[Written for Philosophy 020E. Page numbers refer to Cahn, et al., eds., Reason at Work, unless otherwise indicated]
Kant’s Ethical Theory: An Introduction
Stephen D’Arcy
Deptartment of Philosophy
Huron University College

1.  ACTING FROM THE MOTIVE OF DUTY

	There are two sorts of consideration that might impel us to obey a law (in the usual, non-moral sense of the word ‘law’): on the one hand, there is the incentive of gaining something we want, or avoiding something we don’t want; on the other hand, there is the motive of duty, that is, we may decide to obey the law simply because it is the law, out of sheer respect for its authority.  
	Kant notices that the same contrast applies to the moral law: sometimes people conform to the moral law (i.e., do the right thing) because they have something to gain or to lose by obeying or disobeying its requirements; but sometimes people conform to the moral law for the sole reason that it is the right thing to do.  This motive of duty is quite sufficient, so they need no incentive to obey.  It is only the latter motivation – the sense of duty, the willingness to “act from duty” – that has any moral content, according to Kant.  
	(On the contrast between being motivated by duty, which is “valid for every rational being,” and acting based on “subjective ends, which rest on incentives,” see p.  93.  Note that “I just want to help people” is a subjective end, whereas “It is my duty to help people when I can” is a moral motive.)
	Admittedly, sometimes one may both have something to gain and act from the motive of duty.  In that case, the question is: suppose the incentive disappeared, would one do the right thing anyway?  We can’t tell whether such a person is acting from duty unless we know whether his or her will to do the right thing would be a sufficient reason, all by itself, to motivate that person to conform.  It is only this feature of the decision about what to do – the willingness or unwillingness to do the right thing regardless of expected outcomes or present inclinations – that Kant regards as morally relevant in evaluating the agent.  Following your inclinations may lead to good results, sometimes.  But it is not moral action.  In Kant’s jargon, it is action according to duty, but not from duty: one does what is required by morality, but for a non-moral (though not immoral) reason.

2. THE PRIORITY OF THE RIGHT OVER THE GOOD

	Action motivated by a sense of duty is the only kind of action with specifically moral worth (although other kinds of action may have other kinds of value, such as being useful or beneficial, etc.).  And the only thing that is good without qualification is precisely this will to do what is right because it is right.  Kant calls such a will a “good will.”  “Good” character traits and “good” states of affairs or consequences, including happiness, are only good to the extent that they in no way violate the moral law.  Intelligence or courage, or even generosity, can be used for wrong ends; and one can gain happiness for wrongful reasons, such as delighting in the suffering of a rival, etc.  This is the important qualification that Kant has in mind for goods other than the good will.
	What these considerations mainly tell us is that goodness is of secondary importance compared to duty (the right thing to do).  So Kant’s primary concern is not so much goodness as it is rightness.  He is trying to develop a theory of right and wrong.  (Recall that judgments of good and bad are “more-or-less” judgments about how important or worthy something is; judgments of right and wrong, by contrast, are “either/or” judgments about whether an act is permissible or impermissible.)
	Like Mill and other utilitarians, Kant wants to discern the most fundamental principle of morality, or what he calls the “supreme principle of morality.”  But the utilitarian principle of right and wrong (the principle of utility) presupposes a prior conception of the good (in Mill, it is a hedonistic conception of the good) from which the principle of right and wrong is derived.  (Recall that right means, roughly, “maximizing the overall balance of good over bad consequences,” according to the principle of utility).  Kant reverses this strategy, and affirms the priority of right and wrong (permissible and impermissible) over good and bad.  
	As he puts it, “the concept of good and evil is not defined prior to the moral law, to which, it would seem, the former would have to serve as foundation; rather the concept of good and evil must be defined after and by means of the [moral] law” (Kant, Critique of Practical Reason).
	But how can Kant proceed to draw the line between right and wrong, if he refuses to base that distinction on the difference between maximizing the good and failing to do so?

3.  REVERENCE FOR THE DIGNITY OF AUTONOMOUS PERSONS

	In essence, Kant adopts as his starting-point the idea that there is a kind of being that is of “absolute worth” (p.  94), a being so important that it can only be an object of reverence: an inviolable being, the importance of which entails that there are some things we must do (obligations) and some things we may not do (prohibitions) that constrain our actions insofar as what we do affects that special kind of being.  
	There are, so to speak, lines one may not cross when dealing with a being of absolute worth.  The being Kant has in mind is, of course, the human person.  
	Kant gives us the following summation of this basic strategy for deriving a principle of right and wrong from the dignity of persons:
	“[S]uppose that there were something the existence of which in itself had absolute worth, something which, as an end in itself, could be a ground of definite laws.  In it and only in it could lie the ground of a possible categorical imperative, i.e., of a practical law.  Now, I say, man and, in general, every rational being exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will....Such a being is thus an object of respect and...restricts all arbitrary choice” (p.  94). 
	The absolute worth of the human person follows from her status as rationally autonomous.  According to Kant, “the principle of autonomy is the sole basis of ethics” (Kant, Groundwork).  Autonomy is the capacity to give the law to oneself; in Kant’s words, it is “the property which a will has of being a law to itself.”
	Far from identifying autonomy with lawlessness – doing whatever you feel like – Kant identifies it with self-legislation: that is, acting “according to principles” (p. 87).  It is this capacity to act on principle that distinguishes rational beings from “lower” forms of life, which are slaves to their desires, urges and inclinations: the rational being “is destined to be...free from all laws of nature and obedient only to those which he himself gives” (p. 97).  In Kant’s phrase, a person – a rational agent – can act “independently of determination by alien causes.”  So freedom is, ironically, not freedom from laws, but freedom to conform to laws that we, as morally rational beings, authorize: “a free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same” (Groundwork).
	(Here Kant follows Rousseau, who said, “the impulse of appetite alone is slavery, and obedience to the law one has prescribed for oneself is freedom” [On the Social Contract, I.viii.#4])

4.  TREATING PERSONS AS ENDS IN THEMSELVES

	Autonomy, as the capacity through which we rise above nature and attain the special status of self-legislators, gives us what Kant calls our dignity, that is, an importance “above all price” (p.  96).  Dignity means intrinsic and incomparable value or importance.  It is the dignity of persons as autonomous agents that “restricts all arbitrary choice” (p.  94) concerning the ends that are permissible to pursue.  Persons, in this sense, are inviolable: one must treat them with respect, indeed, with reverence.  In short, one must always respect the autonomy of every rational agent.  As a moral agent, you must “act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, never simply as a means but always at the same time as an end” (where “end” means, specifically, a being of intrinsic and incomparable importance).  This is one formulation of the supreme principle of morality: the “categorical imperative.” 
	But how does one go about showing respect for the dignity of a self-legislator?  Or, to put the same question in different terms, what does it mean to treat persons as ends in themselves?  For Kant, one does this by acting only in ways – i.e., acting only according to maxims or policies – that would be authorized by any rational being considered as a maker of universal moral laws (as opposed to someone acting lawlessly, driven by inclinations).  “The practical necessity of acting according to...duty, does not rest at all on feelings, impulses, and inclinations; it rests merely on the relation of rational beings to one another, in which the will of a rational being must always be regarded as legislative, for otherwise it could not be thought of as an end in itself” (p.  96).
	Put in classically Kantian terms, we show reverence for persons as ends in themselves when we act only on maxims that could be willed (by each rational being) as universal laws.

5.  MAXIMS

	A maxim is a “subjective principle” or a “principle of the will,” which serves for some agent as a reason to act.  Take, for example, a person who quits her job after she stops getting paid.  Her practical reasoning might go like this:  

p1.  I have stopped getting paid
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c.  Therefore, I will quit my job

But how does she reason from the premise to the conclusion?  She is following a policy, a maxim, like this one:

p2.  Whenever I stop getting paid for a job I’ve been hired to do, I will quit that job.

The reasoning is now clear: the maxim says that whenever certain conditions arise, she will perform a certain action; the fact is that in this case those conditions have arisen; therefore, she will perform the action prescribed by her maxim.  

Another maxim might be:

p1.  I need a calculator, but can’t afford to buy one
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c.  Therefore, I will steal the calculator from my neighbor.

Here, again, it is clear that there is a maxim being presupposed:

p2.  Whenever I need something I can’t afford to buy, I will steal it from someone else.

So the reasoning here goes:

p1. I need a calculator, but can’t afford to buy one
p2.  Whenever I need something I can’t afford to buy, I will steal it from someone else
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c.  Therefore, I will steal the calculator from my neighbor.

This is how maxims work in practical reasoning.

6.  MATERIAL versus FORMAL MAXIMS

	Now, according to Kant, there are two kinds of maxims.  First, there are maxims that are “material.”  These only apply to an agent if she has a certain desire or end.  They apply only contingently, not necessarily (not regardless of one’s aim and inclinations).  By contrast, the second kind of maxim is “formal.”  That is, it has a legislative form, or “the form of a universal law.”  This means that it applies to all rational agents, regardless of the contingent desires/inclinations they happen to have.  To have legislative form is to be a necessary (binding) and universal (applicable to all) practical principle for all rational agents.
	Acting from merely material maxims (subjective practical principles that apply only contingently, to those who happen to have a certain end) does not show respect for the autonomy of all rational agents.  To show respect for the autonomy of all rational beings, according to Kant, one must act from maxims with legislative (universal) form: the form of universal law, that is, maxims that any agent could authorize as an acceptable universal rule of conduct, regardless of her particular aims and interests.  In Kant’s terms, a material maxim can serve as a hypothetical imperative (If I want X, I ought to do A), but not as a categorical imperative (All rational beings ought to do A).  (For the contrast between a hypothetical and a categorical imperative, see p.  88.)
	If the above maxims have legislative form ( = binding for all rational agents), they can be restated as follows:

First maxim:  “Any rational being, when he or she stops getting paid for a job he or she was hired to do, should quit that job.”
Second maxim: “Any rational being, when he or she needs something that he or she cannot afford to buy, should steal it from someone else.”

This is how you would state them as if they had a legislative form, but are they binding on all rational agents?  To see that we need a test, a way of checking whether a maxim can serve as a universal law.

7.  TESTING FOR LEGISLATIVE FORM: THE FORMULA OF UNIVERSAL LAW

	Kant’s test is called the Formula of Universal Law, another version of the supreme principle of morality (the categorical imperative):  Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law (p. 89).
	This principle enjoins us to consider whether any maxim we are considering acting on can be willed, not only as pragmatically rational, but also as morally rational (reasonable, in the sense that it can be embraced by all morally rational beings, not just those who happen to share my aims and inclinations).
	How does the test work?  Let’s quote Kant’s answer to that question, in which he applies the test to the proposed maxim of extricating oneself from a difficulty by making a promise which one has no intention of fulfilling:
The shortest and most infallible way to find the answer to the question as to whether a deceitful promise is consistent with duty is to ask myself: Would I be content that my maxim (of extricating myself from difficulty by a false promise) should hold as a universal law for myself as well as for others?  And could I say to myself that everyone may make a false promise when he is in a difficulty from which he otherwise cannot escape?  I immediately see that I could will the lie but not a universal law to lie.  For with such a law there would be no promises at all, inasmuch as it would be futile to make a pretense of my intention in regard to future actions to those who would not believe this pretense....Thus my maxim would necessarily destroy itself as soon as it was made a universal law (p. 85).
The test is supposed to expose some maxims as immoral, by showing that they are incapable of being willed as universal laws.  Another long quotation from Kant can make the point quite well:
When we observe ourselves in any transgression of a duty, we find that we do not actually will that our maxim should become a universal law.  That is impossible for us; rather, the contrary of this maxim should remain as a law generally, and we only take the liberty of making an exception to it for ourselves or for the sake of our inclination, and for this one occasion.  Consequently, if we weighed everything from one and the same standpoint, namely, reason, we would come upon a contradiction in our will, viz., that a certain principle is objectively necessary as a universal law and yet subjectively [to us] does not hold universally but rather admits exceptions.  However, since we regard our action at one time from the point of view of a will wholly conformable to reason and then from that of a will affected by inclinations, there is actually no contradiction, but rather an opposition of inclination to the precept of reason (p. 91).
So the immorality exposed by the test is the immorality of making an exception for oneself to a principle which one nevertheless supposes should be obeyed by most others.  One allows oneself to gain an advantage of some kind by claiming for oneself an entitlement to act in ways that one would not concede that everyone should act.  This is Kant’s paradigm (model case) of an unreasonable (morally irrational) action.
	When we ask the question, “Can my proposed maxim be willed as a universal law?,” we are really asking, “Would this action be self-defeating if everyone followed this principle?  Am I only able to benefit from this action because I’m breaking a rule that I am counting on others obeying?”  If the answer to this kind of question is “yes,” then I am being unreasonable, lawless, in the sense that I am acting according to principles that could not possibly be endorsed by all the persons potentially affected by them, considered as reasonable persons.  I am, in effect, evading universal law rather than conforming to it; indeed, I am trying to exploit the general obedience of rational persons to the moral law, even as I exempt myself from the necessity to obey that law.  Or, to put the same point differently, I am taking advantage of other persons, “treating them as mere means.”  Hence, I am acting impermissibly.

9.  APPLYING THE TEST: TWO EXAMPLES

	Let’s apply the test to the two maxims mentioned above, in section 5.  The first maxim was this:  Whenever I stop getting paid for a job I’ve been hired to do, I will quit that job.  
Framed as a proposed universal principle, it becomes:  Any rational being, when he or she stops getting paid for the job she was hired to do, should quit that job.  To apply the test, you imagine a world where everyone followed that principle, so that whenever anyone stopped getting paid, that person would quit.  Is there a “contradiction of the will” here, between an affirmation of a universal requirement at the same time as an exemption of oneself from that requirement?  Apparently not.  So, this maxim passes the test; the action is permissible because the maxim upon which it is grounded seems reasonable, not only from the standpoint of any rational being seeking to act only on universal moral laws.
	The second maxim was:  Whenever I need something I can’t afford to buy, I will steal it from someone else.  Framed as a proposed universal principle, it turns into: Any rational being, when he or she needs something he or she cannot afford to buy, should steal it from someone else.  This case seems different.  What if everyone were to live by that maxim?  It seems that the outcome would undermine the very phenomenon of recognized property rights.  If that happened, no-one could steal.  Stealing is only possible in a world where property rights are recognized.  This, in turn, means that stealing is only possible in a world where most people do not steal.  Thus universalizing the maxim would be self-defeating: it would make it impossible to follow the maxim.  “How would it be if my maxim became a universal law?   He immediately sees that it could never hold as a universal law...and be consistent with itself; rather it must necessarily contradict itself” (p.  90).

9. CONCLUSION

	Kant’s categorical imperative, then, offers two things: first, a standard of reasonableness (always treat persons as reasonable beings who can authorize the principles by which they treat others and others treat them); and second, a test of reasonableness (check to see whether a proposed maxim confers benefits on the agent only by presupposing that most people won’t act on it).  Supposedly, the test will pick out which maxims live up to the standard and which ones don’t.  If so, it can serve (as he hopes it can) as a supreme principle of morality, and a reliable guide to conduct.
© Stephen D’Arcy 2003