Kantian ethics (& suicide): Kantian ethics (& suicide): Immanuel Kant ( ). A German philosopher. Ought implies Can Maxims Categorical Imperative Means not ends Applied to suicide

A moral action is performed out of duty rather than inclination, feeling or reward. The motive for an action is therefore more important than the action itself or its consequences Question: What motives might someone have in giving money to charity?

Most moral philosophers would agree with Kant that self interest is not an appropriate motive for a moral action. But many would disagree with his claim that whether or not someone feels an emotion such as ‘compassion’ is irrelevant to our assessment of moral actions. For Kant the only acceptable motive for moral action was a sense of duty.

Ought implies can Ought implies can Kant claimed that motives were more important than consequences because he believed that all people could be moral. Since we can only be held morally responsible for things over which we have some control (ought implied can) and since we have little control over the consequences of our actions, consequences cannot be crucial to morality.

Maxims Maxims Kant described the intentions or general principle behind an action as the maxim. The Good Samaritan could have been acting on the maxim: Always help those in need when you are likely to be rewarded or Always help those in need when you feel pity or Always help those in need because it is your duty to do so

The Categorical Imperative The Categorical Imperative These are absolute and unconditional duties such as ‘You should always tell the truth’. They apply whatever consequence may follow from them. Morality is a system of categorical imperatives. ‘Hypothetical imperatives’ are duties which tell you what you ought or ought not to do if you want to achieve a certain goal.

Universalisability There is only one basic categorical imperative: ‘Act only on maxims which you can at the same time will to be universal laws’. (‘ Will’ in this context means ‘rationally want’.) In other words, act only on a maxim (belief / principle) that you would want to apply to everybody. This is the principle of Universalisability.

An important way of testing maxims to see if they are moral or not is by testing them to see if they make logical sense. You can universalise the maxim ‘don’t return books to libraries’ but it has the consequence of making the notion of libraries nonsensical (because eventually there would be no books left so there would be no libraries to not return books to) This would be rejected as not being a categorical imperative. Think of... Other possible maxims that might be rendered illogical if Universalised.

Means and Ends Means and Ends Another version of the categorical imperative is: ‘Treat other people as ends in themselves, never as means to ends’. This is another way of saying that we should not use people, but should recognise their humanity; the fact that they have wills, desires and interests of their own.

In ‘The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals 1785’ Kant discusses suicide. He argues that someone contemplating suicide imagines universalising the maxim: From self love I make it my principle to shorten my life when its longer duration threatens more troubles than it promises agreeableness'. Universalising this entails a logical contradiction which makes it rationally indefensible and therefore morally wrong according to Kant.

The contradiction: The drive to further life, which is the drive to enjoy more things would become the drive to end life. It is this kind of logical contradiction that Kant uses to identify those things that cannot be accepted as categorical imperatives.

Suicide; means and ends Kant applies his second formulation of the categorical imperative to suicide: So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means. Someone contemplating suicide proposes to use themselves merely as a means to the end of reducing pain and suffering. They are not using themselves as ends but as a means to maintain a tolerable condition up to the end of life.