Understanding Kant’s Formal Ethics
Kantian Ethics (Formal)
Material ethics argues that the ethical rightness or wrongness of human behavior depends on something considered the highest good. Actions are good when achieving this supreme good and bad when drifting away. Material ethics assumes ethical goods exist and seeks to determine the ultimate good or end of humanity (e.g., pleasure for Epicurus, happiness for Aristotle, virtue). Based on the supreme good, ethics establishes standards or requirements to achieve it.
All material ethics have content in two senses: 1) there is a supreme good, and 2) methods are proposed to achieve it.
Kant rejects material ethics as deficient. Firstly, they are empirical (a posteriori), with content drawn from experience. This prevents their principles from being universal, as only a priori principles can be. Secondly, their precepts are hypothetical or conditional, not absolute but dependent on achieving a certain end. This also prevents them from being universally valid. Finally, they are heteronomous, meaning the will is determined by desire or inclination (e.g., pleasure).
Considering this, Kant argues that universal and rational ethics cannot be material but must be formal. Ethics must be empty of content: 1) there should be no good or end to be pursued, and 2) it should not tell us what to do but how to act.
Formal ethics indicates how we should always act, regardless of the specific action. According to Kant, a person acts morally when acting out of duty. Duty is the necessity of action out of respect for the law, not for utility or satisfaction, but out of respect for the law itself.
Kant distinguishes three types of actions:
- Actions contrary to duty.
- Actions according to duty.
- Actions out of duty.
Only the latter possess moral worth. For example, a trader not charging predatory prices acts according to duty. However, if done to secure clients, the action is according to duty but not out of duty. The action is a means to an end. If acting out of duty, considering it their duty, the action is not a means to an end but an end in itself.
The moral value of an action lies in the motive. When the motive is duty, the action has moral worth.
The requirement to act morally is expressed as a categorical imperative, not a hypothetical one. Kant offers several formulations, the most famous being: Act only according to that maxim that you want to become, at the same time, a universal law. The maxim refers to the subjective principles of the will. This imperative is formal, telling us how to act, not what to do. It provides a rule to measure actions, evaluating them as appropriate or inappropriate according to the principle of duty.
A second formulation of the categorical imperative is: Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your person or in any other, always as an end and never merely as a means. Kant believes humans are characterized by autonomy, the ability to self-govern and critically give rules to others. This capability is unique and makes humans exceptional, incomparable, and possessing dignity. Dignity is a duty to act with others as ends in themselves, not as means for our convenience.
Although Kant avoided discussing good and bad, he acknowledges the good will, the desire to always do things properly. Kant believes ethics (practical reason) has assumptions that are not demonstrable, like pure reason. These principles are freedom, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God. Ethics makes sense only if there is freedom. Happiness, the perfect fit between individual desires and moral duty, could only be given if we were infinite, which is impossible. Finally, happiness requires a supreme cause of nature endowed with intellect and will, namely God.
For Kant, morality places humans at the threshold of religion. However, while it leads to religion, it is not its goal. Humans should strive for rationality, not happiness. Religion serves as hope for morality.