Great Ideas of Philosophy

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2. Decisions thus grounded are non-moral, because they arise from our natures not as rational beings butmerely as human beings: They are essentially reactions.B. The categorical imperative, on the other hand, declares an action to be morally necessary in itself, withoutreference to any purpose.1. Morality begins with a rational and autonomous being in the intelligible realm, where we are called onto have reasons for action.2. We must find a rule or precept or principle that guides actions of a given kind and that is universal.IV. The categorical imperative is not tied to a particular desire or impulse or motive; rather, it asserts its own moralauthority.A. One of the characteristics of a moral precept is that it’s universalizable, not tied to a particular conditionand, hence, dependent on the contingent facts of the natural world.B. Moral maxims, as reasons for acting, are applicable to all situations in which generically that given kind ofaction might take place.1. The categorical imperative is not tied to a particular desire or impulse or motive; rather, it asserts itsown moral authority.2. The authority of the imperative is contained in the maxim itself, not something that it brings about, notsome contingent outcome.C. John Stuart Mill believed that Kant’s categorical imperative was a license to perform absolutely hideousacts.1. Kant’s pure categories of the understanding do not supply content but the framework governing thepossibility of understanding.2. Kant advised that we “act in such a way that the maxim of your action would, if you were able, beinstituted as a universal law of nature.”3. What troubled Mill was the prospect of, say, an arsonist invoking the categorical imperative andwishing to install as a universal law of nature the successful destruction of property by fire.D. This fear can arise only from a misunderstanding of Kant’s entire argument.1. Any ignoble end or any end whatever tied to considerations of pleasure or keen desire or emotioncomes under the heading of a hypothetical imperative, not a categorical imperative.2. The imperative is a law the will gives to itself. There are sufficient resources within Kantian moralthought to rule out arson as a candidate universal law!E. Kant offers another version of the categorical imperative: “Man is never merely a means to an end, butalways an end unto himself.”1. To use another person as a means or a tool is to deny that person the very moral autonomy on which“right” and “wrong” become possible.2. To do so would mean that you qualify for the same treatment. As Abraham Lincoln said, “As I wouldnot be a slave, I would not be a master.”3. Kant is famous for concluding from this that one must never lie. If Smith lies to Jones to get Jones todo something that Jones would not do if properly informed, Smith trumps Jones’s moral autonomy,thus violating the categorical imperative.V. Kant’s epitaph summarizes much about him: “The starry sky above him, the moral law within him.” Kant givesus moral law, not as a means to seek pleasure or avoid pain, but as a way of doing the right thing and, thus,substantiating ourselves as moral beings.Recommended Reading:Kant, I. Critique of Practical Reason. Cambridge, 1997.———. Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. H. Paton, trans. Cambridge University Press, 1998.32©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership
Questions to Consider:1. A hypothetical: Only five persons can survive in the lifeboat, but there are six still alive after the ocean liner hassunk. Summarize how Kant’s moral precepts would determine the course of action.2. If you would not kill five innocent persons to save another, explain whether you would kill a thousand innocentpersons to save the world.©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 33
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Daniel N. Robinson, Ph.D.Philosophy
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Lecture OneFrom the Upanishads to H
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E. The Upanishads would merge us wi
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2. Despite their oracles, priests,
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4. Looking at geometry, we are told
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E. The contribution of pre-Socratic
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of the mystery of earth itself impe
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Lecture SixHerodotus and the Lamp o
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Lecture SevenSocrates on the Examin
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Xenophon. Memorabilia. Cornell Univ
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II. A philosopher is engaged in the
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Lecture NineCan Virtue Be Taught?Sc
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Lecture TenPlato’s Republic⎯Man
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Annas, J. “Classical Greek Philos
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III. The dominant school of Greek m
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1. Epistemonikon is a special featu
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Timeline800-600 B.C.E. ............
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1705...............................
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1873...............................
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Functionalism: The view that consci
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Tabula rasa: A blank slate. In the
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progress in one of its most summoni
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John Locke (1632-1704): Physician a
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The Great Ideas ofPhilosophy, 2 nd
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Table of ContentsThe Great Ideas of
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Lecture ThirteenAristotle on Friend
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C. Aristotle is recovering the Home
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III. The problem of conduct is then
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C. The Stoic account relies on the
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Lecture SixteenThe Stoic Bridge to
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Recommended Reading:Bede. A History
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III. Roman law successfully permitt
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Lecture EighteenThe Light Within⎯
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B. Augustine approaches the problem
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B. Very early, the Islamic commitme
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Lecture TwentySecular Knowledge⎯T
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IV. The third great institutional c
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1. Scholasticism was an attempt to
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Lecture Twenty-TwoScholasticism and
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E. Further, to the intellectual vir
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historical volumes tell Florentines
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Lecture Twenty-FourLet Us Burn the
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Page 96 and 97: Apatheia: Freedom from pathos and s
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Page 100 and 101: Biographical NotesAeschylus (525-45
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Page 104 and 105: Socrates (c. 469-399 B.C.): Greek p
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Page 117 and 118: Lecture Twenty-EightHobbes and the
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Page 123 and 124: Lecture ThirtyNo Matter? The Challe
Page 125 and 126: Lecture Thirty-OneHume and the Purs
Page 127 and 128: Lecture Thirty-TwoThomas Reid and t
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Page 133 and 134: Lecture Thirty-FourThe Federalist P
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Page 139: Lecture Thirty-SixMoral Science and
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Page 147 and 148: Apatheia: Freedom from pathos and s
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Page 151 and 152: Biographical NotesAeschylus (525-45
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Page 161 and 162: Scope:The Great Ideas of Philosophy
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Page 169 and 170: Lecture FortyThe Aesthetic Movement
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Page 177 and 178: Lecture Forty-ThreeDarwin and Natur
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Page 183 and 184: Lecture Forty-FiveThe Freudian Worl
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Questions to Consider:1. Conclude w
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III. As long as we subscribe to a
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Timeline800-600 B.C.E. ............
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1705...............................
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1873...............................
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Functionalism: The view that consci
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Tabula rasa: A blank slate. In the
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progress in one of its most summoni
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John Locke (1632-1704): Physician a
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The Great Ideas ofPhilosophy, 2 nd
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Table of ContentsThe Great Ideas of
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Lecture Forty-NineAlan Turing in th
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C. Searle thinks that the missing i
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3. Even activities could be simulat
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B. The inclination to classify is a
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Lecture Fifty-TwoPhilosophy of Scie
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V. These debates illustrate a far l
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1. The two had in common the idea t
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Questions to Consider:1. What does
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C. Locke and others emphasized that
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Lecture Fifty-FiveWhat Makes a Prob
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B. Kant suggests that the moral law
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1. Proponents have argued that so m
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Lecture Fifty-SevenOn the Nature of
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2. So far as it can coexist with th
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3. Slavery is commonplace in all of
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3. Does the just-war theorist have
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B. The quadrivium comprised arithme
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2. He argues that the former is pre
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1. The objects of the knowable worl
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etween a world of beauty and one of
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⎯⎯⎯. On Free choice of Will.
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Herodotus. The Persian Wars. G. Raw
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———. Toward a Science of Huma
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