The Influence of Kant on My Reasoning
Would you say that helping someone out of sympathy is not an act of self-interest? I know that I said something similar to this in my Masters' thesis.
I don't know. It seems to me to be an act of self-interest, because you are technically acting out of concern for your own interests. But I still consider that it is importantly different from the kind of self-interest that is thought to negate moral worth in actions. First, it is not mere self-interest. You are clearly also acting out of concern for the interests of the other person. Unless other people have some kind of intrinsic value in your motivations, then I do not believe that those motivations could ever be called "moral". Second, those other people's interests are necessarily connected with your own self-interest. A proper motivation of empathy cannot fail to feel something of others' joys and sorrows as if they were your own. Hence, your own interests cannot contradict the interests of the other people. Obviously I am talking of empathy now as an idealised virtue only. Most people in the world, if not in history, will only imperfectly realise this idealisation. Nevertheless, I would argue that this moral empathy, properly understood, eliminates the morally objectionable characteristics of self-interest. It removes the threat that self-interest poses to the interests of others. It preserves the intrinsic value of other people's interests that I would argue is central to the concept of morality.
Obviously to make this argument I am presupposing a certain conception of morality. This conception does owe something to Kantian moral theory. Specifically, it is that in order to be moral, one must treat other people as ends in themselves, and never merely as means to ends. Hence, with Kant, I do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I must reject his idea that an act performed out of inclination is of no moral worth. But this is because I think there are some inclinations that are consistent with his second formulation of the categorical imperative.
What of his first formulation? The first formulation is that one must act according to that maxim that one could will without contradiction to be a universal law. To be honest, I don't think that that dictum holds water. In particular, I like Mill's objection to the idea, namely that Kant fails to show that many heinous human actions couldn't be consistently willed as universal laws. All he can show is that their consequences are such that few would will them as universal. Of course, this objection takes Mill down the consequentialist path, which I also resist. I think that the part of Kant worth preserving is the idea that we are none of us mere means to ends.
Here I am indebted to Richard Dawkins, for a passage in his book The God Delusion. He talks about someone who conducted a series of surveys of many people in many cultures. These surveys consisted of various moral hypotheticals, each one more complex than the last. The hypotheticals depicted various actions, of which the respondent was to judge their morality. Apparently, the results revealed remarkable cross-cultural similarities in people's responses. Many of these hypotheticals were testing the limits of people's utilitarian intuitions. There is one pair of hypotheticals that, I think, is relevant to the present argument. The first hypothetical consists of a trolley car that is out of control. There are six people stuck on the rails of the trolley car further down the road. You are an onlooker on the side of the road viewing this tragedy about to unfold. You see a switch nearby that will change the track on which the trolley car is moving. But on the new track is another person stuck on the rails who will die if you switch the tracks. Here most people do consider it acceptable to switch the tracks, knowing it will kill someone who otherwise would not have died. Their moral justification is that at least a lesser number of people are killed this way.
Certainly this choice, as described, sounds consistent with utilitarian intuitions. It is the choice that results in the smallest number of people being killed. But let us now look at the second relevant hypothetical scenario. Suppose now that the second track reconnects to the first track further down the road before it reaches the six people stuck on the rails. Hence, other things being equal, the trolley would hit those people whether you flipped the switch or not. Now suppose that on the second track there is a highly obese person standing on the track. If you divert the car, then it will hit him and he is so big that it will actually stop the car in its tracks. This, then, would kill one person to save the lives of six.
In this situation, the vast majority of respondents do not agree with flipping the switch. They have very strong moral intuitions against it. Remarkably, this is so even when they cannot articulate the morally relevant difference between the former scenario and the latter. But Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative can articulate this difference! In the former case the person on the rails is not used as a means to the end of saving the people's lives. Switching the rail is what is used as a means to that end. The person's death is merely collateral damage, acceptable because it minimises the collateral damage that would otherwise occur. But in the latter case the person is used as the means to the end of saving the other people's lives. Hence, he is being used as a mere means to an end, and not as an end in himself. And that is absolutely wrong, even if it results in the greatest number of lives being saved. I am compelled to agree with this conclusion myself. And this commits me to a fundamentally deontological perspective, based on Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative.
I don't know. It seems to me to be an act of self-interest, because you are technically acting out of concern for your own interests. But I still consider that it is importantly different from the kind of self-interest that is thought to negate moral worth in actions. First, it is not mere self-interest. You are clearly also acting out of concern for the interests of the other person. Unless other people have some kind of intrinsic value in your motivations, then I do not believe that those motivations could ever be called "moral". Second, those other people's interests are necessarily connected with your own self-interest. A proper motivation of empathy cannot fail to feel something of others' joys and sorrows as if they were your own. Hence, your own interests cannot contradict the interests of the other people. Obviously I am talking of empathy now as an idealised virtue only. Most people in the world, if not in history, will only imperfectly realise this idealisation. Nevertheless, I would argue that this moral empathy, properly understood, eliminates the morally objectionable characteristics of self-interest. It removes the threat that self-interest poses to the interests of others. It preserves the intrinsic value of other people's interests that I would argue is central to the concept of morality.
Obviously to make this argument I am presupposing a certain conception of morality. This conception does owe something to Kantian moral theory. Specifically, it is that in order to be moral, one must treat other people as ends in themselves, and never merely as means to ends. Hence, with Kant, I do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I must reject his idea that an act performed out of inclination is of no moral worth. But this is because I think there are some inclinations that are consistent with his second formulation of the categorical imperative.
What of his first formulation? The first formulation is that one must act according to that maxim that one could will without contradiction to be a universal law. To be honest, I don't think that that dictum holds water. In particular, I like Mill's objection to the idea, namely that Kant fails to show that many heinous human actions couldn't be consistently willed as universal laws. All he can show is that their consequences are such that few would will them as universal. Of course, this objection takes Mill down the consequentialist path, which I also resist. I think that the part of Kant worth preserving is the idea that we are none of us mere means to ends.
Here I am indebted to Richard Dawkins, for a passage in his book The God Delusion. He talks about someone who conducted a series of surveys of many people in many cultures. These surveys consisted of various moral hypotheticals, each one more complex than the last. The hypotheticals depicted various actions, of which the respondent was to judge their morality. Apparently, the results revealed remarkable cross-cultural similarities in people's responses. Many of these hypotheticals were testing the limits of people's utilitarian intuitions. There is one pair of hypotheticals that, I think, is relevant to the present argument. The first hypothetical consists of a trolley car that is out of control. There are six people stuck on the rails of the trolley car further down the road. You are an onlooker on the side of the road viewing this tragedy about to unfold. You see a switch nearby that will change the track on which the trolley car is moving. But on the new track is another person stuck on the rails who will die if you switch the tracks. Here most people do consider it acceptable to switch the tracks, knowing it will kill someone who otherwise would not have died. Their moral justification is that at least a lesser number of people are killed this way.
Certainly this choice, as described, sounds consistent with utilitarian intuitions. It is the choice that results in the smallest number of people being killed. But let us now look at the second relevant hypothetical scenario. Suppose now that the second track reconnects to the first track further down the road before it reaches the six people stuck on the rails. Hence, other things being equal, the trolley would hit those people whether you flipped the switch or not. Now suppose that on the second track there is a highly obese person standing on the track. If you divert the car, then it will hit him and he is so big that it will actually stop the car in its tracks. This, then, would kill one person to save the lives of six.
In this situation, the vast majority of respondents do not agree with flipping the switch. They have very strong moral intuitions against it. Remarkably, this is so even when they cannot articulate the morally relevant difference between the former scenario and the latter. But Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative can articulate this difference! In the former case the person on the rails is not used as a means to the end of saving the people's lives. Switching the rail is what is used as a means to that end. The person's death is merely collateral damage, acceptable because it minimises the collateral damage that would otherwise occur. But in the latter case the person is used as the means to the end of saving the other people's lives. Hence, he is being used as a mere means to an end, and not as an end in himself. And that is absolutely wrong, even if it results in the greatest number of lives being saved. I am compelled to agree with this conclusion myself. And this commits me to a fundamentally deontological perspective, based on Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative.
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