Day 5: Imperatives, Some Details

•     Review: Versions of the Categorical Imperative

•     Perfect and Imperfect Duties

•     Religion and Morality

•     Morality and Objectivity

•      For next time, think about the strengths and weaknesses of Kant’s position. Start reading Mackie (article on reserve).

Versions of the Categorical Imperative

•      What is (are) the first version(s) of the categorical imperative all about?

•      What is the second version of the categorical imperative all about?

•      How many other versions of the categorical imperative are there?

Perfect and Imperfect Duties

•      What is a perfect duty?

   – some examples

•      What is an Imperfect Duty

    – some examples

Religion and Morality

•      For Kant, would an action have moral worth if it is done solely to get a reward or avoid punishment in the afterlife?

•      A question from Socrates: Is it just because the gods command it, or do the gods command it because it is just?

•      How do you think Kant would answer that question?

Religion and Morality

•     “Suicide… is impermissible and abhorrent, not because God has forbidden it; God has forbidden it, rather, because it is abhorrent.  So all moralists begin by demonstrating its inherent abhorrency.

        – Kant, Lectures on Ethics (trans. Peter Heath, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) p.149.

Morality and Objectivity

•      What are we trying to do when we make moral judgments?  What do moral judgments mean?

•      Kant: we are trying to say what someone is obligated to do independent of what they desire; that they should act out of duty, not desire, inclination, or instinct

Morality and Objectivity

•      Is there a proof or some reason to believe or some way to know that we ought to act out of duty or independently of how we desire?  Does Kant take himself to have answered that in sections 1 & 2 of FPMM?

Morality and Objectivity

•      One way to think of FPMM:

   In sections 1 and 2, Kant is trying to show that if morality is objective, then we ought to act from duty or independently of how we desire; he also tries to show that it is part of our common sense view that when we make moral judgments, we try to say something objectively valid.

Morality and Objectivity

•      In sections 1 & 2 of FPMM, Kant does not take himself to have shown that there are objectively correct answers to moral questions or that we succeed in saying something objectively correct when we try to do so

•      Explanation of the above

•      Some remarks on section 3 of FPMM and the Critique of Practical Reason