The philosopher Immanuel Kant, best known for his theory of the Categorical Imperative, concluded that:
“In the moral judgement of action we refer the consequences produced to the agent who produced them. Unlike the intentional or the negligent, the unforeseeable and unintended are never blamed. Moral judgement is directed, not to the effects of an action, but to the good or bad intention that it shows.”
In other words, what matters is not the effect of my action, but rather my intention.
Kant believed that the first part of his statement of the Categorical Imperative expressed the root logic of the Golden Rule. We’ll look at the other elements of the Imperative in a moment. As preface to that, however, it’s important to look at one of the earlier works of Kant: The Critique of Pure Reason.
In the Preface to that work Kant wrote:
“ I venture to assert that there is not a single metaphysical problem which has not been solved (in the system detailed in his book), or for the solution of which the key at least has not been supplied.”
Kant was a philosopher of the Enlightenment and his thinking and work were at least influenced by the kind of thinking expressed in the Encyclopedia movement and project: the idea that all knowledge on all subjects could be compiled, catalogued and presented in a single, all-encompassing document.
The beliefs that:
a) all can be known,
b) certainty regarding correct action is possible, and
c) intention only is the proper criterion of moral behavior,
create the potential for tremendous damage and injustice.
If I am certain, for example, that I am right and only my motivation can be judged, then I implicitly have license to take whatever action that I sincerely believe to be correct: and I will be held as acting correctly and morally regardless of the actual result of my actions.
What a dangerous notion, however well-intentioned!
Kant’s Categorical Imperative is best understood in paraphrase. For our purposes I’ll use the language of Robert Scruton in his Very Short Introduction to Kant’s works. (Oxford University Press).
Scruton translates and paraphrases Kant as saying:
“I will be constrained by reason to ‘act only on that maxim (principle or motive) which I can at the same time will as a universal law’. Kant regarded this first formulation of the categorical imperative as the philosophical basis of the famous golden rule, that we should do as we would be done by”
The second major formulation of the categorical imperative is, in Scrunton’s words:
“I must so act as to treat humanity, whether in my own self or in that of another, always as an end, and never as a means only.”
Note the qualifying use of “only”, suggesting that we can treat another as a means to an end if we also act toward that person as an end.
Continuing to develop the idea, the third and fourth formulations proceed as follows:
“I must always think of the moral law as a piece of universal legislation, which binds rational beings equally.
I am thereby led to the idea of ‘the will of every rational being as a universally legislative will’…so…’every rational being must so act as if he were by his maxims in every case a legislating member of the universal kingdom of ends’.”
Kant was, himself, an apparently admirable person; deeply concerned with what is right and just; devoted to “truth and duty above all things”. Those traits, however, were reflected in a nearly obsessive concentration on routine, precision and self-discipline.
It is not unexpected that a person so disciplined and devoted to the “right”; whose life was given over to its pursuit and exposition; would not be known for flexibility or tolerance of contrary opinion. He wrote in 1787:
“I can assure you that the longer I continue in my path the less worried I become that any contradiction…will ever significantly damage my system.”
Kant’s influence as a preeminent philosopher of the last 250 years is unquestioned. Scruton calls Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason “the most important work of philosophy to have been written in modern times.” And, as a guide to the rational person –and Kant, to be clear, always qualified his views as being valid for (his idea of) the rational person – they appear to be just as they are i.e. well-intentioned.
However:
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Not everyone is rational, no matter how that might be defined,
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Kant’s certainty of his own correctness, which is not only freely acknowledged but reflected even in the use of the term “categorical” might not be problematic in the hands of a person of his character, but might be quite problematic in the hands of another,
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His conclusion that one can never be absolutely sure of the results of one’s actions, while true, can be used to abdicate responsibility for taking appropriate action to increase the predictability of those results, and
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The conclusion that moral judgment can only be properly attached to intention is susceptible to use by fanatics of all types.
For all of the depth and brilliance that Kant brought to his study of morality, philosophy and logic, the idea that intention is the only proper measure of action is a dangerous one which, in the hands of dangerous men, can become deadly.
The golden rule, without proper modification, can be – and has been – a tool of tyrants. The fact that some of those tyrants have been people of religion does not change that fact.
The golden rule, coupled with the idea that moral judgment can only attach to intention, increases the danger of its application – and the more diverse the individuals, groups or populations involved, the greater the danger.
©Charles R. Lightner