Great Ideas of Philosophy

Lecture Thirty-SixMoral Science and the Natural WorldScope: The empiricistic-sentimentalist tradition “naturalized” morality by grounding it in certain human instincts,sentiments, and passions. Kant rejects this class of theory. But Kant’s analysis of this feature of empiricismled him to conclude that it was hopelessly defective as a moral theory, because it failed to address just whatit is about an act that locates it in the moral domain in the first place. Morality presupposes freedom of acertain kind, which by its very nature, removes it from the context of natural, causal determination.OutlineI. Hume had made a strong case for the proposition that the grounds on which we judge things to be good or badis not some abstract external moral reality, but the manner in which the event in question affects us cellularlyand physiologically.A. Hume’s moral theory arises from his epistemology. Once the problem of knowledge is “solved” in favorof impressions and ideas, moral issues can be collapsed into questions about impressions and ideas.1. But “since morals, therefore, have an influence on the actions and affections, it follows that theycannot be deriv’d from reason, and that because reason alone, as we have already prov’d, can neverhave any such influence.”2. “Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in thisparticular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.”B. The principal adversary to latter-day versions of utilitarianism is in the form of moral theories patternedafter Kant’s and referred to as deontological theories.1. Central to any deontological moral theory is the idea that it takes the imperative of certain moralprecepts to be unconditional (that is, a given action is right or wrong under all circumstances).2. Deontological moral theories are explicitly opposed to utilitarian theories, to the idea that something isright because it achieves good or desirable outcomes.II. Kant accepted an essentially scientific conception of human nature but rejected the proposition that the merelynatural dimensions of human life exhaust the characteristics of our humanity.A. However, in addition to being subject to the laws of nature, human beings are also rational beings. Whatthat means is that in addition to occupying the natural realm, we occupy what Kant calls the intelligiblerealm.1. In the intelligible realm, we account for events not by invoking physical causes but by examiningreasons.2. We understand the course of action taken in the intelligible realm by understanding the reasons thatguide the action.B. The other feature central to Kant’s moral theory is autonomy of the will.1. If our actions were entirely determined by our physical constitutions, they would simply be reactions.2. Autonomy is the necessary condition for any moral ascriptions or judgments to apply to any actions.C. Kant argues that we arrive at the concept of freedom via our intuitive awareness of moral law.1. The means by which the concept is reached is rational, not empirical. There can be no “scientific”proof of freedom.2. ”Laws of freedom” sounds contradictory, but only because one thinks of laws in the scientific sense ofstrict determinism.3. The morally autonomous person is one whose freedom is governed by laws he gives himself.III. The reasons to act in one way or another are of two sorts: hypothetical imperatives and categorical imperatives.A. If the choice of one alternative over another is made to attain a specific end, it is called a hypotheticalimperative.1. Hypothetical imperatives are tied to a particular context and to the needs and desires of naturalcreatures under the press of the need to survive, to avoid pain and gain pleasure.©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 31