As the culprit of mentioning the Golden Rule in class, I
feel obliged to discuss its major differences with the Categorical
Imperative. “Do unto others as you would
have them do unto you,” vs. Kant’s “Act only on that maxim which you would will
as a universal law,” indeed correlate however they have distinct differences. The major distinction is that the Golden Rule
is subjective while the latter is objective.
The Golden Rule allows the viewpoint of the individual to justify what is
allowable, a loophole that could cause confusion such as this:
And in a less direct example:
By its subjective nature, the interpretation of “what if I
really do not mind something” also allows room for this to ignore moral laws as
discussed by Kant. His objective
principal fills in the blanks of the Golden Rule, leaving no room for interpretation
error. He does this by keeping the moral
guidelines on the individual basis.
According to Kant, an individual can judge what is right and wrong based
on their innate capacity to do so, their lack of ability to break the laws of
morality. This means that making a
decision does not need an external resource to decide if something is morally wrong;
it can be done by one determining to oneself that it does or does not follow a
universal law. In short, the Golden Rule
provides the guideline of interaction with others to justify what is a good
act, while the Categorical Imperative says that a good will should define for
itself what is universally good, and if the will is indeed good then it shall
make good efforts.
The distinction needs
to be made whether or not it is possible to follow these two rules. The Golden Rule is simple: if one intends to be good, then one only
needs to interact with others to determine how to perform good acts. Since “others” exist, the medium of
articulation for good acts exists and the Golden Rule is therefore justified as
a means by which to determine how to act.
Kant deduces that as a member of the world of sense that has the ability
to recognize oneself as intelligent, an individual holds the laws of
understanding as imperative (Kant 67-68).
Thus, Kant determines that the Categorical Imperative is possible based
on the guidelines that one is indeed an intelligent being with the autonomy of
will (Kant 68). This means that for the
Categorical Imperative to be true one must first define a maxim and a universal
law by which it abides, and it must also be true that one is an intelligent
being and that freedom does indeed exist and allows free will. (I looked around for a flowchart that would
demonstrate the relationship between all of these but could not find one). Simply speaking, as discussed by Kant and as
we discussed in class, it is possible to derive that all of these are true; however
it takes a more involved analysis to discover all of the intricacies of the
Categorical Imperative as opposed to the Golden Rule. And therefore, although the loophole of
subjective opinions is left out of Kant’s Imperative, it can be left to discussion whether or not such an objective principle is possible.
You are right in saying the most ostentatious difference between the golden rule and the categorical imperative seems to be whether they are universal. However, we need to make a finer distinction. Both category imperative and the golden rule tell us the link between the universalizable law and our moral decision is objective. The difference is the golden rule also defines the universalizable law as: do what you would have them do unto you”. This is an objective principle. It tells everyone to follow such a rule because they ought to. As you said, the rule itself has to follow the social convention and be derived from experiences. Kant would say such a rule is rather heteronomous and therefore unreliable.
ReplyDeleteThe whole point about bringing out the categorical principle is that people finally can be the owners of their morality. Like in a democracy, me as a free rational person now have the freedom to set my own moral code. This would not be possible if I were to define the universalizable law for everybody using the golden rule, or make the universalizable law objective.
Objective principle and subjective principle are intertwined in categorical imperative. The three propositions of duty are objective principles; but the maxim, the universalizable law, one follows when making a moral choice is a subjective one – one makes ones own maxims. It is formulated by our autonomous reason, as you point out “making a decision does not need an external resource to decide if something is morally wrong, it can be done by one determining to oneself that it does or does not follow a universal law”. This law is not defined most of the time; it seems to be just a hunch. You don’t even have the golden rule to confirm your hunch; you’ll just have to guess it. When willing, I’m thinking if the action that I am planning to do comply with some law that at all times only produces moral actions.
You also say, “for the Categorical Imperative to be true one must first define a maxim and a universal law by which it abides, and it must also be true that one is an intelligent being and that freedom does indeed exist and allows free will”. I do agree that it seems to be Kant’s intention to say that we have to be free, rational beings for the categorical imperative to apply. If we have no control over our actions by free volition to comply to certain ethical laws we create for ourselves, then what is the use of categorical imperatives anyway? We don’t even need them because we have other imperative laws out of our control to which we have to subject ourselves. Only when we have free will, which is necessary for us to make any moral decision at all, will we have the free will to build our own maxims morally and autonomously, or independent on empirical influences. “Hunching” for maxim or a universalizable law is not a necessary condition for Categorical Imperatives. It is the duty that necessarily comes from us being free rational beings. This is what Kant means by “to reason, which contains the law in the idea of freedom, and therefore as subject to the autonomy of the will: consequently I must regard the laws of the world of understanding as imperatives for me and the actions which conform to them as duties”
(CON'T b/c word limit)
ReplyDeleteYou say that freewill must exist for categorical imperatives to be true. However, we have to make a distinction here between the existence of freewill on a physical level and that on an a priori level. Kant actually doubts the physical existence of freewill. Because of that inconvenient Hume, we have little reason to trust the consequences of our experience. In order for Ethics to be valuable, we have to see freedom on a non-empirical level (69). In the same way Descartes argues for the existence of his existence, or thinking, Kant argues for the existence of the thinking of freedom, or an idea of freedom. However whether it really exists in nature is questionable, just like physical laws are questionable because we can never conclude effect from causes necessarily (70). However, we seem to contradict ourselves saying there is no freedom of will because the mere thinking of freedom is exercising freedom of will. Kant does not answer whether freewill exists or not in the world, but that it definitely exists in our reason, which is all it takes for us to subject ourselves to our own laws.
These are just my guesses. I am probably wrong but thought I’d express my interpretation nevertheless...it's always a learning process with philosophy since we can never get into those cryptic philosophers' minds anyway.