| Phi 110 Fall 2015 |
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This assignment consists of two quite different, but not unrelated, parts: selections from introductory portions of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant’s treatment of the subject we’ve been reading his “grounding” for, and a short article written rather late in his life in which he emphasizes the extent to which he sees moral evaluation of actions as independent of their consequences.
• Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals was published as two books. The first, the Rechtslehre (“Doctrine of Right” or “Justice”), sets out the basis of his political philosophy and philosophy of law, and the second, the Tugendlehre (“Doctrine of Virtue”), addresses ethics or morality in a narrower sense. Your assignment consists of selections from the introductory material to the whole work and to each part.
• The first selection (handout pp. 1-3, Akad. ed. vol. 6, pp. 218-221) sets out the basic distinction between the two parts of the work, the difference between juridical duties to perform (or refrain from) particular actions and ethical duties to act from certain motives. Notice that an action can be subject to both: I may have a juridical duty to perform (or refrain from) it and an ethical duty to do so because this is my duty.
• The selection from the introduction to the Doctrine of Right (handout pp. 4-7; Akad. pp. 229-232) says more about the scope of “Right” in Kant’s sense (the German word Recht may be translated in various contexts as ‘right’, ‘law’, or ‘justice’ and Kant has aspects of all of these in mind), sets out a general principle of Right, and extends the idea to one of “universal reciprocal compulsion.”
• The selections from the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue (handout pp. 8-16; Akad. pp. 379-82, 385-6, 390-1, 399-401, 401-405) are more varied in content. The first (handout pp. 8-10) lays out the scope of ethics in this narrower sense, focusing on the idea of “end which is a duty.” The next two selections (handout pp. 10-12) say more about this idea and link the difference between Right and Virtue to the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties in the Grounding. In the final pair of selections (handout pp. 12-16; from Akad. pp. 339-405), Kant says things about moral feeling and virtue that can help to distinguish his views from those of Mencius on the one hand and Plato and Aristotle on the other.
• Kant’s article “On a Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns” (pp. 63-67 in the Hackett edition of Grounding; Akad. ed. vol. 8, pp. 425-430) can help to distinguish his views from those who focus the ethical evaluation of actions on their consequences. Kant’s treatment of the example he considers rests on a distinction between acts which “do wrong” and ones which cause “harm.” If we do no wrong—e.g., we tell the truth—we do not “do harm” since any harm that results is caused “by accident” (i.e., is incidental to our action and not part of what we did). Notice also his account of the application of morality in a political system (pp. 66f; Akad. p. 429), which implies that its concrete application will not involve making exceptions to moral principles.