context “My dear friends, there is no such thing as a friend”. As an example of the difficulties that can occur in this process of striving Kant points to how for example pointing out perceived faults in a potential friend may be construed as a lack of respect and result in offense or insult. The love talked about in friendship cannot be mere affect because that is something that goes up in smoke after a while, Kant argues. This striving after friendship occurs in a social context and requires, therefore, a balance between revealing one’s judgments about others and keeping them to oneself.
There are also external tokens of this process of striving for friendship in social contexts and they can take the forms of affability, sociability, courtesy, hospitality, and gentleness. These “tokens” assist in bringing us nearer to “true” friendship.
Kant ends the Metaphysics of Morals with a discourse on the so-called methods of ethics in which he claims correctly that virtues are not innate but must be acquired during one’s life. This is manifested in the strength of a man’s resolution to for example disregard powerful passions and inclinations. Methods of teaching ethics include appealing dogmatically to memory(catechism) and appeal to reason(via dialogues). In dialogue form, the Socratic method will obviously present itself. Virtue can also be cultivated, Kant argues by the example of the behaviour of others setting up a standard to imitate. In this section, Kant concludes by asking whether religion as a discipline belongs to philosophical morals or not, given the relation of practical reason to the theoretical idea of God(which lies beyond the scope of the philosophical perspective because of the absence of proof of existence or nonexistence). Claiming then that we have duties toward such a being appears therefore paradoxical. Insofar as the historical teachings of the revelations are concerned however these appear to fall within the boundaries of “mere reason”, as Kant puts it and these teachings may well harmonize with the results of the operation of practical reason. The relation of our will to the will of God is also a matter of love and respect but here the relation between the two wills is not mutual but a transcendental affair taking us far beyond the realm of ethics into the realm of the holy.