SO does what you set out here differ substantially from the view Foot is attributing to Kant at 312-13? Apart, perhaps, from the label “psychological hedonist”, I mean?
Can we take it as read that Kant separates ethics from what we want, in the way described?
I think Foot has the right idea, but we need to go on to consider what this separation of ethics from “what we want” actually consists in. I’ll reread these sections carefully, but it looks as if she’s saying that the only way to eliminate “what we want” from our ethical calculations is to “do what is right because it is right,” which looks empty. A more felicitous phrasing, which she also uses, is to act “out of respect for the moral law,” but I’m still not sure this is quite it. To be continued . . .
. . . but go ahead and finish out the paper, since I see there’s quite a bit more about Kant, and the question of moral ends. Then I’ll comment.
So Foot moves on to looking at moral virtue without the categorical imperative - at the virtue of hypothetical imperatives. We will “allow as ends the things that seem to be ends”. A telling phrase, indicating how far Kant has moved from the everyday. We might allow someone to be charitable simply because they desire others not to suffer. It seems extraordinary that she felt the need to set this out.
And the coda to that paragraph is important: “charitable actions do not happen to further the good of others.” It is not a mere accident that doing something to lesson someone’s suffering is charitable; it is the very spirit of being charitable.
And so, at the top of page 10 (314), the same for justice and honesty; one can be just and honest for the sake of being just and honest.
And here Foot is using the hypothetical imperative. If you would be charitable, just and honest, then you ought act in such-and-such a way.
“…… Consistency is the highest obligation of a philosopher, and yet the most rarely found. The ancient Greek schools give us more examples of it than we find in our syncretistic age, in which a certain shallow and dishonest system of compromise of contradictory principles is devised, because it commends itself better to a public which is content to know something of everything and nothing thoroughly, so as to please every party.…”
(CpR, 1., 1., 1., 30, 1788, in T.K.Abbott, 1889)
Charity aside, Kant is nothing if not removed from the everyday, at least with respect to the metaphysics of…..well, the metaphysics of every-damn-thing, and then, if that wasn’t enough, the Critique of the metaphysics.
So, granting the having been done as given, how can a system not be shallow and dishonest, if grounded on compromised contradictory principles, re: an argument regarding moral virtue as superior to, or at least in juxtaposition to in hopes of subsuming, arguments for moral law.
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Foot, p313: “Kant, in fact, was a psychological hedonist in respect of all actions except those done for the sake of the moral law, and this faulty theory of human nature was one of the things preventing him from seeing that moral virtue might be compatible with the rejection of the categorical imperative.”
And this is an example of the everyday away from which Kant is accused of being moved: where and under what conditions can such a thing as moral virtue do what the c.i. does, such that the rejection of the latter does not conflict with the program as a whole?
What is the kind of human nature in which respect for moral law is a fault of it, when it was failure to heed the fault itself, intrinsic to human nature…….
……“a moral action (…) does not depend on the realization of the object of the action….”
(F.P.M.M., 1785, emphasis mine)
……from which the necessity of a moral law receives its justification, under the governance of respect for law in general?
Perhaps the kind that compromises contradictory principles? Or ignores the part they play because there never was such a thing in the first place?
In which cases, everyday morality just is psychological hedonism…….
(The quality of the empirical object of my happiness is of greater quality than the practical means of its attainment)
……..from which Kant took great pains to remove himself, and hopefully take the practically-inclined with him. Not his fault it didn’t work out as well as he expected.
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Certainly. Never in question. Hypothetical imperatives all the way. On the other hand, if you would be moral, you will act in such and such a way, which is by no means hypothetical, re: “…..act only as if……”. I guess the real question then becomes, which is more likely to occur, from which follows, in which is the interest more likely.
Here’s one way we might be able to improve on Foot’s interpretation.
It looks like she’s pretty consistently interpreting the cat imp as applying to items like “charitable actions”. But if you try to create a Kantian maxim in a specific circumstance that requires an action decision, you wouldn’t be talking in terms of charitable actions. You might say, “I want to give my aunt $100 – she’s quite destitute – but I also need $100 for my kid’s school trip. Can I frame either decision in terms of a maxim that I could will anyone in my position to accept?”
I don’t know the answer to this conundrum, but fortunately that’s not the point. The point is that we want to know what is the right thing to do, not which is the charitable action. We already know that – they both are. So it’s not a ID process for discovering virtue.
Thus all the talk about virtues being chosen so as to further the good of others is quite correct, but not to Kant’s point. He’s saying, of course you want to be charitable, just and honest, and of course you should do charitable, just, and honest things – but that’s not what we need to know in order to act ethically. For that, we need to know what reason demands in a particular circumstance, and that is where the cat imp comes in.
As I’ve said, I don’t think the idea of “reason demanding” anything can have the force Kant believes it does, but we can still see that his ethical view is by no means “we choose what to do based on respect for the moral law” as opposed to “what is a good end in itself.”
This is a bit obscure, but I think you might be saying the same thing I am, above. There are the virtues, and yay for the virtues, but that is not the same thing as knowing what to do.
While I might be all for virtues as far as a psychological aspect of human nature is concerned, I’m not sure of their place, or even that there is one, in a metaphysical system of morals.
I’m sorry, Mww, I wasn’t able to see how that redressed Foot’s comments. So we agree that Kant sought to restrict talk of morality to uses of the categorical imperative. But Foot has shown that a) there are (at least prima facie) uses of the categorical imperative that are not concerned with morality; and b) there is talk of moral issues that does nto use the categorical imperative.
The categorical imperative as obligatory consistency? I can see why that has an appeal. But notice that if this is all that is going on, then the categorical imperative cannot serve to segregate talk of ethics and morals form all our other talk - we should, after all, seek to be consistent in all out discourse.
It strikes me as odd that virtue, of all things, should be thought of as having no place in morals. It seems that something has gone astray here. Something important has been left out. The result is not rigour, but hollowness.
That’s exactly right, and speaks to both Foot’s and @Mww 's points. What more is needed to make a decision – consistent or otherwise – an ethical decision? We need the subject matter of morality, which Kant, as I’ve said, takes for granted, or at least that’s the charitable reading. It’s what Foot is talking about when she discusses seeing or recognizing moral facts; it’s what virtue ethicists mean, very broadly, by the virtues. And it’s what I read Mww as calling into question in a very austere interpretation of a “metaphysical system of morals.”
Also – and at the risk of repetition – we can agree that Kant has added something important to our regular talk about morals without also agreeing that this something is indeed a categorical imperative. It’s enough, for me, to acknowledge that how I decide what is right requires different input from how I know what is “moral”, what morality refers to. The former is specific to a situation, and requires a test of universalizability. But, as you’ve pointed out, we still need to decide. This would be the break with Kant, who believes the decision is somehow made for us by the force of the cat imp.
There follows, mid p. 10 (314) a brief account of the effort needed if one is to be moral on the basis of hypothetical imperatives. The sort of sacrifice needed differs from that required in order to follow the precepts of etiquette.
The more interesting contrast is the amoral man. Where the moral man cares about charity and justice and courage, the amoral man might agree that one ought care about such things, and yet not care at all. He agrees that he ought care, but just doesn’t.
That one ought care is not a good basis for a moral stance.
That one does care, is.
The amoral man can agree entirely with the moral man that one ought care; and yet, not; and this is a consistent stance. They freely admit that they ought care, and also are self-aware enough to admit that they do not.
This is a precise rebuttal to the Kantian who insists that it is a cognitive stance—that of accepting the categorical imperative—that makes a man moral. Morality here does not consist in a rational conclusion, but in an attitude towards life.
Foot is dismissing the very picture of what it is to be moral that Kant offers, the picture of morality as practical reasoning; and is instead pointing to the moral person being so simply because they care
My argument is that they are relying on an illusion, as if trying to give the moral “ought” a magic force.12
Notice the footnote:
l2 See G. E. M. Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Philosokhy (1958).
My view is different from Miss Anscombe’s, but I have learned from her.
More then a few PhD’s in that alone. Where Anscombe might have us rid of talk of “ought” and “should”, Foot would keep the language but deflate the magic back to simply giving a damn.
The example of Leningrad brings us down to earth, to raw practicality. Perhaps it is no too long ago to carry the weight it did when the paper was written. Gaza might be a recent approximation. Leningrad was surrounded by axis forces, intent on razing it to the ground, for 872 days. Almost half of the population of over 3 million were killed.
The people of Leningrad did not rely on recourse to the categorical imperative to do what was needed.
Perhaps we should be less troubled than we are by fear of defection from the moral cause
Indeed; this is the counterweight to the moral anxiety of those who fear the actions of their fellows should the compulsion of duty and law be removed.
Yes. Foot pins down the crucial difference.
It will surely be allowed that quite apart from thoughts of duty a man may care about the suffering of others, having a sense of identification with them, and wanting to help if he can. — p10 or 314
For me, this is the essence. First, do no harm. Is that true? Is it helpful? Is it really part of the Hippocratic Oath?
Yes, the pledger commits to avoiding harm, but there’s nothing about making it a top priority. Meanwhile, Of the Epidemics says
"The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future — must mediate these things, and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm."
Again, there is no clear priority given to the avoidance of harm over the goal of providing help. — First, do no harm - Harvard Health
Are we helping or hindering good thoughts and actions by referring to a host of commandments? How many are written by patriarchal dictators, and why? To what end? Helpful to the powerful them, but not to the, apparently, their powerless victims. Hence, wars.
What about those who proclaim, “I have my own morals”, and continue to destroy other ways of life in other countries, so that their mad, narcissistic, greedy aims can be met?
Returning to my feedback posts 33 and 34.
I find it echoed here:
Another kind of ‘war’. The battle of the status quo and a prevailing, patriarchal attitude. Progress where attitudes have changed and improved lives e.g. human rights. To be celebrated for as long as they last and are relevant.
However, we can see how these laws can be torn up, dismissed, war and chaos let loose. Depending on narrow, dogmatism, egotism on a grand scale. Punishment and retribution for targeted groups and countries. By the few amoral and immoral, comforted by ignorance and delusions.
Foot, using the example of Leningrad, p11, makes a good case. We can think of present day — as you say, Gaza.
It is often felt, even if obscurely, that there is an element of deception in the official line about morality. And while some have been persuaded by talk about the authority of the moral
law, others have turned away with a sense of distrust. — p12 0r 316
Isn’t the goal to provide help rather than harm? We might avoid harm but once dealt this blow to humanity, what then? How do we recover?
I am not sure of this. I was under the impression that Foot was for ‘practical reasoning’ as an aspect of a human being, or goodness? What did Kant mean? Have I misunderstood?
When, for example, certain things are classified, defined or strictly intended, and somebody comes along afterwards and neglects or otherwise alters all that, he can come up with whatever he wants, re:
Foot, 309, “It follows that if a hypothetical use of “should” gives a hypothetical imperative, and a non-hypothetical use of “should” a categorical imperative, then “should” statements based on rules of etiquette, or rules of a club, are categorical imperatives.”
There is no non-hypothetical use of should, and, should statements are never categorical, in the original Kantian source of both.
Foot, again, “The use of “should” is therefore “non-hypothetical” in the sense defined.” Be that as it may, the relation to categorical formulations is not permitted from it, insofar as in the original, every c.i. is a “shall”.
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Or, something quite superfluous has been added in. Moral character is not reducible to this or that virtue. Whatever the virtue presupposes the character of the rational agent which supports it.
“….. A man must first appreciate the importance of what we call duty, the authority of the moral law, and the immediate dignity which the following of it gives to the person in his own eyes, in order to feel that satisfaction in the consciousness of his conformity to it (re: virtue) and the bitter remorse that accompanies the consciousness of its transgression (re: vice)…..” (CpR, para 104, parentheses mine)
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She can say whatever she wants, and she may even be correct in what she says. But she hasn’t said anything that isn’t in direct conflict with Kantian moral philosophy, which is all I’m highlighting by my responses herein. So I haven’t redressed her comments; I’ve merely put them in the proper perspective of that from which they were derived.
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Such rebuttal is wasted, for no proper Kantian insists, or even entertains the idea, that a cognitive stance, first, manifests in a c.i., and second, makes a man moral.
In Kant, a cognitive stance requires the faculties of understanding, judgement and reason in their theoretical mode. Morality, on the other hand, having to do with those faculties in their practical mode, the purview of which is determining an act of will, not the cognition of it.
Shouldn’t be that contentious, that humans both think and feel, which, being so different, requires separate modes of operation for a single form of intelligence. Anyone confusing the conditions of, e.g., etiquette, which makes explicit a given community, with the conditions of individual human moral disposition, which is the very opposite of community, just isn’t paying attention.
Yes. The fundamental conditions for moral judgement does not promise the attainment of it. Just as there’s no perfect circle in Nature, there’s no perfect morality in man. But there is nonetheless apodeitic criteria for both.
What do you think the subject matter of morality is?
I’m not sure what Kant takes for granted, that isn’t technically a presupposition, a necessary grounding condition. A place to start. When constructing a brand new philosophy, though, I think defining things into existence, or technically, defining conceptions into validity, is justified, subject to logical law. It’s up to those who come after, to accept or deny all of it.
@Mww @Amity @Banno
Good discussion because it highlights so many key meta-ethical questions, using Foot’s astute questions about Kant.
I don’t have some potent overview but here are a few responses.
I’m suggesting that Kant is taking for granted what anyone would in the late 18th century: that our ordinary conceptual vocabulary is tied unproblematically both to language and to the world. The philosophical thought that there might be a deep question about how “dog” refers to dogs was not available to him, I’m pretty sure. So too with the moral vocabulary. I believe Kant took it as read that words like “cruel” or “generous” or “fair” could be used unproblematically. Their meanings are known, more or less; we don’t need to start a discussion about ethics by searching for explanations of virtue words. But without those words, there is nothing to talk about, nothing that differentiates it from, say, etiquette, or, as Banno points out, from any attempt to think consistently about something.
I think these words, and similar ones of the sort that Foot is discussing, are the subject matter of morality – but not of ethics, which in Kant’s view is the issue of what to do. In the earlier thread about Foot that Banno started, we find her asking into the question of how we recognize moral concepts. I’m suggesting that this is an excellent but modern question, one that Kant did not take up. (It’s also a difficult one.)
Everyone has their own Kant! How far can you take him before your interpretation is no longer “Kantian”? Always a sober warning. What I’m saying here may be borderline, but I truly believe that Kant makes a sharp division between the ethical and the moral, even if his language doesn’t always consistently reflect that. My example above is meant to illustrate that. The moral person doesn’t lack for knowledge of the virtues, or a sincere desire to help others and not put him/herself first, or however we might care to characterize this admirable person. But none of this will yet tell them what to do. We have no way of knowing, simply from this description, whether this person is also going to act ethically. For this, Kant requires a specific decision point, and an application of the cat imp. For us, we might reject the idea of a forceful cat imp, while still applauding the insight that being moral and doing the right thing are different concepts.
If what I was saying above can hold water, then this picture from Foot is both right and wrong. Yes, the moral person cares, and arguably this caring is the most important aspect of what makes them moral. Indeed, it is an attitude toward life. But that is not what would make their decisions ethical. Our guy (non-gendered term, as servers use it: “What can I get you guys?”) has to discover what they ought to do in a particular situation. Caring won’t help, nor would any of the virtues. If it were that easy, we could just say “Care! Be fair! Don’t do cruel things!” and all ethical problems would evaporate. But it’s not like that. Our totally moral guy still has to figure out what to do with the $100.
Kant wants to say that their exemplary “moral” status is irrelevant to ethics, and this gets him into a lot of trouble unless, with @Mww , we’re willing to accept the austere version in which “morality” in the way I’m using it is actually a distraction from understanding ethics (or “Kantian morality”). It’s a terminological nightmare, if nothing else. But we can at least say that practical reasoning, for Kant, is required for doing the right thing, but does not consist in that alone. As Mww puts it:
I hope Mww would agree that practical reasoning does manifest itself in the cat imp, but is only one feature of it.
Emphatically yes to the last part. We can do without the cat imp as somehow creating a “compulsion” whose removal would turn us amoral.
But, is it so obvious that the Leningradians did not ask themselves some version of the cat imp (leaving the question of its force aside)? Here is another place where Kant can be his own worst enemy, because he makes it sound as if “applying the cat imp” is some specialized technical procedure that no one had ever thought of till he came along to explain it.
Rather, I think Kant is just trying to make plain what we actually do when we make an ethical decision. Even defending Leningrad – involving as it does a great deal of personal and familial privation – has to be put in the context of “Is this what any like-minded person would do in my place? Given the virtues I uphold, can I truly say that what I am doing is no more or less than what anyone ought to do, confronted with the same circumstances?”
Again, I’m not saying that Ivan thought this through in precisely these terms, only that such considerations are deeply embedded in how we think about “the right thing to do.” Meaning no disrespect to any heroes confronting historical tragedies, but there will always be cases where “the right thing to do” is to stay home and care for your mother. Ethics are individual decisions, not propensities to enact the virtues.