by Robert Wicks
These quotes present a theory of ‘timeless agency’, where, as a condition for moral awareness, we must consider ourselves to be timeless beings in reality, where our free actions are echoes of God’s creation of the universe. The Biblical idea that humans are made in God’s image resonates loudly throughout Kant’s theory of freedom. The doctrine remains mysterious insofar as it is difficult to comprehend how any being, God or human, can act independently of time.
We can nevertheless appreciate Kant as holding generally that our ultimate inner being determines how we appear in space and time. A person makes many decisions across a lifetime, and these can be understood together as the accumulated expressions of the person’s constant, intelligible character. If a person cheats when playing games as a young child, then as an adult, we can expect that person to cheat when playing for advantage in the workplace; if a person shows compassion for animals when young, then as an adult, we can expect to see the same compassion. Just as different patches of blue express the same timeless idea of blueness, a person’s variety of actions over time express his or her timeless character. Someone’s intelligible character can also be imagined as being complicated, allowing for apparent changes in behaviour over time.
This kind of theory would not have us blame a person on a case-by-case basis, for having done this or that at such-and-such a time. We would instead think more generally, and blame the person for being the kind of character he or she is. Notwithstanding how this view modifies our usual way of thinking, Kant’s overall point is that if we distinguish between things in themselves and their appearances, then freedom and determinism are compatible. With such a distinction in hand, it becomes possible to understand morality as involving absolute commands and as prescribing a determinate vision of how the world ought to be.
As noted, Kant associates happiness with the overall satisfaction of worldly desires. As a phenomenon in the sensory world of space and time, however, happiness is not ultimately real. By accepting this, and upon denying accordingly that happiness is the guidelight for morality, the otherworldly nature of freedom becomes salient. To foster moral awareness, we need to conceive of ourselves as being independent of sensory pleasures and material things, aligning what we are in truth with a more dignified level of being. Kant sums it up nicely: ‘in the doctrine of happiness empirical principles constitute the entire foundation, but in the doctrine of morality they do not form the smallest part of it’ (CPrR, Book I, Chapter III, Critical Elucidation).
We should observe in passing that the moral law, insofar as it is independent of happiness, can be hard: it does not necessarily cohere with our natural inclinations and animal desires. When acted upon, it can constrain our desire, resulting in pain and frustration. Since cultivating moral awareness requires control over and detachment from the desire for sensory gratification, it can be useful in the larger picture to recall the ancient wisdom that desire itself can lead existentially to frustration and emptiness, and that distancing oneself from desire can be morally beneficial as a safeguard against feelings of meaninglessness.
Kant’s prescriptions never go this far, as he more temperately anticipates a world that ultimately synchronizes morality and happiness. A more ascetic outlook can nonetheless serve well for appreciating the import and tenor of Kant’s moral theory, even though he does not portray sensuous desire as negatively as the Buddhists and Hindus, remaining content simply to diminish its value by squarely subordinating it to reason. As far as he can see, though, it stands to reason that curbing one’s sensuality is tantamount to preserving one’s dignity.
Dig Deeper
Henry Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom (Cambridge University Press, 1990)
Lewis White Beck, A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason (University of Chicago Press, 1960)
Hud Hudson, Kant’s Compatibilism (Cornell University Press, 1994)
Christopher J. Insole, Kant and the Creation of Freedom: A Theological Problem (Oxford University Press, 2013)
Richard McCarty, Kant’s Theory of Action (Oxford University Press, 2009)
Richard Velkley, Freedom and the Ends of Reason: On the Moral Foundations of Kant’s Critical Philosophy (University of Chicago Press, 1989)
Study questions
1 What is the difference between speculative reason and practical reason?
2 Upon what fact does Kant maintain that we are free agents?
3 For freedom to be possible, why must one deny that the spatio-temporal world is the single, ultimately real world?
4 Why does Kant believe that the goal of morality is not to produce happiness in the world?
5 What is the difference between a deontological moral theory and a consequentialist moral theory?
6 How does Kant’s ‘double-aspect’ theory of reality render freedom and determinism compatible?
7 Upon what model does Kant develop a conception of human freedom?
8 What is a person’s ‘intelligible character’?
9 What is meant by ‘timeless agency’?
10 What is the contrast between dignity and sensuosity?
11
The morality of self-respect
Kant’s moral theory is both rationalistic and universalistic: it determines moral value in reference to an action’s reasonableness, and it intends to apply to all rational beings. One’s sense of duty and having a good will become thereby a matter of respect for oneself as a rational being. In this chapter we will see how Kant’s moral theory is based on the very idea of law, and how the respect for law is expressed in the absolute moral command to act consistently, known as the ‘categorical imperative’.
1 Duty and the moral law
There are many facts about the world – those regarding its colours, tastes and sounds, for instance – which might have been different. The boiling and freezing temperatures of water might have been higher, humans might naturally have had the capacity to see radio waves and microwaves, the overall amounts of pleasures and pains in the world might have been otherwise distributed, the average kinds of emotional reactions to situations might have been less or more intense, the earth might have had three moons, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, Napoleon and Hitler might never have been born, and so on. The world is filled with contingencies and it appears the way it does largely because of those contingencies.
Throughout these variations and possibilities, it remains constant that all human experience must occur in time and that 2 + 2 = 4. Kant’s philosophy in general, attracted by such constancies in the recognition of how stability follows from truth, aims for knowledge that is not subject to contingencies, as it seeks what is universal and necessary, discovering it in what is knowable a priori. Kant’s moral theory is no exception.
Observing how the respect for other people and the moral law can overcome the love for life itself, Kant infers that our moral awareness is independent of contingent sensory pleasures and pains, and that worldly happiness is a tangential matter. Morality, he maintains, resides in our better half, issuing from our reason and inherent freedom.
Central to Kant’s moral theory is accordingly the distinction between the sensory world of contingencies and the intelligible world of constant realities. As appearances in space and time, our animal qualities have their place and function, but as timeless realities beyond space and time, our freedom and reason reflect our true nature. The world’s contingencies and the happiness they can provide are mere appearances. Our moral awareness implies that we are essentially beings dignified beyond these appearances.
As independent of the sensory world, Kant conceives of our will’s goodness as the allegiance to do what is right, whatever the worldly consequences may be. It is easy to assume otherwise that a good will concerns having virtues such as courage, intelligence and perseverance, but having a set of virtues does not imply being good. An evil person could have the same set, and use the virtues as instruments, selfishly, hurtfully and destructively. With extraordinary courage, intelligence and per
severance, a criminal would be that much more dangerous. Moreover, given the material destitution of many saints, it is also unconvincing classically to characterize good people and their wills, in reference to worldly success, power, and health.
For Kant, to appreciate the foundation of our moral awareness and the nature of a good will requires an exclusive attention to the quality of a person’s inner being, apart from sensory interests and inclinations. This independence from spatio-temporal appearances is central, for Kant is most impressed by our capacity not to be swayed by physical considerations when faced with hard moral choices. Recall the example of a person who, when mortally threatened by state authorities to bear false and deadly witness against an innocent neighbour, stands up defiantly to the despicable intimidation.
Upholding one of the Ten Commandments without qualification, as we see in this example, displays how acting purely out of respect for the moral law can be stronger than life itself. For Kant, the example confirms that the moral law is not grounded in the changing and contingent world, but stems from reality, in reason and freedom. Our reason commands respect in its power to withstand the most extreme pressure from the worldly ‘carrot and the stick’, which frequently takes the form of bribes and physical threats.
Acting exclusively out of respect for the moral law is to act from a sense of duty, acknowledging our finite and fallible condition in the ordinary world. Since the moral law is a function of our reason, expressive of our intelligible, non-sensory being, acting from a sense of duty is to act from a feeling of respect for our better, intelligible self. Morality is about respecting this intelligible aspect more than our animal aspect, knowing how the latter’s interests and inclinations reside in the world of pleasures and pains, a mere world of appearances and contingencies.
Key idea: Moral awareness is self-respect for ourselves as rational beings
Kant maintains that we are essentially rational beings, so as a matter of respect towards ourselves as such, we ought to act consistently. Our feeling of dignity or self-respect as rational beings yields a sense of duty and is the basis of a good will.
To appreciate further the spirit of Kant’s moral theory, it helps to remember how in the first Critique, the accounts of space and time in the Transcendental Aesthetic are based upon a process of abstraction. Starting with any ordinary object, Kant imaginatively sets aside the object’s sensory qualities and concept of the object’s kind to highlight for exclusive attention, the object’s spatio-temporal form that remains. Space and time consequently present themselves as empty containers, independent of any sensory content that experience might fillingly provide. Similarly in the Transcendental Logic, Kant conceives of the concepts of the understanding as pure, empty forms that organize given sensory inputs.
In his moral theory, Kant uses the same kind of approach, as he judges the moral value of actions in abstraction from sensory gratifications, pains, and happiness. Where this process of abstraction leads is surprising, since at first, it is difficult to imagine how the resulting principle can serve as the basis for morality.
Prior to the Critique of Practical Reason, which we discussed in the last chapter, Kant published a preliminary work on morality – a ‘groundwork’ or ‘foundation’ as he called it – three years earlier in 1785. This book, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, appearing four years after the publication of the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, stands well as an introduction to Kant’s moral theory. Although he does not develop the theory of freedom to the informative extent as he does in the second Critique, leaving the ultimate basis of morality to await further elaboration, the Groundwork (also called the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals), describes the meaning of acting from duty in solid and useful detail.
As we know, the Critique of Pure Reason tells us how reason systematizes that towards which it is directed. It systematizes the understanding and the empirical knowledge subsumed under the understanding. It also strives for totality, searching for closure in the causal series of spatio-temporal events, and precipitating thereby the ideas of freedom, soul and world. Reason aims to systematize everything. Since there can be no system of any kind without some fixed rules, principles, or laws that give the system its structure – and here is the key idea – at the basis of reason is the concept of law itself, pure and simple.
To respect ourselves as rational beings amounts to respecting unconditionally the very thought of law itself. This, according to Kant, is the basis of morality. A good will acts exclusively out of the respect for law itself. Accordingly, acting morally is to act with no other motivation in view but the respect for law. There are no specific ‘laws’ of morality at the foundation of morality. These come later. Acting morally is to act generally out of respect for ourselves as rational, and hence as law-formulating, legislating beings. Such self-respect implies that we act independently of sensuous interests and personal inclinations, for these have nothing to do with, and are indeed subject to, what we timelessly are as law-giving beings.
Key idea: ‘Acting merely in accord with what duty requires’ as opposed to ‘acting because duty requires it’
Merely out of self-interest, a shopkeeper might act honestly in all instances, realizing that the public appearance of honesty will increase profits. A different shopkeeper might act honestly in all instances exclusively from a sense of duty, or self-respect as a rational being. Although the external behaviours might be identical in both cases, Kant maintains that the selfishly-motivated shopkeeper’s actions have no moral worth, whereas the self-respecting shopkeeper’s actions are morally praiseworthy.
This may all sound reasonable, if a bit out of the ordinary, but one might still wonder how the mere respect for ourselves as law-giving beings – that is, how the sheer respect for law itself – can provide any specific moral directives. The concept of ‘law itself’ seems too thin to ground an entire moral theory.
Kant’s thought is this: when deciding what we ought to do, we should never act in a way that undermines the concept of law, which is at the core of our intelligible character. This means that we always ought to act consistently. It also means that we should act ‘as a human being’, not primarily as John or Mary, or as a member of some national, religious, political, sports, tribal, or other social group whose definition imposes a less enlightened mentality of ‘us versus them’. Acting morally requires that we consider ourselves first and foremost as ‘human beings’ – and indeed more precisely and generally as ‘rational beings’ – equally and together on a level playing field, acting not in view of our animal nature, but in view of, and with respect for, our intelligible, free, law-giving, rational being.
Spotlight: Moral feelings: Kant and Hume
Kant’s moral theory is often contrasted with that of David Hume, who believed that morality is not founded upon reason, but upon natural feelings or sentiments. One of Hume’s more well-known remarks – ‘reason is the slave of the passions’ – sets him clearly in opposition to Kant. Hume writes:
An action, or sentiment, or character is virtuous or vicious; why? Because its view causes a pleasure or uneasiness of a particular kind. In giving a reason, therefore, for the pleasure or uneasiness, we sufficiently explain the vice or virtue. To have the sense of virtue, is nothing but to feel a satisfaction of a particular kind from the contemplation of a character. The very feeling constitutes our praise or admiration. We go no farther; nor do we enquire into the cause of the satisfaction. (Treatise on Human Nature, Book III, Section II)
Such remarks can suggest easily that the crucial difference between Kant’s ethics and Hume’s ethics, is that Hume’s is based on ‘feelings’, whereas Kant’s view is based on reason, and not feelings. A better way to draw the contrast, though, is to say that both views are based on feelings, but upon feelings of very different kinds. Kant’s view is based on a unique, unconditional, non-sensory feeling of respect for ourselves as rational beings, knowable a priori, whereas Hume’s view is based o
n sensory feelings, empirical, contingent, and knowable only a posteriori.
2 The categorical imperative
When we act, there is the specific action and also a way to interpret that action. The interpretation allows us to think about the action in a more general way, with a measure of rationality. Considering the action’s rationality per se involves thinking about it in light of a rule, in relation to which the action is an example. Suppose on some occasion, for instance, the action is to tell a lie as the only way to escape some embarrassment. We can express the action’s rationality in reference to how it falls under a rule that one is implicitly following.
What, then, could be the rule in this case? It could be formulated as ‘in any situation where I can escape embarrassment only by telling a lie, then I will tell the lie’. This is the ‘maxim’ that is being followed. For any action at all, then, there is some maxim that one is implicitly following that lends the action some rationality. At the personal level at which the maxim is now being formulated, it refers only to ‘me’ and to what ‘I’ would do, so the rationality involved is fairly minimal insofar as the wider context of society at large is not being brought into account. Still, we are appreciating the action as falling under a rule with a measure of rationality, as opposed to considering it as an isolated, singular, uninterpreted occurrence.