Explain what Immanuel Kant means by Metaphysics of Morals (4 paragraphs). To do this, you will have to discuss the division of sciences as Kant presents it.
-Preface of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
-In the Preface, Kant makes a number of distinctions among different types of sciences. these distinctions illustrate the basic concepts Kant relies on to develop his ethical doctrine.
Material Sciences Formal Sciences
Physics Logic
Ethics
Mathematics
Deontology
-Material sciences: concepts have a content in the sense that they consider a specific type of thing: physics: the properties of bodies with mass moving in three dimensions, ethics: the criteria by which we rationally determine an action to be good or bad, and mathematics the properties and relations of abstract quantities and sizes. -Purely formal science: logic: the abstract relations of all concepts regardless of their type. -Purely rational concepts apply universally but have no content: they just express a rule.
Deontology
Material Sciences Formal Sciences
Empirical Purely Rational
Physics Logic
Anthropology Ethics Proper
Mathematics
Deontology
-The conceptual domain of ethics splits, for Kant, into two distinct sciences, one empirical (Anthropology) and one purely rational (Ethics) that is the proper domain of moral philosophy.
-anthropology has nothing to do with ethics properly understood -ethics is the domain of concepts that refer to our idea of a free will
-Ethics refers to our purely rational concept of a free will which is good in itself, i.e., not determined by consequences or physical limitations and physical laws. In this way, the study of ethics forms the ‘metaphysics' of morals, because it deals with the concepts of a free will (the idea of a free will) apart from anything we might actually experience.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
-Kant and Hume -Why does Kant call his moral theory a ‚metaphysics' of morals? -Hume: skeptical criticisms of human knowledge generally - Cause and effect -Empiricism: knowledge is derived from sense perception -> NO innate ideas -Hume: human knowledge of cause and effect: a mental habit acquired from always seeing that A is followed by B -But we have no real certainty that this is really the case -We have ideas (from the impressions of particular sensations), and we use our imagination to differentiate and separate them into thoughts
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
-So our knowledge of the external world and the application of logic to it is contingent upon our experience (a posteriori) and not strictly necessary -Hume's guillotine: we can't infer what we ought to do from what is -Tree example -Conclusion: no strong sense of rationality to our moral judgments -Kant: 1781: Critique of Pure Reason -Contrary to Hume: there is something that we experience that allows us to make inferences about the laws of physics (from a priori syntheses of pure space and time) - With Hume: Kant accepts Hume's skepticism regarding our knowledge of the phenomenal world understood as things in themselves - But we have an a priori type of experience of space and time so that we DO experience the universal laws of space and time as necessary and true - Our synthetic a priori judgments of pure space and time
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
-This a priori experience allows us to make logically necessary claims of cause and effect: before I can experience any particular set of billiard balls, I must have an already pre-formed experience of space and time that frames in advance any possible particular experience of spherical masses such that their behavior must conform to the laws of physics. -This knowledge and pre-experience (though necessary for our experience of a posteriori things) doesn't allow us to infer what things are in themselves (as God would see them), it merely allows us to infer the application of physical laws based on our own experience of nature. So we have knowledge of cause and effect, but we cannot say that our knowledge of cause and effect actually reflects a perfect knowledge (or ideas) of things in themselves.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
-In the realm of morals, Kant also in a sense agrees with Hume but also vehemently disagrees. He agrees with Hume that our moral judgments are not derived from experience: what our experience teaches us about human nature Kant calls anthropology, which is simply a matter of competing interests and passions. Anthropology is the natural philosophy of human beings, "... the human will so far as it is affected by nature." But Kant argues (unlike) Hume that our ideas of morality can be analyzed to yield the rules or concepts that enable us to determine whether a moral judgment is logically valid and objective: morality, for Kant, is not simply a matter of sentiments, but of the a priori, logical analysis of our moral concepts. These concepts, Kant claims, are not derived from experience but nevertheless have a content that enables us to determine with precision what they mean.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
-So to recapitulate: -So in the Preface, Kant divides philosophy in the following way: ---Formal Material -Logic Laws of Nature Laws of Freedom -Pure Only Empirical | Pure Empirical | Pure
Overview:
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
-Section One -What is good in itself in an ethical sense? -Gifts of nature, such as intelligence, physical strength, these are not good without qualification because they can be used for evil. -Virtues - these are useful for happiness, even possibly the happiness of many people, but because they are useful (a means), they are not good in themselves. This is the opposite of Aristotle. -Consequences are not good in themselves generally because we do not blame someone who was well intended but failed. -Conclusion: -Goods for which we are not responsible (by nature of good fortune, winning the lottery) are not morally good necessarily. Our natural inclinations towards happiness are not good without qualification. Consequences are not good without qualification. -Only the good will (guided by the categorical imperative) is seen to be good without qualification.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
-Section Three -Freedom of the Will -Freedom from the external determination of our choices and actions -Freedom to will in accordance with the moral law -Laws of Nature vs. Moral Law -Laws of Nature: -Necessary -Causality here -Our inclinations belong here -Moral Law:
-Freedom and morality: acting willingly -Freedom from nature -Autonomy: accepting the moral law for oneself and by oneself based on reason alone.