GE-8 Ethics | Module 8 | Deontology | The Life of

Emmanuel Kant, | Introduction, | Autonomous

Reasons, | Good Will, | Duty, | Categorical Imperative, |
Reminder: Please be reminded that the distribution of modules in this subject is
through the CEAS office, made to be available for copying only maybe by a
xerographic copier. This shall be available only on the first (1st) and third (3rd)
Monday of the month during the entire period of the semester.

I. Warm-up:
For 2-5 minutes ponder on these questions: (you may write on a sheet of paper)
1. Why is autonomous reason the only acceptable foundation of ethics for Kant?
2. What is the importance of the Kantian shift from preoccupation with the external good
to stress the internal shift?

II. Learning Objectives:

At the end of the lesson the students must be able to, to wit;
1. Recognize the meaning of deontological ethics.
2. Explain and apply the concepts of autonomy to one’s moral experience.
3. Demonstrate the categorical imperatives.
4. Apply the principle of categorical imperatives in moral dilemma.

III. Input

• Introduction

Franz Kafka once gave voice to the solitude of man and task to find his/her own way.
Kafka wrote the story imperial message" directly addressing the reader as pathetic subject. The
story started with the sending of message from the farthest distance. A dying king ordered Herald
to bring his whispered message. After confirming accuracy of the message, the Herald was sent
breaking obstructing walls and going beyond the great ones of empire at first. Eventually,
however, he is slowed down huge crowd and the infinite distance that lie between and the receiver
of the message. The reader to whom the message is addressed in the end sits by the window
dreaming message that may come.
The reader is directly addressed by Kafka and invited to move out, of dreaming and end
his/her pathetic passivity. Left on his/her own, he/she is tasked to find his/her own way and not
give in to dreams of fullness of knowledge that are given to him/her or the discovery of a path that
is yet to be revealed. A professor once hypothetically presented such a situation by asking, "If
early morning tomorrow you wake up so sure that there is no God, what would you do?"
The German thinker Immanuel Kant (1724—1804) proposed a viable human solution to
this quandary. His philosophy views man as autonomous and most of himself/ herself as not
subject to external conditions, results, and mandates. If left to himself/herself, is it possible for
the human person to be ethical? Immanuel Kant thinks so. In fact, he was so confident in the
ethical system that he came up with what he declares its systematic independence from the
religion and even asserted that it is religion that is in need of his foundational ethics and not vice
versa.

• The life of Emmanuel Kant

▪ Born: 22 April 1724 on Königsberg, East Prussia, Kingdom of Prussia
(present-day Kaliningrad, Russia)
▪ Died: 12 February 1804 (aged 79)
▪ Nationality: Prussian
▪ Education: Collegium Fridericianum, University of Königsberg
▪ Era: Age of Enlightenment
▪ Region: Western philosophy

• Related Discussions
❑ Deontology
• Greek word “deon” which means “being necessary or duty”.
• Study of duty and obligation.
• Normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on
whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules, rather than
based on the consequences of the action.

• Autonomous Reasons, Good Will, and Duty

❑ Autonomous Reasons
➢ Autonomy
• Greek words “auto” and “nomos” which mean “self” and “law”.
• Crudely stated as self-law or self-legislating.
In contrast to Heteronomy.
• Greek words “hetero” and “nomos” which means “other” and “law”.
• Stated as other law or a foreign/external impulse.
• Property of the will in those instances when it is subjected to external authority
other than the pure reason.

➢ Reasons
• The only sensible foundation of human sound ethics
• Consists of the mental faculty to construct ideas and thoughts that enables
man to act.
• It must be pure.

➢ Autonomy of reason
― Is the property of the will in those instances when pure reason is the cause of the
action.
― Ventures to know what is ethical not on the authority of what is external to self but
grounded on reason of itself.
― Sapere Aude or “dare to think for yourselves”

❑ Good will
▪ Is the source of the human sound ethics.
▪ This simply means that what is morally binding is rooted in reason as “doable for the
human person”
 According to Emmanuel Kant, he posits that;
“Nothing in the world—indeed nothing even beyond the world—can possibly be
conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will”.

❑ Duty
▪ Is the motivation for reason and goodwill of the human person.
▪ The obligations that follow what reason deems as the action which is most worthy of
our humanity.

“Kant argues that in order to act in the morally right way, people must
act from duty. Moreover, he also argued that it was not the
consequences of actions that make them right or wrong, but the motives
of the person who carries out the action”.

• Categorical Imperative

❑ Categorical Imperative

▪ Is a formal moral theory that provides a procedural way of identifying the rightness or
wrongness of an action.
▪ Kant articulates the categorical imperative in this manner;

“Act only according to that maxim by which you can also will that it would
become a universal law”.

The four key elements in formulation of categorical imperative, namely;

1. Action
2. Maxim
3. Will
4. Universal law

Kant insists that every time we confront moral situations there are formally operative a
priori principles that can be brought to the fore. Highlighting these a priori truths can better help
the learner of ethics sort through his/her task of living ethically. Kant's research on ethics has
named these as reason, goodwill, and duty. These are, for Kant, respectively, the foundation
(reason), source (goodwill), and motivation (duty) of ethical living.
The foundation of a sound ethics for Immanuel Kant can only be the authority of human
reason. The voice of God is not heard directly today while man is living in this passing world.
Voices of ministers and priests who claim to speak for God are but other human beings who
make use of their own reason in trying to understand what goes on around them. This common
human reason is also what they use as they comprehend the revelation that is said to be the
foundation of their particular religion. Given that they share the same humanity with everybody
else including the students of ethics, what they say ought to pass through the norm of reason
that is internal to the moral subject himself/ herself. Otherwise, arbitrariness holds sway in their
claim to authority and what they capriciously hold as binding or gratuitously free.
The person who acts in accordance to drawn-u lists of what one should do complies
through the use of his/her reason, that they are indeed an obligation for his/her. The reason,
therefore, elects such and such as morally binding and thus acts in accordance with what he/she
thinks is so. His/ Her reason, therefore, functions as the very effort to think through moral
principles and apply what he/she knows to get to the right thing to do. In fact, this internal
authority of human reason is operative and takes precedence every time the human person
confronts a particular moral situation. This human rationality that is discursive, i.e., human reason
by "talking to themselves," according to one of the Philosopher readers of Kant named Hannah
Arendt.
What is ethical necessarily implies the use of reason. Human acceptance of external
mandates also makes use of his reason. Kant then tell us that reason is itself can only be the
sensible foundation of what is ethical for man. Kant then bids his students sapere aude that is
“dare to think for yourselves”. Autonomous reason ventures to know what is ethical not on the
authority of what is external; to the self but grounded on (reason) itself. The loudness of external
authorities cannot bend the autonomy of reason that on its own knows what should be done.
What others say in turn is only acceptable if it found to be reasonable by the use of one’s
autonomous reason.
If the reason is the foundation of what is ethical for Kant. In turn it’s source can only be
goodwill. This simply means that what is morally binding is rooted in reason as “doable for the
human person”. The oral authority for Kant is immanent in man, that is, the origin of moral
obligation for is his/her own goodwill.
Instead of looking at the good as external to man, Kant locates the good in the very
interiority of the self. The good is relevant to the person who thought his/her reason knows what
one ought to do., is that which he/she can do and know as good. This goodwill implies the
achievability of what is known through reason. One who claims what one says is a moral
obligation can do so by being free of impositions from outside. That is, he/she of his/her own
doing able to carry out his/her obligation. In the same way that it is an obligation insofar that it is
something that he/she on his/her own can manage to do.
Kant calls “duty” the obligation that follows what reason deems as the action which is
most worthy of our humanity. This is founded on human reason, that is, it passes through the
sorting out made by our autonomous and discursive reason. Our duty is that which our reason
determines as our obligation. Inasmuch as the duty is the doable obligation of the human person,
it is not the duty if its not impossible for man to do. Duty, therefore presupposes our ability for
otherwise it is only a bother to the human person. Duty, therefore is the doable good for the
human will. Duty, while founded on human reason for determination, is at the very same time
originating from the good will as a voluntary action that is doable for the human being.
Duty or obligation is the motivation for reason and goodwill pf the human person, if one
asks why he/she had to do what he/she ought to do, the answer can only be because it his/her
duty. Reason tells the human person to do the obligation that is doable for the goodwill again
since it is, he/his duty. The good that is reachable for the will of the human person is, therefore
owned by him/her as a duty. This then excludes any other external or internal motivation for the
human person for doing what he/she ought to do: whether he/she likes it or not; be it success or
failure; whether it comes with applause or accusation; his/her reason and goodwill simply binds
him/her to do what he/she ought to do because it is his/her duty.

FREDDIE R. COLLADA,
INSTRUCTOR 1