Key Concept #1: Justice

The first key concept for better comprehending Kantian ethics is “justice.”

Justice is a matter of treating people fairly and equitably. To see this, let’s take a familiar case from childhood. When a parent gets caught by their child doing something they told the child not to do, they typically say this classic line, “Do as I say, not as I do.” If you ever had this happen to you as a child, a natural response is, “that’s not fair!”

Your childhood sense of justice might be tracking what’s unfair. Your dad told you that, say, it’s wrong to flip people off and you should never do it, then when a person cut your dad off in traffic what did he do in front of you, he gave the person the bird. In that moment, your dad made himself an exception to the general rule he laid down. You rightly called him out on that.

Kant thought it’s unjust and unfair to make an exception of yourself. Morality requires consistency. It requires applying to yourself the same rules that you apply to everyone else. Kant’s test of the morality of actions, which he calls “the categorical imperative,” relies on the notion of justice. You are to act in alignment with rules that everyone could follow, including yourself.

The last feature of justice related to Kant is the idea of people getting what they deserve. For Kant, it’s wrong when people get what they don’t deserve or when people don’t get what they do deserve. This is one way Kant’s moral philosophy differs from utilitarian theories that center around promoting happiness.

Kant thought happiness is only valuable under the condition that it is deserved. To see this, consider the case of Whitey Bulger. Whitey was an organized crime boss, responsible for lots of murders. He got flipped and became an informant. This allowed him to not be prosecuted for many years.

After being tipped off by his FBI contact that he would be arrested, he fled into hiding. He lived for 16 years at large before finally being captured in Santa Monica, CA.

Imagine an alternative scenario in which Bulger didn’t spend 16 years on the run, soaking up the Southern California sun. For Kant, the world were Whitey Bulger doesn’t enjoy happiness he doesn’t deserve is a better world. It isn’t enough to have more happiness. That happiness must be deserved. 

This emphasis on justice is one way Kant differs from utilitarians like John Stuart Mill, which I discussed in this post.

Key Concept #2: Moral Autonomy

The second key concept is “moral autonomy.” The two formulations of Kant’s Categorial Imperative come from his commitments regarding this key concept.

For Kant, you’re morally autonomous or free when you can apply a moral law to yourself. It’s the ability to self-impose a moral law or obligation that makes you morally autonomous. Freedom involves the absence of external impediments, and it also involves choosing, for the right reasons, to do what the moral law requires.

As John Christman explains in an article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

This self-imposition of the moral law is autonomy. And since this law must have no content provided by sense or desire, or any other contingent aspect of our situation, it must be universal. Hence we have the (first formulation of the) Categorical Imperative, that by virtue of our being autonomous we must act only on those maxims that we can consistently will as a universal law.

The basis of morality for Kant is found in universal moral law. It must be binding on all rational creatures. It cannot apply to particular people because they have particular desires, interests, and inclinations. So, to act morally you must use moral autonomy to put yourself under and obligation that could apply to everyone equally. You cannot make an exception of yourself based on the contingencies of your physical situation or psychology.

We arrive at the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative via moral autonomy when we think about moral value. Moral autonomy is, as Christman continues, “the ultimate source of all moral value—for to value anything (instrumentally or intrinsically) implies the ability to make value judgments generally.” And, we owe ourselves respect because of our moral autonomy. By self-imposing the moral law on ourselves we perform acts that have moral worth. To do so, we must trust our ability to make such value judgments.

But, because moral autonomy doesn’t, for Kant, rely on contingent features of us as individuals, then we must extend similar respect to all other rational creatures given their ability to self-impose a moral law on their selves. This is why we must treat people as ends in themselves, never as mere means. We are obligated to morally respect the humanity in others in light of their same capacity for moral autonomy. We cannot disrespect that capacity in them by treating them as mere instruments serving our own personal ends. So, the second Categorical Imperative emerges out of considerations related to moral autonomy.

Key Concept #3: A priori Method

The last key concept for deeply comprehending Kant is the notion of an a priori method. Kant quite self-consciously talked about moral methodology. It wasn’t enough that he was spitting out the first order moral philosophy, he would also talk about the method by which he was doing it. Another way of saying this is that considerations of methodology shaped the resulting theory that emerged using such methodology.

First, let’s look at what a priori is. A priori is a fancy term for “prior to experience.” A priori truths are truths that do not rely on experience for their truth-value. Classic a prior truths are the truths of mathematics. That 2+5 = 7 doesn’t require two things in experience plus five things in experience adding up to seven for it to be true that 2+5=7. Conceptual and logical truths are often regarded as a priori truths.

This contrast with a posteriori truths. Such truths depend on experience for their truth-value. It isn’t a mere conceptual truth that Hitler lost the Battle of the Bulge in WWII. That truth gets its truth-value from experience, not prior to it.

Let’s relate this to a priori method. Kant thought that it’s not a good idea to ground morality on experience. We don’t want to look at experience and see what humans think and let that shape what is moral. Instead, an a priori method uses reason to look at the content of moral concepts and principles. 

For Kant, a posteriori considerations merely taint the requirements of morality. This is why the requirements of rationality must be discovered by a priori methods, such as analysis of concepts.

Such a methodological commitment influences the resulting moral theory, as for Kant, morality is ultimately concerned with principles and laws that shape the will. Such a will involves the faculty of reason to make decision and set ends and goals.

Watch A YouTube Video on Kant's Moral Philosophy

I created a YouTube video that discusses these 3 key concepts in Kant's moral philosophy. Watch the video below! And, as always, keep living The Philosophical Life!