Adam Mossey

PHIL-3409-A

March 29th, 2023

Kant’s Metaethics

To believe in a metaethics is to admit that morality exists beyond the phenomenal

world as intuitive knowledge which is independent from experience. In his writing from

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals Immanuel Kant goes to some lengths in

explaining his own interpretations about how we ought to live in order to exist in a moral

society. In doing so, Kant willingly subjects himself to a metaethical stance within which

he has no choice but to operate. However, Kant's metaethics, when developed out into

their entirety, may merit some criticism. Kant's ability to convincingly establish a

metaphysical basis for his conceptual morality comes into question when we consider

the foundation and implications of his moral stances.

Nearly every behavior can be credited to a motivation other than morality. This is

because moral principles come from reason, not from experience. Kant himself admits

“How do we learn that the world in general behaves in a lawlike way - that every event

has a cause? This judgment is not based on experience, for we can have no experience

of every possible event; nor is it an analytic judgment, for it is not part of the concept of

an event that it has a cause.” (Kant, 9) Indeed, all experience based knowledge

depends on exposure to an existing set of circumstances, whereas moral principles

must have absolute validity born from “Synthetic a priori knowledge.” (Kant, 9) Morality

is not concerned with the laws that govern society as it exists today, but with the natural
laws which govern metaphysical reality. Because empirical knowledge can only be

drawn from a society which is governed under arbitrary law, it cannot by itself provide

answers to practical questions about morality.

The categorical imperative is the essential tool with which Kant builds his

morality. He uses the example of the dishonest money lender, who lies about his means

to pay the borrower back, in order to demonstrate the moral value of the categorical

imperative. “His decision about what to say to you is entirely determined by what he

thinks will work to get the result he wants. In that sense he treats your reason, your

capacity for making decisions, as if it were merely an instrument for his own use. This is

a violation of the respect he owes to you and your humanity.” (Kant, 22) When people

violate the categorical imperative they apply a different standard to their own behavior

than they would want applied to everyone else in the form of a universal law. In Kant's

view, this is a contradiction that violates principles of rational, moral reasoning.

Kant's metaethical view, if he has one, must be a moral absolutist view. That is,

Kant's moral theory consists entirely of unbreakable universal principles. This differs

from most ethical positions, like in the case of utilitarianism, where there are universal

principles which often, but do not always, stay consistent. The principle that an innocent

man should not be killed for a crime he did not commit is true in the utilitarian view only

up until the greater aggregate benefit of killing the innocent man outweighs the benefit

of letting him live I.e. if there is the risk a riot breaks out save he is convicted. Kant with

his categorical imperative could make no such exception as there exists no possible

world in which this action would be consented to by all involved parties.

as it pertains to ascribing actions with ‘good’ or ‘evil’ intentionality. Utilitarianism is a

morally subjective viewpoint, such that every action can be prescribed the character of

‘goodness’ or ‘evilness’ based on its content alone. As in the case of convicting the

innocent man, the aggregate good of killing one man instead of allowing for the deaths

of many men in a riot is on its own a means to allow the act the property of goodness. In

his essay on the moral problem with absolutist metaethics, E. W. Hurst states “If, then,

conduct is concerned alone with the content of action, and if the character of that

content does not in itself determine the difference between good and evil, that difference

can lie only in the extent to which such content is systematized.” (Hurst, 426)

Kantian ethics are systematized to the extent that good and evil cannot be

prescribed to an action on the basis of its results, but instead on the basis of its

intention. Death is not an inherent evil, but a subjective one, differentiated by the arbiter

of the action. Upon failing an operation, a surgeon becomes no less of a murderer than

a serial killer, but the intentions behind their actions are vastly different and thus morally

uncomparable. As Kant himself states “It is impossible to conceive anything at all in the

world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except a good

will.” (Kant) But goodwill and intentionality are often considered phenomenal concepts,

as a metaphysical basis for these concepts is difficult to identify.

Rational beings are simultaneously the authors and the subjects of the story they

continually write about themselves. The categorical imperative acts as a requirement

that we obey the laws which would exist in a "kingdom of ends.” That is, a community in

which all rational beings are at once the makers and subjects of all laws. So it must be
the basis for Kant's moral intentionality that we have freedom. Freedom, in Kant's view,

is the ability to give your own law to your will. When we follow the demands of some

basal instinct or desire we are allowing our will to be determined by something outside

of ourselves. By contrast, when we choose maxims that could be universal laws, we use

reason to determine our own law for ourselves. We are free from our instincts and we

can find liberation in our obedience to a specific set of moral values.

Of course, this theory holds little metaphysical weight. The concept of freedom

inherently relies on the concept of choice. From a post-Darwin metaphysical

perspective, we know all causes have effects which interlink with one another in an

infinite chain of causality. This renders choice, and by extension intentions, an arbitrary

fictionalization which we utilize to cope with a set of predetermined outcomes and

behaviors. If we don't really have freedom to make decisions, the intentions of our

actions do not belong to us, by which logic all wills are essentially equivalent, and

goodwill does not exist in the metaphysical reality. Still, there is no doubt intentionality,

and for that matter goodwill, do exist phenomenally, and for good reason. Our conviction

that we own our intentions is rational, that we’ve adapted to maintain such beliefs

speaks to their value on its own. By virtue of their practical, phenomenal applications,

both goodwill and intentionality have moral value, insofar as they appeal to our natural,

basal instincts.
 References:

Hurst, E.W. (1914) Absolutism and the Ethical Problem; International Journal of Ethics,

Vol. 24, No. 4 (Jul., 1914), pp. 418-430.

Kant, Immanuel (1785) Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals; Yale University

Press, 224 pages.