Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) sought to create an ethical model that was independent of any kind of religious moral justification and based only on the capacity to judge inherent in the human being.
For this, Kant elaborated an imperative, an order, so that the individual could use it as a moral compass: the Categorical Imperative.
This imperative is a moral law within the individual, based only on human reason and does not have no connection with supernatural, superstitious or related causes of a State authority or religious.
The philosopher sought to do with philosophy what Nicolaus Copernicus did with the sciences. The Copernican revolution transformed the whole way of understanding the world.
Kantian ethics is developed, above all, in the book Metaphysical foundation of morals (1785). In it, the author seeks to establish a rational basis for duty.
Christian Morals and Kantian Morals
Kant was largely influenced by the ideals of the Enlightenment, fundamentally secular. The Enlightenment broke with all authority-based knowledge. Thought should be an autonomous faculty, free from the shackles imposed by religion, above all, by the thought of
medieval church.Kant reinforces this idea by stating that only autonomous thinking could lead individuals to enlightenment and adulthood. Maturity in Kant is not related to age, or civil majority, it is the independence of individuals based on their rational capacity to decide for themselves what duty is.
Kantian morality is opposed to Christian morality, in which duty is understood as a heteronomy, a norm coming from the outside in, based on the Scriptures or religious teachings.
Two things that fill my soul with growing admiration and respect: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.
Kant's ethics is based solely and exclusively on Reason, rules are established from the inside out based on human reason and its ability to create rules for its own conduct.
This guarantees the secularism, independence of religion, and the autonomy, independence of norms and laws, of Kantian morality. Kant sought to replace the authority imposed by the Church with the authority of Reason.
See too: ethic and moral.
Kant's Categorical Imperative
The philosopher sought to establish a moral formula for resolving questions relating to action. The Categorical Imperative, throughout Kant's works, appears formulated in three different ways.
Each of the three formulations complement each other and form the central axis of Kantian morality. In it, actions must be guided by reason, always leaving the particular, the individual action, to the universal, the moral law:
1. Act as if the maxim of your action were to be erected by your will into the universal law of Nature.
In the first formulation, individual action must have as its principle the idea of being able to become a law of Nature
The laws of Nature are universal and necessary, all beings abide by them, there is no alternative. Like the law of gravity, life cycles and other laws that subject all beings and is unquestionable.
Human reason is capable of judging, independently of external determinations (religion or civil law), whether an action is right for everyone.
2. Act in such a way that you treat humanity, both in yourself and in the person of others, always as an end and never as a means.
In this second formulation, Kant reinforces the idea that humanity must always be the goal of ethics. All actions must be subordinated to respect for humanity.
This humanity is represented both in the person of the agent, the one who performs the action, and in people who suffer the action directly or indirectly. Respecting yourself and respecting others is a form of respect for humanity.
In this way, a human being can never be understood as an instrument to reach any kind of goals. Humanity is the end of actions and never a means.
Kant, at that moment, contradicts, for example, the idea that "the ends justify the means" or any utilitarian view of ethics.
3. Act as if the maxim of your action should serve as a universal law for all rational beings.
The third and last formulation accounts for human rationality, the capacity to judge and act determined by an end.
In it, Kant separates human beings from other beings in Nature. Nature acts determined by causes, this causes that. While rational beings determine their will according to the ends
The agent must take as a principle the idea that his action can serve as a law for all people. That is, based on reason, the good deed is the one that is in conformity with the duty.
the action by duty
For Kant, the good will is the one that wants what it owes. That is, goodwill guided by reason is in accordance with duty and wants the good.
Reason understands what duty is and the human being can choose to act in accordance with this duty or not. However, the moral action will always be the action of duty.
Therefore, the action must be understood as an end in itself, and never based on its consequences. It is action for action and duty for duty, never with a view to any other end.
He believed that only in this way could human beings be fully free and stated:
Free will and will subject to moral laws are one and the same thing.
Thus, Kant's ethics is presented based on the idea of duty. THE ethic which is based on duty is called deontological ethics. Deontology derives from the Greek deon, which means "ought". Deontology would be the "science of duty".
See too: Moral values.
Kant's Ethics and Deontology
Kantian deontology is opposed to the ethical, teleological tradition. In it, one rationally comes to the conclusion that duty is understood as the purpose of the action itself, breaking with the teleological tradition of ethics, which judges actions according to their purpose (in Greek, telos).
Traditional teleological ethics is based on the idea of the purpose of action. For tradition, actions are moral when related to their end, which is determined as the objective of human actions.
To the greek philosophers, a eudaimonia it was the telos, or the goal of human actions. That is, actions are good when they lead to the greatest end which is happiness.
At christian philosophy O telos is salvation, good deeds are those that are not considered sin and would not stand as an obstacle to a good life after death, would not lead to an eternity of suffering.
for the utilitarianism, the purpose of human actions is pleasure. A pleasurable life without suffering would be a moral life.
| Deontology | Teleology | |
|---|---|---|
| Rationale | deon, "to owe" | telos, "goal" |
| stream of thought |
|
|
Lies as an Ethical Problem
According to Kantian ethics, Reason shows, for example, that lying is not fair. A lie cannot be taken as a law. In a world where everyone lied would tend to chaos and it would not be possible to determine the truth.
And, also, when a lie is told, the agent does not respect humanity in itself, using an unfair means to have some kind of benefit. On the other hand, it does not respect humanity in the other, denying it the right to the truth and using it as an instrument, which by its good faith, believes in something false and will be led to act in a determined manner.
A lie, whatever its motivation, would never pass the scrutiny of the Categorical Imperative. This idea raises many. Among them, the best known was proposed by Benjamin Constant (1767-1830), a French politician.
Constant uses the example of the murderer who knocks on the door of the house where his victim is hiding and asks whoever attends him if the victim is inside the house.
Should the person who answers the door lie, depriving the murderer of the right to the truth to save a life? Or should I, based on the Categorical Imperative, tell the truth because it is a duty?
Kant claims that the Categorical Imperative does not prevent anyone from lying and the person who answered the door could lie to the murderer, but it should be clear that this was not a moral action and could be subject to some kind of punishment.
In the Spanish series Merlí, the main character seeks to reflect with students on this issue related to Kantian morality:
See too: Aristotelian Ethics.
Bibliographic references
Foundation of Moral Metaphysics - Immanuel Kant
Critique of Pure Reason - Immanuel Kant
Invitation to Philosophy - Marilena Chauí
Introduction to the History of Philosophy - Danilo Marcondes