The Possibility Of Moral Requirements

The subject of this dissertation concerns the moral requirements fromKant’s view. Kant’s moral philosophy has a normative feature evidently.His theory is more rigorous in some aspects such as legislation, executionthan other normative ethics. Because of this external impression, Kant’sethics is subjected to plenty of criticisms. The main criticisms aimingto moral demands involve two respects: firstly, in the aspect of moralprinciple establishing, Kant claims that a real moral law must be a purelaw which gets rid of all empirical contents, therefore the Law needs aground from pure practical reason. However, some scholars doubt that purereason can be practical; besides, the reality of pure practical reasonsuffers from challenge. People will question that how a moral principlewithout any contents of experience provides practical motivation.Secondly, in the aspect of applying principles to action constraint, sinceKant’s moral principles are characterized by formalization, they aredenounced as empty and abstract principles. Moreover, because the featureof generalization in moral rules, some opponents believe this kind ofprinciple cannot guide action and accommodate the diversity of realsituation. There might be conflicts between moral requirements and moralintuition in some special conditions. Kant’s moral theory therefore isseen as rigorism by his critics. In those criticisms and queries, someopinions point the weaknesses and limits of Kant’s ethics indeed, whilesome others are just prejudice and misunderstanding. This dissertationwill dedicate to the solution of later problems.According to these criticisms, this dissertation discusses the themefrom three parts. The first part considers the validity of pure practical reason and the moral law. It also investigates some practical elementssuch as will, practical principle, motive, and analyses Kant’s attitudeabout the relation between reason and experience. The argumentationproves that empirical practical principles cannot become the highest lawby taking an inverse direction and replies the question about why the morallaw has to depend on a pure form of practical reason. This part explainsthat intrinsic instability of experience determines empirical thingscannot be the basis of moral law and the sensible experiences cannot supplymoral action with the constant impulse.After explaining why we cannot get moral law and motivation fromexperience, a pure moral law is proved necessary. We need to confirm theexistence of the moral law. For this purpose, this dissertationinvestigates Kant’s two different ways in Groundwork of the Metaphysicsof Morals and Critique of Practical Reason respectively. The former worksaims to search and establish the highest moral principle. Kant expectsdeducing the moral law through a concept of freedom, but this thoughtblocked by a circle problem. In the latter works, Kant depended on a factof reason. We notice that a conception of rational agent who has an abilityof legislation is crucial in both two different methods. In Groundwork,the two roles of human are expected to remedy the difficulty of circleproblem. And the conception of fact of reason related to human will isused in proving the existence of pure practical reason and moral law. Incontrast with some ethical theories which ignore the importance of agents,Kant’s moral demands have close connection with rational agents. Moralprinciples and duties cannot be independent of concept of agent and thisis the advantage of Kant’s moral theory. In the light of Kant’s conceptof agent inclined to idealistic, some contemporary Kantian scholarsdevelop a conception of agent which has more human characters than Kant’scounterpart. They also believe that agent’s consciousness of moral law can prove the moral requirement probably.Kant emphasizes the universal validity of his moral demands. It maybe one of the most condemned views in Kant’s theory. Therefore the thirdpart of this dissertation concerns the adaptation and availability ofKant’s generalized requirements. First of all, we will assess asignificant method in judging maxim: the universalization test; and someexamples in Kant’s works are involved in this argument. Next, the caseof lie and the concept of imperfect duty from Kant are scrutinized forappraising whether Kantian moral principles are rigid in real practice.Although many people criticize that Kant’s moral philosophy only focusesthe purity of theory and ignores the impact of empirical elements in moralactions. From this part, we can find that Kant actually has taken empiricalelements such as inclination, interests and so on into consideration whenhe deals with the operation of moral duties and principles. This pointis embodied in his justification that moral law binds maxims rather thanspecific actions, and is also embodied in his conception about latitudeof duty performance. Last but not least, Kant’s moral judgment must bebrought into focus. Moral judgment plays a pivotal role in the transitionfrom theoretical demands to real actions, while moral principles have toldus the right direction that we should do. Judgment is necessary infulfilling our duty.