## 1. Aims and Methods of Moral Philosophy



The most basic aim of moral philosophy, and so also of the
*Groundwork*, is, in Kant's view, to "seek
out" the foundational principle of a "metaphysics of
morals," which Kant understands as a system of *a priori*
moral principles that apply the CI to human persons in all times and
cultures. Kant pursues this project through the first two chapters of
the *Groundwork*. He proceeds by analyzing and elucidating
commonsense ideas about morality, including the ideas of a "good
will" and "duty". The point of this first project is
to come up with a precise statement of the principle or principles on
which all of our ordinary moral judgments are based. The judgments in
question are supposed to be those that any normal, sane, adult human
being would accept on due rational reflection. Nowadays, however, many
would regard Kant as being overly optimistic about the depth and
extent of moral agreement. Perhaps he is best thought of as drawing on
a moral viewpoint that is very widely shared and which contains some
general judgments that are very deeply held. In any case, he does not
appear to take himself to be primarily addressing a genuine moral
skeptic such as those who often populate the works of moral
philosophers, that is, someone who doubts that she has any reason to
act morally and whose moral behavior hinges on a rational proof that
philosophers might try to give. For instance, when, in the third and
final chapter of the *Groundwork*, Kant takes up his second
fundamental aim, to "establish" this foundational moral
principle as a demand of each person's own rational will, his
conclusion apparently falls short of answering those who want a proof
that we really are bound by moral requirements. He rests this second
project on the position that we -- or at least creatures with
rational wills -- possess autonomy. The argument of this second
project does often appear to try to reach out to a metaphysical fact
about our wills. This has led some readers to the conclusion that he
is, after all, trying to justify moral requirements by appealing to a
fact -- our autonomy -- that even a moral skeptic would have
to recognize.



Kant's analysis of the common moral concepts of
"duty" and "good will" led him to believe that
we are free and autonomous as long as morality, itself, is not an
illusion. Yet in the *Critique of Pure Reason*, Kant also tried
to show that every event has a cause. Kant recognized that there seems
to be a deep tension between these two claims: If causal determinism
is true then, it seems, we cannot have the kind of freedom that
morality presupposes, which is "a kind of causality" that
"can be active, independently of alien causes *determining*it" (G 4:446).



Kant thought that the only way to resolve this apparent conflict is to
distinguish between *phenomena*, which is what we know through
experience, and *noumena*, which we can consistently think but
not know through experience. Our knowledge and understanding of the
empirical world, Kant argued, can only arise within the limits of our
perceptual and cognitive powers. We should not assume, however, that
we know all that may be true about "things in themselves,"
although we lack the "intellectual intuition" that would
be needed to learn about such things.



These distinctions, according to Kant, allow us to resolve the
"antinomy" about free will by interpreting the
"thesis" that free will is possible as about noumena and
the "antithesis" that every event has a cause as about
phenomena. Morality thus presupposes that agents, in an
incomprehensible "intelligible world," are able to make
things happen by their own free choices in a "sensible
world" in which causal determinism is true.



Many of Kant's commentators, who are skeptical about these
apparently exorbitant metaphysical claims, have attempted to make
sense of his discussions of the intelligible and sensible worlds in
less metaphysically demanding ways. On one interpretation (Hudson
1994), one and the same act can be described in wholly physical terms
(as an appearance) and also in irreducibly mental terms (as a thing in
itself). On this compatibilist picture, all acts are causally
determined, but a free act is one that can be described as determined
by irreducibly mental causes, and in particular by the causality of
reason. A second interpretation holds that the intelligible and
sensible worlds are used as metaphors for two ways of conceiving of
one and the same world (Korsgaard 1996; Allison 1990; Hill 1989a,
1989b). When we are engaging in scientific or empirical
investigations, we often take up a perspective in which we think of
things as subject to natural causation, but when we deliberate, act,
reason and judge, we often take up a different perspective, in which
we think of ourselves and others as agents who are not determined by
natural causes. When we take up this latter, practical, standpoint, we
need not believe that we or others really are free, in any deep
metaphysical sense; we need only operate "under the idea of
freedom" (G 4:448). Controversy persists, however, about whether
Kant's conception of freedom requires a "two worlds"
or "two perspectives" account of the sensible and
intelligible worlds (Guyer 1987, 2009; Langton 2001; Kohl 2016; Wood
1984; Hogan 2009).



Although the two most basic aims Kant saw for moral philosophy are to
seek out and establish the supreme principle of morality, they are
not, in Kant's view, its only aims. Moral philosophy, for Kant,
is most fundamentally addressed to the first-person, deliberative
question, "What ought I to do?", and an answer to that
question requires much more than delivering or justifying the
fundamental principle of morality. We also need some account, based on
this principle, of the nature and extent of the specific moral duties
that apply to us. To this end, Kant employs his findings from the
*Groundwork* in *The Metaphysics of Morals*, and offers
a categorization of our basic moral duties to ourselves and others. In
addition, Kant thought that moral philosophy should characterize and
explain the demands that morality makes on human psychology and forms
of human social interaction. These topics, among others, are addressed
in central chapters of the second *Critique*, the
*Religion* and again in the *Metaphysics of Morals,* and
are perhaps given a sustained treatment in *Anthropology from a
Pragmatic Point of View*. Further, a satisfying answer to the
question of what one ought to do would have to take into account any
political and religious requirements there are. Each of these
requirement turn out to be, indirectly at least, also moral
obligations for Kant, and are discussed in the *Metaphysics of
Morals* and in *Religion*. Finally, moral philosophy should
say something about the ultimate end of human endeavor, the Highest
Good, and its relationship to the moral life. In the *Critique of
Practical Reason*, Kant argued that this Highest Good for humanity
is complete moral virtue together with complete happiness, the former
being the condition of our deserving the latter. Unfortunately, Kant
noted, virtue does not ensure wellbeing and may even conflict with it.
Further, he thought that there is no real possibility of moral
perfection in this life and indeed few of us fully deserve the
happiness we are lucky enough to enjoy. Reason cannot prove or
disprove the existence of Divine Providence, on Kant's view, nor
the immortality of the soul, which seem necessary to rectify these
things. Nevertheless, Kant argued, an unlimited amount of time to
perfect ourselves (immortality) and a commensurate achievement of
wellbeing (ensured by God) are "postulates" required by
reason when employed in moral matters.



Throughout his moral works, Kant returns time and again to the
question of the method moral philosophy should employ when pursuing
these aims. A basic theme of these discussions is that the fundamental
philosophical issues of morality must be addressed *a priori*,
that is, without drawing on observations of human beings and their
behavior. Kant's insistence on an *a priori* method to
seek out and establish fundamental moral principles, however, does not
always appear to be matched by his own practice. The *Metaphysics
of Morals*, for instance, is meant to be based on *a
priori* rational principles, but many of the specific duties that
Kant describes, along with some of the arguments he gives in support
of them, rely on general facts about human beings and our
circumstances that are known from experience.



In one sense, it might seem obvious why Kant insists on an *a
priori* method. A "metaphysics of morals" would be,
more or less, an account of the nature and structure of moral
requirements -- in effect, a categorization of duties and values.
Such a project would address such questions as, What *is* a
duty? What *kinds* of duties are there? What *is* the
good? What *kinds* of goods are there?, and so on. These appear
to be metaphysical questions. Any principle used to provide such
categorizations appears to be a principle of metaphysics, in a sense,
but Kant did not see them as external moral truths that exist
independently of rational agents. Moral requirements, instead, are
rational principles that tell us what we have overriding reason to do.
Metaphysical principles of this sort are always sought out and
established by *a priori* methods.



Perhaps something like this was behind Kant's thinking. However,
the considerations he offers for an *a priori* method do not
all obviously draw on this sort of rationale. The following are three
considerations favoring *a priori* methods that he emphasizes
repeatedly.



The first is that, as Kant and others have conceived of it, ethics
initially requires an analysis of our moral concepts. We must
understand the concepts of a "good will",
"obligation", "duty" and so on, as well as
their logical relationships to one another, before we can determine
whether our use of these concepts is justified. Given that the
analysis of concepts is an *a priori* matter, to the degree
that ethics consists of such an analysis, ethics is *a priori*as a well.



Of course, even were we to agree with Kant that ethics should begin
with analysis, and that analysis is or should be an entirely *a
priori* undertaking, this would not explain why *all* of
the fundamental questions of moral philosophy must be pursued *a
priori*. Indeed, one of the most important projects of moral
philosophy, for Kant, is to show that we, as rational agents, are
bound by moral requirements and that fully rational agents would
necessarily comply with them. Kant admits that his analytical
arguments for the CI are inadequate on their own because the most they
can show is that the CI is the supreme principle of morality *if
there is such a principle*. Kant must therefore address the
possibility that morality itself is an illusion by showing that the CI
really is an unconditional requirement of reason that applies to us.
Even though Kant thought that this project of
"establishing" the CI must also be carried out *a
priori*, he did not think we could pursue this project simply by
analyzing our moral concepts or examining the actual behavior of
others. What is needed, instead, is a "synthetic", but
still *a priori*, kind of argument that starts from ideas of
freedom and rational agency and critically examines the nature and
limits of these capacities.



This is the second reason Kant held that fundamental issues in ethics
must be addressed with an *a priori* method: The ultimate
subject matter of ethics is the nature and content of the principles
that necessarily determine a rational will.



Fundamental issues in moral philosophy must also be settled *a
priori* because of the nature of moral requirements themselves, or
so Kant thought. This is a third reason he gives for an *a priori*method, and it appears to have been of great importance to Kant:
Moral requirements present themselves as being *unconditionally
necessary*. But an *a posteriori* method seems ill-suited
to discovering and establishing what we *must* do whether we
feel like doing it or not; surely such a method could only tell us
what we *actually* do. So an *a posteriori* method of
seeking out and establishing the principle that generates such
requirements will not support the presentation of moral
"oughts" as unconditional necessities. Kant argued that
empirical observations could only deliver conclusions about, for
instance, the relative advantages of moral behavior in various
circumstances or how pleasing it might be in our own eyes or the eyes
of others. Such findings clearly would not support the unconditional
necessity of moral requirements. To appeal to *a posteriori*
considerations would thus result in a tainted conception of moral
requirements. It would view them as demands for which compliance is
not unconditionally necessary, but rather necessary only if additional
considerations show it to be advantageous, optimific or in some other
way felicitous. Thus, Kant argued that if moral philosophy is to guard
against undermining the unconditional necessity of obligation in its
analysis and defense of moral thought, it must be carried out entirely
*a priori*.


## 2. Good Will, Moral Worth and Duty



Kant's analysis of commonsense ideas begins with the thought
that the only thing good without qualification is a "good
will". While the phrases "he's good hearted",
"she's good natured" and "she means
well" are common, "the good will" as Kant thinks of
it is not the same as any of these ordinary notions. The idea of a
good will is closer to the idea of a "good person", or,
more archaically, a "person of good will". This use of the
term "will" early on in analyzing ordinary moral thought
prefigures later and more technical discussions concerning the nature
of rational agency. Nevertheless, this idea of a good will is an
important commonsense touchstone to which Kant returns throughout his
works. The basic idea, as Kant describes it in the Groundwork, is that
what makes a good person good is his possession of a will that is in a
certain way "determined" by, or makes its decisions on the
basis of, whatever basic moral principles there may be. The idea of a
good will is supposed to be the idea of one who is committed only to
make decisions that she holds to be morally worthy and who takes moral
considerations in themselves to be conclusive reasons for guiding her
behavior. This sort of disposition or character is something we all
highly value, Kant thought. He believes we value it without limitation
or qualification. By this, we believe, he means primarily two
things.



First, unlike anything else, there is no conceivable circumstance in
which we regard our own moral goodness as worth forfeiting simply in
order to obtain some desirable object. By contrast, the value of all
other desirable qualities, such as courage or cleverness, can be
diminished, forgone, or sacrificed under certain circumstances:
Courage may be laid aside if it requires injustice, and it is better
not to be witty if it requires cruelty. There is no implicit
restriction or qualification to the effect that a commitment to give
moral considerations decisive weight is worth honoring, *but
only* *under such and such circumstances*.



Second, possessing and maintaining a steadfast commitment to moral
principles is the very condition under which anything else is worth
having or pursuing. Intelligence and even pleasure are worth having
only on the condition that they do not require giving up one's
fundamental moral convictions. The value of a good will thus cannot be
that it secures certain valuable ends, whether of our own or of
others, since their value is entirely conditional on our possessing
and maintaining a good will. Indeed, since a good will is good under
any condition, its goodness must not depend on any particular
conditions obtaining. Thus, Kant points out that a good will must then
also be good *in itself* and not in virtue of its relationship
to other things such as the agent's own happiness, overall
welfare or any other effects it may or may not produce A good will
would still "shine like a jewel" even if it were
"completely powerless to carry out its aims" (G
4:394).



In Kant's terms, a good will is a will whose decisions are
wholly determined by moral demands or, as he often refers to this, by
the Moral Law. Human beings inevitably feel this Law as a constraint
on their natural desires, which is why such Laws, as applied to human
beings, are imperatives and duties. A human will in which the Moral
Law is decisive is motivated by the thought of *duty*. A
*holy* or *divine* will, if it exists, though good,
would not be good because it is motivated by thoughts of duty because
such a will does not have natural inclinations and so necessarily
fulfills moral requirements without feeling constrained to do so. It
is the presence of desires that *could* operate independently
of moral demands that makes goodness in human beings a constraint, an
essential element of the idea of "duty." So in analyzing
unqualified goodness as it occurs in imperfectly rational creatures
such as ourselves, we are investigating the idea of being motivated by
the thought that we are constrained to act in certain ways that we
*might* not want to simply from the thought that we are morally
required to do so.



Kant confirms this by comparing motivation by duty with other sorts of
motives, in particular, with motives of self-interest,
self-preservation, sympathy and happiness. He argues that a dutiful
action from any of these motives, however praiseworthy it may be, does
not express a good will. Assuming an action has moral worth only if it
expresses a good will, such actions have no genuine "moral
worth." The conformity of one's action to duty in such
cases is only related by accident to morality. For instance, if one is
motivated by happiness alone, then had conditions not conspired to
align one's duty with one's own happiness one would not
have done one's duty. By contrast, were one to supplant any of
these motivations with the motive of duty, the morality of the action
would then express one's determination to act dutifully out of
respect for the moral law itself. Only then would the action have
moral worth.



Kant's views in this regard have understandably been the subject
of much controversy. Many object that we do not think better of
actions done for the sake of duty than actions performed out of
emotional concern or sympathy for others, especially those things we
do for friends and family. Worse, moral worth appears to require not
only that one's actions be motivated by duty, but also that no
other motives, even love or friendship, cooperate. Yet Kant's
defenders have argued that his point is not that we do not admire or
praise motivating concerns other than duty, only that from the point
of view of someone deliberating about what to do, these concerns are
not decisive in the way that considerations of moral duty are. What is
crucial in actions that express a good will is that in conforming to
duty a perfectly virtuous person always would, and so ideally we
should, recognize and be moved by the thought that our conformity is
morally obligatory. The motivational structure of the agent should be
arranged so that she always treats considerations of duty as
sufficient reasons for conforming to those requirements. In other
words, we should have a firm commitment not to perform an action if it
is morally forbidden and to perform an action if it is morally
required. Having a good will, in this sense, is compatible with having
feelings and emotions of various kinds, and even with aiming to
cultivate some of them in order to counteract desires and inclinations
that tempt us to immorality. Controversy persists, however, about
whether Kant's claims about the motive of duty go beyond this
basic point (Timmermann 2007; Herman 1993; Wood 1998; Baron 1995).



Suppose for the sake of argument we agree with Kant. We now need to
know what distinguishes the principle that lays down our duties from
these other motivating principles, and so makes motivation by it the
source of unqualified value.


## 3. Duty and Respect for Moral Law



According to Kant, what is singular about motivation by duty is that
it consists of bare respect for the moral law. What naturally comes to
mind is this: Duties are rules or laws of some sort combined with some
sort of felt constraint or incentive on our choices, whether from
external coercion by others or from our own powers of reason. For
instance, the bylaws of a club lay down duties for its officers and
enforce them with sanctions. City and state laws establish the duties
of citizens and enforce them with coercive legal power. Thus, if we do
something because it is our "civic" duty, or our duty
"as a boy scout" or "a good American," our
motivation is respect for the code that makes it our duty. Thinking we
are duty bound is simply respecting, as such, certain laws pertaining
to us.



However intuitive, this cannot be all of Kant's meaning. For one
thing, as with the Jim Crow laws of the old South and the Nuremberg
laws of Nazi Germany, the laws to which these types of "actions
from duty" conform may be morally despicable. Respect for such
laws could hardly be thought valuable. For another, our motive in
conforming our actions to civic and other laws is rarely unconditional
respect. We also have an eye toward doing our part in maintaining
civil or social order, toward punishments or loss of standing and
reputation in violating such laws, and other outcomes of lawful
behavior. Indeed, we respect these laws to the degree, but only to the
degree, that they do not violate values, laws or principles we hold
more dear. Yet Kant thinks that, in acting from duty, we are not at
all motivated by a prospective outcome or some other extrinsic feature
of our conduct except insofar as these are requirements of duty
itself. We are motivated by the mere conformity of our will to law as
such.



To act out of respect for the moral law, in Kant's view, is to
be moved to act by a recognition that the moral law is a supremely
authoritative standard that binds us and to experience a kind of
feeling, which is akin to awe and fear, when we acknowledge the moral
law as the source of moral requirements. Human persons inevitably have
respect for the moral law even though we are not always moved by it
and even though we do not always comply with the moral standards that
we nonetheless recognize as authoritative.



Kant's account of the content of moral requirements and the
nature of moral reasoning is based on his analysis of the unique force
moral considerations have as reasons to act. The force of moral
requirements as reasons is that we cannot ignore them no matter how
circumstances might conspire against any other consideration. Basic
moral requirements retain their reason-giving force under any
circumstance, they have universal validity. So, whatever else may be
said of basic moral requirements, their content is universal. Only a
universal law could be the content of a requirement that has the
reason-giving force of morality. This brings Kant to a preliminary
formulation of the CI: "I ought never to act except in such a
way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal
law" (G 4:402). This is the principle which motivates a good
will, and which Kant holds to be the fundamental principle of all of
morality.


## 4. Categorical and Hypothetical Imperatives



Kant holds that the fundamental principle of our moral duties is a
*categorical* *imperative*. It is an *imperative*
because it is a command addressed to agents who could follow it but
might not (e.g. , "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."). It
is *categorical* in virtue of applying to us unconditionally,
or simply because we possesses rational wills, without reference to
any ends that we might or might not have. It does not, in other words,
apply to us on the condition that we have antecedently adopted some
goal for ourselves.



There are "oughts" other than our moral duties, according
to Kant, but these oughts are distinguished from the moral ought in
being based on a quite different kind of principle, one that is the
source of *hypothetical imperatives*. A hypothetical imperative
is a command that also applies to us in virtue of our having a
rational will, but not *simply* in virtue of this. It requires
us to exercise our wills in a certain way *given* we have
antecedently willed an end. A hypothetical imperative is thus a
command in a conditional form. But not any command in this form counts
as a hypothetical imperative in Kant's sense. For instance,
"if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands!"
is a conditional command. But the antecedent conditions under which
the command "clap your hands" applies to you do not posit
any end that you will, but consist rather of emotional and cognitive
states you may or may not be in. Further, "if you want pastrami,
try the corner deli" is also a command in conditional form, but
strictly speaking it too fails to be a hypothetical imperative in
Kant's sense since this command does not apply to us in virtue
of our *willing* some end, but only in virtue of our
*desiring* or *wanting* an end. For Kant, willing an end
involves more than desiring; it requires actively choosing or
committing to the end rather than merely finding oneself with a
passive desire for it. Further, there is nothing irrational in failing
to will means to what one desires. An imperative that applied to us in
virtue of our desiring some end would thus not be a hypothetical
imperative *of practical rationality* in Kant's
sense.



The condition under which a hypothetical imperative applies to us,
then, is that we will some end. Now, for the most part, the ends we
will we might not have willed, and some ends that we do not will we
might nevertheless have willed. But there is at least conceptual room
for the idea of a natural or inclination-based end that we
*must* will. The distinction between ends that we might or
might not will and those, if any, we necessarily will as the kinds of
natural beings we are, is the basis for his distinction between two
kinds of hypothetical imperatives. Kant names these
"problematic" and "assertoric", based on how
the end is willed. If the end is one that we might or might not will
-- that is, it is a merely *possible* end -- the
imperative is problematic. For instance, "Don't ever take
side with anyone against the Family." is a problematic
imperative, even if the end posited here is (apparently) one's
own continued existence. Almost all non-moral, rational imperatives
are problematic, since there are virtually no ends that we necessarily
will as human beings.



As it turns out, the only (non-moral) end that we will, as a matter of
natural necessity, is our own happiness. Any imperative that applied
to us because we will our own happiness would thus be an
*assertoric* imperative. Rationality, Kant thinks, can issue no
imperative if the end is indeterminate, and happiness is an
indeterminate end. Although we can say for the most part that if one
is to be happy, one should save for the future, take care of
one's health and nourish one's relationships, these fail
to be genuine commands in the strictest sense and so are instead mere
"counsels." Some people are happy without these, and
whether you could be happy without them is, although doubtful, an open
question.



Since Kant presents moral and prudential rational requirements as
first and foremost demands on our wills rather than on external acts,
moral and prudential evaluation is first and foremost an evaluation of
the will our actions express. Thus, it is not an error of rationality
to fail to take the necessary means to one's (willed) ends, nor
to fail to *want* to take the means; one only falls foul of
non-moral practical reason if one fails to *will* the means.
Likewise, while actions, feelings or desires may be the focus of other
moral views, for Kant practical irrationality, both moral and
prudential, focuses mainly on our willing.



One recent interpretive dispute (Hill 1973; Schroeder 2009; Rippon
2014) has been about whether hypothetical imperatives, in Kant's
view, have a "wide" or "narrow" scope. That
is, do such imperatives tell us to take the necessary means to our
ends or give up our ends (wide scope) or do they simply tell us that,
if we have an end, then take the necessary means to it.



Kant describes the will as operating on the basis of subjective
volitional principles he calls "maxims". Hence, morality
and other rational requirements are, for the most part, demands that
apply to the maxims that we act on. . The form of a maxim is "I
will *A* in *C* in order to realize or produce
*E*" where "*A*" is some act type,
"*C*" is some type of circumstance, and
"*E*" is some type of end to be realized or
achieved by A in C. Since this is a principle stating only what some
*agent* wills, it is *subjective*. (A principle that
governs *any* rational will is an *objective* principle
of volition, which Kant refers to as a practical law). For anything to
count as human willing, it must be based on a maxim to pursue some end
through some means. Hence, in employing a maxim, any human willing
already embodies the form of means-end reasoning that calls for
evaluation in terms of hypothetical imperatives. To that extent at
least, then, *anything* dignified as human willing is subject
to rational requirements.


## 5. The Formula of the Universal Law of Nature



Kant's first formulation of the CI states that you are to
"act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at
the same time will that it become a universal law" (G 4:421).
O'Neill (1975, 1989) and Rawls (1980, 1989), among others, take
this formulation in effect to summarize a decision procedure for moral
reasoning, and we will follow their basic outline: First, formulate a
maxim that enshrines your proposed plan of action. Second, recast that
maxim as a universal law of nature governing all rational agents, and
so as holding that all must, by natural law, act as you yourself
propose to act in these circumstances. Third, consider whether your
maxim is even conceivable in a world governed by this new law of
nature. If it is, then, fourth, ask yourself whether you would, or
could, rationally *will* to act on your maxim in such a world.
If you could, then your action is morally permissible.



If your maxim fails the third step, you have a "perfect"
duty admitting "of no exception in favor of inclination"
to refrain from acting on that maxim (G 4:421). If your maxim fails
the fourth step, you have an "imperfect" duty requiring
you to pursue a policy that can admit of such exceptions. If your
maxim passes all four steps, only then is acting on it morally
permissible. Following Hill (1971), we can understand the difference
in duties as formal: Perfect duties come in the form "One must
never (or always) ph to the fullest extent possible in
*C*", while imperfect duties, since they require us to
adopt an end, at least require that "One must sometimes and to
some extent ph in *C*." So, for instance, Kant held
that the maxim of committing suicide to avoid future unhappiness did
not pass the third step, the contradiction in conception test. Hence,
one is forbidden to act on the maxim of committing suicide to avoid
unhappiness. By contrast, the maxim of refusing to assist others in
pursuit of their projects passes the contradiction in conception test,
but fails the contradiction in the will test at the fourth step.
Hence, we have a duty to sometimes and to some extent aid and assist
others.



Kant held that ordinary moral thought recognized moral duties toward
ourselves as well as toward others. Hence, together with the
distinction between perfect and imperfect duties, Kant recognized four
categories of duties: perfect duties toward ourselves, perfect duties
toward others, imperfect duties toward ourselves and imperfect duties
toward others. Kant uses four examples in the *Groundwork*, one
of each kind of duty, to demonstrate that every kind of duty can be
derived from the CI, and hence to bolster his case that the CI is
indeed the fundamental principle of morality. To refrain from suicide
is a perfect duty toward oneself; to refrain from making promises you
have no intention of keeping is a perfect duty toward others; to
develop one's talents is an imperfect duty toward oneself; and
to contribute to the happiness of others is an imperfect duty toward
others. Again, Kant's interpreters differ over exactly how to
reconstruct the derivation of these duties. We will briefly sketch one
way of doing so for the perfect duty to others to refrain from lying
promises and the imperfect duty to ourselves to develop talents.



Kant's example of a perfect duty to others concerns a promise
you might consider making but have no intention of keeping in order to
get needed money. Naturally, being rational requires not contradicting
oneself, but there is no self-contradiction in the maxim "I will
make lying promises when it achieves something I want." An
immoral action clearly does not involve a self-contradiction in this
sense (as would the maxim of finding a married bachelor). Kant's
position is that it is irrational to perform an action if that
action's maxim contradicts itself *once made into a universal
law of nature*. The maxim of lying whenever it gets you what you
want generates a contradiction once you try to combine it with the
universalized version that all rational agents must, by a law of
nature, lie when doing so gets them what they want.



Here is one way of seeing how this might work: If I conceive of a
world in which everyone by nature must try to deceive people any time
this will get them what they want, I am conceiving of a world in which
no practice of giving one's word could ever arise and, because
this is a law of nature, we can assume that it is widely known that no
such practice could exist. So I am conceiving of a world in which
everyone knows that no practice of giving one's word exists. My
maxim, however, is to make a deceptive promise in order to get needed
money. And it is a necessary means of doing this that a practice of
taking the word of others exists, so that someone might take my word
and I take advantage of their doing so. Thus, in trying to conceive of
my maxim in a world in which no one ever takes anyone's word in
such circumstances, and knows this about one another, I am trying to
conceive of this: A world in which no practice of giving one's
word exists, but also, at the very same time, a world in which just
such a practice does exist, for me to make use of in my maxim. It is a
world containing my promise and a world in which there can be no
promises. Hence, it is inconceivable that I could sincerely act on my
maxim in a world in which my maxim is a universal law of nature. Since
it is inconceivable that these two things could exist together, I am
forbidden ever to act on the maxim of lying to get money.



By contrast with the maxim of the lying promise, we can easily
conceive of adopting a maxim of refusing to develop any of our talents
in a world in which that maxim is a universal law of nature. It would
undoubtedly be a world more primitive than our own, but pursuing such
a policy is still conceivable in it. However, it is not, Kant argues,
possible to rationally will this maxim in such a world. The argument
for why this is so, however, is not obvious, and some of Kant's
thinking seems hardly convincing: Insofar as we are rational, he says,
we already necessarily will that all of our talents and abilities be
developed. Hence, although I can conceive of a talentless world, I
cannot rationally will that it come about, given that I already will,
insofar as I am rational, that I develop all of my own. Yet, given
limitations on our time, energy and interest, it is difficult to see
how full rationality requires us to aim to fully develop literally all
of our talents. Indeed, it seems to require much less, a judicious
picking and choosing among one's abilities. Further, all that is
required to show that I cannot will a talentless world is that,
insofar as I am rational, I necessarily will that *some*
talents in me be developed, not the dubious claim that I rationally
will that they *all* be developed. Moreover, suppose
rationality did require me to aim at developing all of my talents.
Then, there seems to be no need to go further in the CI procedure to
show that refusing to develop talents is immoral. Given that, insofar
as we are rational, we must will to develop capacities, it is by this
very fact irrational not to do so.



However, mere failure to conform to something we rationally will is
not yet immorality. Failure to conform to instrumental principles, for
instance, is irrational but not always immoral. In order to show that
this maxim is categorically forbidden, one strategy is to make use of
several other of Kant's claims or assumptions.



First, we must accept Kant's claim that, by "natural
necessity," we will our own happiness as an end (G 4:415). This
is a claim he uses not only to distinguish assertoric from problematic
imperatives, but also to argue for the imperfect duty of helping
others (G 4:423) He also appears to rely on this claim in each of his
examples. Each maxim he is testing appears to have happiness as its
aim. One explanation for this is that, since each person necessarily
wills her own happiness, maxims in pursuit of this goal will be the
typical object of moral evaluation. This, at any rate, is clear in the
talents example itself: The forbidden maxim adopted by the
ne'er-do-well is supposed to be "devoting his life solely
to...enjoyment" (G 4:423) rather than to developing his
talents.



Second, we must assume, as also seems reasonable, that a necessary
means to achieving (normal) human happiness is not only that we
ourselves develop some talent, but also that others develop some
capacities of theirs at some time. For instance, I cannot engage in
the normal pursuits that make up my own happiness, such as playing
piano, writing philosophy or eating delicious meals, unless I have
developed some talents myself, and, moreover, someone else has made
pianos and written music, taught me writing, harvested foods and
developed traditions of their preparation.



Finally, Kant's examples come on the heels of defending the
position that rationality requires conformity to hypothetical
imperatives. Thus, we should assume that, necessarily, rational agents
will the necessary and available means to any ends that they will. And
once we add this to the assumptions that we must will our own
happiness as an end, and that developed talents are necessary means to
achieving that end, it follows that we cannot rationally will that a
world come about in which it is a law that no one ever develops any of
their natural talents. We cannot do so, because our own happiness is
the very end contained in the maxim of giving ourselves over to
pleasure rather than self-development. Since we will the necessary and
available means to our ends, we are rationally committed to willing
that everyone sometime develop his or her talents. So since we cannot
will as a universal law of nature that no one ever develop any talents
-- given that it is inconsistent with what we now see that we
rationally will -- we are forbidden from adopting the maxim of
refusing to develop any of our own.


## 6. The Humanity Formula



Most philosophers who find Kant's views attractive find them so
because of the Humanity Formulation of the CI. This formulation states
that we should never act in such a way that we treat humanity, whether
in ourselves or in others, as a means only but always as an end in
itself. This is often seen as introducing the idea of
"respect" for persons, for whatever it is that is
essential to our humanity. Kant was clearly right that this and the
other formulations bring the CI "closer to intuition" than
the Universal Law formula. Intuitively, there seems something wrong
with treating human beings as mere instruments with no value beyond
this. But this very intuitiveness can also invite
misunderstandings.



First, the Humanity Formula does not rule out using people as means to
our ends. Clearly this would be an absurd demand, since we apparently
do this all the time in morally appropriate ways. Indeed, it is hard
to imagine any life that is recognizably human without the use of
others in pursuit of our goals. The food we eat, the clothes we wear,
the chairs we sit on and the computers we type at are gotten only by
way of talents and abilities that have been developed through the
exercise of the wills of many people. What the Humanity Formula rules
out is engaging in this pervasive use of humanity in such a way that
we treat it as a *mere* means to our ends. Thus, the difference
between a horse and a taxi driver is not that we may use one but not
the other as a means of transportation. Unlike a horse, the taxi
driver's humanity must at the same time be treated as an end in
itself.



Second, it is not human beings *per se* but the
"humanity" in human beings that we must treat as an end in
itself. Our "humanity" is that collection of features that
make us distinctively human, and these include capacities to engage in
self-directed rational behavior and to adopt and pursue our own ends,
and any other rational capacities necessarily connected with these.
Thus, supposing that the taxi driver has freely exercised his rational
capacities in pursuing his line of work, we make permissible use of
these capacities as a means only if we behave in a way that he could,
when exercising his rational capacities, consent to -- for
instance, by paying an agreed on price.



Third, the idea of an end has three senses for Kant, two positive
senses and a negative sense. An end in the first positive sense is a
thing we will to produce or bring about in the world. For instance, if
losing weight is my end, then losing weight is something I aim to
bring about. An end in this sense guides my actions in that once I
will to produce something, I then deliberate about and aim to pursue
means of producing it if I am rational. Humanity is not an
"end" in this sense, though even in this case, the end
"lays down a law" for me. Once I have adopted an end in
this sense, it dictates that I do something: I should act in ways that
will bring about the end or instead choose to abandon my goal.



An end in the negative sense lays down a law for me as well, and so
guides action, but in a different way. Korsgaard (1996) offers
self-preservation as an example of an end in a negative sense: We do
not try to produce our self-preservation. Rather, the end of
self-preservation prevents us from engaging in certain kinds of
activities, for instance, picking fights with mobsters, and so on.
That is, as an end, it is something I do not act *against* in
pursuing my positive ends, rather than something I produce.



Humanity is in the first instance an end in this negative sense: It is
something that *limits* what I may do in pursuit of my other
ends, similar to the way that my end of self-preservation limits what
I may do in pursuit of other ends. Insofar as it *limits* my
actions, it is a source of *perfect* duties. Now many of our
ends are subjective in that they are not ends that every rational
being must have. Humanity is an *objective* end, because it is
an end that every rational being must have. Hence, my own humanity as
well as the humanity of others limit what I am *morally
permitted* to do when I pursue my other, non-mandatory, ends.



The humanity in myself and others is also a *positive* end,
though not in the first positive sense above, as something to be
produced by my actions. Rather, it is something to realize, cultivate
or further by my actions. Becoming a philosopher, pianist or novelist
might be my end in this sense. When my end is becoming a pianist, my
actions do not, or at least not simply, produce something, being a
pianist, but constitute or realize the activity of being a pianist.
Insofar as the humanity in ourselves must be treated as an end in
itself in this second *positive* sense, it must be cultivated,
developed or fully actualized. Hence, the humanity in oneself is the
source of a duty to develop one's talents or to
"perfect" one's humanity. When one makes one's
own humanity one's end, one pursues its development, much as
when one makes becoming a pianist one's end, one pursues the
development of piano playing. And insofar as humanity is a positive
end in others, I must attempt to further their ends as well. In so
doing, I further the humanity in others, by helping further the
projects and ends that they have willingly adopted for themselves. It
is this sense of humanity as an end-in-itself on which some of
Kant's arguments for imperfect duties rely.



Finally, Kant's Humanity Formula requires "respect"
for the humanity in persons. Proper regard for something with absolute
value or worth requires respect for it. But this can invite
misunderstandings. One way in which we respect persons, termed
"appraisal respect" by Stephen Darwall (1977), is clearly
not the same as the kind of respect required by the Humanity Formula:
I may respect you as a rebounder but not a scorer, or as a researcher
but not as a teacher. When I respect you in this way, I am positively
appraising you in light of some achievement or virtue you possess
relative to some standard of success. If this were the sort of respect
Kant is counseling then clearly it may vary from person to person and
is surely not what treating something as an end-in-itself requires.
For instance, it does not seem to prevent me from regarding
rationality as an achievement and respecting one person as a rational
agent in this sense, but not another. And Kant is not telling us to
ignore differences, to pretend that we are blind to them on mindless
egalitarian grounds. However, a distinct way in which we respect
persons, referred to as "recognition respect" by Darwall,
better captures Kant's position: I may respect you because you
are a student, a Dean, a doctor or a mother. In such cases of
respecting you because of who or what you are, I am giving the proper
regard to a certain fact about you, your being a Dean for instance.
This sort of respect, unlike appraisal respect, is not a matter of
degree based on your having measured up to some standard of
assessment. Respect for the humanity in persons is more like
Darwall's recognition respect. We are to respect human beings
simply because they are persons and this requires a certain sort of
regard. We are not called on to respect them insofar as they have met
some standard of evaluation appropriate to persons. And, crucially for
Kant, persons cannot lose their humanity by their misdeeds -
even the most vicious persons, Kant thought, deserve basic respect as
persons with humanity.


## 7. The Autonomy Formula



The third formulation of the CI is "the Idea of the will of
every rational being as *a will that legislates universal
law*." (G 4:432). Although Kant does not state this as an
imperative, as he does in the other formulations, it is easy enough to
put it in that form: Act so that through your maxims you could be a
legislator of universal laws. This sounds very similar to the first
formulation. However, in this case we focus on our status as universal
law *givers* rather than universal law *followers*. This
is of course the source of the very dignity of humanity Kant speaks of
in the second formulation. A rational will that is merely bound by
universal laws could act accordingly from natural and non-moral
motives, such as self-interest. But in order to be a legislator of
universal laws, such contingent motives, motives that rational agents
such as ourselves may or may not have, must be set aside. Hence, we
are required, according to this formulation, to conform our behavior
to principles that express this autonomy of the rational will --
its status as a source of the very universal laws that obligate it. As
with the Humanity Formula, this new formulation of the CI does not
change the outcome, since each is supposed to formulate the very same
moral law, and in some sense "unite" the other
formulations within it. Kant takes each formulation that succeeds the
first in its own way as bringing the moral law "closer to
feeling". The Autonomy Formula presumably does this by putting
on display the source of our dignity and worth, our status as free
rational agents who are the source of the authority behind the very
moral laws that bind us.


## 8. The Kingdom of Ends Formula



This formulation has gained favor among Kantians in recent years (see
Rawls, 1971; Hill, 1972). Many see it as introducing more of a social
dimension to Kantian morality. Kant states that the above concept of
every rational will as a will that must regard itself as enacting laws
binding all rational wills is closely connected to another concept,
that of a "systematic union of different rational beings under
common laws", or a "Kingdom of Ends" (G 4:433). The
formulation of the CI states that we must "act in accordance
with the maxims of a member giving universal laws for a merely
possible kingdom of ends" (G 4:439). It combines the others in
that (i) it requires that we conform our actions to the laws of an
ideal moral legislature, (ii) that this legislature lays down
universal laws, binding all rational wills including our own, and
(iii) that those laws are of "a merely possible kingdom"
each of whose members equally possesses this status as legislator of
universal laws, and hence must be treated always as an end in itself.
The intuitive idea behind this formulation is that our fundamental
moral obligation is to act only on principles which could earn
acceptance by a community of fully rational agents each of whom have
an equal share in legislating these principles for their
community.


## 9. The Unity of the Formulas



Kant claimed that all of these CI formulas were equivalent.
Unfortunately, he does not say in what sense. What he *says* is
that these "are basically only so many formulations of precisely
the same law, each one of them by itself uniting the other two within
it," and that the differences between them are "more
subjectively than objectively practical" in the sense that each
aims "to bring an Idea of reason closer to intuition (by means
of a certain analogy) and thus nearer to feeling" (G 4:435). He
also says that one formula "follows from" another (G
4:431), and that the concept foundational to one formula "leads
to a closely connected" concept at the basis of another formula
(G 4:433). Thus, his claim that the formulations are equivalent could
be interpreted in a number of ways.



Kant's statement that each formula "unites the other two
within it" initially suggests that the formulas are equivalent
in *meaning*, or at least one could analytically derive one
formula from another. Some of Kant's commentators, for example,
have argued along the following lines: That I should always treat
humanity as an end in itself entails that I should act only on maxims
that are consistent with themselves as universal laws of nature
(O'Neill 1975, 1990; Engstrom 2009; Sensen 2011). There are
remaining doubts some commentators have, however, about whether this
strategy can capture the full meaning of the Humanity Formula or
explain all of the duties that Kant claims to derive from it (Wood
1999, 2007; Cureton 2013).



Perhaps, then, if the formulas are not equivalent in meaning, they are
nevertheless logically interderivable and hence equivalent in this
sense. The universal law formula is not itself derived, as some of
Kant's interpreters have suggested, from the principle of
non-contradiction. That would have the consequence that the CI is a
logical truth, and Kant insists that it is not or at least that it is
not analytic. Since the CI formulas are not logical truths, then, it
is possible that they could be logically interderivable. However,
despite his claim that each contains the others within it, what we
find in the *Groundwork* seems best interpreted as a derivation
of each successive formula from the immediately preceding formula.
There are, nonetheless, a few places in which it seems that Kant is
trying to work in the opposite direction. One is found in his
discussion of the Humanity Formula. There Kant says that only
something "*whose existence in itself* had an absolute
worth" could be the ground of a categorically binding law (G
4:428). He then boldly proclaims that humanity is this absolutely
valuable thing, referring to this as a "postulate" that he
will argue for in the final chapter of the *Groundwork* (G
4:429n). One might take this as expressing Kant's intention to
derive thereby the universal law formula from the Humanity Formula:
*If* something is absolutely valuable, *then* we must
act only on maxims that can be universal laws. But (he postulates)
humanity is absolutely valuable. *Thus*, we must act only on
maxims that can be universal laws. This (we think) anomalous
discussion may well get at some deep sense in which Kant thought the
formulations were equivalent. Nonetheless, this derivation of the
universal law formulation from the Humanity Formulation seems to
require a substantive, *synthetic* claim, namely, that humanity
is indeed absolutely valuable. And if it does require this, then,
contrary to Kant's own insistence, the argument of
*Groundwork* *II* does not appear to be merely an
analytic argument meant simply to establish the content of the moral
law.



The most straightforward interpretation of the claim that the formulas
are equivalent is as the claim that following or applying each formula
would generate all and only the same duties (Allison 2011). This seems
to be supported by the fact that Kant used the same examples through
the Law of Nature Formula and the Humanity Formula. Thus, the
Universal Law Formulation generates a duty to ph if and only if the
Humanity Formula generates a duty to ph, (and so on for the other
formulations). In other words, respect for humanity as an end in
itself could never lead you to act on maxims that would generate a
contradiction when universalized, and vice versa. This way of
understanding Kant's claim also fits with his statement that
there is no "objective practical difference" between the
formulations although there are "subjective" differences.
The subjective differences between formulas are presumably differences
that appeal in different ways to various conceptions of what morality
demands of us. But this difference in meaning is compatible with there
being no practical difference, in the sense that conformity to one
formulation cannot lead one to violate another formulation.


## 10. Autonomy



At the heart of Kant's moral theory is the idea of autonomy.
Most readers interpret Kant as holding that autonomy is a property of
rational wills or agents. Understanding the idea of autonomy was, in
Kant's view, key to understanding and justifying the authority
that moral requirements have over us. As with Rousseau, whose views
influenced Kant, freedom does not consist in being bound by no law,
but by laws that are in some sense of one's own making. The idea
of freedom as autonomy thus goes beyond the merely
"negative" sense of being *free from* causes on our
conduct originating outside of ourselves. It contains first and
foremost the idea of laws made and laid down by oneself, and, in
virtue of this, laws that have decisive authority over oneself.



Kant's basic idea can be grasped intuitively by analogy with the
idea of political freedom as autonomy (See Reath 1994). Consider how
political freedom in liberal theories is thought to be related to
legitimate political authority: A state is free when its citizens are
bound only by laws in some sense of their own making -- created
and put into effect, say, by vote or by elected representatives. The
laws of that state then express the will of the citizens who are bound
by them. The idea, then, is that the source of legitimate political
authority is not external to its citizens, but internal to them,
internal to "the will of the people." It is because the
body politic created and enacted these laws for itself that it can be
bound by them. An autonomous state is thus one in which the authority
of its laws is in the will of the people in that state, rather than in
the will of a people external to that state, as when one state imposes
laws on another during occupation or colonization. In the latter case,
the laws have no legitimate authority over those citizens. In a
similar fashion, we may think of a person as free when bound only by
her own will and not by the will of another. Her actions then express
her own will and not the will of someone or something else. The
authority of the principles binding her will is then also not external
to her will. It comes from the fact that she willed them. So autonomy,
when applied to an individual, ensures that the source of the
authority of the principles that bind her is in her own will.
Kant's view can be seen as the view that the moral law is just
such a principle. Hence, the "moral legitimacy" of the CI
is grounded in its being an expression of each person's own
rational will. It is because each person's own reason is the
legislator and executor of the moral law that it is authoritative for
her. (For a contrasting interpretation of autonomy that emphasizes the
intrinsic value of freedom of choice and the instrumental role of
reason in preserving that value, see Guyer 2007).



Kant argues that the idea of an autonomous will emerges from a
consideration of the idea of a will that is free "in a negative
sense." The concept of a rational will is of a will that
operates by responding to what it takes to be reasons. This is,
firstly, the concept of a will that does not operate through the
influence of factors outside of this responsiveness to apparent
reasons. For a will to be free is thus for it to be physically and
psychologically unforced in its operation. Hence, behaviors that are
performed because of obsessions or thought disorders are not free in
this negative sense. But also, for Kant, a will that operates by being
determined through the operation of natural laws, such as those of
biology or psychology, cannot be thought of as operating by responding
to reasons. Hence, determination by natural laws is conceptually
incompatible with being free in a negative sense.



A crucial move in Kant's argument is his claim that a rational
will cannot act except "under the Idea" of its own freedom
(G 4:448). The expression "acting under the Idea of
freedom" is easy to misunderstand. It does not mean that a
rational will must *believe* it is free, since determinists are
as free as libertarians in Kant's view. Indeed, Kant goes out of
his way in his most famous work, the *Critique of Pure Reason*,
to argue that we have no rational basis for *believing* our
wills to be free. This would involve, he argues, attributing a
property to our wills that they would have to have as 'things in
themselves' apart from the causally determined world of
appearances. Of such things, he insists, we can have no knowledge. For
much the same reason, Kant is not claiming that a rational will cannot
operate without *feeling* free. Feelings, even the feeling of
operating freely or the "looseness" Hume refers to when we
act, cannot be used in an *a priori* argument to establish the
CI, since they are empirical data.



One helpful way to understand acting "under the Idea of
freedom" is by analogy with acting "under the Idea"
that there are purposes in nature: Although there is, according to
Kant, no rational basis for the belief that the natural world is (or
is not) arranged according to some purpose by a Designer, the actual
practices of science often require looking for the purpose of this or
that chemical, organ, creature, environment, and so on. Thus, one
engages in these natural sciences by searching for purposes in nature.
Yet when an evolutionary biologist, for instance, looks for the
purpose of some organ in some creature, she does not after all thereby
believe that the creature *was* designed that way, for
instance, by a Deity. Nor is she having some feeling of
"designedness" in the creature. To say that she
"acts under the Idea of" design is to say something about
the practice of biology: Practicing biology involves searching for the
purposes of the parts of living organisms. In much the same way,
although there is no rational justification for the belief that our
wills are (or are not) free, the actual practice of practical
deliberation and decision consists of a search for the right causal
chain of which to be the origin -- consists, that is, seeking to
be the first causes of things, wholly and completely through the
exercise of one's own will.



Kant says that a will that cannot exercise itself except under the
Idea of its freedom *is* free from a practical point of view
(*im practischer Absicht*). In saying such wills are free from
a practical point of view, he is saying that in engaging in practical
endeavors -- trying to decide what to do, what to hold oneself
and others responsible for, and so on -- one is justified in
holding oneself to all of the principles to which one would be
justified in holding wills that are autonomous free wills. Thus, once
we have established the set of prescriptions, rules, laws and
directives that would bind an autonomous free will, we then hold
ourselves to this very same of set prescriptions, rules, laws and
directives. And one is justified in this because rational agency can
only operate by seeking to be the first cause of its actions, and
these are the prescriptions, and so on, of being a first cause of
action. Therefore, rational agents are free in a negative sense
insofar as any practical matter is at issue.



Crucially, rational wills that are negatively free must be autonomous,
or so Kant argues. This is because the will is a kind of
cause--willing causes action. Kant took from Hume the idea that
causation implies universal regularities: if *x* causes
*y*, then there is some universally valid law connecting
*X*s to *Y*s. So, if my will is the cause of my
phing, then Phing is connected to the sort of willing I engage
in by some universal law. But it can't be a natural law, such as
a psychological, physical, chemical or biological law. These laws,
which Kant thought were universal too, govern the movements of my
body, the workings of my brain and nervous system and the operation of
my environment and its effects on me as a material being. But they
cannot be the laws governing the operation of my will; that, Kant
already argued, is inconsistent with the freedom of my will in a
negative sense. So, the will operates according to a universal law,
though not one authored by nature, but one of which I am the origin or
author. And that is to say that, in viewing my willing to ph as a
negatively free cause of my phing, I must view my will as the
autonomous cause of my having phed, as causing my having phed by
way of some law that I, insofar as I am a rational will, laid down for
my will.



Thus, Kant argues, a rational will, insofar as it is rational, is a
will conforming itself to those laws valid for any rational will.
Addressed to imperfectly rational wills, such as our own, this becomes
an imperative: "Conform your action to a universal non-natural
law." Kant assumed that there was some connection between this
formal requirement and the formulation of the CI which enjoins us to
"Act as though the maxim of your action were to become by your
will a universal law of nature." But, as commentators have long
noticed (see, e.g. , Hill, 1989a, 1989b), it is not clear what the
link is between the claim that rational autonomous wills conform
themselves to whatever universally valid laws require, and the more
substantial and controversial claim that you should evaluate your
maxims in the ways implied by the universal law of nature
formulation.



Kant appeared not to recognize the gap between the law of an
autonomous rational will and the CI, but he was apparently unsatisfied
with the argument establishing the CI in *Groundwork* III for
another reason, namely, the fact that it does not prove that we really
are free. In the *Critique of Practical Reason*, he states that
it is simply a "fact of reason" (*Factum der
Vernunft*) that our wills are bound by the CI, and he uses this to
argue that our wills are autonomous. Hence, while in the
*Groundwork* Kant relies on a dubious argument for our autonomy
to establish that we are bound by the moral law, in the second
*Critique*, he argues from the bold assertion of our being
bound by the moral law to our autonomy.



The apparent failure of Kant's argument to establish the
autonomy of the will, and hence the authority of moral demands over
us, has not deterred his followers from trying to make good on this
project. One strategy favored recently has been to turn back to the
arguments of *Groundwork II* for help. Kant himself repeatedly
claimed that these arguments are merely analytic but that they do not
establish that there is anything that answers to the concepts he
analyzes. The conclusions are thus fully compatible with morality
being, as he puts it, a "mere phantom of the brain" (G
4:445). Kant clearly takes himself to have established that rational
agents such as ourselves must take the means to our ends, since this
is analytic of rational agency. But there is a chasm between this
analytic claim and the supposed synthetic conclusion that rational
agency also requires conforming to a further, non-desire based,
principle of practical reason such as the CI. Nevertheless, some see
arguments in *Groundwork II* that establish just this. These
strategies involve a new "teleological" reading of
Kant's ethics that relies on establishing the existence of an
absolute value or an "end in itself" (we say more about
this teleological reading below). They begin with Kant's own
stated assumption that there is such an end in itself if and only if
there is a categorical imperative binding on all rational agents as
such. If this assumption is true, then if one can on independent
grounds prove that there is something which is an end in itself, one
will have an argument for a categorical imperative. One such strategy,
favored by Korsgaard (1996) and Wood (1999) relies on the apparent
argument Kant gives that humanity is an end in itself. Guyer, by
contrast, sees an argument for freedom as an end in itself (Guyer
2000). Both strategies have faced textual and philosophical hurdles.
Considerable interpretive finesse, for instance, is required to
explain Kant's stark insistence on the priority of principles
and law over the good in the second *Critique* (CPrR
5:57-67)



Although most of Kant's readers understand the property of
autonomy as being a property of rational wills, some, such as Thomas
E. Hill, have held that Kant's central idea is that of autonomy
is a property, not primarily of wills, but of principles. The core
idea is that Kant believed that all moral theories prior to his own
went astray because they portrayed fundamental moral principles as
appealing to the existing interests of those bound by them. By
contrast, in Kant's view moral principles must not appeal to
such interests, for no interest is necessarily universal. Thus, in
assuming at the outset that moral principles must embody some interest
(or "heteronomous" principles), such theories rule out the
very possibility that morality is universally binding. By contrast,
the Categorical Imperative, because it does not enshrine existing
interests, presumes that rational agents can conform to a principle
that does not appeal to their interests (or an
"autonomous" principle), and so can fully ground our
conception, according to Kant, of what morality requires of us.



A different interpretive strategy, which has gained prominence in
recent years, focuses on Kant's apparent identification, in
*Groundwork* III, of the will and practical reason. One natural
way of interpreting Kant's conception of freedom is to
understand it in terms of the freedom and spontaneity of reason
itself. This in turn apparently implies that our wills are necessarily
aimed at what is rational and reasonable. To will something, on this
picture, is to govern oneself in accordance with reason. Often,
however, we fail to effectively so govern ourselves because we are
imperfect rational beings who are caused to act by our
non-rational desires and inclinations. The result, at least on
one version of this interpretation (Wolff 1973), is that we either act
rationally and reasonably (and so autonomously) or we are merely
caused to behave in certain ways by non-rational forces acting
on us (and so heteronomously). This is, however, an implausible view.
It implies that all irrational acts, and hence all immoral acts, are
not willed and therefore not free. Most interpreters have denied that
this is the proper interpretation of Kant's views. However,
several prominent commentators nonetheless think that there is some
truth in it (Engstrom 2009; Reath 2015; Korsgaard 1996, 2008, 2009).
They agree that we always act under the "guise of the
good" in the sense that our will is necessarily aimed at what is
objectively and subjectively rational and reasonable, but these
interpreters also think that, for Kant, there is a middle-ground
between perfect conformity to reason and being caused to act by
natural forces. In particular, when we act immorally, we are either
weak-willed or we are misusing our practical reason by willing
badly. We do not have the capacity to aim to act on an immoral maxim
because the will is identified with practical reason, so when we will
to perform an immoral act, we implicitly but mistakenly take our
underlying policy to be required by reason. By representing our
immoral act as rational and reasonable, we are not exercising our
powers of reason well, so we are simply making a "choice"
that is contrary to reason without "willing" it as such.
Our choice is nonetheless free and attributable to us because our will
was involved in leading us to take the act to be rational and
reasonable. It remains to be seen whether, on this complicated
interpretation of Kant, it sufficiently allows for the possibility
that one can knowingly and willingly do wrong if the will is practical
reason and practical reason is, in part, the moral law.


## 11. Non-rational Beings and Disabled Humans



Several recent discussions of Kant's moral theory have focused
on understanding and assessing its implications for how we should
regard and treat people with various kinds of disabilities. Kant does
not say much explicitly about those with disabilities, but his moral
framework is often seen as both hostile to and supportive of the
interests of disabled people.



One of the most important criticisms of Kant's moral theory
concerns human beings with severe cognitive disabilities who lack the
moral capacities and dispositions that, according to Kant, are needed
for people to have dignity, be ends in themselves, possess moral
rights, legislate moral laws, be a member of the kingdom of ends, or
otherwise have basic moral status (Kittay 2005, Vorhaus 2020, Barclay
2020; cf. the SEP entry 
 cognitive disability and moral status).
When we reflect on what makes us morally special, according to Kant,
we find that it is not our contingent properties, the biological
species we belong to, or even our capacity to be conscious or to feel
pain. Kant argues that rational nature, specifically the moral
capacities and dispositions to legislate and follow moral principles,
is what gives us inner worth and makes us deserving of respect (G
4:428-36, 446-7; Rel 6:26). Our basic moral status does not come in
degrees. It is always equal to that of other people regardless of the
level, if any, at which our moral capacities and dispositions are
developed, realized, or exercised. Infants and young children,
according to Kant, almost always have a moral nature even though their
moral capacities and dispositions are undeveloped or underdeveloped
(MM 6:280-1, 422; see also Schapiro 1999). Virtually all people with
Down Syndrome and autism have basic moral status even if their moral
capacities and dispositions are not as fully realized or exercised as
they are in other people. Being asleep or in a coma does not preclude
someone from having basic moral status even if their moral capacities
and dispositions are temporarily or permanently dormant. Some human
beings with significant cognitive disabilities, however, do not have
even bare capacities or dispositions to recognize, accept, legislate,
and follow moral norms. Kant seems to imply that anencephalic infants,
those in persistent vegetative states, and other human beings with the
most severe cognitive disabilities lack dignity and are not ends in
themselves. They are apparently excluded from the moral community in
ways that have unacceptable implications for how we should or should
not regard and treat them.



There is little or no evidence that Kant himself thought about this
problem, which is also connected with the moral status of many
non-human animals who seem to matter morally but who lack the moral
capacities and dispositions that, according to Kant, are necessary for
basic moral status. Kant's defenders have nonetheless explored
what his basic moral framework might imply about the moral status of
those with severe cognitive disabilities. One approach is simply to
bite the bullet by admitting that people with certain severe cognitive
disabilities lack the basic moral status that others of us share (Wood
1998, Sussman 2001. (This general strategy is deployed by Regan and
followed by Wood, McMahan, Warren, Merkel, and others. For the claim
that such humans are not persons, on Kant's theory, see also
Sussman, *Idea*, 242.) Proponents of this view can emphasize
that, although we do not have duties to such people, we can have
duties regarding them, such as duties of moral self-improvement that
give us reasons to treat those with significant cognitive disabilities
humanely for the sake of improving how we treat other human beings
with basic moral status (MM 6:442) or duties of beneficence that give
us reasons to care for them as a kindness to their families (G 4:430).
Pragmatic considerations might also give us reasons to err on the side
of caution when it comes to assessing whether someone entirely lacks
the moral capacities and dispositions that ground basic moral status.
Because of difficulties making such determinations and the moral risks
involved in judging incorrectly, we should perhaps assume, unless we
have very strong evidence to the contrary, that each human being has
basic moral status (Korsgaard 1996).



A second approach to addressing the problem of moral status for those
with significant cognitive disabilities is to emphasize passages in
which Kant says all human beings have dignity or are ends in
themselves (G 4:428-29; MM 6:410) and to argue that, according
to Kant's theories of biology and psychology, all human beings,
including those with severe cognitive disabilities, necessarily have
the requisite features of moral personhood (Kain 2009). A third
approach is to draw on and perhaps supplement some of Kant's
moral views by, for example, arguing that because we value things, we
must value ourselves as ends, which in turn commits us to valuing all
human and non-human animals as ends (Korsgaard 2020) or that respect
for all human beings is a constitutive feature of rational agency that
does not depend on any intrinsic properties of the objects of
respect (Sensen 2018).



In addition to discussing the moral status of people with severe
cognitive disabilities, Kantian philosophers have also been exploring
how his moral theory applies to other moral issues that concern how we
should regard and treat people with disabilities. Although
Kant's focus was on specifying principles for all circumstances
or for all human contexts, he recognized that a complete specification
of his system of moral duties, ends, and ideals must include
applications of basic moral standards to particular contexts and
groups of people (MM 6:468-9). 



When prospective parents choose not to produce children that would
likely have disabilities, they might express disrespectful attitudes
about existing people with disabilities (Velleman 2015, Sussman 2018).
People with disabilities are often ridiculed, abused, treated as
children, denied opportunities to continue developing their natural
abilities in, for example, assisted living facilities that instead
emphasize their comfort, and excluded from friendships or other forms
of solidarity in ways that arguably violate moral duties that Kant
describes (Cureton 2021, Hill 2020). They often face obstacles to
developing and maintaining self-respect by those who regard them as,
for example, burdensome, malingering, or curiosities (Stohr 2018).
People with disabilities also tend to receive assistance from others
that is incompatible with the respect they are owed. Beneficence,
according to Kant, must be tempered by respect so that we do not, for
example, impose burdensome obligations of gratitude on a blind person
who would rather navigate to the next conference session herself,
"help" a Deaf person by offering to pay for cochlear
implants that he does not want, finish the sentences of someone with a
speech impediment in ways that express condescension or pity, or
mistake a strict duty to install a wheelchair ramp as an optional duty
of charity (Cureton 2016, Holtman 2018).


## 12. Virtue and Vice



Kant defines virtue as "the moral strength of a *human
being's* will in fulfilling his duty" (MM 6:405) and
vice as principled immorality (MM 6:390). This definition appears to
put Kant's views on virtue at odds with classical views such as
Aristotle's in several important respects.



First, Kant's account of virtue presupposes an account of moral
duty already in place. Thus, rather than treating admirable character
traits as more basic than the notions of right and wrong conduct, Kant
takes virtues to be explicable only in terms of a prior account of
moral or dutiful behavior. He does not try to make out what shape a
good character has and then draw conclusions about how we ought to act
on that basis. He sets out the principles of moral conduct based on
his philosophical account of rational agency, and then on that basis
defines virtue as a kind of strength and resolve to act on those
principles despite temptations to the contrary.



Second, virtue is, for Kant, strength of will, and hence does not
arise as the result of instilling a "second nature" by a
process of habituating or training ourselves to act and feel in
particular ways. It is indeed a disposition, but a disposition of
one's will, not a disposition of emotions, feelings, desires or
any other feature of human nature that might be amenable to
habituation. Moreover, the disposition is to overcome obstacles to
moral behavior that Kant thought were ineradicable features of human
nature. Thus, virtue appears to be much more like what Aristotle would
have thought of as a lesser trait, viz., continence or
self-control.



Third, in viewing virtue as a trait grounded in moral principles, and
vice as principled transgression of moral law, Kant thought of himself
as thoroughly rejecting what he took to be the Aristotelian view that
virtue is a mean between two vices. The Aristotelian view, he claimed,
assumes that virtue typically differs from vice only in terms of
degree rather than in terms of the different principles each involves
(MM 6:404, 432). Prodigality and avarice, for instance, do not differ
by being too loose or not loose enough with one's means. They
differ in that the prodigal person acts on the principle of acquiring
means with the sole intention of enjoyment, while the avaricious
person acts on the principle of acquiring means with the sole
intention of possessing them.



Fourth, in classical views the distinction between moral and non-moral
virtues is not particularly significant. A virtue is some sort of
excellence of the soul, but one finds classical theorists treating wit
and friendliness alongside courage and justice. Since Kant holds moral
virtue to be a trait grounded in moral principle, the boundary between
non-moral and moral virtues could not be more sharp. Even so, Kant
shows a remarkable interest in non-moral virtues; indeed, much of
*Anthropology* is given over to discussing the nature and
sources of a variety of character traits, both moral and
non-moral.



Fifth, virtue cannot be a trait of divine beings, if there are such,
since it is the power to overcome obstacles that would not be present
in them. This is not to say that to be virtuous is to be the victor in
a constant and permanent war with ineradicable evil impulses or
temptations. Morality is "duty" for human beings because
it is *possible* (and we recognize that it is possible) for our
desires and interests to run counter to its demands. Should all of our
desires and interests be trained ever so carefully to comport with
what morality actually requires of us, this would not change in the
least the fact that morality is still duty for us. For should this
come to pass, it would not change the fact that each and every desire
and interest *could have* run contrary to the moral law. And it
is the fact that they *can* conflict with moral law, not the
fact that they actually *do* conflict with it, that makes duty
a constraint, and hence is virtue essentially a trait concerned with
constraint.



Sixth, virtue, while important, does not hold pride of place in
Kant's system in other respects. For instance, he holds that the
lack of virtue is compatible with possessing a good will (G 6: 408).
That one acts from duty, even repeatedly and reliably can thus be
quite compatible with an absence of the moral strength to overcome
contrary interests and desires. Indeed, it may often be no challenge
at all to do one's duty from duty alone. Someone with a good
will, who is genuinely committed to duty for its own sake, might
simply fail to encounter any significant temptation that would reveal
the lack of strength to follow through with that commitment. That
said, he also appeared to hold that if an act is to be of genuine
moral worth, it must be motivated by the kind of purity of motivation
achievable only through a permanent, quasi-religious conversion or
"revolution" in the orientation of the will of the sort
described in *Religion*. Until one achieves a permanent change
in the will's orientation in this respect, a revolution in which
moral righteousness is the nonnegotiable condition of any of
one's pursuits, all of one's actions that are in
accordance with duty are nevertheless morally worthless, no matter
what else may be said of them. However, even this revolution in the
will must be followed up with a gradual, lifelong strengthening of
one's will to put this revolution into practice. This suggests
that Kant's considered view is that a good will is a will in
which this revolution of priorities has been achieved, while a
virtuous will is one with the strength to overcome obstacles to its
manifestation in practice.



Kant distinguishes between virtue, which is strength of will to do
one's duty from duty, and particular virtues, which are
commitments to particular moral ends that we are morally required to
adopt. Among the virtues Kant discusses are those of self-respect,
honesty, thrift, self-improvement, beneficence, gratitude,
sociability, and forgiveness. Kant also distinguishes vice, which is a
steadfast commitment to immorality, from particular vices, which
involve refusing to adopt specific moral ends or committing to act
against those ends. For example, malice, lust, gluttony, greed,
laziness, vengefulness, envy, servility, contempt and arrogance are
all vices in Kant's normative ethical theory.



(Interest in Kant's conception of virtue has rapidly grown in
recent years. For further discussion, see Cureton and Hill 2014,
forthcoming; Wood 2008; Surprenant 2014; Sherman 1997; O'Neil
1996; Johnson 2008; Hill 2012; Herman 1996; Engstrom 2002; Denis 2006;
Cureton forthcoming; Betzler 2008; Baxley 2010).


## 13. Normative Ethical Theory



The Categorical Imperative, in Kant's view, is an objective,
unconditional and necessary principle of reason that applies to all
rational agents in all circumstances. Although Kant gives several
examples in the *Groundwork* that illustrate this principle, he
goes on to describe in later writings, especially in *The
Metaphysics of Morals*, a complicated normative ethical theory for
interpreting and applying the CI to human persons in the natural
world. His framework includes various levels, distinctions and
application procedures. Kant, in particular, describes two subsidiary
principles that are supposed to capture different aspects of the CI.
The Universal Principle of Right, which governs issues about justice,
rights and external acts that can be coercively enforced, holds that
"Any action is *right* if it can coexist with
everyone's freedom in accordance with a universal law, or if on
its maxim the freedom of choice of each can coexist with
everyone's freedom in accordance with a universal law" (MM
6:230). The Supreme Principle of the Doctrine of Virtue, which governs
questions about moral ends, attitudes, and virtue, requires us to
"act in accordance with a maxim of *ends* that it can be
a universal law for everyone to have" (MM 6:395). These
principles, in turn, justify more specific duties of right and of
ethics and virtue.



In Kant's framework, duties of right are narrow and perfect
because they require or forbid particular acts, while duties of ethics
and virtue are wide and imperfect because they allow significant
latitude in how we may decide to fulfill them. For example, Kant
claims that the duty not to steal the property of another person is
narrow and perfect because it precisely defines a kind of act that is
forbidden. The duty of beneficence, on the other hand, is
characterized as wide and imperfect because it does not specify
exactly how much assistance we must provide to others.



Even with a system of moral duties in place, Kant admits that judgment
is often required to determine how these duties apply to particular
circumstances. Moral laws, Kant says, "must be meticulously
observed" but "they cannot, after all, have regard to
every little circumstance, and the latter may yield exceptions, which
do not always find their exact resolution in the laws" (V
27:574; see also CPR A133/B172; MM 6:411).


## 14. Teleology or Deontology?



The received view is that Kant's moral philosophy is a
deontological normative theory at least to this extent: it denies that
right and wrong are in some way or other functions of goodness or
badness. It denies, in other words, the central claim of teleological
moral views. For instance, act consequentialism is one sort of
teleological theory. It asserts that the right action is that action
of all the alternatives available to the agent that has the best
overall outcome. Here, the goodness of the outcome determines the
rightness of an action. Another sort of teleological theory might
focus instead on character traits. "Virtue ethics" asserts
that a right action in any given circumstance is that action a
virtuous person does or would perform in those circumstances. In this
case, it is the goodness of the character of the person who does or
would perform it that determines the rightness of an action. In both
cases, as it were, the source or ground of rightness is goodness. And
Kant's own views have typically been classified as deontological
precisely because they have seemed to reverse this priority and deny
just what such theories assert. Rightness, on the standard reading of
Kant, is not grounded in the value of outcomes or character.



There are several reasons why readers have thought that Kant denies
the teleological thesis. First, he makes a plethora of statements
about outcomes and character traits that appear to imply an outright
rejection of both forms of teleology. For instance, in
*Groundwork* I, he says that he takes himself to have argued
that "the objectives we may have in acting, and also our
actions' effects considered as ends and what motivates our
volition, can give to actions no unconditional or moral
worth...[this] can be found nowhere but in the principle of the
will, irrespective of the ends that can be brought about by such
action" (G 4: 400). This appears to say that moral rightness is
not a function of the value of intended or actual outcomes. Kant
subsequently says that a categorical imperative "declares an
action to be objectively necessary of itself without reference to any
purpose--that is, even without any further end" (G 4:415).
A categorical imperative "commands a certain line of conduct
directly, without assuming or being conditional on any further goal to
be reached by that conduct" (G 4:416). These certainly appear to
be the words of someone who rejects the idea that what makes actions
right is primarily their relationship to what good may come of those
actions, someone who rejects outright the act consequentialist form of
teleology. Moreover, Kant begins the *Groundwork* by noting
that character traits such as the traditional virtues of courage,
resolution, moderation, self-control, or a sympathetic cast of mind
possess no unconditional moral worth, (G 4:393-94,
398-99). If the moral rightness of an action is grounded in the
value of the character traits of the person who performs or would
perform it then it seems Kant thinks that it would be grounded in
something of only conditional value. This certainly would not comport
well with the virtue ethics form of teleology.



Second, there are deeper theoretical claims and arguments of
Kant's in both the *Groundwork* and in the second
*Critique* that appear to be incompatible with any sort of
teleological form of ethics. These claims and arguments all stem from
Kant's insistence that morality is grounded in the autonomy of a
rational will. For instance, Kant states that "if the will seeks
the law that is to determine it anywhere else than in the fitness of
its maxims for its own giving of universal law...heteronomy
always results" (G 4:441). If the law determining right and
wrong is grounded in either the value of outcomes or the value of the
character of the agent, it seems it will not be found in the fitness
of the action's maxim to be a universal law laid down by the
agent's own rational will. And Kant's most complete
treatment of value, the second *Critique's* "On the
Concept of an Object of Pure Practical Reason", appears to be a
relentless attack on any sort of teleological moral theory. "The
concept of good and evil" he states, "must not be
determined before the moral law (for which, as it would seem, this
concept would have to be made the basis) but only (as was done here)
after it and by means of it" (CPrR 5:63).



A number of Kant's readers have come to question this received
view, however. Perhaps the first philosopher to suggest a teleological
reading of Kant was John Stuart Mill. In the first chapter of his
*Utilitarianism*, Mill implies that the Universal Law
formulation of the Categorical Imperative could only sensibly be
interpreted as a test of the consequences of universal adoption of a
maxim. Several 20th century theorists have followed Mill's
suggestion, most notably, R. M. Hare. Hare argued that moral judgments
such as "Stealing is wrong" are in fact universal
prescriptions ("No stealing anywhere by anyone!"). And
because they are universal, Hare argued, they forbid making
exceptions. That in turn requires moral judgments to give each
person's wellbeing, including our own, equal weight. And when we
give each person's wellbeing equal weight, we are acting to
produce the best overall outcome. Thus, in his view, the CI is
"simply utilitarianism put into other words" (1993, p.
103). More recently, David Cummiskey (1996) has argued that
Kant's view that moral principles are justified because they are
universalizable is compatible with those principles themselves being
consequentialist. Indeed, Cummiskey argues that they must be: Respect
for the value of humanity entails treating the interests of each as
counting for one and one only, and hence for always acting to produce
the best overall outcome.



There are also teleological readings of Kant's ethics that are
non-consequentialist. Barbara Herman (1993) has urged philosophers to
"leave deontology behind" as an understanding of
Kant's moral theory on the grounds that the conception of
practical reason grounding the Categorical Imperative is itself a
conception of value. Herman's idea is that Kant never meant to
say that no value grounds moral principles. That, she argues, would
imply that there would be no reason to conform to them. Instead, Kant
thought the principles of rationality taken together constitute
rational agency, and rational agency so constituted itself functions
as a value that justifies moral action (1993, 231). Herman's
proposal thus has Kant's view grounding the rightness of actions
in rational agency, and then in turn offering rational agency itself
up as a value. Both Paul Guyer and Allen Wood have offered proposals
that differ from Herman's in content, but agree on the general
form of teleology that she defends as a reading of Kant. Guyer argues
that autonomy itself is the value grounding moral requirements. Moral
thinking consists in recognizing the priceless value of a rational
agent's autonomous will, something in light of whose value it is
necessary for any rational agent to modify his behavior (1998,
22-35). And Wood argues that humanity itself is the grounding
value for Kant. While the second *Critique* claims that good
things owe their value to being the objects of the choices of rational
agents, they could not, in his view, acquire any value at all if the
source of that value, rational agency, itself had no value (1999, 130;
see also 157-8). Finally, Rae Langton has argued that if
Kant's theory is to be thought of as an objectivistic view, we
must suppose that the value of humanity and the good will are
independent of simply being the objects of our rational choices. If
their value thereby becomes the source of the rightness of our actions
-- say, our actions are right if and because they treat that
self-standing value in various ways -- then her reading too is
teleological.



It is of considerable interest to those who follow Kant to determine
which reading -- teleological or deontological -- was
actually Kant's, as well as which view ought to have been his. A
powerful argument for the teleological reading is the motivation for
Herman's proposal: What rationale can we provide for doing our
duty at all if we don't appeal to it's being good to do
it? But a powerful argument for the deontological reading is
Kant's own apparent insistence that the authority of moral
demands must come simply from their being the demands of a rational
will, quite apart from the value that will may have (see Schneewind
1996; Johnson 2007, 2008; and Reath 1994). On the latter view, moral
demands gain their authority simply because a rational will, insofar
as you are rational, must will them. Proponents of this reading are
left with the burden of answering Herman's challenge to provide
a rationale for having willed such demands, although one response may
be that the very question Herman raises does not make sense because it
asks, in effect, why it is rational to be rational. On the former
view, by contrast, a rationale is at hand: because your will is,
insofar as it is rational, good. Proponents of this former reading
are, however, then left with the burden of explaining how it could be
the autonomy of the will alone that explains the authority of
morality.


## 15. Metaethics



It has seemed to a number of Kant's interpreters that it is
important to determine whether Kant's moral philosophy was
realist, anti-realist or something else (e.g. a constructivist). The
issue is tricky because terms such as "realism,"
"anti-realism" and "constructivism" are terms
of art, so it is all too easy for interlocutors to talk past one
another.



One relevant issue is whether Kant's views commit him to the
thesis that moral judgments are beliefs, and so apt to be evaluated
for their truth or falsity (or are "truth apt").



One might have thought that this question is quite easy to settle. At
the basis of morality, Kant argued, is the Categorical Imperative, and
imperatives are not truth apt. It makes little sense to ask whether
"Leave the gun, take the cannoli." is true. But, in fact,
the question is not at all easy. For one thing, moral judgments such
as "Lying is wrong" might well be best analyzed according
to Kant's views as "The Categorical Imperative commands us
not to lie", and this judgment is not an imperative, but a
report about what an imperative commands. Thus while at the foundation
of morality there would be an imperative which is not truth apt,
particular moral judgments themselves would describe what that
imperative rules out and so would themselves be truth apt.



Philosophers such as R.M. Hare, however, have taken Kant's view
to be that moral judgments are not truth apt. Although on the surface
moral judgments can look as if they describe a moral world, they are,
as Hare reads Kant, "prescriptions", not
"descriptions". This is not, in his view, to say that
Kant's ethics portrays moral judgments as lacking objectivity.
Objectivity, according to Hare, is to be understood as universality,
and the Categorical Imperative prescribes universally.



A second issue that has received considerable attention is whether
Kant is a metaethical constructivist or realist.



Constructivism in metaethics is the view that moral truths are, or are
determined by, the outcomes of actual or hypothetical procedures of
deliberation or choice. Many who interpret Kant as a constructivist
claim that his analysis of "duty" and "good
will" reveals that if there are moral requirements then the
agents who are bound to them have autonomy of the will (Rawls 1980;
Korsgaard 1996; O'Neil 1989; Reath 2006; Hill 1989a, 1989b,
2001; Cureton 2013, 2014; Engstrom 2009). Autonomy, in this sense,
means that such agents are both authors and subjects of the moral law
and, as such, are not bound by any external requirements that may
exist outside of our wills. Instead, we are only subject to moral
requirements that we impose on ourselves through the operation of our
own reason independently of our natural desires and inclinations. The
common error of previous ethical theories, including sentimentalism,
egoism and rationalism, is that they failed to recognize that morality
presupposes that we have autonomy of the will. These theories
mistakenly held that our only reasons to be moral derive from
hypothetical imperatives about how to achieve given moral ends that
exist independently of the activity of reason itself (for a discussion
of Kant's more specific objections to previous ethical theories,
see Schneewind 2009). On these interpretations, Kant is a skeptic
about arbitrary authorities, such as God, natural feelings, intrinsic
values or primitive reasons that exist independently of us. Only
reason itself has genuine authority over us, so we must exercise our
shared powers of reasoned deliberation, thought and judgment, guided
by the Categorical Imperative as the most basic internal norm of
reason, to construct more specific moral requirements. Kantians in
this camp, however, disagree about how this rational procedure should
be characterized.



Other commentators interpret Kant as a robust moral realist (Ameriks
2003; Wood 1999; Langton 2007; Kain 2004). According to these
philosophers, Kant's theory, properly presented, begins with the
claim that rational nature is an objective, agent-neutral and
intrinsic value. The moral law then specifies how we should regard and
treat agents who have this special status. Autonomy of the will, on
this view, is a way of considering moral principles that are grounded
in the objective value of rational nature and whose authority is thus
independent of the exercise of our wills or rational capacities.



Some interpreters of Kant, most notably Korsgaard (1996), seem to
affirm a kind of quietism about metaethics by rejecting many of the
assumptions that contemporary metaethical debates rest on. For
example, some of these philosophers seem not to want to assert that
moral facts and properties just are the outcomes of deliberative
procedures. Rather, they seem more eager to reject talk of facts and
properties as unnecessary, once a wholly acceptable and defensible
procedure is in place for deliberation. That is, the whole framework
of facts and properties suggests that there is something we need to
moor our moral conceptions to "out there" in reality, when
in fact what we only need a route to a decision. Once we are more
sensitive to the ethical concerns that really matter to us as rational
agents, we will find that many of the questions that animate
metaethicists turn out to be non-questions or of only minor
importance. Others have raised doubts, however, about whether Kantians
can so easily avoid engaging in metaethical debates (Hussain &
Shaw 2013).