so I thought I'd start this video on K's deontological ethics by telling you a bit about the man himself so you know what you're in for so Emanuel K was born in konigsburg in Germany now known as kaliningrad in Russia in 1724 he lived there his entire life he never married and barely traveled more than a few miles from Kingsburg ever he was only about 5 foot tall and had a deformed chest and can't live the very kind of rigid lifestyle adhering to a strict routine and the uh classic example of this routine is his daily walks K took precisely the same walk at precisely the same time every day and was so precise in doing this that the towns people supposedly set their watches by him at least that's the myth so K was a university lecturer and another story I heard about him was that he once refused to continue a lecture because one of his students had a button missing from his jacket and this was distracting him in amongst his routine of lectures and walks he wrote massive long complicated books like the uh critique of pure reason let me read you a bit the synthesis of the conditioned with its conditioned and the whole series of the latter does not in the major premise carry with it any limitation to time or any concept of succession the empirical synthesis on the other hand that is the series of the conditions in appearance as subsumed in the minor premise is necessarily successive the members of the series being given only as following upon one another in time I have therefore in this case no right to assume the absolute totality of the synthesis and of the series thereby represented so imagine that for 700 pages and you've got the uh critique of pure reason but anyway K is considered one of the alltime greats of philosophy he's probably in that kind of s here with the likes of Plato and dayar and K's moral philosophy like the man himself uh is similarly rigid it's a deontological approach which says that we have a duty to follow various moral rules such as don't lie don't steal and so on and while there's a bit of um kind of convoluted reasoning to work out what these rules are the theory isn't quite as complicated as you might expect from that introduction so um now you know a bit about the man himself self let's talk about C's deontological [Music] [Applause] ethics so deontology as in can deontological ethics is all about Duty and for K we have a duty to follow various moral rules such as don't steal don't lie keep your promises and so on but before we go into these rules a bit more about Duty and how this relates to what's morally good so in the last video we looked at utilitarianism and saw how utilitarianism or at least hedonistic utilitarianism defines good in terms of happiness or pleasure but Camp would say that happiness or pleasure is not in itself a good thing you know if someone gets pleasure from torturing an animal for example then that pleasure is probably not a good thing likewise um knowledge is not good in itself because you know if you use your knowledge to build a bomb or whatever then that's not good either so whether pleasure or uh knowledge is considered a good thing according to K has to be qualified instead he says the only thing that's good without qualification that's good in itself is the Good Will so the good will according to can means to act for the sake of Duty and this just means to do your duty because it's your duty or to do the right thing because it's the right thing and not for some other reason so say some somebody always tells the truth they never lie then this person is acting in accordance with Duty because you have a duty never to lie but he doesn't necessarily have good will if he doesn't if the reason he tells the truth is for example because he wants people to trust him or because it's good for business or whatever so there's a kind of difference between the good willll which means to act for the sake of Duty and simply acting in accordance with duty this is a different between doing the right thing and doing the right thing because it's the right thing so the good will means to act for the sake of Duty to follow the moral law and do the right thing because it's the right thing but how do we know what the right thing is and how do we know what these moral laws are well that is where the categorical imperative comes in in K's words the categorical imperative says to act only according to that Maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law really had a away with words didn't he anyway um in plain English this is like saying to only act according to rules that you could want everybody to follow all the time so whenever you make a decision a moral decision imagine K is there asking you you know how would you like it if everybody did that and that's essentially the categorical imperative but this being can it's never as simple as that and so there's a bunch of additional jargon to go over the first of which is this distinction between a contradiction in conception and a contradiction in will and you can think of these as kind of two tests you can apply to your Maxim I the rule you're acting on to see whether it passes the categorical imperative and uh thus whether it's morally acceptable according to K so firstly contradiction in conception let's say I'm in the shop and I want to steal a delicious drink from the fridge my Maxim here the general rule that I'm acting on would be to steal so can I will that this Maxim to steal be universalized that everybody sto stuff all the time no says can because if everybody followed the maxim to steal if stealing was a universal rule that everybody followed all the time then it wouldn't even be possible to steal it leads to a contradiction in conception so if you think about it an act of stealing is to take something that belongs to somebody else that they have a right over but if stealing was a universal law if it was always okay to take somebody else's property then in what sense would it be their property for you to steal in the first place you know if everybody's following this rule to steal then I have just as much right over your stuff or your stuff as you do over me and so a world in which everybody can steal stuff all the time is a world in which nobody owns anything where nobody has any property rights and if nobody owns anything then it's not even possible to steal so the maxim to steal leads to a contradiction in conception if everybody stole stuff as a general rule then it wouldn't be possible and so K says we have a perfect Duty never to steal that because it leads to a contradiction in conception stealing is always wrong the examples can't gives of perfect duties or maxims that leads to contradictions in conception when universalized are uh don't lie or lie lying leads to contradiction exception is what I'm saying so you have the perfect Duty never to lie and uh to keep your promises K says uh you know if you K gives the examples of keeping promises and uh never telling lies as other examples of perfect duties so like with the stealing example K says that uh the maxim to lie to tell a lie leads to a contradiction in conception when universalized and the reasoning is similar because the point or the end of telling a lie is to get the other person to believe you but if everybody lied all the time if lying was a universal Max that everybody followed then there's some sense in which it wouldn't be possible to tell tell a lie because if the point of telling a lie is to get the other person to believe you and everybody lied all the time then no one would believe these lies and so again there's a kind of contradiction in conception there if everybody tells lies as a universal law or rule then it's in some sense not possible to lie and thus we also have a perfect Duty never to lie so again if something leads to a contradiction inconception such as stealing lying or breaking promises then K says we have a perfect Duty not to do that thing in other words this Duty applies all the time there's no exceptions no whatever so that was contradiction in conception but if your Maxim passes this first test you're not okay to do it just yet according to K you next have to consider whether it leads to a contradiction in will and K gives two examples to illustrate what he means by this a duty for self-improvement and a duty to help other people so let's look at the second example our duty to help other people so let's say you know somebody needs my help and they ask me to help them but I can't be bothered well my Maxim here is not to help other people in need so can this Maxim not to help other people be universalized well it doesn't lead to a contradiction in conception like stealing or telling lies so it passes this first test but says K we still can't rationally will that the maxim not to help others be a universal law because it's self-defeating in a different way although not logically contradictory it contradicts our own kind of ends or goals or desires so for example we often have goals or ends as K would call them that require the help of other people um you know as a baby for example you rely on the help of others to feed you and so if you wield the maxim not to help other people then it wouldn't be good would it um or let's say you're I'm sure you probably like living in a house assuming you're not homeless so your end or goal you want to have a house basically but you probably couldn't build a house all by yourself for example and so if you want a house if that's your end or goal then it would perhaps be self-defeating to will the maxim not to help others because you wouldn't be able to achieve this end of having a house if everybody followed this Maxim if a maxim when universalized leads to a contradiction in will like this if it creates a world that somehow um contradicts our own ends and is self-defeating in the sense that it would prevent us from achieving these ends or achieving our goals then K says it creates an imperfect Duty so in this example we have an imperfect duty to help other people and unlike a perfect Duty an imperfect duty means we have a duty to sometimes though not always follow this Maxim so we have a duty to sometimes help other people in need um a potential issue I think is that K doesn't really get too specific about when we should follow these imperfect duties and when we can ignore them um but anyway in short the categorical imperative or at least this Universal Law formula that we've went over went over you know what I'm saying is all about acting according to maxims that could be applied universally but K's not quite finished yet um one final bit of jargon to go over before we start evaluating the theory is that K gives a second formulation of the categorical imperative known as the humanity formula or the end in itself formula and this isn't something in addition to the categorical imperative or the Universal Law formula of the categorical imperative that we just went over um it's rather supposed to be a kind of more practical way of getting at the same point anyway the humanity formula says act in such a way that you treat Humanity whether in your own person or in the person of another always at the same time as an end and never simply as a me anyway the humanity formula basically just says don't use people so can't applies the humanity formula to the same examples as he did with the Universal Law formula that we went over previously and he gets the same results so telling lies for example um I don't know where this example came from if I made it up myself or you know some example perhaps let me know if you know where it comes from anyway um imagine uh you lie to some old Widow and pretend to love her in order to marry her and get her money well in this case you're using this person as a means to achieve your end of getting money the person you're marrying might have the end or the goal of finding a partner who genuinely loves them but by lying to them you're removing their ability to choose this end if this person had all the information if you told them the truth then they might choose to act differently if you told them the truth they might not want someone who just is marrying them for their money presumably they wouldn't but by lying to this person you're depriving them of the ability to make this Choice you're kind of undermining their autonomy as a rational being and undermining their ability to achieve their own ends so you're treating this person solely as a means to get money without acknowledging the other person's ends or goals which might conflict with yours just as a bit of extra detail uh you might be thinking that we use people as means to ends all the time so for example you might say that when I bought this alien that I used the shopkeeper as a means to achieve my end of acquiring an alien but this doesn't violate the humanity formula because although I did in some sense use the shopkeeper as a means I did so whilst acknowledging the shopkeeper's own end which was presumably to make a profit I mean you could just as easily argue that the shopkeeper used me as a means to uh make a profit and so this example where you're buying an alien doesn't violate the humanity formula because you're doing a deal you're doing a fair deal where each side acknowledges the end of the other person so whilst there is in some sense you in which you use the other person as a means you're not treating them solely as a means you're treating them as a as a means whilst acknowledging their own ends in my case to get an alien and in the shopkeeper's case to make a profit if I stole the alien for example then that would be a different story because in that case I'm not acknowledging the shopkeeper's own ends I'm not giving the shopkeeper an opportunity to have a say in the matter you know even if he'd have willingly given me the alien for free by stealing it from him I'm kind of removing his ability to make a choice and so undermining his rational agency and failing to acknowledge the shopkeeper as someone who has their own ends or their own goals so the upshot of the theory whether it be the Universal Law formula or the humanity formula of the categorical imperative is that we end up with a bunch of moral laws or maxims for Action you know don't steal don't lie keep your promises and so on and this is essentially what morality is according to C we have a duty to follow these moral laws so the first objection to can theological ethics goes back to this idea of the Good Will and if you remember from a second ago the Good Will means to act for the sake of Duty so the good will according to can means to act for the sake of Duty see and uh K says that good will is the source of moral worth again if you do the right thing because you want to then you don't necessarily have good willll even though your actions are in accordance with Duty and you do the right thing your actions aren't necessarily good because you don't have the good will they're not motivated by Duty so let's put this account to the test with a few examples so imagine two fathers father a and father B and let's use the same example from the previous video of teaching your daughter how to ride a bicycle so father a genuinely loves his daughter and enjoys spending time with her and that's why he teaches her to ride her bike because he loves her and enjoys seeing her learn and grow whereas father be doesn't love his daughter perhaps he even hates spending time with her and yet he teaches his daughter how to ride her bike anyway because he recognizes he has a duty to do so so who's the better father here father a who teaches his daughter how to ride his bike because he loves her or father B who teaches his daughter how to ride her bike because he has a duty to do so I think most people would have the intuition that it's better father a is the better father it's better to teach your daughter to ride a bicycle and spend time with your children for example out of genuine love rather than simply because you have a duty to do so or at the very least that father A's actions here are good that it's good that father a loves his daughter and teaches her to ride her bike because he loves her but K's Theory says the opposite although father A's actions are in accordance with Duty they're not necessarily morally praiseworthy or good because they're not motivated by Duty instead K would say that father B the father who spends time with his daughter purely out of Duty despite the fact that he doesn't love her is the better father and the more morally desirable situation because again father be has the good will even though he doesn't actually love his daughter another quick example to illustrate this point so imagine you're ill in hospital and your friend comes to visit you how would you feel if they told you that the only reason they were visiting you was because they had a duty to that they didn't actually care how you're doing but they just forced themselves to come visit you because it was the right thing to do that would probably be a bit awkward wouldn't it and so this is the objection the objection is that there are other motivations that have moral worth besides the Goodwill that it's good to spend time with your daughter because you genuinely love her for example or that it's good to spend time with your friends and you know visit them when they're in hospital for example because of friendship and because you genuinely care about them that these motivations are inherently good and morally valuable whereas K's Theory says these motivations have no moral worth the only morally good motivation is the Good Will to be to be motivated by Duty and so can theory is perhaps overly cold and calculating in that it ignores the goodness and moral value of motivation such as love friendship and kindness so I don't know if this objection was put to K while he was alive or if he wrote anything about it but K's response to this objection would again probably focus on this difference between acting in accordance with Duty and acting for the sake of Duty K would surely say there's nothing wrong with being motivated by these other factors there's nothing wrong with being motivated by love or friendship or kindness or whatever as long as we don't choose our actions for the sake of these other motivations as long as we always choose our actions for the sake of Duty here's one way we might defend K's stance here so returning to the example of the two fathers who teach their daughters how to ride their bike remember father a teach te his daughter how to ride her bike because he genuinely loves her whereas father B does so out of Duty well Camp might say if father a is only motivated by love and how he feels for his daughter then what happens if he's having a bad day say and he doesn't feel this strong love for his daughter anymore well in that case presumably he would no longer do the right thing if his motivation is only love and enjoyment of spending time with his daughter then if that motivation is no longer there then you can't rely on him to do the right thing whereas father B okay it's not ideal that he kind of hates his life and doesn't enjoy spending time with his daughter and doesn't love her while that's not ideal you can at least rely on Father be to do the right thing because he has the good will he does the right thing because it's the right thing regardless of how he feels and regardless of his emotions C would also say that we can't control our emotions we can't choose whether we feel L for our family for example or choose to feel genuine concern for our friend who's ill in hospital and so it's unfair to call someone a bad person or assign moral blame to them for lacking these motivations and by the same token we can't praise someone for feeling love or care for others because this isn't something they have control over instead would say morality and Duty are about what we're in control of I.E our actions and Good Will means that we'll choose the morally correct actions that will do what's right at least to the fullest extent we're able to perhaps we can imagine a third option father C who is motivated by Duty and has the good will but also loves his daughter so father sees decision to teach his daughter how to ride her bike for example would essentially be overdetermined he chooses to spend time with his daughter because of Duty and so he has the Good Will and so he's morally praiseworthy according to K but even if he didn't have the Good Will he'd still choose to spend time with his daughter anyway because he also loves her and would be motivated by love so this is kind of The Best of Both Worlds he's motivated by duty but he also loves his daughter so in general K doesn't have a problem with being motivated by these other factors such as love friendship and kindness and so on as long as we don't choose our actions because of these motivations as long as we're ultimately motivated by duty but I suppose if you really wanted to push this objection you could point out that K would have a hard time saying that father C the one who both loves his daughter and has the Goodwill is any better than father B the one who doesn't love his daughter but has the good willll because again K's Theory assigns no moral value to the motivations of Love friendship and kindness and so on and so given that both fathers are equally motivated by Duty K kind of doesn't have any grounds to see to say that one is better than the other anyway let's move on to the next [Music] objection okay so moving on to the actual maxims implied by K's Theory the moral rules for Action we might ask uh what do we do in the case of a conflict between duties a situation where two maxims contradict each other for example we saw how K would say we have a perfect Duty never to steal because the maxim to steal something leads to a contradiction inconception in a world where everybody follows the maxim to steal it's not possible to steal because the concept of private property would break down similarly K says we have a perfect duty to always keep our promises because if everybody always broke their promises then it wouldn't be the point of making a promise would break down because the point of making a promise is to get someone to trust that you'll do what you say but if everybody broke their promises as a matter of universal law if everybody just always broke their promises then the concept of making a promise would have no meaning and so again this lead to a contradiction inconception so here we have two perfect duties a perfect Duty never to steal and a perfect duty to keep our promises so what happens if the only way you can keep your promise is to steal something what if for example you promised to get your friend a copy of metalogic and introduction to The Meta theory of standard first order logic by Jeffrey Hunter but some Maniac has bought all the copies of metalogic in the world and is hoarding them for himself a bit like if you've seen it those people who were buying all the copies of Jerry Maguire on VHS to build a pyramid out of them and so the only way you can keep your promise is by stealing from this Maniac or perhaps more simply you promise to steal something for your friend and again you have a perfect Duty never to steal and you have a perfect duty to keep your promise PR But whichever action you take is going to mean violating a perfect duty if you keep your promise then you violate your duty never to steal but if you break your promise well then you violate that Duty as well those are your only two options aren't they you either steal it and keep a promise or you don't steal it and you break your promise and so the theory kind of imposs well you might argue that the theory is kind of impossible to follow in practice because it can create these conflicting duties these contradictory duties that are impossible to follow so in response to this challenge can argues that a true conflict between duties is impossible he says if it is a duty to act in accordance with one rule to act in accordance with the opposite rule is not a duty but even contrary to duty and so a collision of Duties and obligations is inconceivable so if you think there's a conflict between duties Camp would say that's just because you haven't worked out what your duties actually are after all our Duties are about what we could rationally will that everybody follow and as mentioned we can't rationally will that everybody follow conflicting duties because that's not logically possible if we worked out what our duties were properly we'd work out duties that are perfectly consistent and without contradiction C would say so returning to the example a minute ago Camp would say the error was in making the promise in the first place again morality is all about uh acting according to maxims that we can will become universal laws and the promise to steal something cannot be made into a universal law because it contradicts our duty never to steal and so there's some sense in which we have a duty not to promise to steal things because it can't be made into a universal law and so K would say a promise to steal something or a promise to lie or whatever is an invalid promise because these promises can't be made into universal laws without contradiction I suppose the metalogic and Jerry Maguire examples are a bit different because it's not like you're explicitly making a promise to steal it just turns out that the only way you can keep this promise is by stealing you know it seems a bit harsh basically to to accuse someone of not formulating their duties correctly because you know how are they supposed to know when they make the promise that this person has bought up all the copies of metalogic but anyway further in metaphysics of morals K talks about the grounds of our obligations and he says when two such grounds conflict with one another practical philosophy says that the stronger ground of obligation prevails and appli to the promising to steal example the grounding of the promise is weaker than the grounding of the duty not to steal the grounding of our duty not to steal is categorical it applies to people at all times and all places it can't be overruled whereas the grounding for the promise here is one that's created by the persons and so the grounding for this particular obligation is weaker than the grounding for our duty not to steal and so the former must give way to the latter again the promise is invalid notice that I've only talked about conflicting perfect duties here duties that arise when our action leads to a contradiction in conception when universalized and this is because this is the more juicy criticism because K says we always have to follow perfect duties that there's no exceptions and so if there's a conflict between perfect duties then this is a big problem for the theory whereas if you had a imperfect Duty that conflicted with a perfect duty this would presumably be quite easy to solve because whereas we always have to follow perfect duties imperfect Duties are something we sometimes follow and so the imperfect Duty would presumably give way to the perfect Duty as for a clash of imperfect duties if such a thing could arise um I don't know if K says anything on this but again he doesn't really say much about when or when we don't have to follow imperfect duties which is potentially a different criticism altogether that K's kind of vague about when we should follow imperfect duties and when it's okay not to follow imperfect duties but anyway that's the com depicting Duty's objection let's move on to the next one so again for the h 100th time morality is all about universalizability for Camp if your Maxim can be applied universally then it's morally permissible but if your Maxim can't be willed as a universal law like lying or stealing then it's wrong according to K so bad equals not universalizable and good or at least morally permissible is universal means you know what I'm saying the ven diagram basically for C is that if something can be universalized then it's morally acceptable whereas if it can't be universalized then it's morally bad according to Camp so this next objection questions whether this really is how it works whether the ven diagrams really do for fall this way so can we think of examples of things that are either morally wrong but can be universalized or things that can't be universalized but aren't morally wrong so let me give you some examples we've already established that stealing is wrong according to K because the maxim to steal leads to a contradiction in conception when universalized but what about if we say my Maxim I'm in the shop again and I like the look of the drink and so I'm thinking I want to steal that drink well obviously I can't steal the drink if my Maxim is to steal but what if I say my Maxim is to steal from shops on a Wednesday morning when your name is Christian well in that case my Maxim what did I say to steal from shops on a Wednesday morning when your name is Christian this Maxim can be universalized the maxim would apply so rarely that it wouldn't lead to a breakdown in the concept of private property like the stealing example did and so in theory Clint should say that it's morally permissible but just because it's a Wednesday and your name is Christian doesn't make it okay to steal so this kind of challenges this relationship between universalizability and morality that K's Theory insists on response to this example K would probably point out that these extra conditions uh the time of day and my name are morally irrelevant to my choice here they're not really part of my Maxim so you know I don't choose what time of day it is and I don't choose what my name is and so adding in these extra conditions um isn't my isn't part of my actual Maxim if we were to apply the categorical imperative to my real Maxim which is to steal then we get the correct answer that it's wrong to steal the drink or whatever regardless of whether your name is Christian or if it's a Wednesday morning or whatever but we can push this objection further with other examples so where stealing from shops on Wednesday morning when your name is Christian was an example of a maxim that can be universalized but is morally wrong we can come up with examples of things that aren't morally wrong but that can't be universalized so Hegel for example argued that the maxim to give money to the poor can't be universalized because if everybody gave money to the poor as a general rule then there'd be no poor people left because we'd have given them the money and so the maxim to help the poor can't be universalized because it leads to a contradiction in conception if everybody gives money to the poor then there's no poor left to give to and so you can't do it um so K should say that giving money to poor people is morally wrong because it leads to a contradiction and conception but it's clearly not wrong to give money to the poor it's good even and so this again challenges this link between universalizability and morality because giving money to the poor can't be universalized but it's not morally wrong it's morally good even or I'm taking the big test and my goal is to score in the top 10% of students so my Maxim for Action is to be in the top 10% of the class or whatever well again this Maxim can't be universalized because by definition only 10% of the people can be in the top 10% of the class it's not possible for everybody to follow this Maxim and so again Camp would have to say that trying to score in the top 10% of the student is morally wrong because it can't be universalized but again this seems wrong like there's nothing wrong with wanting to be a good student and score in the top 10% of the class so maybe my example of stealing from shops on Wednesday mornings when your name is Christian was a bit of a cheap move but the point it makes that universalizability and morality are not necessarily the same thing potentially remains if we can point to examples of things that are morally wrong but can be universalized or things that can't be universalized that aren't morally wrong then this suggests that K's categorical imperative is not the correct account of morality that just because something is universalizable it doesn't mean it's morally acceptable as K says or just because something can't be universalize that it's morally wrong so the most obvious objection to can theological ethics certainly from a utilitarian perspective is that it ignores the consequences of an action so in the last video we looked at utilitarianism the theory which says that uh what makes things good or bad are the consequences and while there are potential issues for utilitarianism such as that it could justify say torturing an innocent person to please a large prow most people nevertheless have an intuition that consequences are morally important so in that last video I gave the example of stealing a loaf of bread from billionaire Jeff Bezos when you're starving and stealing is the only way to avoid starving to death I think most people have the intuition that in such extreme circumstances like that where it literally means the difference between life and death then stealing is morally acceptable but of course K says we have a perfect Duty never to steal that stealing is never acceptable under any circumstances and so K would say you can't steal the loaf of bread from Jeff or steal anything even if doing so would save your life and it's the same with lying K says we have a perfect Duty never to lie we can't lie under any circumstances and K's commitment to this principle was put to the test by a French philosopher called Benjamin constant who put the following example to Camp so imagine you see your friend being chased by a wouldbe murderer they've got a knife and blood stained clothes or whatever and there's no doubt that they intend to kill your friend and so your friend's knocking at your door and you let them hide from the murderer in your house but then a few minutes later you hear a knock at the door and it's the murderer who asks you if your friend who he intends to kill is there in the house so is it really wrong to lie in this scenario given that the consequences mean life or death is telling lies really such a strict rule that we can't even break it even if it means to avoid somebody being murdered so like I mentioned this exact example was put to camp while he was alive by Benjamin constant and K's response is to stick to his guns that you have to tell the truth even if it means somebody dying I think K does say somewhere that in this particular example saying nothing is an option that remaining silent is consistent with the categorical imperative but that's beside the point the point is that K sticks to his guns and says that perfect Duties are exactly that they are perfect that you can never violate a perfect Duty even in a situation like this just as a bit of a random side note that film uh if you've seen it Liar Liar was on telly the other day I can't lie and I was chuckling to myself thinking about um it's basically can't isn't it you can't tell a lie ever is it good for you I've had better K says that any instance of lying however small harms Humanity because it would bring it about that statements in general find no Credence and hence also that all rights based on contracts become void and lose their force and this is a wrong done to Mankind in general perhaps a less kind of abstract way of Defending telling the truth in this scenario is to argue that it's very difficult to predict the consequences of our actions and we talked a bit about this in the previous video you saving a baby's life might increase pleasure in the short term but what if that baby grew up to become a serial killer then in that case saving the baby's life might actually decrease net pleasure overall anyway K say's a few things along these lines in response to constant and the murderer at the door scenario so in imagine the same scenario as before uh your friend asks to hide in your house and then the murderer asks you if he's in your house well imagine this time that your friend unbeknownst to you snuck out of your house and actually went to the house next door say and so you lie to the murderer or at least you think you lie to the murderer and say he went next door and so as a result of this lie the murderer actually finds your friend and kills them well K says in this scenario if you try to act for the sake of consequences then you should be held partly responsible for those consequences if you uh lie or try to deceive somebody and something bad happens as a result of that deception then you're responsible at least partly for those consequences whereas if you stick to duty and tell the truth you can never be kind of blamed for your actions because you're doing what's right and returning to the Goodwill remember Kent says that the good will is the only thing that's good without qualification that consequences are not good without qualification you know again if you save somebody's life and that person goes on to Massacre 10,000 people then saving that life wasn't such a great thing after all so in short K sticks to his guns and says that morality isn't about consequences morality is about Good Will and Duty and following maxims that can be made into universal laws it's not our job to anticipate the consequences of our actions our job is only to act for the sake of Duty and to do the right thing because it's the right thing if we follow these Universal maxims such as don't lie don't steal and so on then we do the right thing regardless of the consequences that result from following these maxims I suppose we could push this objection further though by kind of upping these Stakes of the example so let's say some Maniac has got a bomb that could kill everybody on planet Earth and he says that can you know tell a lie or I'm going to kill everybody on planet Earth and his only motivation for doing this is just cuz he wants a test K's dedication to the categorical imperative and he means it like he's going to kill everybody andless all K has to do is say like I don't know this is a dog and he saves everybody on planet Earth you know obviously the right thing to do if he really means business is you know to tell a little lie there because it saves everybody on planet Earth but I think uh Camp would probably dig his heels in even in this scenario and tell the truth which Maybe you could say is a weakness of the theory one final objection we're going to look at today comes from Philipa foot and Philipa foot focuses in on can distinction between the categorical imperative I.E the moral law and hypothetical imperatives so hypothetical imperatives are conditional they are a means to an end so for example you should study hard if you want to do well in the exam is a hypothetical imperative because it's conditional on you wanting to do well in the exam if you don't care about doing well in the exam if that isn't your end then you don't have to in uh accept the imperative that you should study likewise um you should leave now if you want to catch the 3:00 train that's a hypothetical imperative because if you don't care about catching the 3:00 train then you don't don't have to leave now so hypothetical imperatives are conditional and kind of uh means to an end and if you don't accept the end or the condition then you don't have to accept the imperative but morality according to K doesn't work like this morality is categorical rather than hypothetical rules such as don't steal don't lie in someone aren't something that applied to some people but not others they're not a means to an end or something that we can choose to either accept or not accept depending on our goals or desires instead there's something that apply to everybody at all times regardless of situation A categorical imperative says K declares an action to be of itself objectively necessary without reference to any other purpose and at first glance this distinction appears to fit with how we use our language so for example should mean something very different in a context like you should leave now if you want to get back before 6 versus a context like you shouldn't you should not steal or you should not lie the form is a hypothetical should that is conditional on our goals and desires where we typically think of the latter as a kind of moral should that again applies to all people uh categorically but foot gives a few examples that question how deep the this difference really is so she gives a few examples of rules of etica to illustrate this for example that handshakes should be brief this imperative that handshake should be brief looks grammatically similar to moral imperatives such as you should help others in in need or you should not steal there's no hypothetical Dimension to either the rules of etiquette or to moral laws even if you don't care about the rules of etiquette for example if you don't care about you know looking like a weirdo then it's still a breach of etiquette to carry on shaking someone's hand for an awkwardly long period of time what then makes the rules of etiquette such as don't shake people's hands for too long any different from moral rules such as don't steal why is it more important to follow a moral rule such as don't steal then it is to follow the rules of etiquette such as don't shake people's hands for too long long what reason do we have to follow the rules of morality that we don't have to follow the rules of etica there's no kind of hypothetical element to the rules of etica and so what makes the rules of etica any different from moral laws why do we feel that a moral law such as don't steal is somehow different from uh the rule of etiquette such as don't shake people's hands for too long the answer foot says is nothing we might feel that the rules of morality are somehow more important than the rules of eut but this feeling is just that it's just a feeling uh we might feel that there's this kind of inescapable moral force that compels us to follow rules such as don't steal don't lie and so on and this Force isn't present in the case of eut but again this feeling is just that it's just a feeling and foot says this might just be a kind of psychological fact due to the way we're taught that moral rules are more important than the rules of etica now K says the reason to follow the categorical imperative is a matter of rationality that it's in some sense irrational to steal or tell lies because these actions lead to contradictions when universalized but foot says why should committing a certain action such as stealing or lying mean that you necessarily will everybody else to act in the same way couldn't it be the case that you are happy for you to steal something or for you to lie whilst willing that everybody else um tells the truth and doesn't steal there's nothing irrational or inconsistent about that such a person says foot could be convicted of villainy but not of inconsistency there's nothing irrational about stealing or lying if you never accepted these rules for yourself in the first place to put it simply foot says that K doesn't provide any real reason why we shouldn't lie or why we shouldn't steal the categorical imperatives don't give us any motivation to follow them it's only hypothetical imperatives such as you should study hard if you want to do well in the exam or you should leave now if you want to get there on time it's only these hypothetical imperatives that provide us a reason to act a certain way categorical imperatives give us give us no reason to follow them and so K gives us no reason why we should follow rules such as don't steal don't lie or whatever so does this mean we should just abandon our duties and go around lying and stealing and killing or whatever well not necessarily says foot our motivations for acting morally are better understood hypothetically she says you know we might help other people because we genuinely care about them for example and this care provides a hypothetical reason a motivation to act correctly and we might accept you know any number of hypothetical moral ends such as truth or Freedom or Justice and accepting these hypothetical moral ends that's what motivates us to do the right thing not some long-winded rationale about universal law contradictions in conception rationality and so on as C claims so foot says that the moral law does not itself provide a reason to follow it as K claims but there are still nevertheless hypothetical reasons why we should follow these moral laws such as don't steal don't lie and so on and this kind of brings us back to the other valuable motivations issue that we started with if you remember father a taught his daughter how to ride a bike because he genuinely loved her and he cared about her whereas father be did so for the sake of Duty a father who teaches his daughter how to ride a bicycle because he genuinely cares about her and because he loves her still does the right thing even if he's never given a moment's thought to whether his Maxim passes the categorical imperative and could be universalized whether it leads to a contradiction inconception or these other Notions even if he's never given a moment's thought to duty we would still say that father a uh behaves morally and so where K says it's all about acting for the sake of Duty we might agree with foot that really morality is more about accepting these hypothetical moral ends you know that it's fine to do your duty for the sake of caring about others or any number of these other hypothetical moral ends such as truth freedom justice or [Music] whatever so to summarize K's deontological ethics the only thing that is good without qualification I.E that's good in itself is the Good Will and Good Will means acting for the sake of Duty choosing to do what's right because it is the right thing to do when we act says k we act according to maxims these maxims are the general rule that would describe our action the categorical imperative or at least the universal law formulation provides two tests we can apply to see whether our Maxim can be made a universal law if it can't be applied universally then it's morally wrong firstly does it lead to a contradiction in conception for example telling a lie if everybody lied then no one would believe lies which defeats the purpose of telling a lie in the first place and so willing the maxim to tell lies as a universal law is in some sense self-defeating or self-contradictory and this creates a perfect Duty never to tell lies then the next test is whether it leads to a contradiction in will for example the maxim not help other people can be universalized without leading to a contradiction in conception but K says we can't rationally will that everybody follow this Maxim not to help other people because it would defeat our own goals or ends you know we sometimes require the help of other people and so if everybody followed this Maxim not to help other people then we wouldn't be able to receive help ourselves and so it would defeat our own purposes our own desires as such K says we have an imperfect duty to help other people in addition to this universal law formulation of the categorical imperative Camp provides the humanity formula as a kind of different or more practical way of working out our duties and the humanity formula says not to treat people solely as means but always as ends so that's the theory and then we looked at some objections such as how K's account of the Good Will leaves no room for other morally valuable motivations such as love or friendship so for example K would say there's nothing morally praiseworthy or good about going to visit your friend in hospital simply because you care about them if you're not motivated by Duty then your actions have no moral worth but this seems perhaps counterintuitive we also considered some counter examples to the categorical imperative the idea that morality is all about universal laws and that universal laws Define morality for example aiming to be in the top 10% of the class can't be made into a universal law but there's nothing morally wrong with aiming to be in the top 10% of the class or a different way we might challenge the link between universal laws and morality is by appealing to consequences because lying can't be made into a universal law K says that telling lies is always wrong regardless of the consequences but this means you can't tell a lie to save someone's life or even to save the lives of everybody on planet Earth and this is perhaps a bit too extreme so that's C's deontological ethics in a nutshell it's often contrasted against utilitarianism as kind of the opposite Theory because where utilitarianism's insistence on consequences means we end up kind of ignoring principles and intentions K Theory kind of goes the other way in that in K's rigid insistence on principles and intentions we end up ignoring the consequences of our action and so I think most people kind of have the intuition that neither of these approaches either the extreme consequentialist approach or the extreme kind of rule-based deontological approach provides the perfect account of morality these theories are too black and white and they fail to account for the sort of nuances and subtleties of everyday life these kind of gray areas and so the next Theory we're going to look at AR aro's virtue ethics is all about these gray areas it's all about the context and the situation and the person it's a much more flexible approach with no absolute rules so uh maybe we really will solve morality once and for all with that episode um I guess uh tune in to find out so that's about it for k d olical ethics uh I hope you enjoyed it uh just a quick rundown of the books as always then we can get out of here so as always you can get my book this is the new version the Third Edition which has uh better explanations and pictures more pictures so [Music] um if you have an old version You Must Destroy it immediately and get the latest version but as for primary sources um can't wrote like a bunch of books on the same topic and with very similar titles so if you want to learn more about K's ethics you can get the critique of practical reason not to be confused with the critique of pure reason of course um the metaphysics of morals which is not this book book I actually bought this book by mistake thinking it was the metaphysics of morals but of course it's the metaphysics of morals and ethics by um basically it's the wrong book so thanks camp and uh probably the only one I would recommend if you you know like reading this stuff grounding for the metaphysics of morals and ethics again not to be confused with the metaphysics of morals and ethics of course and um this version i' well this version this is quite a short essay or pamphlet or book whatever you want to call it and uh even then it's still pretty bit of a SLO but yeah this is what I base this video around um probably I can't say I've read all these other ones but this is probably the one to get not particularly long I think it's the one that everybody tends to reference and what's good about my version I have here it has on a supposed right to lie because of philanthropic concerns which is um the essay or the letter where K responds to Benjamin constant and his murderer at the door example so this one gets a I'll also link um any web pages you might find useful that will include the page on my website that talks about this stuff um the Stanford page is probably quite good although they can be a bit wordy sometimes and um I'll I'll also link Philip a foot's paper morality as a system of hypothetical imperatives that I've referenced earlier but um yeah that about does it for this video so um I hope you enjoyed it and uh I will see you in the next one