The Moral Law

Six steps into the boldest answer to Glaucon: that morality is not about happiness at all, but the law reason gives itself — and that no person may ever be used as a mere means.

A course on the thought of Ethics.

What you will learn

  • State Kant's opening claim and its argument: the good will is the only unconditionally good thing, because every other good (intelligence, courage, wealth, even happiness) can be made bad by a bad will.
  • Distinguish acting FROM duty from acting merely IN ACCORDANCE with duty, using the honest shopkeeper — and see why moral worth attaches only to the former.
  • See why this rejects the whole utilitarian approach: morality is located in the WILL and its principle, not in consequences or happiness, so a good will 'would still shine by its own light' even if it accomplished nothing.
  • Distinguish hypothetical imperatives ('if you want X, do Y') from the categorical imperative ('do Y', unconditionally) and see why only the latter can be the principle of MORALITY.
  • State the Formula of Universal Law — act only on a maxim you could will to be a universal law — and apply the contradiction test to the lying promise.
  • See how this answers Glaucon's ring-wearer: the man who makes an exception of himself wills a maxim he cannot universalize, and so is not clever but self-contradictory — bound by reason, not by fear of being caught.
  • State the Formula of Humanity — always treat humanity as an end, never merely as a means — and explain the difference between using someone as a means (unavoidable and fine) and using them MERELY as a means (the wrong).
  • Explain dignity vs price: rational persons have no equivalent and cannot be traded or used up, because they are the source of all value, not one more valuable thing to be weighed in a sum.

Course outline

  1. The Only Good Thing — The fourth answer to Glaucon begins by rejecting the third: morality is not about happiness or consequences at all. The only thing good without qualification is a good will; moral worth lies in…
  2. The Categorical Imperative — The supreme principle of morality, derived from reason alone: act only on a maxim you could will to be a universal law. Hypothetical versus categorical imperatives, the test by universalization, and…
  3. Persons as Ends — The second face of the moral law, and the one that strikes where utilitarianism was weakest: treat humanity, in yourself or anyone, always as an end and never merely as a means. Why persons have…
  4. The Murderer at the Door — Kant's most notorious claim, faced without flinching: that you may not lie even to the murderer who asks where your friend is hiding. The rigorist's case, why it seems monstrous, the standard rescue…
  5. Was Hiroshima Murder? — Elizabeth Anscombe takes the lectern to press an absolute harder than Kant dared and then to detonate the whole modern project. The protest against honoring Truman, the absolute prohibition on…

Works read in this course

  • Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals — Kant's 1785 foundation of ethics: the good will, duty, the categorical imperative and its formulas, autonomy and the kingdom of ends
  • 'On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy' — Kant's notorious 1797 essay: one may not lie even to a murderer asking where his intended victim has fled
  • Anscombe, 'Modern Moral Philosophy' (1958) — the charge that the modern 'moral ought' is a law without a lawgiver, and the call to return to Aristotle and virtue
  • Anscombe, 'Mr Truman's Degree' (1956) — the protest against honoring Truman: the deliberate killing of the innocent as murder, whatever the consequences
  • (secondary spine) Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy — the categorical imperative and Kant's arguments on lying (ch. 9); respect for persons and Kantian dignity (ch. 10)

Terms introduced

the good will, duty, acting from duty vs in accordance with duty, maxim, the categorical imperative, hypothetical vs categorical imperative, the formula of universal law, the formula of humanity (persons as ends), dignity vs price, autonomy, the kingdom of ends, the doctrine of double effect

Part of the Simposeum course library.