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THE KANTIAN PROJECT

More contrasts with consequentialism...

What follows from the fact that human beings are agents? Which ways of treating human beings are appropriate or inappropriate in light of this fact?

Paternalism

FURTHER READING...

  • Treating an adult the way that a parent standardly treats a young child.
  • Doing what's good for a person whether or not that person knows you're doing it, wants you to do it, or agrees with you about whether it's good.

Reasons and Intentions Matter.

Another Test Case...

Test Case

"My feelings were not the result of any marked cruelty in the treatment I received; they sprung from the consideration of my being a slave at all. It was slavery—not its mere incidents—that I hated. I had been cheated. I saw through the attempt to keep me in ignorance; I saw that slaveholders would have gladly made me believe that they were merely acting under the authority of God, in making a slave of me, and in making slaves of others; and I treated them as robbers and deceivers. The feeding and clothing me well, could not atone for taking my liberty from me."

Person A refuses to help her friend, person B, who is in need, because A thinks B asks for assistance too often and A wants to teach B a lesson about self-reliance.

Claire is a recent college graduate mulling a decision between going to law school or pursuing a Ph.D in philosophy, and Peter is her anxious father who believes that she would be making a huge mistake if she were to forsake law for philosophy. Suppose Peter is motivated by a distrust in Claire's capacity to adequately recognize or weigh the reasons that apply to her and, as a result, tries to sabotage her efforts to apply to Ph.D programs for the sake of promoting her good. He does this without her knowing he's doing it, but suppose he has good reasons to think she would be better off doing law school.

FREDRICK DOUGLASS (1855)

Kyla Ebels-Duggan, "Kantian Ethics" in the Continuum Companion to Ethics

Christine Korsgaard, Creating the Kingdom of Ends

John Rawls, Lectures on Moral Philosophy

Onora O'Neill, "Kantian Responses to Some Famine Problems"

Immanuel Kant, Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals

Seanna Shiffrin (2000) on this case:

Paternalism vs. Respecting Agency

What's wrong with paternalism?

Things Kantians don't like...

"A fails to engage with B's rational, agential powers and, instead, subsitutes her judgement for B's about what B should aim for... this works around B's agency to get B to act as A believes would be better for B."

  • When I treat you paternalistically, I relate to you the way a gardener relates to a plant.
  • But this is wrong: I should respect your rational agency and see you as an active participant and not a passive object.
  • Respect requires appealing to the rational powers of others when we seek their help or cooperation.
  • It undervalues the agency of the person being treated like a child.
  • It intrudes on their deliberations about how to live their own lives.
  • It expresses an undue skepticism about the rational powers of others.
  • It involves taking a merely observational attitude toward others, but this treats agents as passive objects of care.

More test cases...

A treats B as a passive object of care, i.e. as a mere means to B's goal.

Agents vs. Objects/Tools

  • You help out a friend in need...
  • from immediate inclination.
  • for the sake of other ends.
  • from motive of duty.
  • The morality of actions, for Kantians, depends essentially on our motivations for doing what we do.
  • Notice that this isn't true for Consequentialists, who judge the morality of actions solely in terms of the consequences they produce.

How do we relate to mere objects? How do we think of tools?

  • Coercion.
  • Manipulation.
  • Deception.
  • Domination.
  • Exploitation.
  • Paternalism, patronization, etc.
  • Objectification.
  • I save you from drowning...
  • because of immediate inclination.
  • for the sake of other ends.
  • from motive of duty.

RESPECT

Learning Objectives...

  • This is the fundamental moral concept for Kantians.
  • Etymologically, "respect" derives from "spectare," to look at. The prefix "re" might mean, returning the look of someone.
  • We sometimes associate respect with fear. Or, sometimes we associate with the possession of goods (wealth or reputation).
  • Kantians deny that respect is about fear, power, wealth or reputation. Their thought is: human beings are agents, and for *that* reason must be respected as such.

We should not treat agents like this.

In spite of the fact that the consequences in #1 and #2 are identical, only #1 appears to contain an immoral action.

These all fail to respect the rational agency of persons.

Three Types of Motivation

1. Acting from immediate inclination.

2. Acting for the sake of other ends.

3. Acting from the motive of duty.

Acting rightly means acting from the motive of duty.

Kantians use examples such as this to motivate their view that intentions and motivations are intrinsically important for judging the morality of actions.

KANTIANS ON MORAL RIGHTNESS

Imagine two different scenarios that each result in the identical outcome: person A bumps into person B, who then falls on the ground.

Ways of treating persons that are too similar to the way we treat objects and tools...

Kantian Analysis of Racism and Sexism

Why do Kantians think reasons for action should play an essential role in morality?

Always respect the rational agency of persons (yourself included).

  • Learn the basic components of Kantian ethical theory.
  • Learn to apply Kantian theory to real-world cases.
  • Compare and contrast Kantian ethics with utilitarianism.

What about the basic premises of their theory force them to take reasons for action seriously when judging whether a person did right or wrong?

"The stereotypes that sustain sexism are similar in many ways to those that sustain racism. Like white women, black and brown persons of both sexes have been regarded as childlike, happiest when they are occupying their "place," more intuitive than rational, more spontaneous than deliberate, closer to nature, and less capable of substantial cultural accomplishment... they are thought to lack the capacities for rational control that distinguish people from animals."

Examples?

Or, put another way, never treat persons in a way that fails to respect their agency (i.e. never treat like mere objects or tools.)

In Scenario 1, person A intends to bump into person B because she takes pleasure in watching B fall over.

In Scenario 2, person A does not intend to bump into B and only accidentally causes B to fall.

Sandra Bartky, "On Psychological Oppression," (1979)

In both cases we find a profound failure to recognize and respect the agency of the oppressed.

The Kantian Perspective

Dr. Tyler Zimmer

ETHICS | NEIU

The Categorical Imperative

Kantians tell us to "respect agency."

What's the difference between treating a person as a...

What's the difference between me treating you as a means rather than a mere means?

But how can we know with precision whether we're respecting the agency of others?

means to an end.

mere means to an end?

(Morally permissible)

(Morally wrong)

Notice that this depends upon my reasons for treating you the way I'm treating you.

Use the categorical imperative.

TEST CASE #1

Immanuel Kant

on the categorical imperative.

Possible answer: so long as you don't coerce a person (physically force them) to do your bidding, then you are not treating them as mere means.

  • You hire me to fix your refrigerator.
  • I help you because I want money, you give me money simply because you need my help with something.
  • We exchange and move on.

VERSION I: FORMULA OF UNIVERSAL LAW.

VERSION II: FORMULA OF HUMANITY.

DO YOU TREAT ME AS MEANS OR AS MERE MEANS?

Is this answer convincing?

TEST CASE #2

  • Same as first case, except I'm financially desperate and you find this out.
  • You use my desperation to bid down my price and pay me less than half of what I usually charge.

But why do we need two tests?

Three Basic Questions in Moral Philosophy

DO YOU TREAT ME AS MEANS OR AS MERE MEANS?

REVIEW: UTILITARIANISM

Utilitarianism

TEST CASE #3

Rightness depends on goodness.

1. Pleasure is the only thing that is intrinsically good (pain is the only intrinsically bad thing).

THE RIGHT vs. THE GOOD

Contemporary Kantian Theory*

Treating someone as a means to an end...

1. What is good?

2. What is right?

3. What is just?

  • A hurricane devastates the area where you live, and as a result there's a shortage of potable water.
  • I live an unaffected area and buy up gallons of water on the cheap and rush to where you live to cash in on the crisis.
  • I charge $20 per gallon jugs of water that I bought for $0.99 each.
  • You resent me (why?) treating you in this way, but you reluctantly agree to buy some water, lacking other options.
  • I don't force you to buy anything and make clear that you're free not to buy water from me.

You use someone to accomplish a goal you have, but you do so while also respecting them as rational agents.

2. The morally right action in any situation is whatever produces the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people.

EXPLOITATION

  • Notice that utilitarians define moral rightness in terms of goodness.
  • Utilitarians say, "the right action is whatever maximizes the good."

Treating someone as a mere means to an end...

Constructivists.

Realists.

Taking advantage of someone else's vulnerability in order to benefit oneself.

Emphasize the

Formula of Universal Law.

Emphasize the Formula of Humanity.

You treat someone as a means to an end and nothing but. You treat someone as a mere tool or object for your purposes.

3. A just society is one in which laws and institutions maximize goodness for the greatest number of people.

KANTIANS DENY THIS.

In this course, for the sake of simplicity, we'll focus more on the realist point of view and emphasize the formula of humanity.

TEST CASE #4

What is it to be vulnerable?

Review: how do utilitarians answer each?

But how do we know the difference in practice?

*note the difference between "Kant's ethics" and "Kantian ethics"

  • A male boss uses his authority to fire and withhold promotions to get his employees to do favors for him that they would not otherwise do.
  • Imagine the boss asks a young woman employee under him to regularly fetch him coffee and do his dry cleaning -- and suppose she agrees to do it? Means or mere means?

TEST CASE #5

  • Imagine a doctor who has a patient who does not want to undergo a certain kind of treatment that would benefit her. The doctor has superior knowledge of medical well-being in this case, i.e. of what's good for the patient.
  • Would the doctor be justified in administering the treatment anyway?

Exploitation

FORMULA OF HUMANITY

"Always treat a human being (yourself included) as an end, never as a mere means."

  • To use someone in an illicit sense.
  • To treat someone as a mere tool for self-enrichment.
  • To regard someone as a mere stepping-stone on the way to achieving one's goals.

p. 174, Shafer-Landau

Real-world interpersonal examples?

The Nuts and Bolts of Kantian Ethics

Kantians de-emphasize the importance of the question "what is good?" for morality.

PRACTICAL RATIONALITY

What does it mean to say that we're rational agents?

THE GROUND FLOOR OF KANTIAN ETHICS

  • Practical reason is the general human capacity for resolving, through reflection, the question of what one is to do.
  • Human beings, as such, have a capacity for deliberative self-determination.
  • We have the cognitive power to form intentions about what we will do, what ends to pursue, how to live our lives, etc.

We're free -- we're capable of making reasoned choices about what to do, what ends to adopt, etc.

Human beings are rational agents.

Kantians = the right is prior to and independent of the good.

Evidence of this?

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