Categorical Imperatives

University Degree Historical and Philosophical studies

May 12, 2010

The Categorical Imperative and its Shortcomings

When you are in a given situation in which you need to make moral judgment, how do you come to decide what is morally correct? Two popular tests used to make such decision question the consistency, and fairness of the situation at hand. However, these two tests leave much to be desired. Immanuel Kant provides a better procedure for one to evaluate one’s moral actions. For Kant, moral requirements are categorical imperatives, and he introduces two tests in order to decide what a morally acceptable action is. The first test says that actions are morally acceptable only when the principles that inspire them can be acted on by everybody, and the second requires us to treat humanity as an end and never as a means. Categorical imperatives are considered inescapable on non-moral grounds. Nevertheless, Kant’s categorical imperatives as the ultimate principle of morality leave much to be desired, and although at first may seem extremely sophisticated, the principle is too simple to make much more moral advancement.

The first of two popular tests of consistency and fairness involves asking the question: what if everyone did that? The real problem with this test, apart from the fact that it sometimes delivers mistaken verdicts, is that it makes the morality of an action depend on how it is described (Shafer-Landau 145). The second popular test is the golden rule which relies on the question: how would you like it if I did that to you? It is an unreliable test of morality because it makes morality depend on a person’s desire, which cannot be controlled. The golden rule also fails to give us actual guidance on self-regarding actions. Because the above tests sometimes give the wrong answer to moral questions, neither can be the ultimate test of morality (Shafer-Landau 146).

Kant’s goal was to identify the ultimate principle of morality which would explain the attraction of the two previously mentioned tests and at the same time correct their limitations. Since according to Kant, morality is about the things one can control, he introduces maxims—the actions one controls, and thus the type of actions one can be held accountable for. When moral reasons apply to a situation they are always the strongest reasons, since they defeat the importance of any other consideration. If morality requires one to do something, then it is what one must do even if one does not want to. When one acts immorally, one acts irrationally because one would be acting contrary to moral reasons.

For Kant, the question of what is “right” comes prior to the question of what is good. Talent and ability is good if put to good use, but it can also be bad. Let’s consider the following example: hackers have the expertise to use computer technology to create “viruses” and cause fraudulent attacks. On the other hand, those that fight such hackers, are also hackers who have the same type of knowledge but choose to instead fight the immoral hackers. Because of this, only one thing is good in and of itself unconditionally, and that is a good "will" which means the will of ...

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Since human beings are not perfect, Kant believes we should give ourselves certain imperatives which are the kind of commands that we give to ourselves. If we actively choose an action, there is a maxim underlying it, which has both a means and an ends. The first, hypothetical imperatives, require us to do certain things mainly because those actions will get us what we want. These imperatives represent the practical necessity of a possible action as a means to achieving something else that one wills. For instance, if one wants to be healthy one should exercise. This imperative gives an instruction that will achieve a certain result but does not have to be followed as they do not have universal scope. When one’s desires change, these rational requirements change or disappear (Shafer-Landau 152).

Kant introduces another kind of imperatives which are rational requirement that do not depend on what we care about. Categorical imperatives are unconditionally binding, and override hypothetical ones. Kant explains “categorical imperatives are the imperatives of morality because it has nothing to do with the matter of action and what is to result from it, but with the form and the principle from which the action follows, and the essential good in the action consists in the disposition” (Kant 76). He believed that all moral duties are therefore categorical imperatives. If basic rules depended on our desires as does the golden rule, this would make morality too indeterminate (Shafer-landau 153).

Kant identifies his categorical imperative as that which operates as the ultimate foundation principle of morality, and offers two formulations. The first is to act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law. If a maxim cannot hold the universal law it is wrong and irrational. Moral irrationality undermines our own autonomy and fails to allow us to be our own free autonomous agent. The second formulation is that every rational being exists as an end in itself, and not merely as a means to be used (Kant 79). This entails that each human being must be treated as a free and rational person and not as a means by using them without their consent as an instrument so that one’s interests can prosper.

Kant presents four examples to demonstrate the validity of the categorical imperative according to both formulations. The first observes a person who desires to commit suicide. According to Kant, destroying one’s life cannot constitute as a maxim because it does not apply as a universal law of nature, and goes against the principles of preserving life. For this example, he claims that suicide is a case of treating oneself as a means instead of an end. The second example is of one who needs to borrow money and makes the promise that it will be repaid in a determined time even though he is aware he will not be able to repay it. Kant claims that universal promise breaking would be impossible as it would result that no one will believe promises anymore. Kant tells us that breaking a promise also constitutes treating another person as a means, namely the person to whom the promise was made (Kant 77).

The third person, either continues to develop their gifts in idle life, or opts for leisure. Kant now maintains that it is wrong for a person to let all of his natural talents go to waste. In Kant's fourth and last example, he describes a person who lives in prosperity and at the same time sees others in trouble but does not want to help them (Kant 78). Kant argues that the day will come in which this person may need charity from others.

Although originally, Kant’s examples may seem convincing, they do not provide a very clear, persuasive idea of the application of categorical imperatives. The problem seems to be that either an act is allowed yet fails the categorical test, or it is wrong but passes the test without difficulty. To complicate matters more, simply passing the categorical imperative does not really make it enough. These examples show very little about morality and what categorical imperatives tell us. In the last example, Kant concludes that everyone must be willing to help others, given that if I am in need, I want people to give to charity, but if I am not then this will not be necessary. Wouldn’t the maxim of not helping others also have the ability to be universabilizable? Kant’s principle of universalizability says that a maxim’s universability is a guarantee of an action’s rightness, and this is obviously false. To begin with, Kant offers no way to resolve conflicts between duties. We can act on universabilizable maxims and still do wrong, and this can be observed by many examples throughout human history (Shafer-landau 154). An evident problem with Kant’s categorical imperatives is that they do not really tell us what actions to follow, but instead the sort of maxims to act on. But what happens if one is trying to choose between two conflicting duties. Which should be chosen instead of the other?

What is morally good and morally bad for Kant is distinguished not by what a person accomplishes but instead for the reasons which the person acts on. Kant believes that being motivated to act morally by duty is to be motivated for reasons that I am hoping everyone has. Because of this my action has "moral value." There is nothing wrong with this, but, by only focusing on the reason for an action, and not one bit on the result of the action, Kant’s principle fails to consider numerous examples where people have been well-intentioned but the resulting consequences of their actions are terrible.

A person in favor of Kant’s categorical imperatives might make the argument that this principle does not tell us how rights and actions are meant to be limited or chosen. They might argue that all the categorical imperatives are trying to say is that everyone should have moral equal rights and that all should demonstrate respect for the interests of others. Nonetheless, Kant regarded his rules as absolute and it is never acceptable to break them even if breaking them led to better results (Shafer-Landau 174). The rule requiring me to tell the truth does not make an exception for cases in which I am not in the mood for telling the truth, yet it might make exceptions for when telling the truth would endanger the lives of innocent people. How do you choose whether to tell a lie or telling a lie in order to avoid harming someone? As observed, Kant’s categorical imperative can be easily manipulated so that it leads to results that seem morally right, all one has to do is trivially change one’s maxim.

The second formulation’s shortcomings can be observed in example two. In accordance with the second formulation, human beings should not be treated as means since they have incomparable value (Kant 77). Not being able to repay debt is immoral since it uses another person to promote one’s own prosperity. The same problem arises: how does one then choose between two people, since one cannot compare the value of a person in a situation in which one is given a choice between different people? Lastly, the notion of treating someone as an end is vague, therefore making the principle hard to apply. Without a more precise test of when we are respecting others and treating them as they deserve, the principle of humanity fails to give us the guidance we expect from an ultimate moral principle (Shafer-Landau 166).

Both formulations of the categorical imperative offer the same position: people must treat each other as equal free rational autonomous people in their search for their interests. Although Kant's arguments for categorical imperatives provide us with a better test than those of fairness and consistency, and is based on duty and reason. Problems arise with the fact that it lacks emotions, and it is too inflexible. To reiterate, Kant’s philosophy contains various inconsistencies. His method does not yield many specific answers to moral problems due to ambiguity as to which moral rules the categorical imperatives produce.