Key terms

A judgement is analytic if the predicate is contained in the concept of the subject. A judgement that is not analytic is synthetic.

An epistemological distinction:

The justification for a statement is a priori if it is independent of sense experience, and a posteriori or empirical if it involves sense experience.

So a statement is a priori knowable if it is possible to know it based on an a priori justification.

Objections to Kant

Conflicting principles

Objection: our moral principles can conflict. The demands of fidelity and helpfulness can clash, for example.

Reply: O. O’Neill admits this is true for any ethic of principles: ‘trade-offs’ are not part of the theory, so there is no routine procedure for deciding between conflicts. The theory provides side-constraints to action, and it is only when no action falls within all constraints that the problem of multiple grounds of obligation arises. O’Neill admits the virtue-ethical objections of Williams and Nussbaum, that Kant does not say enough the regret appropriate when some moral commitment has to be unavoidably violated/ neglected is apt.

Rigorism

Objection: Kant’s ethics is too strong; it fails to allow us to take account of differences between cases.

Reply: As O. O’Neill puts it, “universal principles need not mandate universal treatment”. For example, ‘taxation should be proportionate to ability to pay’ is a universal principle that demands differentiated treatment.

Objection: Kant’s principles are ‘too abstract’ to guide action, hence cannot be action-guiding.

Reply: O. O’Neill argues that Kant emphasises that the application of principles to cases requires judgement and deliberation. Principles must be abstract: they are side-constraints, not algorithms. They guide, and do not make, decisions. The moral life, O’Neill says, “is a matter of finding ways of acting that meet all obligations and violate no moral prohibitions”.

Moral value

Objection: Robert Johnson notes that many have objected that actions done solely from duty are not better than actions done out of emotional concern or sympathy for others, for example for the sake of friends and family. Moreover, it seems to be the case that moral worth requires solely action from duty, independent of considerations like love or friendship.

Reply: Johnson goes on, however to note a line of defence for Kant’s defenders. According to this view, Kant’s point is that from the point of view of someone deliberating what to do, the only decisive concerns are those of what one ought to do, of duty. The vital point is that the expression of a good will requires considerations of duty to take priority over all other interests; it need not be taken as recommending a character that merely follows rules, devoid of human warmth.

Hegel’s emptiness objection

Objection: Hegel objects to Kant’s formula of universal law by arguing the universal law test is empty. For Hegel, all Kant’s argument shows is that a system without deposits is contradicted by one with deposits – not that there is a contradiction in the system without deposits. Thus, Kant assumes a system of property and argues that if everyone kept what belongs to others, there would be no system of property. But, Hegel objects, he fails to explain why there should be property.

Reply 1 (on logical contradiction interpretation): the contradiction is generated when the agent attempts to universalise his maxim and to will his maxim at the same time. The case degenerates into one similar to the lying promiser.

Reply 2 (on practical contradiction interpretation): the person trying to will this kind of maxim as a universal law is willing a situation where the practice of deposits does not exist – but he is also willing the practice of deposits to exist so he can exploit it. Likewise, he cannot rationally will to use a promise to achieve his end at the same time he wills a situation in which promises will not be accepted, because this latter situation defeats his end.

Hegel’s poverty objections

Objection: Hegel also objects to the formula of universal law on the basis that it is too strong. As Bradley puts it, “ ‘succour the poor’ both negates and presupposes (hence posits) poverty”. We cannot imagine a world in which people give to the poor and there are no poor, so Kant’s rule is self-contradictory.

Reply 1 (on logical contradiction interpretation): the maxim is to succour those who need it, and this maxim can be held consistently even if nobody needs help. Thus, it is not inconceivable that the maxim be universalised: it just leaves one nothing to do.

Reply 2 (on practical contradiction interpretation): one’s purpose in succouring the poor is to give them relief. The world of the universalised maxim only contradicts one’s will if it thwarts one’s purpose – but the world without poverty does not do this, it satisfies it.

Problems with the formulas of universal law

• They lead to unacceptable conclusions: they condemn innocent principles and fail to condemn some we find immoral. A judicious rewording of the maxim can avoid the less acceptable results, but there seems to be no principled way to do this. If we make use of our intuitions in this way, moreover, we are not being guided by the formula so much as by our intuitions.

• They do not capture what is central to moral deliberation. Even if the universal law formulas correctly flag certain formulas as wrong, it does not explain why they are wrong. The murderer’s wrongness seems to lie in more than the inability to consistently conceive of his actions. Arguably, however, Kant thought that the full import of the moral law is only clear when all the formulas are taken into account.

Problems with the formula of humanity

• It is far from a determinate decision procedure: something that becomes more problematic the more it is taken as a fully determinate premise for justifying strict moral rules. Hill argues that some writers (e.g. Donagan) may have more-than-warranted confidence in our...

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