LESSON 4: Human Nature

CHAPTER 10: Stoicism

Stoicism originated as a Hellenistic

philosophy, founded in Athens by Zeno
of Citium (modern day Cyprus), c. 300
B.C.E. It was influenced by Socrates
and the Cynics, and it engaged in
vigorous debates with the Skeptics, the
Academics, and the Epicureans. The
name comes from the Stoa Poikile, or
painted porch, an open market in
Athens where the original Stoics used
to meet and teach philosophy. Stoicism
moved to Rome where it flourished
during the period of the Empire,
alternatively being persecuted by
Emperors who disliked it (for example,
Vespasian and Domitian) and openly
embraced by Emperors who attempted to live by it (most prominently Marcus Aurelius). It
influenced Christianity, as well as a number of major philosophical figures throughout the ages
(for example, Thomas More, Descartes, Spinoza), and in the early 21st century saw a revival as
a practical philosophy associated with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and similar approaches.
Stoicism is a type of eudaimonic virtue ethics, asserting that the practice of virtue is both
necessary and sufficient to achieve happiness (in the eudaimonic sense). However, the Stoics
also recognized the existence of “indifferents” (to eudaimonia) that could nevertheless be
preferred (for example, health, wealth, education) or dispreferred (for example, sickness,
poverty, ignorance), because they had (respectively, positive or negative) planning value with
respect to the ability to practice virtue. Stoicism was very much a philosophy meant to be
applied to everyday living, focused on ethics (understood as the study of how to live one’s life),
which was in turn informed by what the Stoics called “physics” (nowadays, a combination of
natural science and metaphysics) and what they called “logic” (a combination of modern logic,
epistemology, philosophy of language, and cognitive science).
Reference: [Link]

The Third Topos: Ethics

As an ethical doctrine, the goal of Stoicism is freedom from passion (in the ancient sense of
"anguish" or "suffering") through the pursuit of reason and "apatheia" (apathy, in its ancient
sense of being objective, unemotional and having clear judgment). It teaches indifference and a
"passive" reaction to external events (on the grounds that nothing external could be either good
or evil) and equanimity in the face of life's highs and lows.
The Stoics taught that becoming a clear, unbiased and self-disciplined thinker allows one to
understand the "logos" (the natural universal reason in all things). Thus, unhappiness and evil
are the results of ignorance, and if someone is unkind, it is because they are unaware of their
own universal reason. The solution to this evil and unhappiness can be achieved through the
practice of Stoic philosophy (the examination of one's own judgments and behavior in order to
determine where they might have diverged from the universal reason of nature). Hence the
famous Stoic maxim: "Live according to nature", both in the sense of the laws of the universe
and of man's own essential nature, reason.
In many respects, it bears a remarkable similarity to the ethical teaching of Siddhartha Gautama
(c. 563 - 483 B.C.) and Buddhism, which is grounded in the four noble truths: 1) all life has
suffering; 2) suffering is rooted in passion and desire; 3) happiness is freedom from the
passions; 4) moral restraint and self-discipline is the means by which one becomes free from
suffering.
An important aspect of Stoicism involves improving the individual’s ethical and moral well-being
by having a will which is in agreement with Nature, and by practicing the four cardinal virtues
(derived from the teachings of Plato): wisdom ("sophia"), courage ("andreia"), justice
("dikaiosyne") and temperance ("sophrosyne").
For the Stoics, living according to reason and virtue is to live in harmony with the divine order of
the universe, and recognizing the common reason and essential value of all people. They
therefore promoted Egalitarianism, and, unusually for their day, encouraged the acceptance of
even slaves as equals on the grounds that all are the "sons of God", echoing Socrates' claim
that "I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world". They also denied the
importance of external differences such as rank and wealth in social relationships.
To some extent, Stoicism assumes Determinism in that it holds that we will in any case do as
the necessity of the world compels us, but it holds that we should not merely obey the law, but
assent to our own obedience and follow the law consciously and deliberately, as only a rational
being can.
The 1st Century AD Roman philosopher and Stoic, Seneca the Younger (4 B.C. - A.D. 65), the
most famous and popular philosopher of his day, took the subject of anger seriously enough to
dedicate a whole book to the subject. He saw anger as a philosophical problem and amenable
to treatment by philosophical argument, not just an irrational outburst over which we have no
control. He thought that anger arose from holding overly optimistic ideas about the world,
leading to unrealistic expectations, and advised a more pessimistic attitude so that one was
mentally prepared for the kinds of bad things that happen, which would therefore not lead to
such outbursts of anger.

Stoic Resilience and the Path to Tranquility

You are going to die. Also, everyone you know and love will also die at some point, some
possibly sooner than you. Perhaps worse still, you are going to experience hardships during the
course of your life on your way to death. Some may be quite painful. Whether you live for ten
years, fifty years, or one hundred, makes no difference. Fate makes no exceptions. Each of us
can expect to have things not go our way at several points during our lives and some of us will
lead lives that will be completely unpleasant and consistently experience great pain and
suffering. Our reality is such that at any moment we could lose our lives or have our loved ones
taken away from us; around every corner could be an accident waiting to happen that could
irrevocably change us for whatever amount of time we have left; that we will build things and
have them unfairly taken from us or watch them be destroyed. The question is not how do we
stop these things, because we can’t, the question is, how do we best live in a world where these
events are not a possibility, but a reality.
Is it possible to find tranquility and happiness in such a world? Many of us cope with the harsh
nature of this life by burying our head in the sand and pretending like the realities of death and
hardship don’t exist. We employ this strategy until these events are staring us in the face and
we are forced to confront them totally unprepared. I believe that this is the worst possible way to
go through life and that even though suffering and tragedy are a given, tranquility and happiness
are still possible. I would argue that the ancient practice of stoicism provides us with the tools
we need to live a happy and tranquil life, regardless of how much pain and suffering we
experience or how long or short our lives end up being.

CHAPTER 11: Natural Law Ethics

Divine command theory (also known as theological voluntarism) is a meta-ethical theory which
proposes that an action’s status as morally good is equivalent to whether it is commanded by
God. The theory asserts that what is moral is determined by what God commands, and that for
a person to be moral is to follow his commands. Followers of both monotheistic and polytheistic
religions in ancient and modern times have often accepted the importance of God’s commands
in establishing morality. Numerous variants of the theory have been presented: historically,
figures including Saint Augustine, Duns Scotus, and Thomas Aquinas have presented various
versions of divine command theory; more recently, Robert Merrihew Adams has proposed a
“modified divine command theory” based on the omnibenevolence of God in which morality is
linked to human conceptions of right and wrong. Paul Copan has argued in favour of the theory
from a Christian viewpoint, and Linda Zagzebski’s divine motivation theory proposes that God’s
motivations, rather than commands, are the source of morality.
Semantic challenges to divine command theory have been proposed; the philosopher William
Wainwright argued that to be commanded by God and to be morally obligatory do not have an
identical meaning, which he believed would make defining obligation difficult. He also contended
that, as knowledge of God is required for morality by divine command theory, atheists and
agnostics could not be moral; he saw this as a weakness of the theory. Others have challenged
the theory on modal grounds by arguing that, even if God’s command and morality correlate in
this world, they may not do so in other possible worlds. In addition, the Euthyphro dilemma, first
proposed by Plato, presented a dilemma which threatened either to leave morality subject to the
whims of God, or challenge his omnipotence. Divine command theory has also been criticised
for its apparent incompatibility with the omnibenevolence of God, moral autonomy and religious
pluralism, although some scholars have attempted to defend the theory from these challenges.
Various forms of divine command theory have been presented by philosophers including
William of Ockham, St Augustine, Duns Scotus, and John Calvin. The theory generally teaches
that moral truth does not exist independently of God and that morality is determined by divine
commands. Stronger versions of the theory assert that God’s command is the only reason that a
good action is moral, while weaker variations cast divine command as a vital component within
a greater reason. The theory asserts that good actions are morally good as a result of their
being commanded by God, and many religious believers subscribe to some form of divine
command theory. Because of these premises, adherents believe that moral obligation is
obedience to God’s commands; what is morally right is what God desires.

Augustine
Saint Augustine offered a version of divine
command theory that began by casting ethics as
the pursuit of the supreme good, which delivers
human happiness. He argued that to achieve this
happiness, humans must love objects that are
worthy of human love in the correct manner; this
requires humans to love God, which then allows
them to correctly love everything else.
Augustine’s ethics proposed that the act of loving
God enables humans to properly orient their
loves, leading to human happiness and
fulfilment. Augustine supported Plato’s view that
a well-ordered soul is a desirable consequence
of morality; unlike Plato, he believed that
achieving a well-ordered soul had a higher
purpose: living in accordance with God’s
commands. His view of morality was thus
heteronomous, as he believed in deference to a higher authority (God), rather than acting
autonomously.

Scholasticism
John Duns Scotus, who proposed a variant of divine command theory
Scholastic philosopher John Duns Scotus argued that the only moral obligations that God could
not take away from humans are to love one another and love God. He proposed that some
commandments are moral because God commands them, and some are moral irrespective of
his command. Duns Scotus argued that the natural law contains only what is self-evidently
analytically true and that God could not make these statements false. This means that the
commands of natural law do not depend on God’s will; these commands were those found on
the first tablet of the Ten Commandments – the first three, which consist of obligations to God.
He suggested that the rest of the Ten Commandments, and any other commandments God
makes, are morally obligatory because God commands them.
Kelly James Clark and Anne Poortenga have presented a defence of divine command theory
based on Aquinas’ moral theory. Aquinas proposed a theory of natural law which asserted that
something is moral if it works towards the purpose of human existence, and so human nature
can determine what is moral. Clark and Poortenga argued that God created human nature and
thus commanded a certain morality; hence he cannot arbitrarily change what is right or wrong
for humans.

Immanuel Kant
The deontological ethics of Immanuel Kant has been cast as
rejecting divine command theory by several figures, among whom
is ethicist R. M. Hare. Kant’s view that morality should be
determined by the categorical imperative – duty to the moral law,
rather than acting for a specific end – has been viewed as
incompatible with divine command theory. Philosopher and
theologian John E. Hare has noted that some philosophers see
divine command theory as an example of Kant’s heteronomous will
– motives besides the moral law, which Kant regarded as non-
moral. American philosopher Lewis White Beck takes Kant’s
argument to be a refutation of the theory that morality depends of
divine authority. John E. Hare challenges this view, arguing that
Kantian ethics should be seen as compatible with divine command
theory.

Robert Adams
Robert Merrihew Adams proposes what he calls a “modified divine command theory”
American philosopher Robert Merrihew Adams proposes what he calls a “modified divine
command theory”.[13] Adams presents the basic form of his theory by asserting that two
statements are equivalent:
1. It is wrong to do X.
2. It is contrary to God’s commands to do X.
He proposes that God’s commands precurse moral truths and must be explained in terms of
moral truths, not the other way around. Adams writes that his theory is an attempt to define what
being ethically ‘wrong’ consists of and accepts that it is only useful to those within a Judeo-
Christian context. In dealing with the criticism that a seemingly immoral act would be obligatory
if God commanded it, he proposes that God does not command cruelty for its own sake. Adams
does not propose that it would be logically impossible for God to command cruelty, rather that it
would be unthinkable for him to do so because of his nature. Adams emphasises the
importance of faith in God, specifically faith in God’s goodness, as well as his existence.
Adams proposes that an action is morally wrong if and only if it defies the commands of a loving
God. If cruelty was commanded, he would not be loving; Adams argued that, in this instance,
God’s commands would not have to be obeyed and also that his theory of ethical wrongness
would break down. He proposed that divine command morality assumes that human concepts
of right and wrong are met by God’s commands and that the theory can only be applied if this is
the case. Adams’ theory attempts to counter the challenge that morality might be arbitrary, as
moral commands are not based solely on the commands of God, but are founded on his
omnibenevolence. It attempts to challenge the claim that an external standard of morality
prevents God from being sovereign by making him the source of morality and his character the
moral law.
Adams proposes that in many Judeo-Christian contexts, the term ‘wrong’ is used to mean being
contrary to God’s commands. In ethical contexts, he believes that ‘wrong’ entails an emotional
attitude against an action and that these two uses of wrongness usually correlate. Adams
suggests that a believer’s concept of morality is founded in their religious belief and that right
and wrong are tied to their belief in God; this works because God always commands what
believers accept to be right. If God commanded what a believer perceived as wrong, the
believer would not say it is right or wrong to disobey him; rather their concept of morality would
break down.
Michael Austin writes that an implication of this modified divine command theory is that God
cannot command cruelty for its own sake; this could be argued to be inconsistent with God’s
omnipotence. Thomas Aquinas argued that God’s omnipotence should be understood as the
ability to do all things that are possible: he attempted to refute the idea that God’s inability to
perform illogical actions challenges his omnipotence. Austin contends that commanding cruelty
for its own sake is not illogical, so is not covered by Aquinas’ defence, although Aquinas had
argued that sin is the falling short of a perfect action and thus not compatible with omnipotence.

Alternative theories
Paul Copan argues from a Christian viewpoint that man, made in God’s image, conforms to
God’s sense of morality. The description of actions as right or wrong are therefore relevant to
God; a person’s sense of what is right or wrong corresponds to God’s.
We would not know goodness without God’s endowing us with a moral constitution. We have
rights, dignity, freedom, and responsibility because God has designed us this way. In this, we
reflect God’s moral goodness as His image-bearers.
— PAUL COPAN, PASSIONATE CONVICTION: CONTEMPORARY DISCOURSES ON
CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS
As an alternative to divine command theory, Linda Zagzebski has proposed divine motivation
theory, which stills fits into a monotheistic framework. According to this theory, goodness is
determined by God’s motives, rather than by what he commands. Divine motivation theory is
similar to virtue ethics because it considers the character of an agent, and whether they are in
accordance with God’s, as the standard for moral value. Zagzebski argues that things in the
world have objective moral properties, such as being lovable, which are given to them through
God’s perception of them. God’s attitude towards something is cast as a morally good attitude.
The theory casts God as a good example for morality, and humans should imitate his virtues as
much as is possible for finite, imperfect beings.

LESSON 5: Duty and Society

CHAPTER 12: Deontologism: Kant

 Youtube Source: [Link]

Deontology is an ethical theory that uses rules to distinguish right from wrong. Deontology is
often associated with philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant believed that ethical actions follow
universal moral laws, such as “Don’t lie. Don’t steal. Don’t cheat.”

Deontology is simple to apply. It just requires that people follow the rules and do their duty. This
approach tends to fit well with our natural intuition about what is or isn’t ethical.

Unlike consequentialism, which judges actions by their results, deontology doesn’t require
weighing the costs and benefits of a situation. This avoids subjectivity and uncertainty because
you only have to follow set rules.

Despite its strengths, rigidly following deontology can produce results that many people find
unacceptable. For example, suppose you’re a software engineer and learn that a nuclear
missile is about to launch that might start a war. You can hack the network and cancel the
launch, but it’s against your professional code of ethics to break into any software system
without permission. And, it’s a form of lying and cheating. Deontology advises not to violate this
rule. However, in letting the missile launch, thousands of people will die.

So, following the rules makes deontology easy to apply. But it also means disregarding the
possible consequences of our actions when determining what is right and what is wrong.

Knowledge of Morality
The most basic aim of moral philosophy, and so also
of the Groundwork, is, in Kant’s view, to “seek out”
the foundational principle of a “metaphysics of
morals,” which Kant understands as a system of a
priori moral principles that apply the CI to human
persons in all times and cultures. Kant pursues this
project through the first two chapters of the
Groundwork. He proceeds by analyzing and
elucidating commonsense ideas about morality,
including the ideas of a “good will” and “duty”. The
point of this first project is to come up with a precise
statement of the principle or principles on which all of
our ordinary moral judgments are based. The judgments in question are supposed to be those
that any normal, sane, adult human being would accept on due rational reflection. Nowadays,
however, many would regard Kant as being overly optimistic about the depth and extent of
moral agreement. But perhaps he is best thought of as drawing on a moral viewpoint that is very
widely shared and which contains some general judgments that are very deeply held. In any
case, he does not appear to take himself to be primarily addressing a genuine moral skeptic
such as those who often populate the works of moral philosophers, that is, someone who
doubts that she has any reason to act morally and whose moral behavior hinges on a rational
proof that philosophers might try to give. For instance, when, in the third and final chapter of the
Groundwork, Kant takes up his second fundamental aim, to “establish” this foundational moral
principle as a demand of each person’s own rational will, his conclusion apparently falls short of
answering those who want a proof that we really are bound by moral requirements. He rests this
second project on the position that we — or at least creatures with rational wills — possess
autonomy. The argument of this second project does often appear to try to reach out to a
metaphysical fact about our wills. This has led some readers to the conclusion that he is, after
all, trying to justify moral requirements by appealing to a fact — our autonomy — that even a
moral skeptic would have to recognize.

Kant’s analysis of the common moral concepts of “duty” and “good will” led him to believe that
we are free and autonomous as long as morality, itself, is not an illusion. Yet in the Critique of
Pure Reason, Kant also tried to show that every event has a cause. Kant recognized that there
seems to be a deep tension between these two claims: If causal determinism is true then, it
seems, we cannot have the kind of freedom that morality presupposes, which is “a kind of
causality” that “can be active, independently of alien causes determining it” (G 4:446).

Kant thought that the only way to resolve this apparent conflict is to distinguish between
phenomena, which is what we know through experience, and noumena, which we can
consistently think but not know through experience. Our knowledge and understanding of the
empirical world, Kant argued, can only arise within the limits of our perceptual and cognitive
powers. We should not assume, however, that we know all that may be true about “things in
themselves,” although we lack the “intellectual intuition” that would be needed to learn about
such things.

These distinctions, according to Kant, allow us to resolve the “antinomy” about free will by
interpreting the “thesis” that free will is possible as about noumena and the “antithesis” that
every event has a cause as about phenomena. Morality thus presupposes that agents, in an
incomprehensible “intelligible world,” are able to make things happen by their own free choices
in a “sensible world” in which causal determinism is true.
Many of Kant’s commentators, who are skeptical about these apparently exorbitant
metaphysical claims, have attempted to make sense of his discussions of the intelligible and
sensible worlds in less metaphysically demanding ways. On one interpretation (Hudson 1994),
one and the same act can be described in wholly physical terms (as an appearance) and also in
irreducibly mental terms (as a thing in itself). On this compatibilist picture, all acts are causally
determined, but a free act is one that can be described as determined by irreducibly mental
causes, and in particular by the causality of reason. A second interpretation holds that the
intelligible and sensible worlds are used as metaphors for two ways of conceiving of one and
the same world (Korsgaard 1996; Allison 1990; Hill 1989a, 1989b). When we are engaging in
scientific or empirical investigations, we often take up a perspective in which we think of things
as subject to natural causation, but when we deliberate, act, reason and judge, we often take up
a different perspective, in which we think of ourselves and others as agents who are not
determined by natural causes. When we take up this latter, practical, standpoint, we need not
believe that we or others really are free, in any deep metaphysical sense; we need only operate
“under the idea of freedom” (G 4:448). Controversy persists, however, about whether Kant’s

conception of freedom requires a “two worlds” or “two perspectives” account of the sensible and
intelligible worlds (Guyer 1987, 2009; Langton 2001; Kohl 2016; Wood 1984; Hogan 2009).

Graph of the moral doubt and skepticism

Although the two most basic aims Kant saw for moral philosophy are to seek out and establish
the supreme principle of morality, they are not, in Kant’s view, its only aims. Moral philosophy,
for Kant, is most fundamentally addressed to the first-person, deliberative question, “What ought
I to do?”, and an answer to that question requires much more than delivering or justifying the
fundamental principle of morality. We also need some account, based on this principle, of the
nature and extent of the specific moral duties that apply to us. To this end, Kant employs his
findings from the Groundwork in The Metaphysics of Morals, and offers a categorization of our
basic moral duties to ourselves and others. In addition, Kant thought that moral philosophy
should characterize and explain the demands that morality makes on human psychology and
forms of human social interaction. These topics, among others, are addressed in central
chapters of the second Critique, the Religion and again in the Metaphysics of Morals, and are
perhaps given a sustained treatment in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Further, a
satisfying answer to the question of what one ought to do would have to take into account any
political and religious requirements there are. Each of these requirement turn out to be,
indirectly at least, also moral obligations for Kant, and are discussed in the Metaphysics of
Morals and in Religion. Finally, moral philosophy should say something about the ultimate end
of human endeavor, the Highest Good, and its relationship to the moral life. In the Critique of
Practical Reason, Kant argued that this Highest Good for humanity is complete moral virtue
together with complete happiness, the former being the condition of our deserving the latter.
Unfortunately, Kant noted, virtue does not insure wellbeing and may even conflict with it.
Further, he thought that there is no real possibility of moral perfection in this life and indeed few
of us fully deserve the happiness we are lucky enough to enjoy. Reason cannot prove or
disprove the existence of Divine Providence, on Kant’s view, nor the immortality of the soul,
which seem necessary to rectify these things. Nevertheless, Kant argued, an unlimited amount
of time to perfect ourselves (immortality) and a commensurate achievement of wellbeing
(insured by God) are “postulates” required by reason when employed in moral matters.

Throughout his moral works, Kant returns time and again to the question of the method moral
philosophy should employ when pursuing these aims. A basic theme of these discussions is that
the fundamental philosophical issues of morality must be addressed a priori, that is, without
drawing on observations of human beings and their behavior. Kant’s insistence on an a priori
method to seek out and establish fundamental moral principles, however, does not always
appear to be matched by his own practice. The Metaphysics of Morals, for instance, is meant to
be based on a priori rational principles, but many of the specific duties that Kant describes,
along with some of the arguments he gives in support of them, rely on general facts about
human beings and our circumstances that are known from experience.

In one sense, it might seem obvious why Kant insists on an a priori method. A “metaphysics of
morals” would be, more or less, an account of the nature and structure of moral requirements —
in effect, a categorization of duties and values. Such a project would address such questions as,
What is a duty? What kinds of duties are there? What is the good? What kinds of goods are
there?, and so on. These appear to be metaphysical questions. Any principle used to provide
such categorizations appears to be a principle of metaphysics, in a sense, but Kant did not see
them as external moral truths that exist independently of rational agents. Moral requirements,
instead, are rational principles that tell us what we have overriding reason to do. Metaphysical
principles of this sort are always sought out and established by a priori methods.

Perhaps something like this was behind Kant’s thinking. However, the considerations he offers
for an a priori method do not all obviously draw on this sort of rationale. The following are three
considerations favoring a priori methods that he emphasizes repeatedly.

The first is that, as Kant and others have conceived of it, ethics initially requires an analysis of
our moral concepts. We must understand the concepts of a “good will”, “obligation”, “duty” and
so on, as well as their logical relationships to one another, before we can determine whether our
use of these concepts is justified. Given that the analysis of concepts is an a priori matter, to the
degree that ethics consists of such an analysis, ethics is a priori as a well.

Of course, even were we to agree with Kant that ethics should begin with analysis, and that
analysis is or should be an entirely a priori undertaking, this would not explain why all of the
fundamental questions of moral philosophy must be pursued a priori. Indeed, one of the most
important projects of moral philosophy, for Kant, is to show that we, as rational agents, are
bound by moral requirements and that fully rational agents would necessarily comply with them.
Kant admits that his analytical arguments for the CI are inadequate on their own because the
most they can show is that the CI is the supreme principle of morality if there is such a principle.
Kant must therefore address the possibility that morality itself is an illusion by showing that the
CI really is an unconditional requirement of reason that applies to us. Even though Kant thought
that this project of “establishing” the CI must also be carried out a priori, he did not think we
could pursue this project simply by analyzing our moral concepts or examining the actual
behavior of others. What is needed, instead, is a “synthetic”, but still a priori, kind of argument
that starts from ideas of freedom and rational agency and critically examines the nature and
limits of these capacities.

This is the second reason Kant held that fundamental issues in ethics must be addressed with
an a priori method: The ultimate subject matter of ethics is the nature and content of the
principles that necessarily determine a rational will.

Fundamental issues in moral philosophy must also be settled a priori because of the nature of
moral requirements themselves, or so Kant thought. This is a third reason he gives for an a
priori method, and it appears to have been of great importance to Kant: Moral requirements
present themselves as being unconditionally necessary. But an a posteriori method seems ill-
suited to discovering and establishing what we must do whether we feel like doing it or not;
surely such a method could only tell us what we actually do. So an a posteriori method of
seeking out and establishing the principle that generates such requirements will not support the
presentation of moral “oughts” as unconditional necessities. Kant argued that empirical
observations could only deliver conclusions about, for instance, the relative advantages of moral
behavior in various circumstances or how pleasing it might be in our own eyes or the eyes of
others. Such findings clearly would not support the unconditional necessity of moral
requirements. To appeal to a posteriori considerations would thus result in a tainted conception
of moral requirements. It would view them as demands for which compliance is not
unconditionally necessary, but rather necessary only if additional considerations show it to be
advantageous, optimific or in some other way felicitous. Thus, Kant argued that if moral
philosophy is to guard against undermining the unconditional necessity of obligation in its
analysis and defense of moral thought, it must be carried out entirely a priori.

Moral Postulates
Kant holds that the fundamental principle of our
moral duties is a categorical imperative. It is an
imperative because it is a command addressed to
agents who could follow it but might not (e.g. ,
“Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”). It is categorical
in virtue of applying to us unconditionally, or simply
because we possesses rational wills,
without reference to any ends that we might or
might not have. It does not, in other words, apply to
us on the condition that we have antecedently
adopted some goal for ourselves.
There are “oughts” other than our moral duties, according to Kant, but these oughts are
distinguished from the moral ought in being based on a quite different kind of principle, one that
is the source of hypothetical imperatives. A hypothetical imperative is a command that also
applies to us in virtue of our having a rational will, but not simply in virtue of this. It requires us to
exercise our wills in a certain way given we have antecedently willed an end. A hypothetical
imperative is thus a command in a conditional form. But not any command in this form counts as
a hypothetical imperative in Kant’s sense. For instance, “if you’re happy and you know it, clap
your hands!” is a conditional command. But the antecedent conditions under which the
command “clap your hands” applies to you do not posit any end that you will, but consist rather
of emotional and cognitive states you may or may not be in. Further, “if you want pastrami, try
the corner deli” is also a command in conditional form, but strictly speaking it too fails to be a
hypothetical imperative in Kant’s sense since this command does not apply to us in virtue of our
willing some end, but only in virtue of our desiring or wanting an end. For Kant, willing an end
involves more than desiring; it requires actively choosing or committing to the end rather than
merely finding oneself with a passive desire for it. Further, there is nothing irrational in failing to

will means to what one desires. An imperative that applied to us in virtue of our desiring some
end would thus not be a hypothetical imperative of practical rationality in Kant’s sense.
3 Postulates of Kants

The condition under which a hypothetical imperative applies to us, then, is that we will some
end. Now, for the most part, the ends we will we might not have willed, and some ends that we
do not will we might nevertheless have willed. But there is at least conceptual room for the idea
of a natural or inclination-based end that we must will. The distinction between ends that we
might or might not will and those, if any, we necessarily will as the kinds of natural beings we
are, is the basis for his distinction between two kinds of hypothetical imperatives. Kant names
these “problematic” and “assertoric”, based on how the end is willed. If the end is one that we
might or might not will — that is, it is a merely possible end — the imperative is problematic. For
instance, “Don’t ever take side with anyone against the Family.” is a problematic imperative,
even if the end posited here is (apparently) one’s own continued existence. Almost all non-
moral, rational imperatives are problematic, since there are virtually no ends that we necessarily
will as human beings.

As it turns out, the only (non-moral) end that we will, as a matter of natural necessity, is our own
happiness. Any imperative that applied to us because we will our own happiness would thus be
an assertoric imperative. Rationality, Kant thinks, can issue no imperative if the end is
indeterminate, and happiness is an indeterminate end. Although we can say for the most part
that if one is to be happy, one should save for the future, take care of one’s health and nourish
one’s relationships, these fail to be genuine commands in the strictest sense and so are instead
mere “counsels.” Some people are happy without these, and whether you could be happy
without them is, although doubtful, an open question.

Since Kant presents moral and prudential rational requirements as first and foremost demands
on our wills rather than on external acts, moral and prudential evaluation is first and foremost an
evaluation of the will our actions express. Thus, it is not an error of rationality to fail to take the
necessary means to one’s (willed) ends, nor to fail to want to take the means; one only falls foul
of non-moral practical reason if one fails to will the means. Likewise, while actions, feelings or
desires may be the focus of other moral views, for Kant practical irrationality, both moral and

prudential, focuses mainly on our willing.

Kant Philosophy of Postulate

One recent interpretive dispute (Hill 1973; Schroeder 2009; Rippon 2014) has been about
whether hypothetical imperatives, in Kant’s view, have a “wide” or “narrow” scope. That is, do
such imperatives tell us to take the necessary means to our ends or give up our ends (wide
scope) or do they simply tell us that, if we have an end, then take the necessary means to it.

Kant describes the will as operating on the basis of subjective volitional principles he calls
“maxims”. Hence, morality and other rational requirements are, for the most part, demands that
apply to the maxims that we act on. . The form of a maxim is “I will A in C in order to realize or
produce E” where “A” is some act type, “C” is some type of circumstance, and “E” is some type
of end to be realized or achieved by A in C. Since this is a principle stating only what some
agent wills, it is subjective. (A principle that governs any rational will is an objective principle of
volition, which Kant refers to as a practical law). For anything to count as human willing, it must
be based on a maxim to pursue some end through some means. Hence, in employing a maxim,
any human willing already embodies the form of means-end reasoning that calls for evaluation
in terms of hypothetical imperatives. To that extent at least, then, anything dignified as human
willing is subject to rational requirements.

Good Will and Moral Duty

Kant’s analysis of commonsense ideas begins
with the thought that the only thing good
without qualification is a “good will”. While the
phrases “he’s good hearted”, “she’s good
natured” and “she means well” are common,
“the good will” as Kant thinks of it is not the
same as any of these ordinary notions. The
idea of a good will is closer to the idea of a
“good person”, or, more archaically, a “person
of good will”. This use of the term “will” early on
in analyzing ordinary moral thought prefigures
later and more technical discussions
concerning the nature of rational agency.
Nevertheless, this idea of a good will is an
important commonsense touchstone to which
Kant returns throughout his works. The basic
idea, as Kant describes it in the Groundwork, is
that what makes a good person good is his
possession of a will that is in a certain way
“determined” by, or makes its decisions on the
basis of, the moral law. The idea of a good will
is supposed to be the idea of one who is
committed only to make decisions that she holds to be morally worthy and who takes moral
considerations in themselves to be conclusive reasons for guiding her behavior. This sort of
disposition or character is something we all highly value, Kant thought. He believes we value it
without limitation or qualification. By this, we believe, he means primarily two things.
First, unlike anything else, there is no conceivable circumstance in which we regard our own
moral goodness as worth forfeiting simply in order to obtain some desirable object. By contrast,
the value of all other desirable qualities, such as courage or cleverness, can be diminished,
forgone, or sacrificed under certain circumstances: Courage may be laid aside if it requires
injustice, and it is better not to be witty if it requires cruelty. There is no implicit restriction or
qualification to the effect that a commitment to give moral considerations decisive weight is

worth honoring, but only under such and such circumstances.

Second, possessing and maintaining a steadfast commitment to moral principles is the very
condition under which anything else is worth having or pursuing. Intelligence and even pleasure
are worth having only on the condition that they do not require giving up one’s fundamental
moral convictions. The value of a good will thus cannot be that it secures certain valuable ends,
whether of our own or of others, since their value is entirely conditional on our possessing and
maintaining a good will. Indeed, since a good will is good under any condition, its goodness
must not depend on any particular conditions obtaining. Thus, Kant points out that a good will
must then also be good in itself and not in virtue of its relationship to other things such as the
agent’s own happiness, overall welfare or any other effects it may or may not produce A good
will would still “shine like a jewel” even if it were “completely powerless to carry out its aims” (G
4:394).

In Kant’s terms, a good will is a will whose decisions are wholly determined by moral demands
or, as he often refers to this, by the Moral Law. Human beings inevitably feel this Law as a
constraint on their natural desires, which is why such Laws, as applied to human beings, are
imperatives and duties. A human will in which the Moral Law is decisive is motivated by the
thought of duty. A holy or divine will, if it exists, though good, would not be good because it is
motivated by thoughts of duty because such a will does not have natural inclinations and so
necessarily fulfills moral requirements without feeling constrained to do so. It is the presence of
desires that could operate independently of moral demands that makes goodness in human
beings a constraint, an essential element of the idea of “duty.” So in analyzing unqualified
goodness as it occurs in imperfectly rational creatures such as ourselves, we are investigating
the idea of being motivated by the thought that we are constrained to act in certain ways that we
might not want to simply from the thought that we are morally required to do so.
Kant confirms this by comparing motivation by duty with other sorts of motives, in particular, with
motives of self-interest, self-preservation, sympathy and happiness. He argues that a dutiful
action from any of these motives, however praiseworthy it may be, does not express a good will.
Assuming an action has moral worth only if it expresses a good will, such actions have no
genuine “moral worth.” The conformity of one’s action to duty in such cases is only related by
accident to morality. For instance, if one is motivated by happiness alone, then had conditions
not conspired to align one’s duty with one’s own happiness one would not have done one’s
duty. By contrast, were one to supplant any of these motivations with the motive of duty, the
morality of the action would then express one’s determination to act dutifully out of respect for

the moral law itself. Only then would the action have moral worth.

Kant’s views in this regard have understandably been the subject of much controversy. Many
object that we do not think better of actions done for the sake of duty than actions performed out
of emotional concern or sympathy for others, especially those things we do for friends and
family. Worse, moral worth appears to require not only that one’s actions be motivated by duty,
but also that no other motives, even love or friendship, cooperate. Yet Kant’s defenders have
argued that his point is not that we do not admire or praise motivating concerns other than duty,
only that from the point of view of someone deliberating about what to do, these concerns are
not decisive in the way that considerations of moral duty are. What is crucial in actions that
express a good will is that in conforming to duty a perfectly virtuous person always would, and
so ideally we should, recognize and be moved by the thought that our conformity is morally
obligatory. The motivational structure of the agent should be arranged so that she always treats
considerations of duty as sufficient reasons for conforming to those requirements. In other
words, we should have a firm commitment not to perform an action if it is morally forbidden and
to perform an action if it is morally required. Having a good will, in this sense, is compatible with
having feelings and emotions of various kinds, and even with aiming to cultivate some of them
in order to counteract desires and inclinations that tempt us to immorality. Controversy persists,
however, about whether Kant’s claims about the motive of duty go beyond this basic point
(Timmermann 2007; Herman 1993; Wood 1998; Baron 1995).

Suppose for the sake of argument we agree with Kant. We now need to know what
distinguishes the principle that lays down our duties from these other motivating principles, and
so makes motivation by it the source of unqualified value.
Categorical and Hypothetical Imperatives

Kant holds that the fundamental principle of our moral duties is a categorical imperative. It is an
imperative because it is a command addressed to agents who could follow it but might not
(e.g. , “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”). It is categorical in virtue of applying to us
unconditionally, or simply because we possesses rational wills, without reference to any ends
that we might or might not have. It does not, in other words, apply to us on the condition that we

have antecedently adopted some goal for ourselves.

There are “oughts” other than our moral duties, according to Kant, but these oughts are
distinguished from the moral ought in being based on a quite different kind of principle, one that
is the source of hypothetical imperatives. A hypothetical imperative is a command that also
applies to us in virtue of our having a rational will, but not simply in virtue of this. It requires us to
exercise our wills in a certain way given we have antecedently willed an end. A hypothetical
imperative is thus a command in a conditional form. But not any command in this form counts as
a hypothetical imperative in Kant’s sense. For instance, “if you’re happy and you know it, clap
your hands!” is a conditional command. But the antecedent conditions under which the
command “clap your hands” applies to you do not posit any end that you will, but consist rather
of emotional and cognitive states you may or may not be in. Further, “if you want pastrami, try
the corner deli” is also a command in conditional form, but strictly speaking it too fails to be a
hypothetical imperative in Kant’s sense since this command does not apply to us in virtue of our
willing some end, but only in virtue of our desiring or wanting an end. For Kant, willing an end
involves more than desiring; it requires actively choosing or committing to the end rather than
merely finding oneself with a passive desire for it. Further, there is nothing irrational in failing to
will means to what one desires. An imperative that applied to us in virtue of our desiring some
end would thus not be a hypothetical imperative of practical rationality in Kant’s sense.

The condition under which a hypothetical imperative applies to us, then, is that we will some
end. Now, for the most part, the ends we will we might not have willed, and some ends that we
do not will we might nevertheless have willed. But there is at least conceptual room for the idea
of a natural or inclination-based end that we must will. The distinction between ends that we
might or might not will and those, if any, we necessarily will as the kinds of natural beings we
are, is the basis for his distinction between two kinds of hypothetical imperatives. Kant names
these “problematic” and “assertoric”, based on how the end is willed. If the end is one that we
might or might not will — that is, it is a merely possible end — the imperative is problematic. For
instance, “Don’t ever take side with anyone against the Family.” is a problematic imperative,
even if the end posited here is (apparently) one’s own continued existence. Almost all non-
moral, rational imperatives are problematic, since there are virtually no ends that we necessarily
will as human beings.

As it turns out, the only (non-moral) end that we will, as a matter of natural necessity, is our own
happiness. Any imperative that applied to us because we will our own happiness would thus be
an assertoric imperative. Rationality, Kant thinks, can issue no imperative if the end is
indeterminate, and happiness is an indeterminate end. Although we can say for the most part
that if one is to be happy, one should save for the future, take care of one’s health and nourish
one’s relationships, these fail to be genuine commands in the strictest sense and so are instead
mere “counsels.” Some people are happy without these, and whether you could be happy
without them is, although doubtful, an open question.

Since Kant presents moral and prudential rational requirements as first and foremost demands
on our wills rather than on external acts, moral and prudential evaluation is first and foremost an
evaluation of the will our actions express. Thus, it is not an error of rationality to fail to take the
necessary means to one’s (willed) ends, nor to fail to want to take the means; one only falls foul
of non-moral practical reason if one fails to will the means. Likewise, while actions, feelings or
desires may be the focus of other moral views, for Kant practical irrationality, both moral and
prudential, focuses mainly on our willing.

One recent interpretive dispute (Hill 1973; Schroeder 2009; Rippon 2014) has been about
whether hypothetical imperatives, in Kant’s view, have a “wide” or “narrow” scope. That is, do
such imperatives tell us to take the necessary means to our ends or give up our ends (wide
scope) or do they simply tell us that, if we have an end, then take the necessary means to it.
Kant describes the will as operating on the basis of subjective volitional principles he calls
“maxims”. Hence, morality and other rational requirements are, for the most part, demands that
apply to the maxims that we act on. . The form of a maxim is “I will A in C in order to realize or
produce E” where “A” is some act type, “C” is some type of circumstance, and “E” is some type
of end to be realized or achieved by A in C. Since this is a principle stating only what some
agent wills, it is subjective. (A principle that governs any rational will is an objective principle of
volition, which Kant refers to as a practical law). For anything to count as human willing, it must
be based on a maxim to pursue some end through some means. Hence, in employing a maxim,
any human willing already embodies the form of means-end reasoning that calls for evaluation
in terms of hypothetical imperatives. To that extent at least, then, anything dignified as human
willing is subject to rational requirements.