Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: Kant's Way Out of Paradise

[Essay] Explaining Kant's Ethics (and the Categorical Imperative) to myself.

Imagine that the whole of History is a march towards paradise, all mere steps to a result that is wonderful. Say the dead and the living shall all be conscious in the last chapter of History, together, holding hands and singing hymns of joy in one big circle. Now, say we look back, all the way to the beginning of time. As God himself dances at the center of our circle, perhaps we tell ourselves that it was all worth it. Things might quickly get awkward, however, the more we think about all this. Some might wonder the following: if God is behind such idea of paradise, did He believe that suffering was a necessary step towards it? If such paradise is a result of History, can we then justify its darkest chapters? If paradise can only exist if there are earthquakes, diseases, and genocide, why is God dancing that hard in front of us? If he’s omniscient, where’s his self-awareness?

A version of this scenario is contemplated by Ivan Karamazov in Dostoevsky’s novel Brothers Karamazov. Ivan is so appalled by the existence of evil on Earth that he not only criticizes God, he refuses to be given a ticket to his paradise. If paradise requires evil to exist, he reasons, then he doesn’t want anything to do with his creator. Ivan asks: if people are being exploited towards an end that is good, are God’s actions even moral? Ivan’s dilemma is usually seen as a critique of Hegel’s vision of History, but it also illustrates classical problems in ethics: what makes an action moral? Should you only think about the consequences of your actions? Do consequences even matter if lines are crossed? Isn’t the greatest good an argument against uncrossable lines? If eternal harmony on Earth is at a hand’s reach, should there even be limits as to what we can morally do? Or is there a moral code that is too important to be questioned, even in circumstances in which the consequences are great?

I was reminded of Ivan Karamazov’s ethical dilemma as I read Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten). In his work, Kant seeks to formalize a system of ethics that can be searched and found exclusively in virtue of reason, where one can potentially find “a supreme principle of morality.” To explain his goal, Kant first calls attention to the fact that “physics” is a science that studies phenomena. The “metaphysics of nature”, he continues, looks into what that phenomena is, which to him are nothing more than impressions given by our intuition and understanding (concepts that I explain here, along with Kant’s idea of “reason”, which are fundamental to understanding parts of this essay). Kant parallels such distinction with what he means when he talks about morality: if “anthropology” studies what morals are in the world, as phenomena, Kant wants a “metaphysics of morals” that exists in and by itself, as pure reason, without any influence from experience. In and of itself, he aks, what would a moral action even look like? The question isn’t exactly “What do humans think morality is?” but rather: “What would reason consider to be moral?”

Kant means reason as something abstracted from humans, who act under influences that are often in conflict with it. These influences are shaped by one’s biology, cognition, and environment. They’re sensible “inclinations” that seek what feels good and reject what feels bad. It would be odd, Kant believes, if reason existed only for the sake of these inclinations, since “instinct” alone can do this job pretty well: you won’t see a bonobo monkey feeling hollow and aimless after years of just orgies and bananas, for instance. The bonobo monkey shares with us intuition and understanding, which means that the monkey interprets the world as phenomena as well—but the monkey doesn’t have reason in the way Kant understands it, so it won’t write La Dolce Vita or American Pie out of a possible existential angst (movies that, despite all of the debauchery portrayed in them, nonetheless believe there should be more to life than just sensual stimuli).

We generally want to act morally in our lives, but what does that even mean? Is a moral conduct desirable only in virtue of its consequences? No, says Kant, because then what we desire are the consequences of our actions, whatever follows from what we do. When moral action is reduced to a mere tool, Kant believes, we confound what is good with what is useful. Remember that the philosopher isn’t interested in defining how morality is seen and treated in the world, that is, the sensible world of phenomena. He leaves that task to anthropologists, who are then allowed to argue that morality is often equivalent to what is useful, which is fine to Kant. Because Kant’s interested in the metaphysics of morals, however, he wants to know what would reason consider to be moral, not particular individuals or cultures.

If we follow reason, Kant says, the first step to act morally would be to have a “good will”, which means wanting to do good for goodness’ sake. Why is it good to not lie, for instance? What is it about not lying that makes it good? To say “because if you don’t lie, then people will trust you” is not enough, because then what you want is trust, not not to lie. Kant believes that rational beings act morally out of respect to moral laws, not because they might bring good results: it isn’t enough to act according to a moral code, one also needs to act for its own sake. For a code to have any moral value, it needs to have the power of an obligation—it needs to impose itself as something absolutely necessary. Because morality is normally translated as a set of rules or “imperatives” (example: thou shall not kill), then a good will would act exclusively out of a sense of “duty” to them.

You may take as a rule to “always give your seat to the elderly,” for example, but then only do so if people are watching. This would mean that you aren’t acting out of a sense of duty to moral laws, but only because you fear social disapproval. The world might be very happy with what you do, but here your actions would only look good. A lot of what we do comes with beautifully announced intentions, but to Kant there’s often a “maxim” truly inspiring us. Such maxims are sometimes hidden, consciously or not, but they are there. You may say that you want to help the elderly (announced intention), but then act unconsciously under a different, more truthful principle: you want to help the elderly because you want approval (maxim).

The maxims that guide a lot of our actions are what Kant calls “subjective principles,” statements that are materially different from circumstance to circumstance, but formally alike. All maxims can therefore be written as such: “in particular situation A, I do B in order to get C.” It’s usually biological, cognitive, and circumstantial inclinations that express maxims in the human mind, therefore producing different maxims to each individual will. More often than not, Kant says, we act in the real world to optimize the usefulness of each circumstance we’re in, which is why maxims are called subjective: they attend to the personal needs and desires of each person. In the sitcom Friends, this is roughly what Joey Tribbiani means when he tells Phoebe Buffay that “there are no good deeds”: every time Phoebe performs an apparently good deed to disprove Joey, she feels a positive emotion—in each circumstance she’s in, despite her perceived intentions, Phoebe does B only in order to get C, she does good deeds (B) in order to feel good (C).

In that Friends episode, Phoebe struggles to know if she’s acting selfishly or altruistically. She illustrates how hard it is to be objective about what exactly inspires an action in the real world. How do we know if we are doing something good for goodness’s sake? If this is impossible to know in practice, could we at least know it in theory? I was informed there’s a deleted episode in Friends that, coincidentally, perfectly summarizes Kant’s answer. It’s called The One Where Phoebe meets Kant. It goes like this: after Immanuel Kant dances in the fountain with the gang, Immanuel joins Phoebe for a coffee at Central Perk. After she sings “Smelly Cat” to him, they talk about Phoebe’s problem. Immanuel tries his best to be nice, so he offers philosophical advice. The plot thickens once Ross and Joey notice Phoebe talking to an old German man. “Joey, are philosophers ever nice to strange women for no reason?” Ross asks Joey. “No, only for sex,” Joey answers. The audience laughs. Phoebe overhears her male friends. She then asks Immanuel if he’s helping her to be nice or with a secret agenda in mind. “Well…,” Immanuel answers, to which Phoebe reacts, not without the hysterical laughter from the audience, “You— You freaking— You freaking little Kant!”

Before we judge the philosopher here, it’s quite possible that Kant genuinely does not know what motivates his actions. He likes to believe that he’s explaining his ideas to Phoebe out of genuine altruism, but there might be a little part of him that unconsciously desires to sleep with her. Kant concludes that while it’s possible to determine if an action is moral a priori, it’s impossible to know, a posteriori, if that action is performed morally (for its own sake only and not for the sake of something else). We are welcomed to theorize about what constitutes a moral law and be quite successful in doing so, but Kant doubts we can find a genuine obedience to moral laws empirically. For all of his intelligence, Kant is also a human being, so he acts under the influence of many impulses and inclinations, not only his sense of reason. He explains this to Phoebe, who then accepts his explanation. She finishes the episode with the lyrics of her new song: “Smelly Kant.” I know— No wonder it got deleted.

Perhaps it was Kant’s embroilment with Phoebe that led him to introduce two key notions in his ethics: the “Categorical Imperative” and the “Hypothetical Imperative.” These notions share a couple of common traits: a) they both originate from reason; and b) they are both “imperatives”, in the sense that they command what you ought to do. These imperatives are different, however, in regards to intent. The categorical imperative constrains the individual to act out of a sense of duty to “objective principles,” laws that are absolutely necessary for the will to obey; these principles should be followed for their own sake only and nothing else, regardless of the circumstance, and they should be evident to all rational beings alike. The hypothetical imperative, in turn, is expressed as conditional statements (If A, then B); they command the individual to act in a certain way as a means to obtain something else. To put it simply, the categorical imperative is an order (“You ought to do A”), while the hypothetical imperative is a recipe (“To get B, you ought to do do A”).

This encapsulates Phoebe’s previous problem: she knows what it means to act morally, but because the human mind is a mist, she doesn’t know if she’s obeying categorical or hypothetical imperatives—she doesn’t know if she acts out of a sense of duty to moral laws or if she acts for the sake of getting something else. The same goes for Kant potentially wooing Phoebe: is he being nice because that’s the right thing to do or is it because he’s interested in Phoebe? Kant believes that the human will is placed between a priori principles and their a posteriori application: as the a priori principle dictates in our minds what we ought to do, the will performs it in the material world, as experience, through action. If Kant wants to be nice to Phoebe in order to sleep with her, then he acts under an hypothetical imperative (“If one wants to sleep with someone, then one ought to be nice to them”). If he wants to be nice to Phoebe because it’s his duty to be nice, then his will is inspired to act under a categorical imperative (“One ought to be nice to others”).

But what’s so special about being nice anyway? How does Kant know that the commandment “be nice” conforms with the categorical imperative? To answer this, Kant defines the categorical imperative as the following: you should always act in such a way that you would also want the maxim of your action to become a universal law. If you want to know if your action is moral, Kant says, you should then ask yourself: would you want the maxim of your action to function as a universal rule? Or more specifically: if you could, would you impose that maxim onto the world as a natural law, not unlike the rules of gravity? If the answer is no, then your action isn’t moral. If the answer is yes, however, then you are excused to believe that your action is in accordance with what’s morally good.

The world would prosper, for example, if everyone was nice to each other, but say that you lied in order to help out a friend. The maxim of your action is that you lied in circumstance A in order to get B. Kant doubts there’s a single person who would defend lying as the default way of expressing oneself. If the act of lying was a law as imposing as the Earth’s curvature, the world would be unsustainable. It’s then reasonable to assume that being nice is moral while lying isn’t. If you wouldn’t like the act of lying to be a natural law, then you shouldn’t lie at all, ever, not even if there’s a gun to your head—heck, especially if there’s a gun to your head, because the less naturally inclined you are to act morally, the more worthy of awe it would be to do so: if doing the right thing brings a disadvantage, then the more likely it is that the right thing itself fueled the action, not the consequence. When

Not satisfied with his own definition of what a categorical imperative is, however, Kant loosely reformulates it in a series of “practical principles.” I see these principles as addendums or as logical conclusions that follow from his categorical imperative. Kant, however, interprets them to be equivalent to his own formula. I call these principles a) the “dignity” principle, which means you should always treat humanity and all rational beings as ends in themselves, not as mere means to a desired goal; b) the “autonomy” principle, which means you should autonomously legislate the moral laws under which you should act; and finally c) the “kingdom of ends” principle, which means you should always act as if you lived in a kingdom of other rational beings that possess the same dignity and autonomy as you.

The video game The Last of Us is a good example that illustrates the implications of the categorical imperative and its equivalents. By the end of that game (spoiler alert), the future of humanity relies on the life of a little girl, and it’s up to Joel, the protagonist, to make a tough call: should he let a little girl be sacrificed for the survival of the whole of Humanity? Kant’s advice to Joel would be to ask the following questions: First, would you desire murder to be a universal law? Second, are you really saving humanity by letting this child be killed? What is “humanity” anyway? Is it the mere existence of human bodies or does it refer to a sense of dignity that exists in every person? Shouldn’t we be treating children as an end in themselves, autonomous and rational beings worthy of dignity, and not as a means to something else? Third, if we can’t respect the moral code we ourselves legislate, what value would we or that code have? And finally, would we like to live in a kingdom of ends in which anyone could murder for their own benefit?

(To the vegans who rightfully applauded John Stuart Mill’s vegan friendly ethics, you’re here probably wondering: would Joel have any moral obligation to save anyone if the kid in question wasn’t a kid at all, but a perfectly healthy and charismatic pig? To this Kant would answer “no”—If humanity is at stake, Kant says, turn that pig into steak asap! Kant believes that morality’s priority is rational beings only. Given that pigs are irrational, nonautonomous and delicious, Kant sees no ethical problem in using them—or any animal—as a means to something else.)

Because Joel murders a bunch of people, because he actually likes the child he wants to save, however, The Last of Us also shows how difficult it is to see the categorical imperative in practice: Joel’s actions would have been more noble, Kant believes, if he chose to save a brat he despises, especially at the cost of all Humanity—and that, obviously, without murdering anyone—, since there wouldn’t exist an immediate inclination to save the kid, but only the rational obligation to so. Because it would be difficult for Joel to save a kid he dislikes in detriment to the whole of Humanity, then his obedience to moral laws wouldn’t be performed mechanically, but chosen autonomously.

This exemplifies why categorical imperatives don’t really apply to saints. Holy people don’t feel they ought to direct their will towards what’s morally good, because their will already spontaneously aligns with goodness. Kant gives an example from christian scripture to illustrate this. It’s extremely easy, for instance, to love thy neighbor if thy neighbor is someone you already love. This is what Kant calls “pathological love,” which doesn’t require any effort from us. It’s extremely difficult, however, to also love thy enemies, which requires “practical love,” a form of commandment that appeals solely to our reason, but not to our natural inclinations. If you were a saint, there’d be no need for commandments, because then you’d already be inclined to love thy enemies. This is essential to Kant’s ethics: morality is more relevant if one is free from the pulls and pushes of their own circumstances, if one deliberately directs their will towards the good, especially when one’s tempted to act otherwise.

If you are familiar with Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason or if you read my interpretation of its main ideas, however, you will quickly notice a paradox in his philosophy. Given that intuition and understanding organize the world as phenomena, this means that the rule of causality holds up to all bodies. If we see ball A moving after being hit by ball B, this isn’t because ball A decided to move forward, but because it was caused to move by ball B. Ball A had no other choice but to move. Well, humans are also bodies in the world of phenomena, so their actions would also be caused by their environment, which would make humans not free and therefore not responsible for their actions. In the phenomenal world, the notion of free will is simply absurd to Kant, so he notices a potential existential threat to morality in general: the world of phenomena is essentially deterministic, but morality can only make sense if it’s practiced by free agents. How does Kant solve this?

In order to prevent morality from losing its meaning, Kant offers a Deus Ex Machina answer, in my view, though quite efficient. He says that rational beings must simple assume themselves free, without any proof whatsoever, because such assumption goes beyond the realm of what we are able to experience. To Kant, there’s a real way in which the world exists, the world of noumena, which is only intelligible for humans as a vague idea. This doesn’t mean that reason knows what lies beyond phenomena, but that reason postulates an ungraspable world that nonetheless exists. If Kant’s “theoretical reason” acts under observable premisses, Kant’s “practical reason” works in more mysterious ways. Because human beings are simultaneously a) creatures that exist as phenomena in the “sensible world”; and also b) rational beings that exist as an idea in the “intelligible world,” then they are excused to assume that they are influenced by both the material world and the rationally assumed existence of human freedom, one that is somehow independent from the causal forces of phenomena. If none of that made sense to you, if you’re still wondering whether you are indeed shackled to a deterministic nightmare, here’s the gist of Kant’s solution: just don’t think about it.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus—if the way to hell is paved with good intentions, Kant says, so be it! Better to live in an imperfect world with our morals intact then to live in a perfect world where morals are negotiable. Going back to Ivan Karamazov’s problem with God, Kant would agree with Ivan that God’s version of paradise ain’t worth it. But here we are talking of a hypothetical version of God and a hypothetical version of heaven, so what about actual humans? Because human nature rests between the intelligible laws of reason and the sensible laws of phenomena, human beings struggle between moral duties and their own inclinations. To Kant, categorical imperatives are relevant because moral choices are difficult: the greater the conflict between reason and impulse, the more we ought to rely on reason; the wider the gap between duty and inclination, the more the decision to act morally is worthy of respect; the more tempting our own idea of paradise is, Kant believes, the more noble it would be to refuse its moral sacrifices.

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