Critique of Kant\'s Moral Philosophy

CRITIQUE OF KANT’S MORAL PHILOSOPHY Paul Gerard Horrigan, Ph.D. 2011.

Kant expounds upon his moral philosophy of deontological ethical formalism of autonomous morality in his Critique of Practical Reason (1788), his main work on ethics and the second of his three main critiques, and also in such writings as the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and Religion Within the Limits of Pure Reason Alone (1793).1 1

Studies on Kant’s moral philosophy: N. PORTER, Kant’s Ethics: A Critical Exposition, S. C. Griggs & Co., Chicago, 1886 ; W. M. WASHINGTON, The Formal and Material Elements of Kant’s Ethics, Macmillan, New York, 1898 ; G. KRÜGER, Philosophie und Moral in der Kantischen Kritik, J. C. B. Mohr, Tübingen, 1931 ; W. T. JONES, Morality and Freedom in the Philosophy of Kant, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1940 ; H. J. PATON, The Categorical Imperative: A Study in Kant’s Moral Philosophy, Hutchinson, London, 1947 ; D. ROSS, Kant’s Ethical Theory: A Commentary on the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1954 ; L. W. BECK, A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1960 ; P. A. SCHILPP, Kant’s Pre-Critical Ethics, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL, 1960 ; M. GREGOR, Laws of Freedom: A Study of Kant’s Method of Applying the Categorical Imperative in the Metaphysik der Sitten, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1963 ; T. C. WILLIAMS, The Concept of the Categorical Imperative: A Study of the Place of the Categorical Imperative in Kant’s Ethical Theory, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1968 ; H. B. ACTON, Kant’s Moral Philosophy, Macmillan, London, 1970 ; H. E. JONES, Kant’s Principle of Personality, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1971 ; P. HUTCHINGS, Kant on Absolute Value: A Critical Examination of Certain Key Notions in Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and Of His Ontology of Personal Values, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1972 ; K. WARD, The Development of Kant’s View of Ethics, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1972 ; R. P. WOLFF, The Autonomy of Reason: A Commentary on Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Harper & Row, New York, 1973 ; O. NELL, Acting on Principle: An Essay on Kantian Ethics, Columbia University Press, New York, 1975 ; B. AUNE, Kant’s Theory of Morals, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1979 ; V. ROSSVAER, Kant’s Moral Philosophy: An Interpretation of the Categorical Imperative, Universitetsforlaget, Oslo, 1979 ; R. P. STEVENS, Kant on Moral Practice, Mercer University Press, Macon, GA, 1981 ; T. AUXTER, Kant’s Moral Teleology, Mercer University Press, Macon, GA, 1982 ; J. G. COX, The Will at the Crossroads: A Reconstruction of Kant’s Moral Philosophy, University Press of America, Washington, D.C., 1984 ; J. E. ATWELL, Ends and Principles in Kant’s Moral Thought, Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht, 1986 ; V. J. SEIDLER, Kant, Respect and Injustice: The Limits of Liberal Moral Theory, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1986 ; B. CARNOIS, The Coherence of Kant’s Doctrine of Freedom, Chicago University Presss, Chicago, 1987 ; P. C. LO, Treating Persons as Ends: An Essay on Kant’s Moral Philosophy, University Press of America, Lanham, MD, 1987 ; H. E. ALLISON (ed.), Kant’s Practical Philosophy, “The Monist,” 72 (1989) ; O. O’NEILL, Construction of Reason: Explorations of Kant’s Practical Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989 ; R. J. SULLIVAN, Immanuel Kant’s Moral Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989 ; R. L. VELKLEY, Freedom and the End of Reason: On the Moral Foundations of Kant’s Critical Philosophy, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1989 ; VARIOUS AUTHORS, Kant e il problema etico. Nel secondo centenario della pubblicazione della ‘Critica della ragione pratica,’ Antonianum, Rome, 1989 ; H. E. ALLISON, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990 ; L. A. MULHOLLAND, Kant’s System of Rights, Columbia University Press, New York, 1990 ; F. O’FARRELL, Per leggere la “Critica della ragione pratica,” Gregorian University Press, Rome, 1990 ; G. TOGNINI (ed.), Introduzione alla morale di Kant, La Nuova Italia Scientifica, Rome, 1993 ; R. J. SULLIVAN, An Introduction to Kant’s Ethics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994 ; M. W. BARON, Kantian Ethics Almost Without Apology, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1995 ; P. GUYER (ed.), Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: Critical Essays, Rowman & Littlefield, Totowa, NJ, 1998 ; A. W. WOOD, Kant’s Ethical Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999 ; G. F. MUNZEL, Kant’s Conception of Moral Character. The ‘Critical’ Link of Morality, Anthropology, and Reflective Judgment, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1999 ; R. LOUDEN, Kant’s Impure Ethics: From Rational Beings to Human Beings, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2000 ; M. TIMMONS (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: Interpretative Essays, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002 ; R. DEAN, The Value of Humanity in Kant’s Moral Theory, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2006 ; A. REATH, Agency

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The moral law, according to Kant, cannot come from the experience of objective reality; it is the a priori condition of the will. Moral obligation, he says, is universal, absolute and necessary; but he observes that what is universal, absolute, and necessary cannot derive its origin from the things of experience; therefore, he teaches, moral obligation, grounding itself in the transcendental idealist gnoseological critique as a response to Humean phenomenalist skepticism, must be due to a principle anterior to experience, to an a priori form. This pure form, having no empirical connections, and, consequently, is alone capable of being universal and necessary, is the categorical imperative, expressed in various formulations, such as the principle: ‘Act as if the maxim from which you act were to become through your will a universal law of nature’ or ‘Act in accordance with a maxim which can serve as a universal law.’ Man’s perfection of practical reason or will consists in not allowing oneself to be influenced by any other motive except the categorical imperative itself, which is absolute and not hypothetical. Such independence of will as regards any real motive of action, such power of selfsubmission to none but the absolute categorical imperative, is called by the philosopher of Königsberg the ‘autonomy of practical reason,’ the pure determination of rational will, or ‘freedom,’ which is the exclusive fount of morality. Describing Kant’s ethical formalism centered upon the a priori form of all moral laws, namely, the categorical imperative, Thonnard writes that, for Kant, “theological morality, just as much as the morality of utility or of pleasure, destroys the universality and necessity of human morals by placing the determining principle of the will in sensibility. “In order to safeguard true morality, only one way is possible for Kant. One must explain its value without appealing to its object; one must not look for the matter, but for the form of law. The form which is characteristic of moral laws is pure obligation, demanding for each morally good act absolute disinterestedness; duty done purely for the sake of duty. Everything can then be explained by seeking in practical reason an a priori form which is parallel to the forms of understanding (Verstand). Just as the latter imposes its twelve categories on nature in order to set up a universal and necessary science, so practical reason possesses a kind of category or a priori form. The functioning of this latter form is dependent on the basic structure of human nature, and thus can be imposed on all human acts and on all men in order to build a universal and necessary morality. This category is the categorical imperative, the a priori form of all

and Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Philosophy, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2006 ; S. BACIN, Il senso dell’etica. Kant e la costruzione di una teoria morale, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2006 ; A. W. WOOD, Kantian Ethics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008 ; M. BETZLER, Kant’s Ethics of Virtue, Walter de Gruyter, New York, 2008 ; S. SEDGWICK, Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008 ; T. E. HILL (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Kant’s Ethics, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, West Sussex, 2009 ; K. AMERIKS and O. HÖFFE, Kant’s Moral and Legal Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009 ; J. K. ULEMAN, An Introduction to Kant’s Moral Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010 ; S. ANDERSON-GOLD and P. MUCHNIK (eds.), Kant’s Anatomy of Evil, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010 ; A. REATH and J. TIMMERMANN (eds.), Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason: A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010 ; J. TIMMERMANN, Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010 ; H. E. ALLISON, Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011 ; P. R. FRIERSON, Freedom and Anthropology in Kant’s Moral Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011.

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moral laws which it distinguishes from maxims or rules of sensibility by giving them the value of absolute obligation, just as concepts give phenomena their scientific value. “…By means of the categorical imperative, practical reason formulates a fundamental, synthetic a priori judgment which is the supreme principle conferring a moral value on all particular laws.”2 In Kant’s deontological ethical formalism, moral obligation is imposed by oneself, by one’s autonomous will. He not only eliminates the subjective ultimate end but also the absolute ultimate end, from his system of ethics. Maritain observes: “In the same way that he eliminates the subjective ultimate end, Kant also eliminates the absolute ultimate end, which similarly has no part in the proper structure of the Kantian ethic…It is not only in the name of pure disinterestedness of ethical motivation, it is also and above all in the name of the autonomy of the will that for Kant the absolute ultimate end must be eliminated from the constitutive structure of ethics and from the proper domain of the moral life. “For Kant, God plays no role in this domain. It is true, His existence is one of the postulates of the practical reason; but, as we have already indicated, it is only after the fact and outside the proper structure of ethics, once the universe of ethics has already been entirely constituted in and for itself, that this universe requires us to believe in the unknowable objects thus postulated (immortality, free will, God), objects which owe to the universe of ethics the existence we attribute to them. In their intimate origin in the thought of Kant (haunted as he was by metaphysics, which he sought to save in his own way), were these ‘postulates of the practical reason’ really present as presuppositions, in particular, and most importantly, the belief in that intemporal Freedom which from the heights of the intelligible world fixes our empirical character once and for all and from which the world of morality is suspended? In any case their function in Kant’s system is not at all that of presuppositions.3 The Kantian postulates are not, like the postulates of Euclid with respect to geometry, indemonstrable assertions which play a necessary role in rationally establishing the ethical theory. They are indemonstrable assertions which, once the ethical theory is rationally established, practical reason requires us to believe in order to bring our speculative reason and the universe of our objects of thought, the picture we have of things, into harmony with practical reason, and with the already completed edifice of morality. Since everything in this picture which is knowable and is the object of science belongs only to the phenomenal order, constructed or fabricated by our understanding through its a priori forms, it is the universe of the practical and of morality which, out of a need for harmony and final unification, makes as it were a present to the speculative universe of that which surpasses the phenomenal and belongs to the order of the absolute, in the form of postulates or objects of belief in which the transcendental Ideas at last find employment, and this in order that the world of thought may be adjusted to moral action. I am quite aware that the Kantian conception of belief is highly debatable, for in opposing ‘belief’ to ‘knowledge’ he opposes it not only to science (that is, to evident knowledge) but to all knowing. Belief cannot, consequently, consist in knowledge of a non-evident object through the testimony of somebody who has evidence of it (as faith for the theologians consists in knowledge of divine things through the testimony of the first Truth); it is an adherence by which we affirm without knowing it something which no one 2 3

F.-J. THONNARD, A Short History of Philosophy, Desclée, Tournai, 1956, pp. 690-691. Cf. I. KANT, Critique of Practical Reason, Part I, Bk. II, ch. 2.

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attests and in which nevertheless we must ‘believe’ in the name of the exigencies of moral action. That this theory of philosophical or moral belief and of postulates is logically inconsistent, and that in the last analysis it is worth no more, in spite of all the seriousness of Kant’s convictions, than the common idea of religion as a ‘comforting illusion’ answering our needs, however, lies outside our present concern. What is important here is that it makes out of God an appendix to morality, not its foundation. “We have said that the Kantian notion of the autonomy of the will requires that the absolute ultimate end be excluded from the proper and constitutive domain of ethics. It is also because the practical reason, or the pure rational will (these two notions are apparently identical for Kant)4 is absolutely autonomous, that is to say, it is not submitted to any other law than that which it gives itself, or rather, which is one with itself.5 In other terms, the dignity of the person is such that, in the words of Rousseau, it can only obey itself. This perfect autonomy first of all excludes God as Legislator from the proper and constitutive domain of morality, since in dividing good from evil the eternal reason and will of God as Legislator…would impose upon us from without the law of Another. The pure practical reason is alone the legislator. And this same perfect autonomy also excludes God as absolute ultimate end from the proper and constitutive domain of morality; it excludes from this order the subsistent Good, which must be loved above all things, and in the love of which the supreme motivation of the moral agent must consist.”6 Kant’s system of ethics is a moral philosophy that is essentially deontological or dutycentered, not teleological and eudaimonistic. For Kant, the good, taken simply and purely, is found only in a good human will, and this good human will is one that acts from duty and not from a natural inclination. Moral worth can only be found in acts done from duty; actions done not from the motive of duty have no moral worth for they lack the form of morality, that is, that which gives these actions their moral quality, which is nothing but the respect for the law (which is what Kant means by duty). Consequently, a human act is not good because of the end to which it leads but solely because of the motive of duty from which it is performed. In his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant explains that “the moral worth of an action does not lie in the effect which is expected from it or in any principle of action which has to borrow its motive from the expected effect. For all these effects (agreeableness of condition, indeed even the promotion of the happiness of others) could be brought about through other causes and would not require the will of a rational being, while the highest and unconditional good can be found only in such a will. Therefore the pre-eminent good can consist only in the conception of the law in itself (which can be present only in a rational being) so far as this conception and not the hoped-for effect is the determining ground of the will. This pre-eminent good, which we call moral, is already present in the person who acts according to this conception and we do not have to expect it first in the result.”7 4

I. KANT, The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Ethics, translation by O. Manthey-Zom, AppletonCentury, New York, 1938, section II, p. 29: “…the will is nothing but practical reason.” 5 I. KANT, op. cit., section II, p. 59: “Autonomy of the will is that property of the will by which it gives a law to itself (irrespective of any property of the object of volition). This then is the principle of autonomy: never to choose otherwise than so that the maxims of one’s choice be also comprehended in the same volition as universal law.” Cf. I. KANT, Critique of Practical Reason, translated by L. Beck, Liberal Arts Press, New York, 1956, Part I, Bk. 1, ch. 1, 28, p. 33. 6 J. MARITAIN, Moral Philosophy, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1964, p. 103. 7 I. KANT, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, section 1.

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The ‘law’ which Kant speaks of, and which respect for which must be the motive of an act to make it moral, is none other that the pure notion of law as such. If any action that one is to do be a moral one must ask himself: “Can I make the principle or maxim on which this action rests into a universal law binding for all persons?” He writes: “The shortest but 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 or – if they overhastily did so – who would pay me back in my own coin. Thus my maxim would necessarily destroy itself as soon as it was made a universal law.”8 Man, unlike the brute, has a concept of law and can consciously conform his conduct to principles by means of his autonomous will. Command, which is an imperative expressing the ought, is an objective principle of law which is binding on the will. Such an imperative may be merely hypothetical, that is, the use of means towards a particular end, or categorical, which must be done absolutely. Kant says: “If the action is good only as a means to something else, the imperative is hypothetical; but if it is thought of as good in itself, and hence as necessary in a will which of itself conforms to reason as the principle of this will, the imperative is categorical…There is one imperative which directly commands a certain conduct without making its condition some purpose to be reached by it. This imperative is categorical. It concerns not the material of the action and its intended result but the form and principle from which it results. What is essentially good in it consists in the intention, the result being what it may. This imperative may be called the imperative of morality…There is, therefore, only one categorical imperative. It is: Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”9 What makes an act morally wrong in the world of Kantian deontologism? In making an exception for oneself, thus contradicting the law in one’s own favor: “When we observe ourselves in any transgression of 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.”10 Why is such conduct reprehensible, morally wrong? Because it subjects other men as means to oneself as end, thus perverting the entire realm of ends according to which each human person must be treated as an end in himself and never as a means. The dignity of the human person demands it. But such a principle concludes to the fact that if one must not subject other men as means to oneself as end, then I myself am not subjected as means to another as end. Who then, imposes the moral law, moral obligation, upon me? An extra-subjective God who really exists? No, says Kant the agnostic. Then who? Myself (autonomy of the will): “Reason, therefore, relates every maxim of the will as giving universal laws to every other will and also to every action toward itself; it does 8

Ibid. I. KANT, op. cit., section 2. 10 Ibid. 9

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not do so for the sake of any other practical motive or future advantage but rather from the idea of the dignity of the rational being, which obeys no law except that which he himself also gives…He is thus fitted to be a member in a possible realm of ends to which his own nature already destined him. For, as an end in himself, he is destined to be legislative in the realm of ends, free from all laws of nature and obedient only to those which he himself gives. Accordingly, his maxims can belong to a universal legislation to which he is at the same time also subject…Autonomy is thus the basis of the dignity of both human nature and every rational nature.”11 Critiques of Kant’s Deontological Ethical Formalism of Autonomous Morality12 Austin Fagothey’s Critique of Kant’s Ethical Formalism: Though Kant’s austere dutycentered ethics served as a buttress against the prevalent materialism and self-serving hedonism of his time, it nevertheless is riddled with a number of serious defects that make it unacceptable as a system of ethics, namely, defects as regards the motive of duty, the categorical imperative, the autonomy of the will, and the source of obligation. Austin Fagothey gives us a critique of the Kantian deontologist moral system by pointing out these defects: “1. To rest all morality on the motive of duty is unnatural and inhuman. Kant nowhere says that an act not done from duty is immoral, only that it is nonmoral; nor does he say that to be moral it must be done from pure duty alone. All he says is that unless the motive of duty is present it cannot be moral, and, if it is done from both duty and inclination, only the motive of duty can give it its morality. But even this is overplaying the role of duty. Is it only her sense of duty and not her love for her child that gives morality to a mother’s devotion? Is it only cold obligation and not large-hearted generosity that makes relief of the poor a moral act? Certainly a sense of duty will be present in such cases, but love and generosity are always esteemed as higher motives than mere duty and give the act a greater moral worth. We fall back on duty only when other motives fail. Duty is rather the last bulwark against wrong acting than the highest motive for right acting. How could Kant explain heroic acts, such as giving one’s life for one’s friend? These are always thought the noblest and best, precisely because they go beyond the call of duty. Kant is then faced with this dilemma: either he must deny that heroic acts are moral, and thus fly in the face of all human evaluations, so as to make his ethics useless in practice; or he must make heroic acts a strict duty, thus putting a burden on human nature that it cannot bear and robbing these acts of the very quality that makes them heroic. “2. That the moral law commands us with a categorical imperative is undoubtedly true, and Kant emphasizes it well, but his formulation of it is faulty. The moral imperative is properly: ‘Do good and avoid evil,’ plus the more definite principles derived from this, rather than Kant’s formula: ‘So act that the maxim from which you act can be made a universal law,’ which is only a negative rule. Evil ways of acting could never become universal laws, for they are selfdestructive; but there are also good ways of acting that can never become universal laws, such as a life of celibacy. Hence the reason for the moral goodness of an act is not the fact that it can be made a universal law. Kant might answer that we can will celibacy to be a universal law for a definite type of person in definite circumstances; but this answer is no help, for if we start 11

Ibid. For Jacques Maritain’s detailed critique of Kant’s deontological ethical formalism of autonomous morality, see chapter 6 of his Moral Philosophy, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1964.

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making exceptions of this sort the term universal law loses all meaning. It finally narrows down to just one single case. To use Kant’s own example, I might will that anyone in my particular predicament could get out of it by lying, and still have the law universal for that class of people. To determine the goodness of an act wholly from the maxim which governs it and not from the end to which it naturally leads is to adopt a purely subjective norm of morality. All three determinants, the nature of the act, its motive, and the circumstances, must be considered, and not the motive alone. It is difficult to square Kant’s view here with the acceptance of intrinsic morality. “3. Kant’s recognition of the dignity of the human person is one of the most admired parts of his philosophy. But he carries it so far as to make a created person impossible. We must never use each other merely as a means, but God may do with us what He pleases, short of contradicting His own attributes. To make the human will autonomous does violence to the rights of God the Creator. Kant is forced to this position by his rejection of the traditional proofs of God’s existence, thus paying the price for faulty metaphysics. In Kant’s system our reason for accepting God’s existence is ultimately that we will His existence, for we need Him to justify morality to ourselves. As Kant says, this is a practical faith rather than a reasoned conviction. But here is another dilemma. Really God either does or does not exist; if He does not exist, we cannot will Him into existence simply because we feel a need of Him; if He does exist, the human will cannot be wholly autonomous but is subject to the law God imposes on us.”13 Fagothey goes on to explain that moral obligation does not come from oneself for “one cannot have authority over oneself and be subject to oneself in the same respect, be one’s own superior and inferior. A lawmaker can repeal his own laws. If man made the moral law for himself, he could never violate it, for he cannot will both its observance and its violation at once, and his act of violation would simply be an act of repeal. Such a law could impose no obligation.”14 So, if moral obligation does not come from oneself, then from who? Who is the ultimate source of all moral obligation? God: “Who imposes moral obligation? The one who has established the end and the means and their necessary connection. This objective order of things, commanded by God’s intellect and carried out by His will, is what we have called the eternal law, whose created counterpart is the natural law, faintly and imperfectly reflected in human law. Thus God, the Eternal Lawgiver, is the ultimate source of all moral obligation…Only he who determines the necessary connection between the observance of the moral law and man’s last end, and makes the attainment of the last end absolutely mandatory, can be the ultimate source of moral obligation. But only God determines the necessary connection between the observance of the moral law and man’s last end and makes the attainment of the last end absolutely mandatory. Therefore only God can be the ultimate source of moral obligation…Moral obligation must come from God, who alone determines by the eternal law the necessary connection between the observance of the moral law and man’s last end, and makes the attainment of the last end absolutely mandatory. This determination of His intellect and will He manifests to us through the natural law, which is the proximate source of all moral obligation; from it alone positive laws derive their binding force.”15

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A. FAGOTHEY, Right and Reason, C.V. Mosby Company, St. Louis, 1959, pp. 195-196. A. FAGOTHEY, op. cit., p. 197. 15 A. FAGOTHEY, op. cit., pp. 200-201, 206. 14

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J. Ming’s Critique of Kant’s Categorical Imperative: “The theist philosopher and the Christian theologian must needs take another view. Man is not an end in himself, but is essentially subordinate to God as his ultimate end and supreme good; nor is he autonomous, but is necessarily subject to God as his supreme Lord and lawgiver. Man, conceived as a law unto himself and an end in himself, is emancipated from God as his master and separated from Him as his supreme good; conceived, moreover, as autonomous and independent of any higher authority, he is deified. This is not building up true and lofty morality, but is its complete overthrow; for the basis of morality is God as the ultimate end, highest good, and supreme lawgiver. Kant utterly ignores the nature of both intellect and will. Human reason does not enact the moral law, but only voices and proclaims it as the enactment of a higher power above man, and it is not from the proclaiming voice that the law derives its binding force, but from the majesty above that intimates it to us through our consciences. “Nor do the universality and necessity of a law determine the will. What really attracts the will, and stirs it as a motive to action, is the goodness of the object presented by the intellect; for the rational appetite is by its nature an inclination to good. Hence it is that the desire of perfect happiness necessarily results from rational nature, and that the supreme good, clearly apprehended by the mind, cannot but be desired and embraced by the will. Hence, too, a law is not presented as obligatory, unless its observance is known to be necessarily connected with the attainment of the supreme good. It is, therefore, wrong to denounce the pursuit of happiness as immoral or repugnant to human nature. On the contrary, a paralysis of all human energy and utter despair would result from bidding man to act only from the motive of stern necessity inherent in law, or forbidding him ever to have his own good in view or to hope for blessedness. “The theory of the categorical imperative is, moreover, inconsistent. According to it the human will is the highest lawgiving authority, and yet subject to precepts enjoined on it; it is absolutely commanding what is objectively right, and at the same time reluctant to observe the right order. Again, the categorical imperative, as also the autonomy of reason and the freedom of the will, belongs to the intelligible world, and is, therefore, according to the Critique of Pure Reason, absolutely unknowable and contradicted by all laws of experience; nevertheless in Kantian ethics it is characterized as commanding with unmistakable precision and demanding obedience with absolute authority. Such a contradiction between Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and his ‘Ethics,’ between theoretical and practical reason, induces in morals a necessity which resembles fatalism.”16 D. Mercier’s Critique of Kant’s Categorical Imperative: “The Categorical imperative is no moral standard by which good and evil may be distinguished, nor is it a true moral law. Moreover the principles on which Kant bases his argument are false. Proof of the first part: By its definition a moral rule is a practical judgment, and therefore a judgment concerning the relation of an act with its end. But the Kantian theory of a moral act does away with the idea of any real end. Consequently it makes any relation of an act to an end impossible and therefore rules out any true norm of morality. “Proof of the second part: Obligation, which is the essential note of a law, is a certain necessity, put upon the will, of freely acting in a determined way. But it is inconceivable that the 16

J. MING, Categorical Imperative, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 3, Robert Appleton Co., New York, 1908.

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will should be drawn to act except by a final cause, that is, by the representation of a good to be willed. Hence the categorical imperative which claims to exclude all real final causes from the sphere of the moral will cannot produce any real obligation and consequently it is not a law in the proper sense. “Proof of the third part. It is not true that the notes of universality and necessity that are characteristic of the moral law cannot derive their origin from the data of experience when these are put to the service of the spiritual faculties of man’s soul.17 “It is not true that human nature is or can be its own end, and that in consequence the perfection of the practical reason consists or can consist in an absolute autonomy. “Finally, it is not true that reason forbids us to follow the natural attraction we experience towards the enjoyment of our happiness; it is only necessary that the desire of this enjoyment should be rightly directed, in order to make it compatible with the highest standard of morality of which human nature is capable. Our love when perfectly ordered seeks God, our objective end, primarily and above all things, and secondarily that subjective happiness which results from the possession of God.”18 Celestine Bittle’s Critique of Kant’s Ethical Formalism: “Kant’s endeavor to free morality from the bane of English empiricism was laudable; but his own teachings suffer from a number of serious defects and errors. “First. Kant builds his system of morality upon the principle of the ‘good will’ and claims that the will is only then ‘good in itself’ when it performs actions, not merely ‘in accordance with’ duty, but exclusively ‘because of’ duty, from ‘pure reverence for the moral law.’ To perform an action out of personal inclination or from a motive of self-interest, Kant asserts, makes this action ‘legally good,’ but not ‘morally good,’ even though the action be in conformity to the moral law. This is an unheard-of doctrine. Do we really judge that only those actions are ‘morally good’ which proceed exclusively from a pure sense of duty, and that personal inclination and self-interest destroy the morality of an act? Not at all. We consider almsgiving from a motive of compassion, neighborly assistance from a motive of friendliness, conjugal affection of spouses for each other and parental affection toward children and filial affection toward parents from a motive of love, to be morally good acts, even though they are not performed from a motive of pure and strict duty. According to Kant, the motive of charity would have no moral value at all, and acts performed out of charity would not be morally good. Everybody acknowledges that many heroic acts in time of peace and war go far ‘beyond the call of duty,’ because duty does not demand such supreme sacrifices under the circumstances. Yet such acts are considered to be of the highest moral character, because ‘greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friends.’ What a distortion of moral values and principles to consider such acts of supreme devotion and loyalty toward one’s country and fellow men only ‘legally’ but not ‘morally’ good! Kant’s principle is definitely at variance with the common 17

Cf. D. MERCIER, A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy, vol. 1 (Psychology 89-92), Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., London, 1921, pp. 240-247. 18 MERCIER, A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy, vol. 2 (Ethics 56), Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., London, 1921, p. 249.

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conviction of mankind, because mankind always judges acts performed out of love and charity to be of greater moral value than those done merely from a sense of duty. “Again. The will or practical reason, Kant claims, must be autonomous, i.e., not subject to any law but to a law of its own making; otherwise there would be no freedom but compulsion. Man is his own supreme end and the sole maker of laws for his moral conduct. On the other hand, Kant postulates the existence of God as the Creator of all things, including man. Yet God can make no laws for man’s moral conduct, and man is not subject to such laws, because that would be ‘heteronomy’; to perform an act out of obedience to God’s command would not be a morally good act! Such a doctrine means a complete deification of man and a subversion of the whole moral order. The final supreme end of man, as we have shown, is the glorification of God, and the realization of this supreme end can only be achieved if man leads a life in conformity with God’s attributes. “If man’s will is ‘autonomous’ and makes its own moral laws, then morality is completely individualistic, dependent solely on the individual’s own will. Morality should then differ from individual to individual. As a matter of fact, why should the individual will burden itself with any laws of morality at all? We are conscious that we are subject to the moral law as something independent of our wishes and desires, and we are in no way conscious that we ourselves are the authors of the moral law which binds our will. “Finally. According to Kant, the norm of morality consists in the categorical imperative of the autonomous practical reason (will). The categorical imperative, in its final formulation, is expressed as follows: ‘Act on maxims which can at the same time have for their objects themselves as universal laws of nature.’19 Hence: ‘Morality then the relation of actions to the autonomy of the will, that is, to the potential universal legislation by its maxims.’20 Such a norm, however, is useless for practical purposes. How is the ordinary man to know whether his maxims of conduct are fit to become universal laws? The norm of morality must be accessible to the generality of persons, because all persons without exception are bound by the law of morality in their daily conduct. Most persons, however, are not capable of judging whether their maxims of conduct ‘can at the same time have for their objects themselves as universal laws of nature.’ Even the learned will find it difficult to apply Kant’s expression of the categorical imperative to human conduct. In order to know whether our maxims are capable of universal legislation, we must have a norm over and above these universal laws. That norm, as we have shown, is the rational nature of the whole man as an individual, as a social being, and as a creature subject to God.”21 Thomas Higgins’s Critique of Kant’s Ethical Formalism: “1. No one can deny that duty done for duty’s sake is noble and praiseworthy, but we cannot admit that only such acts are good. A man who follows his conscience out of a desire for eternal beatitude, or out of fear of losing it, acts well, though not perfectly. Not every self-regarding motive is reprehensible.

19 I. KANT, Critique of Practical Reason, Abbott translation, fourth ed., rev., Longmans, Green, London, 1889, p. 56. 20 I. KANT, op. cit., p. 58. 21 C. BITTLE, Man and Morals: Ethics, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1953, pp. 159-161.

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“Kant appears unable to distinguish good that we must do from good that we are counseled to do. We are seldom obliged to do the heroic, but whoever, over and above the call of duty, does the heroic through self-sacrifice or the pure love of God, assuredly does what is eminently good. An act of this kind is, in fact, better than one done for duty’s sake. Certainly no one would claim that a girl is obliged to surrender all her earthly goods and prospects to devote herself to the service of the aged and poor, but all mankind would call such an act good. “2. What is the exact meaning of his ultimate imperative, namely, act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law? From his examples of deceitful promises, suicide, neglect of talents, etc., we gather that each moral law must be thoroughly self-consistent, that it may not contradict and destroy itself, that it must be applicable universally to human nature as such, and hence that reasonableness is the soul of law. To this one can agree. But Kant’s over-all principle has universal application only if all good is obligatory. When we apply it to supererogatory works it becomes absurd. A man could will to quit society for the sake of divine contemplation, but he could never will that all men do the same. An individual may virtuously choose to be a celibate, but a universal law of nature enjoining celibacy would be evil. Simeon Stylites sitting on his pillar was an object of awe and veneration, but it would be impossible for the entire human race to imitate him. These courses of action are morally good, but only on condition that they do not become universal laws. “3. Have the Kantian dictates of autonomous reason objective validity? Inasmuch as they are proffered as embodiments of reasonableness, and as reasonableness to be such must be valid for all rational beings, they would appear to be objective. Kant indeed says they are valid for all men.22 He deduces them ultimately from the autonomy of the will, and freedom, he says, is the key which explains the will’s autonomy.23 But what objective reality has the freedom of the will for Kant? The freedom of the will, the immorality of the soul, and the existence of God are postulates of Kant’s practical reason, assumed but unprovable. We carefully note that what Kant calls practical reason is the will24 demanding obedience to moral law: what we call intellect, he calls the speculative or pure reason. But are these postulates known by the intellect? Kant says no: ‘the above three ideas of speculative reason are still in themselves not cognitions.’25 If there be any reality behind them we do not know and we cannot know. Kant plainly says: ‘The question then: How a categorical imperative is possible can be answered to this extent that we can assign the only possible hypothesis on which it is possible, namely, the idea of freedom; and we can also discern the necessity of this hypothesis, and this is sufficient for the exercise of reason, that is, for the conviction of the validity of this imperative, and hence of the moral law; but how this hypothesis itself is possible can never be discerned by any human reason.’26 Again, ‘Reason would overstep all bounds if it undertook to explain how pure reason can be practical, which would be exactly the same thing as to explain how freedom can be possible.’27

22

I. KANT, Critique of Practical Reason, Abbott translation, fourth ed., rev., Longmans, Green, London, 1889, p. 105. 23 I. KANT, op. cit., p. 65. 24 I. KANT, op. cit., p. 60. 25 I. KANT, op. cit., p. 232. 26 I. KANT, op. cit., pp. 81-82. 27 I. KANT, op. cit., p. 79.

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“If, then, the dictates of the practical reason are deduced from the freedom of the will, and if the intellect cannot validate the freedom of the will, how can these dictates be validated? If the basis on which they rest are unprovable assumptions, why are not also they? “The root of the difficulty is Kant’s epistemology, according to which the intellect can know only the appearances of things, the phenomena, but it can never penetrate to the thing as such, the noumena.28 As a consequence, Kant has handed on to modern life a God-idea which is only a hollow shell, the content of which is whatever anyone chooses to make of it. He has done the same for moral principles; the words and the formulae remain but their content and meaning are the sport of individual whim.”29 Kenneth Dougherty’s Critique of Kant’s Ethical Formalism: “It is conceded that duty is a legitimate motive for obeying law but denied that duty is the source of moral obligation. Duty is dependent on right. Duty is never self-explanatory. Man has a duty to live morally because man is destined to God, his Ultimate End. God has the supreme right over His creature who must dutifully abide by the moral law in pursuit of his destiny, the Supreme Good. God alone is the source of man’s moral obligation as the Ultimate End of man. “The human will is itself a blind faculty. It can only pursue duty because the intellect informs it of duty. The will follows the intellect. The identification of moral obligation with duty established primarily in the will can only lead to sentimentalism, a purely subjective norm of morality. A person of good will has objective moral significance only because his will illuminated by the intellect seeks what is objectively good. The formal idealism of Kant, however, prohibited him from mastering a truly objective ethics. God, free will, the immortal soul, good and evil are not merely good subjective notions. They have real significance as the realistic philosophy of Thomism demonstrates in Metaphysics and Rational Psychology. “The moral obligation of Kant’s autonomous will is only an obligation in name. The categorical imperative that a person live so that his actions reveal a universal law of action that holds for everyone, cannot morally bind us, if it is merely the product of our own good will. The human will cannot bind itself. It cannot be at the same time superior and inferior, the judge and the judged. St. Thomas asserts: ‘No one by his own actions imposes a law.’30 ‘No one properly is coerced by himself.’31 The moral law has moral obligation only from a Supreme Lawgiver or it is a farce.”32 John P. Noonan’s Critique of Kant’s Ethical Formalism: “Kant’s numerous errors have been exposed by many philosophers, but it may be worth while to note here some of his errors on this particular point. In the first place, his doctrine implies that each one of us is God. It is a deification of the human intellect and a merging of it with the supreme and universal reason, for it is only in that reason that we could find the true source of obligation, which Kant places in ourselves. This is evident from intrinsic and also from extrinsic considerations. Witness the 28

I. KANT, op. cit., p. 70. T. HIGGINS, Man as Man: The Science and Art of Ethics, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1949, pp. 57-59. 30 Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 93, a. 5. 31 Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 96, a. 5. 32 K. DOUGHERTY, General Ethics, Graymoor Press, Peekskill, NY, 1959, pp. 146-147. 29

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evolution of Kantian doctrine into the pantheistic idealism of Fichte, Schelling, and especially Hegel. “Again, the doctrine is an open contradiction, as Tongiorgi points out so lucidly: ‘In the concept of a legislator imposing obligation is contained the concept of a superior, and in the concept of a superior whose law is promulgated, the notion of a subject. But it is manifestly contradictory that the same human nature should be at once superior and subject to itself; for superior and subject are relative, and hence cannot in respect of the same subject coexist.’33 “Obligation, like justice, supposes ‘otherness,’ and no one can, strictly speaking, impose an obligation on himself. The obligation of a vow or of a promise arises from the fact that God requires us to be true to our word. “Again, Kant implies that man has himself for a final end or purpose, a condition which has been shown to be true only of God. It is true only of God because He alone is an infinite and independent being, neither of which is true of man. “The doctrine that an action is morally good only when it is done out of reverence for this self-imposed law is quite contrary to the general opinion of men. Men commonly regard actions as the more upright the less they are enforced by any law; and it is absurd to deny, as this doctrine equivalently does, that actions performed out of charity, love for the poor, love of one’s family, or love of one’s country, have anything but the highest merit. ‘Greater love than this no man hath, that he lay down his life for his friend.’ This Christ did, and for love, not by any force of law. Any motive consistent with the desire to glorify God will make an action morally good in so far as its end or purpose is concerned. “Finally, Kant mistakes the role of reason in the law of morality and makes it a purely subjective relation. Reason is not the ultimate ground of the law of morality – not even the divine reason, as we have said. The function of reason is to recognize the law. The law is an objective fact, made clear by objective evidence of its existence and obligation. Law is indeed a dictate or command of reason in so far as it is the expression of the will of one outside and above us, a legitimate superior; but this dictate is issued in accordance with the objective evidence of the order of nature established by God and founded ultimately in His divine nature or essence.”34 Charles C. Miltner’s Critique of Kant’s Ethical Formalism: “Our first objection to this view is drawn from speculative philosophy. In his analysis of judgment, Kant maintains that, in addition to analytic and synthetic judgments, there is also a synthetic a priori judgment, and that the ‘categorical imperative’ is of this nature. But it is shown in Logic that such a judgment is a gratuitous assumption, that every judgment can be classified as either a priori or a posteriori, as analytic or synthetic. The ‘categorical imperative’ is therefore without foundation. “But even though it be conceded as possible, it does not provide any norm for distinguishing good from evil action; for one has no way of knowing whether his action may serve as a principle of universal legislation or not. The fact that there are certain instances in 33 34

S. TONGIORGI, Institutiones Philosophiae Moralis, p. 94. J. P. NOONAN, General and Special Ethics, Loyola University Press, Chicago, 1947, pp. 101-103.

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which one might be sure that one’s action could be taken as a universal model is due to the fact that one recognizes an order of things that is, and which imposes itself upon him as a necessary one. It is not due to any act of autonomous reason. “Next, Kant fails to show whence this dictate of reason, this so-called ‘categorical imperative,’ derives its character of unconditional or absolute necessity. One may rightly ask: ‘Why must I do what this judgment demands? I do not feel myself necessitated by it. Quite the contrary, I feel altogether able to ignore it.’ Merely to assert that one must is not to prove it. “His assumption that one’s will is good whenever it chooses what the law prescribes, and only because the law prescribes it, as a universally accepted notion, is unwarranted. ‘For so far is it from being true that this can be supposed to be common doctrine, that quite the contrary seems to be the fact. For men often call actions upright which are not commanded by any law, e.g., if one gives his services spontaneously to the poor and the sick, or serves his country gratis. Much less are men persuaded that these actions are then only good or praiseworthy when they are done solely on account of legal precept; for by common opinion one may most honestly act from a motive or mercy or love of neighbor.’35 “Finally, the theory involves the contradiction that man is an end in himself. But man, we have shown, is by nature a dependent being, and so ordained to an end outside of and higher than himself.”36 Joseph F. Sullivan’s Critique of Kant’s Ethical Formalism: “Kant’s moral rationalism must be rejected: 1) The whole Ethical system of Kant is based on an entirely false assumption. For the fundamental assumption in Kant’s system is the principle that that will alone is morally good which obeys the law solely out of respect for its authority, i.e., which acts conformably to law from the pure sense of duty. In proof of this strange assertion, Kant appeals to common psychological experience. But is this principle really a common psychological experience? Do men really judge that the will performs a moral action only when moved and determined by the pure sense of duty? Do men really think that any other motive but the sense of duty destroys the morality of an action? This is surely not the case. For many actions are regarded by all as morally right and good, even though they do not proceed from the pure sense of duty. Thus the woman who is moved by her mother’s love to attend to her sick child, the philanthropist who helps his fellow men out of sympathy and pity, the men and women who, though not in duty bound, devote themselves to the service of the sick – these and many others, in the opinion of all right-thinking men perform morally good and praiseworthy actions. So far, indeed, are men from regarding the sense of duty as the only source of morality, that they are wont to attach the highest moral worth to heroic acts of charity, of patriotism, of benevolence, etc., precisely because they are performed without being enjoined by strict duty. It is clear, then, that in the opinion of men the sense of duty is not the only source of morality. “2) Kant’s categorical imperative – “Act so that the maxim of the will may be capable of becoming a universal law” – is not the ultimate norm of good and evil in human conduct. For there are many morally good acts that could not possibly become a law for all. A healthy man 35 36

V. CATHREIN, Philosophia Moralis, B. Herder, Freiburg, 1940, p. 100. C. C. MILTNER, The Elements of Ethics, Macmillan, New York, 1949, pp. 103-104.

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has duties that could not bind a sick man. Our duties depend often on circumstances of person, time and place. For these Kant makes no allowance. Moreover, some courses that are morally good and lawful are good only as long as they do not become a universal law. It is lawful, for instance, for a man to remain a bachelor. But all could not do so. “3) Kant’s theory of the Autonomy of Reason supposes that every distinction of good and evil in human conduct is merely subjective. For if human reason is the only norm of morality, and there is no ulterior norm by which to judge the morality of our actions, human conduct will be good or bad morally according as reason judges it to be good or bad; human reason will not judge actions to be good or bad because they are so in themselves. But this is obviously the same as saying that moral goodness and evil depend on human reason, and that the distinction between good and evil in human conduct is merely subjective; because if the distinction between good and evil is objective, there must likewise be an objective norm according to which reason judges. “4) Kant’s Autonomy of Reason is contradicted by inner experience. Our consciousness testifies that reason is not a law unto itself, that it does not create and generate obligation, but simply points out to us the law and makes duty and obligation known to us. While reason manifests what is right and what is wrong, what is obligatory and what is optional, it does not make it so. It shows in what way we should act, but does not create an obligation. We have here something similar to what takes place in the knowledge of truth; Reason is not free to declare certain things true or false, but it must conform to evidence. It perceives truths that exist independently of itself. In the same way, the moral good is not made, but only perceived, by reason. Hence, in neither case can reason be called autonomous, since it must conform to the nature of things.”37

37

J. F. SULLIVAN, General Ethics, Holy Cross College Press, Worcester, MA, 1931, pp. 85-87.

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