1. KANT 1 IMMORALITY IS IRRATIONAL

2. Immanuel Kant 1724-1804 Rationalist until age of 50, then read Hume, who, in his own words, “awakened me from my dogmatic slumbers” Then wrote Critique of Pure Reason

3. Kant Background Famous Epigram: Man is the lawgiver of nature Philosophical “Copernican Revolution”: Assume knowledge or morality is real, then examine presuppositions that make it possible Famous Distinction: Phenomenal vs. Noumenal

4. Kantian Moral Theory Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals Assumes morality is possible. So free-will presupposed: we can be autonomous. Argument then is to find the basis by which we can rule ourselves: apodictic a priori synthetic truth: the concept of law itself: The Categorical Imperative

5. Distinctions 1-3 1. person / thing 2. action / passion 3. moral-immoral / amoral Persons and actions are characterized by the top term in each case, animals and behavior by the bottom term Not all human beings are persons, nor vice- versa. Behavior ≠ Action. Action is caused by agent, behavior is not.

6. Distinctions 4 & 5 4. reason / inclination 5. autonomy / heteronymy Kant understands reason to influence action via the will. Autonomy is freedom: not freedom from natural law, but freedom to make laws for oneself. Autonomy is necessary for morality.

7. Distinctions 6 & 7 6. duty / desire 7. categorical imperative / hypothetical imperative Morality requires autonomy, self-rule by reason, which requires categorical imperative.

8. Rough form of argument But what can reason command without any inclination? [Hume: “Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions.”] All that is left is the form of law itself. SO: There is but one categorical imperative: “…act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.”]

9. CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law. [actually 2 or 3 other formulations] Maxim: the principle on which one acts; the command given oneself by the will. Maxims are hypothetical imperatives.

10. [UNIVERSALIZABILITY] Two sorts of failures of maxims (re: universalizability): Impossibility of maxim becoming universal law: lying, theft, … - Perfect duties Impossibility of willing maxim to become universal law - Imperfect duties