Great Ideas of Philosophy

B. Kant suggests that the moral law is a categorical imperative, an imperative that applies come what may.Kant expresses the categorical imperative in several ways, one of them forbidding the use of another moralbeing merely as a tool, but always and only as an end in himself.C. Kant’s moral philosophy bases morality on reason and, thus, reserves the moral domain to creatures whoare rational. This still leaves open the problem of moral relativism, in that human rationality routinely leadsto different conclusions on matters of moral consequence.VI. To gain greater clarity, we might consider the realist–anti-realist positions.A. The realist takes the laws of science as really operating in the world, not as shorthand for perceptualregularities or abstractions based on an idealized world that has never been.B. The anti-realist regards the laws as having great usefulness to aid our predictions and descriptions, but astools of investigation, not as discoveries about reality itself.C. Just as the scientific realist regards the properties of the physical world to be mind-independent, so, too,does the moral realist regard the moral properties of reality to be independent of human reason, passion, orperception.1. The moral realist—at least a radical one—is prepared to argue that the cosmos itself includes relationalfeatures and requirements constitutive of a moral order.2. Human perception and judgment might pick this up faintly and incompletely, though progressively.3. If beauty has a comparable independence, a set of properties waiting for the prepared mind torecognize them, then perhaps Socrates was on the right track after all in contending that truth, beauty,and justice were not only real but, finally, the same.Recommended Reading:Hare, R. M. Moral Thinking. Oxford, 1981.Mackie, J. L. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Penguin, 1977.Robinson, D. N. Praise and Blame: Moral Realism and Its Application. Princeton, 2002.Questions to Consider:1. What is a “moral” sentiment?2. Is there any fact that could entail a moral “ought”?3. How does Kant’s conception of a “duty to the law” work when the law itself is immoral?22©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership