[lit-ideas] Re: Do You Have a Moral Urgency?
- From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 15:45:17 -0400
Walter Okshevsky wrote:
"I'm not clear on why it is so often claimed that K had a problem with
consequences. Action in accord with moral law for its own sake
identifies the moral worth of a maxim independently of consequences."
There are a few different ways of responding to this, but I will choose
one. I will begin with Kant, himself, describing the problem:
"Now, the moral law as a law of freedom commands through determining
grounds that are to be quite independent of nature and its harmony with
our faculty of desire; the acting rational being in the world is,
however, not also the cause of the world and of nature itself.
Consequently, there is not the least ground in the moral law for a
necessary connection between the morality and the proportionate
happiness of a being belonging to the world as part of it and hence
dependent upon it, who for that reason cannot by his will be a cause of
this nature and, as far as his happiness is concerned, cannot by his on
powers make it harmonize thoroughly with his practical principles.
Nevertheless, in the practical task of pure reason, that is, in the
necessary pursuit of the highest good, such a connection is postulated
as necessary: we ought to strive to promote the highest good (which must
therefore be possible)." (Critique of Practical Reason, 5:124-5)
To summarize, the problem is that there is no assurance that what one
ought to do can be done since there is nothing in the idea of the moral
law that necessarily connects its imperatives to the world. The moral
law may command all sorts of actions but what does that have to do with
us as beings in the world? If one cannot be certain that acting morally
will produce good consequences, then how can one be certain that moral
acts are even possible? So, while the moral law functions independently
of consequences, the moral law requires a certainty that moral acts and
the proper consequences will necessarily follow from such acts.
"Therefore, the highest good in the world is possible only insofar as a
supreme cause of nature having a causality in keeping with the moral
disposition is assumed." (5:125)
And so at this point of the Second Critique, Kant turns to the idea of a
supreme cause of nature that turns out, surprise, surprise, to be God.
According to Kant, if one does not assume a Supreme Lawgiver, then one
cannot assume that the causality required for moral activity is possible
in the world. Now Kant is not at all comfortable with this conclusion
so it is qualified in all sorts of ways but it seems pretty clear to me
that Kant thinks there is a problem with the moral law and consequences,
hence his need to introduce the idea of God.
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
Toronto, ON
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