Olivia Custer; Notes for FYSEM Symposium; Bard College; Spring 2008.

How not to lose it Or Immanuel Kants guide to staying reasonable

I Starting point: A) Have the courage to think for yourselves; obvious or silly? We started the year with Kants rallying cry, relayed by Matthew Deady in his introduction to First Year Seminar. Matthew seemed to suggest, and I think I am only slightly exaggerating Kants centrality here, that First Year Seminar is in some sense a year-long effort to think about Kants claim that using ones own reason to come up with answers to our questions (as opposed to asking other authorities to give us the answers) is the way to go. I want to thank Susan and Matthew for the invitation to give you a little booster shot of Kant, half way through the year. I hope this will be a reminder of Kants injunction, and a little clarification as to what he imagined he was proposing, and why it might take courage. Have the courage to think for yourself. Sapere aude. When, in my classes, we looked at the text in which Kant sets this out, many students did not find this extraordinary. There seemed to be a general understanding that, although it might be hard to do at times, certainly thinking for oneself is what we here are committed to doing. Who wouldnt want to think for themselves? I mean, no one wants to have others decide for them what they think! asked one student looking genuinely perplexed. I put it to you, however, that in the first semester of First Year Seminar we discovered a lot of thinkers who were struggling with the most difficult questions (What is justice? What is Truth? Who am I? What should I do? What are the Laws of Nature? etc. etc.), who were not only using Reason but also reflecting on the limits of reason and evaluating their own methods , and yet for whom think for yourself, at least in the sense in which Kant means this, would not seem like the description of a winning strategy. In fact for them I think it is fair to say the idea of it would simply not make any sense. Think about it: we have been reading a lot of fabulous texts which rouse us, and seem to rouse us

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to shake off the chains of habit, convention, peer pressure etc. to go with thinking rather than prepackaged answers handed down by tradition, religious authorities or schools of philosophy (and of course thats why we are reading them), but have we met anyone yet this year who really thinks that reason in the sense of thinking for oneself can lead us to the truth on the big questions? - Yes of course Socrates, when looking for an answer to the question what is justice?, is certainly saying lets think this out together and rely on reason and a certain method rather than what we are told. As we saw, Socrates promotes dialectic rather than doxa and in a sense you might think that that is a turn to reasoning, but remember that to get to the Truth/One/Good also seems, in Platos version, to require something beyond the careful reasoned discussions Socrates has with his companions. Getting to the Truth is described, through allegory, as reaching the light outside the cave, it is not mapped out as the endpoint of systematic parsing of concepts and logical articulation of arguments. - Yes Augustine wants to inspire us with his autobiographical tale of an inquisitive mind reflecting enough to challenge conventional wisdom in the search for Truth. But one of the lessons he is eager to tell us he has learned is that those who are trying to get to that Truth on their own, without God, those who think they will find Truth without receiving it, are lost. - Even for Galileo and Descartes, looking for the answers to questions about the universe or ourselves is still some kind of cat and mouse game with God and/or Nature, where God or Nature has/is the answers and the challenge is to find out from him or her, using the clues he/she gives us, what those answers are. Reason may be crucial, but that is because it will teach us to read the book of nature. Kant, for the first time, is going to give us reasons to reject this image of inquiry which has it that we are looking for the answers which someone else has and may, or may not, yield to us.1 So it turns out that it is not simply obvious that everyone should be encouraged to think for themselves. In fact, once one stops to wonder whether it is a good plan, it may suddenly start to seem like an extremely dangerous and silly plan. Do we want individuals to go with their whacky thoughts without compunctions because they feel justified in hanging onto their own
1

Although Kant will appeal to the figure of the book of nature, there is a shift. Imagine how impossible it would have been for Descartes to say, as Kant does, we find in things only what we have put in them. (check quote CPR).

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thoughts? So we want everyone trying to reinvent the wheel? Are we going to ignore experts because we would prefer to make up our own minds? Certainly we dont think anyone should be forced to think the same way as an idiot who happens to have power (choose your own idiot as an example), but neither can we simply commit to the superiority of a model in which everyone has their own truth about everything. If we say that everyone should think for themselves because we want to defend the idea of freedom, do we have to give up on the idea of truth and become committed to relativism to each their own truth? It is Kants great point of pride that he thinks he has found a way both to defend freedom of thought and not to give up on an idea of truth in the sense of propositions which claim a status which is not that of a personal opinion but that of a necessary proposition universally/generally recognized. In fact Kant is going to show that the only way of protecting freedom of thought is to recognize a few, just a very few, truths. One Truth which is a real truth, an a priori truth, will be enough for today. If we can just recognize that one truth then we will be protecting a real freedom to think, not a pseudo-freedom to believe in fairy tales which are really just indoctrination. B) Kants starting point: can we get the queen back on her throne? I would like here to take you on a little journey to describe how Kant reaches that conclusion. Lets start with what can be said to be the beginning, namely the preface of the first edition of the book which made Kant famous, the book which made Kant Kant, published in 1781 the Critique of Pure Reason. This preface sets out the stakes of the book in narrative terms:
There was a time when metaphysics was called the queen of all the sciences; and if the will be taken for the deed, then she did in fact, because of the superior importance of her subject matter, deserve that title of honor. The tone in vogue in this era, however, has made it fashionable to treat her with total disdain; a matron who, outcast and abandoned, laments like Hecuba: Modo maxima rerum, tot generis natisque potensnunc trahor exul, inops. Ovid Metamorphoses (Critique of Pure Reason, A viii, 99) (Greatest of all by race and birth, I now am cast out, powerless)

As the preface makes clear, the point of Kants famous Critique of Pure Reason is to come to the rescue of this dethroned queen2. This rescue, which is of course a rescue of her good name,
2

Its not exactly that Kant is out to rescue a damsel in distress, more that he is out to put the queen back on her

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requires countering the fashionable disdain. What has caused the disdain, according to Kant? Well the disdain is born of the fact that when people look to metaphysics all they see are endless debates, debates which, precisely because they just go on and on and on, are judged by observers to be sterile. Metaphysics, the search for Truths, for the Truth behind Nature, beyond what we see etc, has been plagued by barbarism, beset by civil wars leading to anarchy and now, after all paths (as we persuade ourselves) have been tried in vain, what rules is tedium and complete indifferentism, the mother of chaos and night in the sciences(Ax, 100). The queen is dethroned, endless strife and anarchy, night and chaos loom this is what Kant saw when he looked to metaphysics, that discipline which is supposed to provide fundamental truths. Kants lament that metaphysics is simply a war zone is made in lyrical and quite moving terms but it is not hugely original (philosophical debates have always been the stuff of comedy from a certain perspective). However, his analysis of the reasons for this are not only original but even revolutionary since it is his hope that they will provoke a change in thinking about knowledge in general as radical as the Copernican Revolution was for astronomy. Indeed, according to the analysis of the Critique of Pure Reason, the problem is more serious than even the supporters of the threatened queen may have understood: it is not just that the conflict has gone on and on, pitting one school against another time and time again, but that discussions on the canonical metaphysical questions are in fact necessarily endless. One of the crucial sections of this book is the dialectic which shows that as far as the Big Questions such as does God exist? or are we really free? go, reason cannot settle the matter. I wont go into the details here; suffice it to say that what the Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason purports to demonstrate is that it would be completely unreasonable to keep discussing some questions notably are we ever free or do the laws of nature govern everything which happens, including all our acts? as though one were still hoping for a reasonable answer. So there are questions we cannot answer. So metaphysics is a bust. Big deal you might say. Ah but Kant does think it is a big deal. In fact it is quite a drama, and not just because he would like to do some metaphysics. Its a huge deal for all of us, as Kant sees it, because these
throne, the legitimate queen, because if she can get back because her legitimacy is recognized, and she can learn to rule properly ie according to the guidelines of critique, then she will last a long time. If she ceases to be a despot, but also stops trying to cater to the rabble, there is a chance of keeping power.

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are not questions we can simply agree to set aside. We may be able to understand that we cannot answer them and yet the very same reason that cannot answer these questions, indeed the same reason which can understand that it cannot answer them, cannot give up on them. Here is the first sentence of the preface to the Critique of Pure Reason:
Human reason has a peculiar fate in one kind of its cognitions: it is troubled by questions that it cannot dismiss, because they are posed to it by the nature of reason itself, but that it also cannot answer, because they surpass human reasons every ability. ( Critique of Pure Reason , translation by Paul Guyer, Cambridge University Press, 1998, Aii, 99 )

Thats just the way it is: there are some kinds of questions our reason cannot answer, they are beyond us says Kant. But, he continues, that doesnt mean we can just figure out what they are and learn to put them aside: no it is our peculiar fate to be troubled by them. A few pages later he will be even more explicit: it is pointless to affect indifference with respect to such inquiries, to whose object human nature cannot be indifferent(Critique of Pure Reason, Ax, 100). You might try to pretend that it didnt matter, that you dont need metaphysics to provide some answers, you might try on the posture of indifference or the posturing of the skeptic but, according to Kant, this is not an option long term. As he sees it, skepticism is unlivable: see his description of skeptics as nomads who abhor all permanent cultivation of the soil and shatter[] civil unity (Critique of Pure Reason, Axi, 9). Ok, so according to Kants analysis, we seem condemned to lose it: destined to run after answers it will never get, human reason seems destined to go mad. Looks bleak. Except that Kants work is going to show us that a slight change in perspective reveals that what seems like a bleak situation is actually not so bleak: it may be difficult but that difficulty is actually a wonderful challenge we shouldnt want to give up for all the world. Kant indeed is going to show us that this funny situation we are in, because of the sorts of creatures we are, because of the features of human reason, does not necessarily condemn us to choosing between unreasonable answers or unlivable skepticism but rather sets up the possibility for human dignity. The difficulties involved in accessing that certain type of knowledge which turns out to be so problematic are not bound to make us lose it, they may, on the contrary, allow us to get a life.

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II The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals A) What would it be for something to be good? From common intuition to some odd consequences and a serious problem 1) Nothing good but a good will actually follows from our common understanding of the term good in the moral sense What is the project of the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals ? A horrifying title Kant worried as he nonetheless stuck to the terms because they are precise. The Metaphysics of Morals itself, when Kant finally gets around to writing it many years later, sets out the whole system of human duties (duties to oneself and to others, duties of individuals and states, parents and spouses, etc.). But to work all this out Kant needed to start from somewhere, he needed a ground, he needed a principle. And finding that principle is what the Groundwork is all about. What is the supreme principle of morality? We started the year with a different version of this project: remember Socrates looking for the definition of Justice in the Republic because he assumes that if he could find that definition then he could use it as a principle to design the perfect state. But the two inquiries into the basic principle of morality are quite different. Maybe now is the time to warn you that there is a chance that even those of you who found Socrates profoundly annoying may be caught in a sudden fit of nostalgia for Platos dialogue when you first make your way through Kant. The style is different and can be discouraging at first: Kant doesnt seem to discuss anything practical for a long time, he makes use of many technical terms, there dont seem to be entertaining characters or amusing quips, the human drama is harder to hear. But the difference in style may be less off putting if you consider that it intimately connected with a difference in method. Their methods are different; their questions are different. Socrates asks what is justice? and looks for lots of cases of just-things-in-the-world and then tries to extract by thinking the essence of justice. This distillation approach (search for essences) then became a model for metaphysical investigation for centuries, but it is also, according to Kant, as doomed as the project of extracting sunbeams from cucumbers. Kant takes a new approach which allows him to sidestep a whole set of endless arguments (those disagreements as to which situations/things count as cases of good or just acts). Instead of trying to figure out where in the world is a good thing, he

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asks in a general way what would it be for something to be good?. What would something have to be for it to count as good?. What would something have to be (like) to be worthy of the label good in a moral sense?. As I mentioned, he is not going to start, like Socrates, by trying to determine what is good, instead he wants to figure out first what something would have to be to be good. (In technical terms we say that he sets out to determine the conditions of possibility of the good.) Why does Kant start with this question? Well because he thinks this is the best strategy to i) avoid the problems which have doomed traditional metaphysics, and ii) to be true to the ambition of looking into these matters without bringing in any presuppositions. His method allows him to start with just one supposition, one fact. All Kant is supposing is that everyone has some sense of what the term morality points to. He is not under any illusion about agreement here, in fact among Kants many useful tips for giving a good dinner party, like what the perfect number of guests is, and when to tell jokes to help digestion, there is also this suggestion for jump starting conversation if everyone seems shy and awkward: just throw out a moral problem. Kants point is that the inevitable disagreement on moral question actually, paradoxically, shows something is common to everyone. It shows that everyone has an opinion, everyone (even the women!) will feel they have a point of view. Well, observes Kant, that means that everyone thinks they have an idea that there might be a right thing to do. The fact that people even manage to disagree on moral question shows that they have some sense minimal shared sense of what is at stake: there is an implicit agreement that to say this is the moral thing to do is to make a particular kind of claim and the disagreement is only about where and when that claim can be made.3 So fact Kant starts with: we all have some sense/idea of morality, at least a sense that to claim that something is moral is to make a specific kind of claim. Now the question is, are we
3

If that is hard to understand, I could repeat what Kant will assume as the point of departure of his investigation but using the vocabulary of freedom rather than morality or duty (I can do this because Kants would/will use the same method and it will turn out, as you will see, that all these terms are closely related). Kant is taking as a fact the minimal assumption that everyone has some projection of what a thought, or any other act, would have to be to count as free. I presume class discussions will make clear that we dont all agree on which, if any, of Ralph Ellisons narrators decisions are free, but these discussions themselves are only possible because of some implicit shared idea of what freedom would be. We all share some idea that if his decisions turned out to be fully determined by some other person or force then they would not count as free. It is that vague idea, the sense that freedom would have to be different from determined acts which Kant thinks we can assume we share. As far as morality is concerned, what Kant is presuming is an equally unelaborated idea that to call something morally good would be to make a very specific kind of claim.

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deluded? Is morally good a label we put on things to try to pass them off as objectively good when in fact our approval is only subjective? If so, then the skeptics are right and we are in bad shape. Its not a pretty prospect but Kant cannot discount it out of hand. In fact it is this terrifying possibility which drives him on. He desperately wants but, being nothing if not intellectually rigorous, cannot presume, that there is another option. He is desperately seeking some confirmation that the concept of morality will not turn out to be an illusion or a chimera. But precisely because the stakes are so high remember this is vital, if we have to become skeptics we are facing an existential problem, an existence without cultivation of the soil (no rewards, no culture) and without civil unity , Kant is going to be very very careful. What kind of act would an act have to be to count as good? Very briefly put, Kant thinks that everyone will agree that are two characteristics such an act would have to have: First, it would have to be an act which warrants approval. When we say that something is the right thing to do and we mean to ascribe moral value to it, what we mean is not that it was the safe thing to do not to get into trouble, or the smart thing to do to avoid upsetting others. It may, or may not, be those, but if it were a morally good thing to do it would warrant approval on that basis alone. More precisely it would warrant universal approval. To be worthy of the being called moral, or morally good in that undefined but strict sense which we have an intuition of, an act would have to be more than culturally encouraged, it would have to be not just approved by local conventions, it would have to measure up positively to some higher standard. Conventions vary, individual tastes vary, but if the good varies in that way, then the whole concept only designates an illusion. Those private banking advertisements plastered along airport hallways make an important point (you know the ones which show broccoli on one side and chocolate on the other, and label one the good and the other bad and then switch the labels HSBC campaign): often we use good to mean I like it or this is what I think. But if those ads make us laugh, surely it is because Kant is right: we have some sense that that is not the whole story about good. (Laughter is an important indicator in reading!) Good, if a proper use of the term is possible, is not a label which only some people would attach to an

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act. A moral act, to be a moral act in the proper sense of the term, would have to be universally considered good not just considered good by me, or by my culture. (As an aside, I would just like to say that any of you who might have reservations about reading Kant because he seems too much like the very symbol of a Eurocentric approach to culture which you are eager to move away from because you clearly understand the political arguments as to its limitations, can put away your qualms and dive in: Kants is the first to say beware that peddling particular viewpoints as universals is dangerous. He also teaches us a lot about sniffing them out.) Second characteristic: An act which is moral cannot be moral by accident. To put it bluntly, if you do the right thing by accident then you dont get credit for having accomplished a moral act. Somehow the moral worth of an act depends not just on what is actually done, but on the reason for which it is done, on the intention. Lets look at Kants famous example: the neighborhood grocer. Imagine a shopkeeper who cheats old ladies of their change. Easy to say that is immoral. Ok, now imagine a shopkeeper who never cheats his customers and never overcharges. Would we say he is acting morally? Well, says Kant, it depends what his will is, what his intentions are. If he decides not to cheat customers because if he does cheat them he will risk getting a bad reputation which will cost him business then we can say that he is doing the moral thing in the sense that his action at least is not against morality, but we wouldnt really think he was moral in the strong sense of the word. Only if he didnt cheat, well because one doesnt cheat, would we really count it as doing the right thing. Kant summarizes the difference between actions which are sort of accidentally moral and actions which are really moral in the following terms: in the first case the person would be acting according to his duty, in conformity with his duty while in the second the person would be acting from duty, or out of duty. Acting in conformity with duty is better than acting not in conformity with duty, but only acting out of duty deserves to be called morally good in the strict sense. I have just run you through a set of arguments which are going to be made, or alluded to, in the first section of the GMM and which should allow you to understand the claim with which

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this book starts: It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will. ( Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor, Cambridge University Press, 1997, IV 393; 70). Since the intention is crucial for the moral quality of an act it is, Kant reasons, the will (the locus of motives) to which we really can to ascribe the good. Only the will which has the right intentions could be really really good. 2) But if we are consistent, this may lead us to unexpected conclusions Although Kant could then consider that stating that the only the good will is good without limitation is just a summary of the general consensus, that there is nothing provocative in it, he goes on to draw rather provocative conclusions from this.4 If what counts is not just the acts but also the intention, then first we have to be careful who we admire: we could well imagine some Mother Theresa who acts not for the sake of duty not for the sake of the moral law, but because she gets a kick out of it, an ego boost, admiration, or a Nobel prize or whatever. If those are the motives behind humanitarian action then, since the intention is crucial, that action doesnt have moral worth according to Kant. Some or many of you would be willing to follow Kant in his reasoning thus far. The next step may not be so easy, although in Kants mind it is simply the next logical step, it is simply being consistent. He then is going to say that, if we stick to our analysis, then we would have to say that the problem is not merely that humanitarian heroes might actually be out to make a buck or tend to their own narcissism rather than acting out of altruistic motives, but that even altruistic motives for action are not moral motives in the strict sense. Aiming to make the world a kinder place rather than to make money, or aiming to help others rather than to look good certainly makes a difference, but it does not push the act into the category of done out of duty. That is enough to disqualify the act from a claim to moral worth in the strict sense implied by the word when we think about it. (Those of you who think Kant is quibbling here should just remember that he may
4

In fact you may be reminded of Socrates: Kant takes as his starting point assumptions which we are hard pressed to contest but then, with a logic which is hard to find fault with, he draws out counterintuitive consequences. If, as I hope you now do, we accept that there is a difference between acting according to duty and acting out of duty and that only the latter would warrant the universal approval which moral goodness deserves, then well we are on the way to a few surprises.

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indeed be splitting hairs, but that is because he cannot afford to take any risks; he doesnt want to miss the path out of skepticism, and certainly not to miss it by a hairs breadth.) So lets keep going because Kant is not going to let go. He is not just going to push us to beware of popular role models, he is going to say that we actually should conclude that role models are in themselves an obstacle to moral behavior. Why? Because if we have a role model then our choices will be made not for the sake of duty but for the sake of resembling our model. Imitating some good figure, even imitating the Holy One of the Gospel, will never produce a moral act in the sense of an act out of duty.5 3) The problem: looks as though then we are really stuck You should already have some sense that Kant is stirring up trouble even as he is ostensibly only making explicit the consequences of what he claims are generally shared assumptions about what morality is, or is about. Maybe you do not think it is trouble when it turns out that (even) Jesus Christ is not a role model, but you can at least appreciate that in Kants time, and from Kants perspective as himself a Christian believer, it looks a bit radical. And I think all of you will understand that there is a serious problem when we add the next layer, when Kant drops his bombshell as he does at the beginning of Section II of the Groundwork:
It is absolutely impossible by means of experience to make out with complete certainty a single case in which the maxim of an action otherwise in conformity with duty rested simply on moral grounds and on the representation of ones duty. (Groundwork, IV 407, 19)

Intentions are what give moral worth to actions, but intentions are, strictly speaking, unknowable. We never really know whether the honest shopkeeper is honest out of the goodness of his heart or business acumen. We never even really know why we make decisions: we may occasionally think we are doing it out of duty. We may even go into long analyses, or psychoanalyses, to track down patterns of motivation which are not apparent at first glance, covered by layers of obfuscation or denial, but in the end we never really know why we, or anyone else, acts in a certain way. This is Kant in his face the facts mode and I, for one, think it is very hard to disagree with him. But if we add this fact to Kants previous analyses surely it does look as though Kant is in trouble. Here he has to say that we never know with certainty, a
5

GMM IV 408.

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moral act when we see it. By extension we cannot say with any certainty that there ever has been a single moral act on indeed that there will be. Dont we have to concede victory to the skeptics and give up hope of a reasonable life?

B)

The Solution: there is one, and only one. The Categorical Imperative Well you have guessed the answer. The reason Kants work has remained important

centuries later, the reason then that Kant is great, is that just when everything seems on the edge of collapsing like a house of cards, just when it seems as though careful and rigorous thinking is destined to turn into corrosive and destructive skepticism and our hopes for life and reason are about to be crushed definitively, just as the brick wall appears in front of our criticalphilosophical vehicle, Kant saves the day. It turns out he has a trump card up his sleeve. One of the reasons Kant is so much fun is that following his transcendental analyses a fancy name for analyses which start with a question in the form what would have to be the case for X? is sort of like riding in Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: it always turns out that there is a magic button on the dashboard and out come the wings to carry you over the brick wall. (That, by the way, is my answer to my Bard colleague who asked me the other day, referring to Kant, Can you give me one reason to think that my eyes shouldnt just blur over when I see a sentence in which there are only abstract nouns?; the reason is it is an action packed adventure. As for my cinematic reference here, it is of course determined by the age of my children we all also think, including about Kant, with whatever we have been experiencing in life). So fasten your seatbelts; back to button which deploys the wings. This is where Kants new method pays off. Remember I drew your attention to that new way of asking questions which is Kants invention, the asking what would it mean for something to be good? rather than what is the good and where is it?. Well now we are in a position to appreciate why Kant chooses this new approach. It produces the magic button or the trump card: the (in)famous Categorical Imperative. What is Kants Categorical Imperative? It is and I am not quite being facetious an imperative (an order, a you must) which is categorical (absolute, non-negotiable, inflexible, determined and not up for discussion). The only other kind of imperatives there are are hypothetical imperatives: imperatives, orders, which are hypothetical because you only have to

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obey if you choose the hypothetical goal they invoke. Do the reading before you come to class, otherwise you will get a bad grade is an order, but it is an order which you obey if/because you have adopted the hypothesis that your goal is to get a decent grade in FYSEM. As we saw, Kant established that to warrant the description morally worthy an act has to be done for the sake of duty and nothing else. Another way of saying this is to say that the order one would have to obey to act out of duty would be do your duty, just because it is your duty. Lets go back to our hypothetical shopkeeper: if he doesnt cheat his customers because he is protecting his business, then he is obeying an order of the sort dont cheat so that you look good. Only if his intention were to obey an order do your duty (not to cheat) just because (it is your duty) would he be obeying a Categorical Imperative. Only an act determined by, motivated by, responding to a Categorical Imperative would be an act of moral worth. Ok. So far the CI is just a fancy way of saying what Kant had already discovered: if morality is going to mean anything, then we can only count as moral an act, if there ever is one, which does duty for its own sake. Whats the big breakthrough? It is that once we summarize our findings so far by referring to the form of the Categorical Imperative, we are going (magic, drumrolls, pause) to get content - without referring to experience.
there is one imperative that, without being based upon and having as its condition any other purpose to be attained by certain conduct, commands this conduct immediately. (Groundwork, 4 416, 27)

Bingo!!! Ok, just in case you are not impressed, just in case you missed the miracle, let me run that by you once more.
there is one imperative that, without being based upon and having as its condition any other purpose to be attained by certain conduct, commands this conduct immediately. (Groundwork, 4 416, 27)

For an act to be willed for the sake of duty, I have to will it without it being a means to another end. In other words my will has to have obeyed a Categorical Imperative. But logical analysis shows there is one, and only one, imperative of that form. (importance of slow reading! Here it is important to read one and realize it means only one)
when I think of a categorical imperative I know at once what it contains (Groundwork, 4 421, 31)

The at once here to be an expression of the cinematic compression of time6: right away
6

Although would be an example of a place to pause in reading, to note where temporal and logical sequences overlap, to be attentive to the way a whole argument can hinge on a word and on the compressions it allows, encourages, and disguises; to think about the importance of developing sensitivity for these moments.

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means I can cut to the next scene without missing any of the story, right away means without having to import any new characters, without needing anything from the outside world, in other words just doing some logical thinking. What can we cut to?
nothing is left with which the maxim of action is to conform but the universality of a law as such (Groundwork, 4 421, 31) There is, therefore, only a single categorical imperative and it is this: Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law. (Groundwork, 4 421, 31)

The claim then is that, when we think about it, there is one, and only one, possible categorical imperative. There is only one imperative which does not have to refer to some outside goal. So from an argument about the form of a moral act, Kant thinks he is able to deduce something about content: the form is such that only one content fits. Now there are several formulations of the CI, several ways to describe it, translate it in words, but there is only one content. And that, it its first formulation, is: Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law Before we take a very quick look at how the CI works, lets just make sure we understand what Kant thinks he has done: he thinks he has, with only logical thinking, right away at once, put together the idea of a categorical imperative and the only content which can fit that form and that in doing so he has found a principle of morality which does not depend on experience, does not invoke a goal which is given privilege only by a particular person or culture. In other words he thinks he has found a synthetic (he had to make it by putting different thoughts together, synthesizing form and content) a priori principle of morality. Thats what he set out to do, and he has done it. Now he has done what you were hoping, or expecting, him to do? Has he figured out a way to tell us what to do to act morally, in this incredibly strong sense that he wants to insist that we keep for the term? The answer is yes and no. Or rather no, and yes. No, he has not produced a handbook for moral behavior. Even his wonderful, and haunting examples, are just thought experiments to get you to think about the big ideas. The point is not to give a complete list of dos and donts. But yes, he has told us what we would have to do to act morally, and that is to Act

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only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law. How does that help? It helps because it is a negative tool: if you are acting on a maxim which you can not will that it should become a universal law, then you are definitely not acting morally. To clarify how the CI works and how you can get it to work for you, I will refer to the classic example: lying. Here is the problem: if a murderer knocks on your door asking whether your friend is in the house, friend who is there precisely in order to get away from this murderer who is after her, is it morally ok to lie? Solution: stall your answer just long enough to run the option through Kants universalization test: if I lie on the basis of a maxim which says lie when you think it might save lives, can I wish that to become a universal law? Answer: no. I cannot will/wish that everyone feel they are allowed to lie when they judge it might save a life. I may live in a world in which certain people (and indeed governments) act that way, but I cannot will it. Result: Try to stall some more, but if you have to answer, dont lie because lying cant be right even in this situation; it fails the test.

I leave it to your discussions in class to practice using the CI as a test to determine when actions are immoral. What is important here is that you understand that it is a test, and that Kant is ready to stick by it as the only way we have of escaping skepticism. By recognizing that that a weak skepticism is correct we never know of any act that it is moral yet analyzing the conditions of a moral act, if there were such a thing, Kant has found an answer to strong skepticism: he has found a principle for moral thinking which can guide us, and guide us even when the going gets hard, when answers may be counterintuitive. We can follow the path of reasonable analysis, and not end up going in circles.

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If you want to know the implications Kant thinks it has you will have to read the Metaphysics of Morals itself. And if you do read that you may be surprised to discover just how much of our legal system is derived from Kants thinking. For those of you who find all this a bit too abstract and are not completely sold on Kant by my contention that he offers action packed entertainment, I would like to just make the case you might find a historical interest in Kant because of his role in shaping the world in which you live. Kants ethical writings may seem less remote when you ponder the fact that Kant derives from this supreme principle of morality not only a set of laws for nation states which would look very familiar, but also a framework for international law down to the smallest details like suggesting that there should be an International Tribunal.in the Hague. That might convince you that not only does recognizing this as the supreme principle of morality have consequences, its consequences have quite literally shaped the world in which you live. At the risk of reminding you of another of last semesters authors (at the risk of having The lady doth protest too much, methinks creep into your minds as it did into mine while I was writing this), let me just say a quick word about another way in which Kants thinking has a direct impact on you by having an impact on the decisions you make, whether you realize it or not. One decision most of you are facing is who to vote for in the upcoming elections. Now Kants thought doesnt yield a specific endorsement but it does, whether you realize it or not, affect how you make up your minds. Some of the arguments or proposals which will convince you one way or another will be competing proposals for how to maximize happiness (for you, or a wider community, the country or the world). But then some arguments will appeal not to happiness as a goal but to duty, freedom, or human dignity as our collective mission. If any of those affect your thinking, one way or another, then you are acting on what you have inherited, indirectly, from Kant.

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III Stay reasonable (avoiding dogmatism and skepticism) long enough to become reasonable (free): Most simply put, his most important legacy is perhaps to have put the questions of freedom at the heart of ethical and political debates. And I would like to ask you for a tiny bit more patience with technicalities to show you the connection between the good, duty, the moral law on the one hand, and freedom on the other. Now that you are familiar with the strategy Kant uses in his investigations, I think we can run through this very quickly. Take this as one last round in Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. What do we mean by freedom? asks Kant, or rather he asks it in his way: what would an act have to be to be free?. Answer: it would have to be an act which was not determined by some outside force. So far so good: freedom is not being bossed around by self-appointed guardians whomever they be. It means not being controlled by outside forces and outside here means outside my reason because if it were somehow my body which motivated my act, if hunger or pain were to determine my act then it wouldnt count as free, says Kant picking up on a tradition you are now familiar with (think of Augustine claiming his lust is the boss). But then Kant takes things one step further to say that my act would not be free either if it were determined by ideas because those ideas may just be the product of my particular culture. If my action is piloted by principles which come from being brought up in a particular time and place, then I am a hostage to my particular empirical environment. So to be free I have to escape the domination of ideas. But now trouble is coming: it starts to look as though Kant is being too radical for his own good, it starts to look as though he is going to have to say that only completely random, non-sensical acts would be free but that, of course, is a problem. Kant cannot go there. Acting completely randomly would be completely unreasonable. Thats the stuff of crazies. Freedom has to be something other than craziness. Reasonable behavior has to have some order to it. Here the brick wall comes into focus: Can we stay reasonable and yet be free? Or is being reasonable always to have been unfree because bound by some Idea as I suggested a moment ago? But, as before, just when he looks bound for the brick wall here is the rescue: wait, it turns out that one way to have an act not be determined by an outside rule and yet not to have it be random and that is to follow a rule which you have given yourself. Kants big

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breakthrough here is on one level, as all big breakthroughs end up having been, quite simple. It boils down to this insight: being free in the sense of not being ruled by other people/models/ideas does not have to mean getting away from rules altogether, it only means getting away from rules imposed on us arbitrarily from the outside. But, if it is our peculiar fate to be wracked by questions we cannot answer, it is also our peculiar privilege to have precisely the power to give ourselves a rule which is not the arbitrary product of a specific time and place but a universal law:
The dignity of humanity consists just in this capacity to give universal law, though with the condition of also being itself subject to this very lawgiving. (Groundwork, 4 440, 47) .

Our dignity is this capacity to give ourselves the law to which we are subject; our dignity is dependant on this capacity to freely submit to a law, freely submit to the law of ourselves, the law of reason. We can be dignified by being free, which means not acting in order to further some outside plan but only to fulfill a plan to be ourselves, our reasonable selves. Although it might at first seem counterintuitive, acting freely is only possible if you are obeying the law of duty because that is the only law you can give yourself rather than have imposed on you by someone else. And this is why, according to Kant, it is possible to pursue a freedom, and a freedom of thought, which is not about reinventing the wheel, or giving up on there being anything but personal opinions on moral matters. Our challenge, our challenge as human beings who have that peculiar fate of aspiring to freedom or morality, autonomy or dignity is not to lose it: not to lose what reason can give us, and not to lose the chance we have to take up a challenge to work with the very limits of reason. Kant guides us by providing a crucial lesson. If we dont want to miss our chance for freedom, we must avoid not one but two traps: we must avoid dogmatism, but also skepticism. And skepticism takes many forms: affecting indifference to moral matters, following fashions or submitting to despots/guardians, but also looking to experience for a moral principle. Look neither to God, not to the world around you. Neither heaven, nor earth. Have the courage to think for yourselves. The challenge is not to lose that ambition, but also not to lose what gives rise to, and sustains that ambition, namely the access we have to another dimension: that of reason. The challenge Kant leaves us with is to stay reasonable by avoiding the traps which he

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identifies long enough to try to become reasonable. That is hard, and the very fact that I have to phrase it in this slightly paradoxical way stay reasonable (avoiding both dogmatism and skepticism) if you want to become reasonable (free) underlines the challenge. But if we embrace this challenge then we can work towards perpetual peace, not the peace of graveyards where everything is settled once and for all, but that peace which is at least the opposite of endless and sterile wars which topple the queen from her throne, namely the peace of a perpetual use of reason to rise to the challenge of thinking for ourselves. We can work towards getting a life, a life worthy of our humanity, a life of freedom and dignity. This challenge is our peculiar fate this is what Kant found the terms to think. It is what he would remind us while encouraging us to use the opportunity of FYSEM to better understand what embracing this fate would imply today, and tomorrow.

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