Kantian Deontology

Overview

Recall questions on the influences on Kant, the good will and acting from duty, hypothetical and categorical imperatives and their formulations, the main criticisms, Ross's prima facie duties, Nagel's contribution, and duty-based ethics today.

What you need to know

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Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What shaped Kant's ethical thinking?

   Model answer

   The Enlightenment confidence that reason rather than authority settles questions; the Lutheran Pietism of his upbringing, with its stress on inward duty and moral seriousness; Newtonian science, which suggested that the moral world too might have universal laws; Hume's scepticism, which Kant said woke him from dogmatic slumber; and Rousseau, from whom he took the idea that freedom is obedience to a law one gives oneself. He wrote in Prussia in the late eighteenth century, and his Groundwork appeared in 1785.

2. 2

   Why does Kant begin with the good will?

   Model answer

   Because every other candidate for goodness, including intelligence, courage, wealth and even happiness, can be put to bad use, whereas a will that wills rightly is good without qualification. Its value lies in the willing itself, not in what it achieves, so a good will that fails through bad luck still shines like a jewel by its own light.

3. 3

   Distinguish acting from duty and acting in accordance with duty.

   Model answer

   A shopkeeper who gives correct change because honesty is good for trade acts in accordance with duty but from self-interest. One who gives correct change because it is right acts from duty, and only that has moral worth for Kant. The point is not that inclination is bad but that it cannot be what confers moral value, since inclinations vary and are not chosen.

4. 4

   What is the difference between a hypothetical and a categorical imperative?

   Model answer

   A hypothetical imperative commands conditionally, telling you what to do if you want a certain end, and loses its force if you drop the end. A categorical imperative commands unconditionally, without reference to any desire, and morality consists of these. Kant argues there is really only one such imperative, expressed in several formulations.

5. 5

   State the formula of universal law and show it in use.

   Model answer

   Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will to become a universal law. Take a lying promise made to get money: universalised, promising itself would collapse because nobody would believe a promise, so the maxim cannot even be conceived as a universal law, and the duty not to make it is perfect. Refusing ever to help others can be conceived universally but cannot be willed consistently, since you would need help yourself, so the duty of beneficence is imperfect.

6. 6

   Explain the formula of humanity.

   Model answer

   Act so as to treat humanity, in yourself and in anyone else, always as an end and never merely as a means. Kant does not forbid using people, since we use the bus driver, but forbids treating them merely as instruments, bypassing their rational agency through deception or coercion. This formulation is the ancestor of modern language about human dignity and informed consent.

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