Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
Relative Goods
money, food, drink, friendship,
pleasure, house, car, clothing, etc.
Heteronomous motives
1. not good in itself, but only good for
something else, i.e., a means to an end
2. dependent, contingent upon something
other than itself,
3. often only causally efficacious /.: only a
means to an end.
4. justified, if at all, on the basis of an H.I.*
and are the ground of imperfect duties.
*H.I.= hypothetical imperative.
In such a kingdom of rational agents, each would be both a law giver and
subject to the law.
It is a kingdom wherein, given the first formulation, the rationally self-legislated
laws of each member would harmonize with all others.
Special Note: If you think about it, if one follows the C.I., and since it is
universal, ones own interests are taken into account. Therefore, ones rational
self-interest is thus taken into account in your moral decision. In this way, the aim
of ethical egoism is automatically accounted for by the C.I.
(2) Others are morally significant and might even have undesirable consequences if
neglected, but still are not so serious that you would be judged immoral if you indeed
neglected to make the smart choice. These Kant classifies as Impure Duties. E.g., Kant
points out that we need to look after our health and self-improvement, such as losing
weight, exercising, reading fine literature & elevating books, being sociable and polite.
These also are based on Hypothetical Imperatives; e.g., If I want to improve my
vocabulary and thereby my intellect, I should read fine literature and elevating books.
Again, If I want to maintain or even improve my health, then I ought to adopt a better
diet and exercise 3 times mornings each week. Of course, if you fail at any of these, you
have not done something immoral; perhaps you are being foolish or imprudent, but not
immoral and certainly not evil.
(3) The Categorical Imperative pertains to the Pure Duties, the truly serious moral
duties such as preserving the truth, keeping promises (e.g., contracts, in the business
context), and preserving innocent life. Again, the C.I. is universally binding, i.e., it is
absolute and brooks no exceptions. The C.I. has the form of a self-imposed command
upon your act, i.e., For all cases___ do _ _ _. To fail at these entails that what one has
done (lying, making false promises, and attacking or failing to defend innocent life, etc.)
is indeed immoral and worthy of moral censure.
[One after-thought: Had Kant lived and wrote after Mill, Id bet a years wages that he
would not have said that the utilitarian theory fails not because it talks of happiness,
pleasure, balance of desirable over undesirable consequences and the P.U. is absolutely
irrelevant to the moral life. (He would have criticized the PU on these grounds, but he
would not have rejected it for taking into account the consequences of an act). Rather,
he would have argued against them that in selecting utility as their ultimate moral
principle, they stopped short in their thinking and mistook a lower-order, conditioned
criterion of decision making to be an ultimate and unconditional moral principle. At best,
utilitarianism only has the tentative support of a hypothetical imperative, an H.I.]