Confusion about moral and non-moral goods, goods for selves and good for others, produces characteristic fallacies, as follows:
- The fallacies of egoism are: 1) egoistic moralism (or moralistic egoism), the sense that it is a moral duty to pursue one's own interests. Ayn Rand sounds like this, and many earlier moralists, such as Kant, posit a category of "duties to self," which Jefferson properly denies above. Kant's duty to preserve one's own life is therefore an example of egoistic moralism.
Shortly after self-preservation, Kant gives us an even more problematic example of egoistic moralism: "To secure one's own happiness is at least indirectly a duty" [op.cit., p.15, Seine eigene Glückseligkeit sichern, ist Pflicht (wenigstens indirekt), p.399]. Kant does give us a fragment of an argument for this, that "discontent with one's condition under pressure from many cares and amid unsatisfied wants could easily become a great temptation to transgress duties" [ibid.]. So we are required to become happy lest our unhappiness tempt us into doing wrong. This is an extraordinary and absurd proposition. In fact, Kant himself later discourses at some length on how there is no certain way to obtain happiness, in part because a person "can never definitely and self-consciously state what it is he really wishes and wills" [p.35]. Then, even if we know what we think we want, "the task of determining infallibly and universally what action will promote the happiness of a rational being is completely unsolvable" [p.36]. Since Kant himself adopts the sensible principle that it cannot be a duty to do something that we cannot do, the idea that securing one's happiness, certainly within this lifetime, would be a duty is incredible. And what awaits the Christian who has failed to dutifully become happy? Will God damn the willfully unhappy soul? (if there even is such a thing). This is difficult to credit.
2) egoistic [moral] aestheticism, the sense that no moral duty exists to restrain the actual pursuit of one's own interests (sounds like Nietzsche but is not Rand). Egoistic aestheticism eliminates all moral duties to others, leaving only prudent or "enlightened" self-interest to govern relations with them. An egoistic aestheticism which is not a moral aestheticism would simply mean that goods for the self are worthy of pursuit; and that is not a moral fallacy. Egoistic moralism and egoistic aestheticism can actually be combined, which would make it a duty to pursue self-interest whatever the cost to others.
Moral duty does arise where goods for others, which may or may not overlap goods for the self, are concerned. Moral duty consists of respect for the autonomy of others, which means allowing the free exercise of the innocent, competent will of others in regard to their own interests.
- "Allowing the free exercise" means the use of neither fraud (deception) nor force (coercive threat of violence or actual violence) against the will of other persons in the disposing of their interests.
- "Innocent" means that the other is not actually committing or effecting a wrong, whether or not they intend wrong (although they actually are morally innocent if they do not intent wrong and are not negligent). The intentional or negligent commission of a wrong entails loss of some rights of autonomy and self-interest both in order to prevent the active commission of the wrong and in order to extract retribution (through the loss of goods, proportional to the wrong) as just punishment for wrongs committed.
- "Competent" means mentally able to rationally evaluate and pursue one's own self-interest. Incompetent persons do not lose rights of self-interest and only lose rights of autonomy in so far as their self-interest can be better evaluated and pursued, in their behalf, by others.
- "Their own interests" are self-defined in the areas or matters where, according to the types of interests considered below, we have rights of possession, use, and exchange.
It has become common to say that people have rights wherever they have interests, but this principle does not allow for "compossibility," the possibility that the rights can all be exercised at the same time, since many interests overlap and conflict (unless we just define "interest" to prevent this). Such "rights" must necessarily be abridged, a dangerous characteristic, since any rights can then be abridged for any expedient reason. If not all interests are protected by rights, however, then rights can be moral and legal claims that cannot be abridged.
This formulation of the nature of moral duty is functionally similar to Kant's version of the moral law as requiring one to act always to treat others as ends also and never as means only. Since treating others as means is to use them to further one's own self-interest (or some other interest), and this can be done in many completely innocent ways, the crucial question is what treating someone as an "end also" amounts to. An "end" clearly stops the action of the will, so that the will does not continue to some further good. That makes the "end" a good-in-itself. While we may value others as goods-in-themselves, we usually do make use of them for ulterior ends; and the only way to reconcile their function as both end and means is if they are willing to pursue some ulterior end in our behalf. Thus, Kant's formulation calls on us to respect the autonomy and dignity of persons, allowing them the freedom to help or not to help us in the pursuit of goods. If they are not willing to help us, then we cannot use them as means to our self-interested ends. That complements the version of moral duty given above. There we leave people alone to pursue their self-interest, while with Kant we do not force them to pursue ours.
I should note, however, that this interpretation of Kant is not consistent with Kant's own view of the moral law; for Kant actually states the rule as "Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only" [op.cit., p.47]. Thus, one should treat oneself as an end also as well as means. Since it doesn't make any sense that one could violate one's own will, Kant needed to have in mind more than just autonomy as the content of the self as an end. Since that is the area where Kant's theory seems indefinite, leading to endless interpretations over the years (including rejection by Schopenhauer as indeterminately vague), and would in any case involve duties to self, which don't exist, I do think that part of Kant's moral law can be amputated without real loss, and that it is appropriate to do so. Respecting the autonomy of others is a simpler, more definite, and more defensible principle than whatever it would mean to respect oneself, as well as another, as an end in itself. [note]
Leonard Nelson, although essential to the treatment of ethics here, with his theories of ideal ethics and of moralism, stuck too closely to Kant's first version of the moral law (to act so that the maxim of one's action can be universalized without contradiction), which is moralistic, and produced a moralistic formulation of the moral law himself. Thus, he calls the moral law "the principle of abstraction from the numerical determination of persons" [System of Ethics, Yale, 1956, p. 113] and says:
If we suppose that all interests affected by our action are those of a single person, if we suppose, in other words, that the interests of the person affected by our action are ours as well, we would favor the preponderating interest regardless of whether it is our own or that of the other person. [ibid. p. 114]
This makes Nelson's theory actually teleological, for right action is then to bring about the "preponderating interest" among all those affected by an action, though, dealing with actual affected interests, this is not quite as absurd as teleological theories that simply require that the "greatest good" be effected in every situation, which is actually beyond the scope of human cognition or action. Nelson's theory, nevertheless, is moralistic both because every action then becomes a moral issue, where the "preponderating interest" must be calculated, and because it can make some non-moral interest of others into the consideration which determines moral action, for there is nothing to prevent the "preponderating interest" from being a non-moral interest. Nor can the "preponderating interest" even be determined in a theory of value where most goods, the goods of ideal ethics, are not absolute and will often not, and could not, be agreed upon by different persons. Only where a moral issue is already involved will there be a "preponderating interest" that is absolute, determinable, and preemptive over non-moral and personal goods; and such a moral issue, as above, will always involve the respect for the innocent, competent will of others with respect to their own interests.
It is a shame that Nelson errs when it comes to the content of the moral law, but this provides an important lesson how mistakes can be made even in the context of a theory that is sound and fruitful. Similar problems occur with Nelson's view of Socratic Method and non-intuitive immediate knowledge.
A reconcilation of teleological and deontological ethical theories is possible when we note that some ends are not to be attained but simply, as already attained, to be respected. That will occur with persons as ends-in-themselves. A Utilitarian or other teleological theory that allows persons to be used, simply as means for some ulterior end, overlooks the status of persons as ends already. It has always been possible to argue for a teleological theory by saying that individual rights, etc. are among the appropriate ends that teleological ethics would be pursuing. One need merely add that they are not among "appropriate" ends but are absolute ends which absolutely restrict morally acceptable action. Since persons as ends are not purposes to be realized through action but are features of the moral universe that absolutely restrict action, it is more straightforward and revealing to see morality in deontological rather than teleological terms. Now, however, these can be translated into one another, and teleological theories that allow for expediency rather than morality can be revealed as relativizing, not morality in some abstract sense, but the moral worth of a person as an absolute end-in-itself and good-in-itself.
Goods for the self are interests of person, property, and contract. These translate into rights. "Interests of person" are the possession and control by a person of their own body, labor, and other attributes of their personal status (e.g. reputation, civil rights, etc.). "Interests of property" are the possession and control by a person of tangible and intangible assets, distinct and separable from the person, the ownership of which is recognized in custom and law, usually giving the owners powers of exclusive possession, use, and exchange. Interests of person and property impose duties of respect to refrain from the use of fraud and force against the person and property of others. "Interests of contract" are the agreements and promises through which interests of person and property are usually managed and altered, and so respect for person and property also becomes respect for contract.
Interests of person and property in general forbid wrongs of commission, i.e. fraudulent or violent damaging acts against persons and property, by others. Moral duty also forbids wrongs of omission -- or posits duties of commission (or duties to act) -- requiring positive actions for the sake of another because of contract (see below) or where fundamental interests, such as life and limb, are endangered. The distiction between duties of omission and commission is ancient, as Thomas Jefferson noted in 1813, in a letter to John Adams, about rabbinical law:
From the law of Moses were deduced six hundred and thirteen precepts, which were divided into two classes, affirmative and negative, two hundred and fourty-eight in the former, and three hundred and sixty-five in the latter.
The duties of omission (the negative ones) thus constitute 60% of the total. This may indicate their more fundamental and straightforward nature, as the Ten Commandments themselves mostly begin with "Don't" (Lô' in Hebrew). The duty to act in the cases of commission involves the judgment that the other person is in some respect physically unable or mentally incompetent to help themselves. The pursuit of goods for others is altruism.
- The fallacy of altruism, or altruistic moralism (or moralistic altruism), is the sense that there is a general duty, or that morality as such requires us always, to act in the interest of others. On the other hand, an "altruistic moral aestheticism" [or, simply, "altruistic aestheticism"] is not a moral fallacy; for this only means that a person may act for the good of others if this seems good, which is unobjectionable as long as the action respects the autonomy of others, i.e. is not against their innocent and competent will. The asymmetry between egoistic and altruistic moral aestheticism,
that one is a fallacy and the other isn't, is due to the circumstance that morality limits the pursuit of self-interest and posits respect for others. The removal of moral constraint in aestheticism thus would be motivated for the self, which can then gain through wrong, but would not be motivated for others, who were protected from wrongful loss.
As it happens, Kant gives us an example of altruistic moralism hard on the heels of his duty to preserve one's own life: "To be kind where one can is a duty" [op.cit., p.14, Wohltätig sein, wo man kann, ist Pflicht, p.398]. Kindness is a virtue, and a good, but generally not a duty. Kant expands on its meaning by speaking of those who have "inner satisfaction in spreading joy, and rejoice in the contentment of others which they have made possible" [p.14]. This all sounds like activities that are certainly supererogatory. The misanthrope can live a quite morally correct, even laudable life, without going around "spreading joy." Kant's addition of "where one can" [wo man kann], however, makes it sound like what he has in mind are non-contractual duties of commission, such as feeding the starving when one has the resources to do so. This goes far beyond kindness, and even beyond "philanthropy," which is a word that Kant uses [p.15], although perhaps not in precisely the modern sense of charitable liberality. Feeding the starving will likely be "spreading joy" among them, but the idea that one has a duty to be "spreading joy" among people in general is absurd. People who actually try to do this are often found by sensible persons to be insufferable.
Altruistic moralism is often a tempting doctrine because the rule for the specification of non-contractual duties of commission appears to be complex. There will be such a duty on a person only where:
- The other is unable to help themselves,
- the other is in danger of serious and irreversible harm,
- there is no one else present who has a more defined contractual obligation to help the other (e.g. lifeguard, parent, physician, policeman, etc.) and who is able to do so, and
- a person is able to act competently to prevent that harm without comparably endangering either themselves personally or the interests of those who are contractually dependent upon the agent for support (e.g. children or other family, etc.).
A person who does more than is required by these conditions, i.e. who acts even at the cost of endangering themselves or damaging their own interests of comparable magnitude to those originally endangered, acts with supererogation, i.e. beyond the requirements of moral duty. Altruistic moralism denies supererogation. Since non-contractual duties of commission involve judgments of incompetence or physical disability, altruistic moralism implies paternalism, i.e. the judgment that the agent knows better the interests of others, and how to pursue them, than they do themselves. Paternalism and altruistic moralism thus will lead to basic violations of moral duty as the actual innocent and competent autonomous will of others may be abridged by force. That is a general problem with any form of altruism, that the self-defining character of what is good is transferred from the other to the altruistic agent, always raising the danger that another may be judged incompetent simply because their judgment about what is good for them may differ from the agent's.
Interests of contract are reciprocal obligations undertaken in innocent (not agreements to do wrong), informed (without fraud), free (without force or threat), deliberate (with intention to assume an obligation), mutual agreement between competent persons. Most clear obligations of commission will be of this type, although some will be implied contracts with persons incompetent to contract in their own interest, e.g. between parents and their children, whose own interests the parents have a prima facie obligation to pursue in their behalf. Since children cannot agree whether to be born, parents in effect judge on behalf of children that life is good and that it is in their own interest to exist. Government and the authority of the state may also be based on implied contract (the "social contract"), not because the contractors are incompetent (although children born into the state actually are), but because the just authority of the state is merely derived from the need, for all and against all, to enforce rights of person, property, and contract and to punish wrongs of negligence, violence, and fraud. The contract is implied because by definition it is agreed to by all persons of good will per se, whose subsequent actual deeds and agreements are then accordingly judged right or wrong. This implied agreement is, of course, open to much abuse, since any ambiguity about the just powers of the state, especially if inspired by political or religious moralism, tends to be decided by those using political power in favor of increasing their power, easily rationalized as enforcing moral principles. As ambiguities continue over time, there will be a continuing increase in the power of the state.
Since children for some time really are incompetent and helpless, it is a good question to what extent the parental relationship is a contractual duty of commission or a non-contractual one: but if there is no duty to bring children into existence (which does not seem right outside of moralistic religious systems), then the act by the parents must be either supererogatory or in the parents' self-interest. In the latter case, which seems like the most reasonable motivation (since people derive considerable personal satisfaction from having children), the relationship established is clearly an implied contractual one, with the benefits of parenthood weighed against the obligation to pursue the interests of the children. In the former case the relationship would be more one of non-contractual duty, but of a peculiar type, since the parents are responsible for the very existence of the incompetent persons and so assume a primary responsibility that has much more of the flavor of a contract than as in the case of a good Samaritan who happens across someone with a preexisting need. A non-contractual relationship, on the other hand, would mean that parents really would get nothing in return, and this seems contrary to fact, and to expectation. Children have usually been considered great goods for parents.
Nelson distinguished between beings as "subjects of rights" and as "subjects of duties." He denied that animals are subjects of duties (since they are not rational), but also affirmed that animals are subjects of the same rights as rational beings. This cannot be so, not just because bears, lions, and sharks cannot be allowed to roam around eating people (which they would do with, for them, complete innocence), but because animals do not exist at the same level of consciousness, of existence, as rational beings. Indeed, there is a continuum of levels of consciousness, and animals at the higher end are worthy of more respect, thereby possessing more rights. As Schopenhauer said, a human being suffers more from a mosquito bite than a mosquito does in being killed by the human. A mosquito is very low on the scale even of sentient beings, and thus has a life that is respected by virtually no human beings (apart from the Jains in India, who accord equal dignity and rights even to the smallest insects and bacteria). Since human beings are natural omnivores, and have over the centuries artifically bred many species (like cattle) for food or clothing, there is no intuitive or prima facie moral claim for vegetarianism. Whether animals have rights to the extent that they should not be eaten or otherwise used by humans leads, however, off into more general questions about respect for the dignity of beings in general and what kinds of duties are imposed by any objects as goods-in-themselves.
Even if objects are neither rational nor sentient, their dignity can impose duties, e.g. not to vandalize nature. Since beauty, sentient beings, and rational beings are all goods-in-themselves, this indicates how morality and ethics are actually embedded in aesthetics, the theory of goods-in-themselves, and gives us a clue about the source of moral duty: that some goods-in-themselves simply involve moral duties, perhaps of different types. Goods-in-themselves are ends-in-themselves that restrict action to different degrees, imposing different degrees of respect. Animal rights advocates (e.g. PeTA [note], People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) who think that animals must be treated with the very same respect as people, or environmentalists who think that nature must be treated in much the same way, forbidding human "exploitation" of nature (e.g. Earth First!), have absolutized the value of sentient beings or natural objects to the same level as rational beings. No human cultures, except perhaps the Jains, have done anything quite like this -- and the Jains, who refuse even to be farmers, are absolutely dependent for life on the activities of others.[note] Even hunting cultures, who respect their prey as spirits or gods, nevertheless still kill them. They simply do so reverentially (as one sees Russell Means, one of the activists in the American Indian Movement, doing at the beginning of the 1992 movie The Last of the Mohicans) -- though "reverentially," paradoxically, could even mean ritually torturing them. 
D'Arcy Moses, a Montreal fashion designer who works in furs at Natural Furs International, refuses to concede the ethical case of anti-fur activists precisely because he relies on the principles of his own background -- he is a Canadian Indian -- where furs are essential to life and pose no moral difficulty. Moses deliberately uses "Native," as he says, design motifs in his work [example shown]. Although anti-fur enthusiasm was once common in the fashion industry, it has now receded.
The modern objection may be less to the killing and use of animals or the use of nature than to the mass culture and the division of labor which now means that animals are raised in vast numbers on farms by corporations and killed in slaughterhouses rather than given individual attention by consumers. It may, indeed, be reasonably questioned whether "reverence" is possible under the conditions of mass production. In Japan, where business and production are usually still protected by the Shintô kami (gods), to the point of having Shintô shrines even in laundromats, one may say that the old observances survive even in modern form. However, in the United States this is usually not regarded as desirable: Religion is being actively driven out of business, since a specifically Shintô, Christian, or Jewish workplace is regarded by law as religiously discriminatory (a "civil rights" offense). At some point such paradoxes are going to have be resolved: if reverence is demanded for animals and nature, then traditional sources of reverence will have to be respected also. One often suspects, however, that anti-corporate and anti-modern activists would look more benignly on Shintô-blessed business than on a Christian-blessed one, out of bias and antipathy against monotheistic religions of transcendent reverence, like Judaism, Christianity, and Islâm, which devalue nature in relation to God.
The Fallacies of Egoism and Altruism,
and the Fundamental Principle of Morality, Note 1
Kant's Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals,
Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten
Kant's treatment of morality in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals should be given a more thorough treatment here. This short book is the basis of all Kant's moral thought and it has often been assigned to be read even by undergraduates. Many people are thus exposed to extensive discussion of Kant's ethics without ever becoming familiar with the larger Critique of Practical Reason -- let alone the general basis of his thought in the Critique of Pure Reason. So the book provides what is generally understood about Kant's "categorical imperative," i.e. a Moral Law that is an unconditioned ("categorical," meaning not for an ulterior purpose) command ("imperative"). After some preliminary discussion of good will and some examples of moral duties, Kant gives us the first and fundamental version of the Law:
But what kind of a law can that be, the conception of which must determine the will without reference to the expected result? Under this condition alone the will can be called absolutely good without qualification. Since I have robbed the will of all impulses which could come to it from obedience to any law, nothing remains to serve as a principle of the will except universal conformity of its actions to law as such. That is, I should never act in such a way that I could not also will that my maxim should be a universal law [Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Lewis White Beck translation, Library of the Liberal Arts, 1959, p.18] -- d.i. ich soll niemals anders verfahren, als so, daß ich auch wollen könne, meine Maxime solle ein allgemeines Gesetz werden. [Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, p.402]
Similarly, Kant says:
There is, therefore, only one categorical imperative. It is: Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. [Beck, p.39] -- Der kategorische Imperativ ist also nur ein einziger und zwar dieser: handle nur nach derjenigen Maxime, durch die du zugleich wollen kanst, daß sie ein allgemeines Gesetz werde. [p.421]
In stating the Imperative this way, it is no accident that it sounds no different in form from a physical law of nature. Indeed, Kant immediately goes on to say precisely that:
Act as though the maxim of your action were by your will to become a universal law of nature. [Beck, p.39] -- handle so, als ob die Maxime deiner Handlung durch deinen Willen zum ALLGEMEINEN NATURGESETZ werden sollte. [p.412]
Of course, true laws of nature (Naturgesetzen), like gravity, involve physical necessity. They cannot be violated. Moral laws are quite different. They are moral obligations precisely because people can choose not to obey them. Their violation is not impossible, simply a moral wrong. But this gives us an important insight into Kant's thinking: He wants to see moral laws as the equivalent in a realm of freedom, or among things-in-themselves, to physical laws in the phenomenal world. They are both the result of the functioning of Reason, which (1) makes rules, (2) applies them universally, and (3) disallows contradictions. The peculiar term of the moral "maxim" thus stands for the appropriate rule as it would be formulated by reason, and the "universalization" of the rule goes along with an implied absence of conradictions once this conceptual exercise is done. This all is of great metaphysical significance to Kant, who wants Reason to function in similar ways in a deterministic world and with transcendent freedom, implying a mutual dignity and correspondence between science and morality.
Of course, we know that there are no actual laws of science without a great deal more going into them. An understanding of physical law is not produced by randomly tossing concepts of space, time, mass, charge, etc. into the structure of pure mathematics. Indeed, while it was once the project of modern philosophers to derive pure mathematics from pure logic, even this will not work. As Kant himself believed, pure mathematics, even pure arithmetic, involves synthetic first principles of demonstration. Yet Kant completely overlooks this circumstance when it comes to morality, which must spring fully formed, like Athena from the brow of Zeus, from Reason in its most abstract and purely logical form.
Thus, in Kant's moral philosophy we never get the kind of analysis of moral propositions as we do of the principle of causality as a synthetic a priori proposition in the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant sees causality as a complex product involving categories of pure reason, a function of synthesis, time, imagination, and something he calls a "schematism" (the way the imagination construes causality in temporal form). With the moral law, however, we get a simple rule pulled directly out of the metaphysical hat, and no real consideration at all of the source of the concepts involved or the validity of derived propositions. If such an approach were successful, we could have no complaint. But it is not successful; and with the qualifications, elaborations, and restatements of the fundamental version of the moral law we get the impression that Kant himself feels the inadequacy of the principle. This worry is to Kant's credit; but there remains the problem, also evident in his theoretical philosophy, that he never went back and recast the earlier theory, of whose drawbacks he has become sensible. Nor, with the remaining errors, may that have been possible.
There is something about Kant's rule of universalization that captures a feature of morality. Children tossing stones into the Grand Canyon, or stealing rocks from the Petrified Forest (both in Arizona), are liable to be reproached by their mothers, or by Park Rangers, with the challenge, "What if everyone did that?" To which, of course, the pure and cogent Kantian response is, in the former case, that the Canyon would fill up, and, in the latter, that the petrified forest would disappear. In each case the action would produce the contradictory circumstance, "then nobody could do it." As intuitive and customary as such examples are, however, the principle will also produce answers contrary to our intuitions. A child may aspire to grow up and become the President of the United States. But clearly, this is not possible for everyone. A United States consisting of universal Presidents would be a thing of comedy (as with everyone becoming identical Scotsmen in Monty Python) and by any reasonable functioning of election law would be impossible, indeed absurd. So, does this mean, by the principle of Kant's categorical imperative, that it is immoral for anyone to be President of the United States? Apparently so. But while I know of people who would argue that the office is indeed immoral, to most that conclusion would sound bizarre. Nor is it possible for everyone to become professional astronomers, baseball players, architects, or universally engage in countless other livelihoods. The impossiblity is not a moral one, just a practical one.
Of interest also is the intuitive principle that one ought not take rocks from the Petrified Forest. For this is not in fact universally true. Accredited geologists certainly can obtain permission from the Park Service to harvest samples from the forest. There is an obvious reason for this. No one would know that the rocks were petrified wood in the first place if it were not for the geologists, which means the rocks only have meaning and value because of geology. Continuing research on the rocks contributes even more to their meaning and value. Now, Kant's theory can actually accommodate this circumstance. The maxim of the geologist, after all, is not to take rocks just for one's own personal diversion, but to take a few rocks, under controlled and authorized conditions, on behalf of science and knowledge, which after a fashion is in the interest of the rocks themselves. Yet Kant himself seems reluctant to load up moral maxims with such qualifications. Whether he allows that or not, however, we should already be able to see that universalization alone underdetermines the circumstances and requirements of morality.
A good example of how perplexing Kant's principle can be in its abstractness comes from Lewis White Beck's own introduction to his translation of the Foundations. Beck is discussing objections to Kant's theory. The second objection is:
Kant's ethics is trivial, and does not discriminate between moral and merely permissible actions. For, it is said, I can make many maxims universal without rendering them moral. For instance, I have the policy of writing my name on the flyleaf of each of my books, and I can consistently will that all men, indeed all rational beings, should write their names in their books; but this does not mean that I have a moral obligation to write my name in my books. This criticism, however, overlooks the fact that Kant carefully distinguishes between actions that conform to law (legal actions) and those done because of a law (moral actions). I do not write my name in my books because I can will that others should do so; I do so in order to keep them from getting lost. But in a moral action, I decide what I ought to do precisely by finding out what I will that every rational being should do. Kant does not, perhaps, make this as clear as one might wish. [Beck, p.xvii]
Indeed, I think that Kant has failed to make matters clear to Beck. It is not a moral duty for me to write my name in my books because the maxim of not writing my name in my books can be universalized with as little contradiction as the maxim of doing it. It is logically possible for everyone to write their names in their books as for no one to do so. Kant's moral rule is indeed about what is morally permissible if the maxim can be universalized without contradiction. Kant's moral rule generates a moral duty when universalizing the maxim for not performing the action generates a contradiction. An impermissible action makes the opposite action, not just permissible, but obligatory.
Beck has then misapplied Kant's distinction between actions that conform to law and actions done because of law. Actions may be done that conform to law out of a variety of motivations (see the discussion below). One may always have self-interested or other reasons for conforming to the requirements of morality. To Kant, however, moral action requires (1) that one mean and try to act in conformity to the requirements of morality, and (2) that one's motivation is entirely the disinterested consciousness of duty -- although the latter is what is essential, and the good will and moral sufficiency of action remains even if there is some practical impediment or failure in carrying out the action itself. Since, as I have said, writing my name (or not writing it) in my books is not a duty, there is no duty to act in consciousness of. However, since either action passes the universalization test, they are indeed both therefore rendered moral in the sense of being morally permissible. This is not a trivial category -- but it is also not the whole of Kant's ethics.
Beck then digs himself deeper into a hole by saying, "I do not write my name in my books because I can will that others should do so; I do so in order to keep them from getting lost." One could just as easily say, "I do not kill my neighbor because I can will that others should do so; I do so in order to free his wife, my lover, from his attentions." Beck has fallen into the cardinal Kantian sin of introducing the purpose of an action into the issue of the morality of the action, violating the categorical (or deontological) character of moral duty. Keeping my books from getting lost is a morally innocent purpose, as is the act of writing my name in them. Other morally innocent purposes, however, like making a living, can be effected by immoral means, such as the practices of burglary or contract killing. So it is not one of Beck's books, but his well meaning defense of Kant, that has gotten lost.
One thing that both Beck and Kant seem to be insufficiently conscious of is the difference between commisison and omission. A duty of commission ("honor thy father and thy mother") requires a positive action, the failure of which results in a wrong of omission. A duty of omission ("thou shalt not kill") requires inaction, a negative action, the failure of which results in a wrong of commission (i.e. a murder). Some like to argue that inaction is as much action as action, but the logical distinction between doing and not doing is unavoidable, as are the practical and moral conditions that belong to action as opposed to inaction. After all, the theological Problem of Evil is not to accuse God of doing evil, but of inaction that allows and tolerates its presence from other causes (natural or willful). Why there would be such inaction is what escapes explanation, with theodicies typically attempting to shift responsibility for action away from God. Thus, in the case of writing my name in my books, we must remain conscious, as even Kant seems not to be, that there are matching maxims, to write and not to write. The problem of Beck's example and his argument comes from the failure to consider both.
The cardinal examples of duties that Kant cites in the Foundations involve both duties of commisison and duties of omission. There is also the problem that of four illustrations that he gives, only two of them, the second and the fourth, are actually moral duties.
A man who is reduced to despair by a series of evils feels a weariness with life but is still in possession of his reason sufficiently to ask whether it would not be contrary to his duty for himself to take his own life. Now he asks whether the maxim of his action could become a universal law of nature. His maxim, however, is: For love of myself, I make it my principle to shorten my life when by a longer duration it threatens more evil than satisfaction. But it is questionable whether this principle of self-love could become a universal law of nature. One immediately sees a contradiction in a system of nature whose law would be to destroy life by the feeling whose special office is to impel the improvement of life. In this case it would not exist as nature; hence that maxim cannot obtain as a law of nature, and thus it wholly contradicts the supreme principle of duty. [Beck, pp.39-40]
I have already considered above Kant's earlier assertion in the Foundations [Beck, p.14] that "...it is a duty to preserve one's own life." In his discussion in both instances, we do not find Kant considering the kinds of "evils" that in reality move people to suicide. The realities of disease, disgrace, crime, or devotion do not come up for consideration, even as Kant's reference to "self-love" excludes the selfless hero who throws himself on the hand grenade in order to save his fellows.
More importantly in this passage, however, is Kant's casual assumption that self-love is "the feeling whose special office is to impel the improvement of life." Kant is in no position to know what the "special office" is of our natural feelings, unless he can know the essence and purposes of human nature. He does not claim, and on his philosophy cannot claim, such knowledge. Nor does he even state the case without paradox. If the purpose of our feeling is to "impel the improvement of life," it may well be, as Socrates concluded, that death is an improvement over what life may have become. In the case of a painful and terminal illness, especially in old age, one might wonder what it profits self-love, self-interest, or life itself to prolong matters. We also might wonder at the alternatives open to a person who, by easy and obvious steps, has ended up as the agent of a tyrannical regime, awakens to the horror and wickedness of his position, but then has no way out except suicide or effectively suicidal disobedience. This latter was traditionally admired in the Classical world and in China. Kant might make a stronger argument by claiming that our instinct is simply self-preservation, but then he would still have the difficulty of how he knows that self-preservation is the essence of the instinct.
Kant's analysis thus seems morally shallow -- a "weariness with life" alone rarely moves anyone to suicide -- but also has the logically fault of essentially begging the question. If self-love is about our interest in goods for ourselves, then the assertion of Socrates that, "No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man" [Apology, 29a, G.M.A. Grube translation], totally destroys Kant's premise. In fact, suicides rarely move us to moral condemnation, but usually to pity, and in extraordinary circumstances to admiration and praise. Kant seems insensible of this.
Another man finds himself forced by need to borrow money. He knows well that he will not be able to repay it... [So he considers making a promise to repay without any intention to do so.] For the universality of a law which says that anyone who believes himself to be in need could promise what he pleased with the intention of not fulfilling it would make the promise itself and the end to be accomplished by it impossible; no one would believe what was promised to him but would only laugh at any such assertion as vain pretense. [Beck, p.40]
Kant is on firmer ground here. The promise of a borrower is a moral and legal duty. If it were not, then lending would indeed disappear, as Kant imagines. What is interesting in this example may be the belief through much of history, which has not vanished even in the present, that lending money at interest is immoral. Kant thus overlooks an argument that might occur to many, that the wicked person willing to loan money at interest deserves to lose it, and that the disappearance of the institution would be a desirable outcome. Nevertheless, this is a case where universalization, as with rocks in the Grand Canyon or at the Petrified Forest, has a prima facie appeal. The caution in the case is that much depends, as with suicide, on circumstances that Kant does not consider. Taking them into consideration does not falsify Kant's theory; but it does undermine my confidence in the manner in which he thinks the theory should be applied, and it does provide a clue that the universalization principle as such may be lacking germane concepts and presuppositions that are necessary for practical conclusions.
A third finds in himself a talent which could, by means of some cultivation, make him in many respects a useful man. But he finds himself in comfortable circumstances and prefers indulgence in pleasure to troubling himself with broadening and improving his fortunate natural gifts... He sees that a system of nature could indeed exist in accordance with such a law, even though man (like the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands) should let his talents rust and resolve to devote his life merely to idleness, indulgence, and propagation -- in a word, to pleasure. But he cannot possibly will that this should become a universal law of nature or that it should be implanted in us by a natural instinct. For, as a rational being, he necessarily wills that all his faculties should be developed, inasmuch as they are given to him for all sorts of purposes. [Beck, p.41]
Here we get even more explicitly the extraordinary kind of claim in the first example. A man's faculties are "given to him for all sorts of purposes"? How does Kant know this? Is he familiar with the designs of the Giver? Of course, he is not; and he has no way of knowing what purposes our "faculties" have or why we possess them. And his reference to the indolent South Sea Islanders exposes his presumption, for exactly how does he expect the Tahitians to have made themselves "useful" in a culture that is innocent of most of the sorts of institutions and activities that Kant sees in his own? The Tahitians were certainly quite "useful" in terms of their own traditional expectations, and Europeans regarded them as lazy and their life easy just because they did not see them working at industries that they had never heard of and could not imagine. If Kant had been required to live under the conditions of subsistence agriculture, Polynesian tapu, war, and an arrogant and violent nobility, he might come to think of the life as somewhat less easy.
While Kant's inability to know the purpose of any human "faculty" destroys the basis of any duty to "develop" them, and we might also reflect that one's "talents" depend heavily on a cultural context, so that a mathematical ability might not actually be that "useful" in a culture without a mathematical tradition, or an ability to memorize the Iliad or the Qur'ân all that "useful" for modern purposes, we must also reflect that many people have genuine talents that nevertheless hold no attraction for them and do not make them happy. A person might have genuine talent in mathematics or music or athletics without any real interest in mathematics or music or athletics. Is Kant saying that one has a duty to become "useful" by developing these abilities even if the result is an unhappy life? Such things happen, and we certainly know of parents who drive children in directions where they do have talent but which they may actually hate.
This raises a question of profound importance for the whole of Kant's ethics. Is the general business of life "the pursuit of happiness," or is it the fulfillment of duty? If there is a general duty to become "useful" by developing our talents, regardless of our happiness, then the decision is for the latter, and we can only hope that happiness will be just happen to be the fortunate by-product of the fulfillment of duty. It would be a violation of duty to formulate our goals and activities in life with an eye principally to the fulfillment of happiness.
I suspect that this is Kant's view, as part of a moralistic system of ethics in which, as Nelson says, "every action must be characterized as either fulfillment or violation of duty." But we also have the paradox, as I have noted above, that Kant thinks that "To secure one's own happiness is at least indirectly a duty." So under Kantian ethics, we seem to have a duty to develop talents that may make us unhappy, while we also have a duty to secure our happiness. This is especially acute when Kant's argument for securing one's happiness is that "discontent with one's condition under pressure from many cares and amid unsatisfied wants could easily become a great temptation to transgress duties." Developing a talent in an area for which one feels no attraction or affinity and which generates only "discontent" and even misery "could easily become a great temptation to transgress duties." This betrays a looming incoherence in Kant's thought, which is the result, as we shall see, of duty being the only truly rational goal of action.
A fourth man, for whom things are going well, sees that others (whom he could help) have to struggle with great hardships, and he asks, "What concern of mine is it? Let each one be as happy as heaven wills, or as he can make himself; I will not take anything from him to even envy him: but to his welfare or to his assistance in time of need I have no desire to contribute..." Now although it is possible that a universal law of nature according to that maxim could exist, it is nevertheless impossible to will that such a principle should hold everywhere as a law of nature. For a will which resolved this would conflict with itself, since instances can often arise in which he would need the love and sympathy of others, and in which he would have robbed himself, by such a law of nature springing from his own will, of all hope of the aid he desires. [Beck, p.41]
This is a case of non-contractual duties of commission. It sounds the most of any Kantian duties like "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should to do you, do ye even so to them" [Matthew 7:12]. Again, the prima facie existence of such a duty as Kant asserts obscures the difficulties inherent in such duties in general and in this one in particular. The callousness of Kant's "fourth man" is comparable to that of Mr. "Smith" in the dilemma considered elsewhere. This portrayal is designed to prejudice the case, when a suitably concerned and caring person might reach the same conclusion without the fourth man's offensive reflections. We must consider the more realistic considerations of the non-callous, beginning with Benjamin Franklin in an essay of 1766 called "The Encouragement of Idleness":
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
A politician saying something like this today certainly would be labelled callous and uncaring. We might even hear about "Social Darwinism," even though Franklin was writing long before Darwin, Herbert Spencer, or the true Social Darwinist, Friedrich Nietzsche (who, nevertheless, as a darling of the Left, is never attacked as one). It is more Calvin than Darwin that we are getting -- a social attitude that was probably more agreeable to Kant himself than the uses to which a moral principle like this would later be put.
What Kant does not consider, but which the economist must, are sensible and valuable alternative uses of one's resources. Simply leaving one's money in the bank actually benefits others, since the bank loans money that may start businesses and hire people, benefiting them much more substantially than charity, and benefiting the community through the products or services of the business (note that contemporary Keynesians still don't believe this). Even the disposition of one's income, from wages or the interest of savings or investments, benefits others regardless of how it is spent. In fact, deciding that some of one's purchases are frivolous, and that the money should be given to the poor instead, may help put a merchant out of business, costing him and his employees their livelihood. So what is preferable, giving aid directly to the poor, which may sustain them briefly, or helping the growth of business and commerce, which lifts many more out of poverty? Even when we reflect that there will always be those who will not be able to support themselves and will always need charity, the question is about the best use of the money of any individual, who will know better than others what value his resources may serve and will have his own preferences, which will be morally innocent even if they are for no more than his own entertainment.
Perhaps the most serious problem with Kant's idea is the moral hazard it creates. The belief that everyone who is comfortably off has a duty to give to the poor has led to the political program to simply take their wealth in order to "redistribute" it to the poor. The wealthy, or just the comfortable, should pay their "fair share" to the maintenance of the poor. This is a source of great evils. People with such a belief often have no better than a cargo cult understanding of economics -- even when they profess a Marxism that is already more sophisticated than their ideas. They do not believe that capital creates wealth or jobs, and they do not understand that money in the bank does not lie useless like treasure in a treasure chest (or gold at Fort Knox). They prefer a system where wealth essentially belongs to the government, which then maintains people who are in political favor and who will support the political party, i.e. the Democrats, who promote such government power. This creates a system of political peonage, which may be able to endure even as the economy upon which it is parasitic collapses into Mediaeval poverty -- as in Cuba -- a place whose poverty, misery, and tyranny do not in the least preclude, dampen, or shame its praise and idealization in American public, political, and academic discourse.
Kant probably could not have imagined how the modern Left could have twisted a simple moral injunction to help the poor into a system of theft, tyranny, and general poverty. But this is an outcome that we cannot disregard in evaluating this kind of duty. As a non-contractual duty of commission, it must be qualified with all the circumstances of ability, knowledge, and autonomy that will surround such things, as well as, in this case, issues of political economy and the generation of wealth in a mass market.
The idea that charitable systems, free of coercion or government, may benefit the poor better than the Welfare State, although still incomprehensible to the Left, is born out by history. Indeed, nothing reveals the misanthropy of the Left so well as their evident principle that people will not help others out of their own compassion and kindness unless the force of the State and the police compels them to do so. Indeed, the Left openly despises the terms "philanthropy" ("loving man") and "charity" ("love") precisely because they imply a voluntary liberality that is free of the iron hand of government authority, the collective action, and the totalitarian order that the Left admires.
The abstractness of Kant's categorical imperative makes for both its moralism, i.e. everything is a moral issue, with no boundary between moral and non-moral value, and its indeterminacy. And the terms that are required for judgments in particular areas, as with self-preservation and non-contractual duties of commission above, may be uncritically assumed (as with the "purpose" of our faculties) or overlooked (as with philanthropy). The universality upon which Kant's rests the whole force of the moral law will already be a feature of any moral principle and so really only concerns the form of a law, with little clue about any germane content.
After Kant's examination of these four examples of moral duties, he does cite a distinction that looks like a mitigation of his moralism, that we have a "stricker or narrower" duty when we cannot think a universalized maxim without contradiction, while a maxim we can only will without contradiction would be a "broader" or merely "meritorious" duty. This never, however, becomes a distinction between imperatives and hortatives, as in the polynomic theory of value; and if the imperative force of the different duties is not abridged (i.e. they all remain imperatives), then Kant's distinction doesn't really make a difference.
As it happens, as Kant has gone along, he has been tossing in the concepts already relevant to a more substantive version of the moral law, and to providing distinctions between moral and non-moral value. Foremost among these concepts is that of a rational being. This will be used both to good and to ill effect in the development of Kant's moral thought. What must first of all be noted about it is that Kant is not going to think of it as derived from experience, yet neither does he carry out anything like the "transcendental deduction" on it that figured so prominently and importantly with the a priori concepts in the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant begs the question, and I am reminded of Hume's famous observation about systems of morality, where "of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or ought not" [Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Shelby-Bigge edition, Oxford, 1902, 1972, p.469]. There is a similarly unexplained transition as Kant begins to load moral characteristics onto the nature of the rational being. Thus, we get features of the moral dignity of the rational being, and the moral respect that is owed to it. To Kant, these are not empirical qualities, and it is not clear or at all obvious how such things follow from the universalization principle of the moral law or from the mere concept of a rational being. Indeed, if certain forms of moral respect are owed, not just to rational beings, but even to sentient beings, this disrupts the ground of Kant's whole train of reasoning. Furthermore, if there are good-in-themselves entirely beyond even rational and sentient beings, which are owed their own forms of respect, we may see how Kant beginning his inquiry merely with good will can have been a false start.
Nevertheless, the point that Kant develops, and the direction in which he continues, may be well taken. His assertion that, "every rational being exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will" [Beck, p.46] -- jedes vernünftige Wesen existiert als Zweck an sich selbst, nicht bloß als Mittel zum beliebigen Gebrauche fur diesen order jenen Willen" [p.428] -- is, I think, true; and it adds another feature, the concepts of means and ends, to the idea of a rational being. This leads directly to Kant's best and perhaps most famous reformulation of the moral law:
Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only. [Beck, p.47] -- Handle so, daß du die Menschheit sowohl in deiner Person, als in der Person eines jeden andern jederzeit zugleich als Zweck, niemals bloß als Mittel brauchest. [p.429]
As I have discussed above, the problem here is how one treats humanity in one's own self as an end also and never as a means only. Respecting the innocent, competent will of others provides a good principle in that respect; but one cannot wrongly contravene one's own will without multiple personalities.
What probably underlies Kant's formulation of the moral law as involving duties to self as well as to others is a conception of human nature that goes all the way back to St. Thomas Aquinas and to Aristotle. Thus, we must have moral respect, not just for the will of other persons, but for human nature as embodied both in other persons and in ourselves. This is a normative conception that posits substantial duties -- as in fact we have seen above with duties not to contravene "self-love" as self-preservation and to develop our "talents," where both kinds of duties involvement judgments about the essential purposes (Aristotelian "entelechies") of our faculties or even feelings. Thus, the notion that homosexuality or sodomy was unnatural and a crime against nature was the basis of secular laws against these practices (so that the law therefore did not need to invoke Biblical prohibitions). This is also what we see in Thomist conceptions of natural law, whose conservatism is at odds with Enlightenment versions of natural law and natural rights.
Even if Kant is drawing on an originally Aristotelian and potentially conservative view of human nature, the context of his own thought is the Enlightenment, the aftermath of the liberalism launched by John Locke and the American Revolution, and the metaphysical structure of Kant's own philosophy. It is difficult for Kant to have as full a conception of human nature as Aristotle or St. Thomas when our knowledge in Kant's own Critical Philosophy is limited to the world of appearances. The true content of human nature is hidden among things in themselves. What we do know of human nature, and what is of theoretical and moral significance to Kant, is that we are rational beings. This is much more abstract and limited in comparison to the Aristotelian conceptions. Indeed, Locke himself, in speaking of the "Law of Nature" said, "Reason, which is that Law."
In this way, Locke and Kant focus on one feature of human existence as being of moral significance. Respect for the rational nature of persons makes it a matter of inference and so dispute whether things like homosexuality or sodomy would be crimes against that nature. We must ask exactly what it is about rationality that might be offended by such practices. An Aristotelian argument that all sexual practices or preferences must serve the end of reproduction, which presupposes the axiom that there is a purpose to human sexuality that is limited to such an end, is not obviously the only possible construction of "rationality," even as it does not involve the only possible construction of the purposes of human sexuality. At the same time, Kant believes that an essential feature of rationality is its "legislative" and rule-making powers, i.e. its moral autonomy. If we then posit that moral respect is owed to rational autonomy, this leads us very close indeed to the respect for the will of others that I have posited and away from a conception that provides a place for duties to self. Thus, as Locke and Kant have already drifted a good way from a full Aristotelian conception of human nature, we need merely nudge things a bit further, beyond the point where conservative, paternalistic, or illiberal interpretations can be put on natural law principles.
Where a more abstract conception of human nature as rational being would serve Kant well in the development of his thought, he unfortunately manages to invoke it in such a way that serves to further confuse and damage his system of morality. Thus, earlier in the Foundations than the passages I have just been considering, Kant refers to "another and far more worthy purpose of their existence for which, instead of happiness, their reason is properly intended, this purpose therefore, being the supreme condition to which the private purposes of men must for the most part defer" [Beck, p.12]. We are not clearly given here what this "more worthy purpose," viel würdigern Absicht, is going to be. Kant seems to save that for the culmination of the Foundations. It will not be surprising, however, to learn that the proper end of rational purpose will be the rational nature itself: "Rational nature is distinguished from other in that it proposes an end to itself. This end would be the material of every good will" [Beck, p.56]. Thus:
In this way, a world of rational beings (mundus intelligibilis) is possible as a realm of ends, because of the legislation belonging to all persons as members [Beck, p.57] -- Nun ist auf solche Weise eine Welt vernünftiger Wesen (mundus intelligibilis) als ein Reich der Zwecke möglich und zwar durch die eigene Gesetzgebung aller Personen als Glieder. [p.438]
This provides for another reformulation of the moral law, in terms of the Reich der Zwecke, "Kingdom of Ends":
Act according to the maxims of a universal legislative member of a merely postential realm of ends... [Beck, p.57] -- handle nach Maximen eines allgemein gesetzgebenden Gliedes zu einem bloß möglichen Reiche der Zwecke... [p.439]
We thus find the ultimate paradox of Kant's ethics. We are expected to legislate for the mundus intelligibilis, whose nature, conditions, and objects are of course hidden from our knowledge. It is not the mundus in which we live. That is in fact the phenomenal world where our goals are naturally those of happiness or other mundane works. But, to Kant, happiness, or any other mundane well being, is in comparison irrational, obscure, and unworthy, an artifact of conditions of existence that are not the home of our true, rational nature. So we properly only have purposes for something that is actually unrelated and impossible in relation to the actual venue of human life. So these are not practical rules at all, if we mean by "practical" something related to the actual goals and purposes we have within human life.
It is really not that difficult, however, to put Kant's principles in the proper perspective. Morality, in terms that would have been familiar and agreeable to Kant in the first Critique, is a conditio sine qua non, a "condition without which not," a necessary condition, to value. It is not, in the first instance, a goal or purpose at all, but the moral condition of other goals. Kant has difficulty with this because "other goals" for him always mean the sensuous temptations and distractions of a Fallen, phenomenal world. They drag us down from the mundus intelligibilis, our true home, into, well, Hell. Kant, who was no proper Christian, nevertheless preserves here a strong and harsh Christian sensibility. He conspicuously excludes something that would have been obvious to Plato or Aristotle: There are goods in the world, goods that are not just the deceptions of Satan (which is the vibe we get from Kant, even if he doesn't say so).
Kant's ethics, built upon duty and action, is simply missing the Good, which provides the value of those goals for which action exists. This leaves human life without substantive purpose. 
Kant substitutes something that is actually Sisyphean -- the endless task of perfecting our duty. We find in the Critique of Practical Reason that this is no less than Kant's argument for immorality as a "Postulate of Practical Reason" -- we need eternity in order to meet the categorical moral requirement of perfection -- one of the most clearly Christian moments in Kant, since it was Jesus who said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" [Matthew 5:48]. The only truly worthy kind of happiness, as a goal of human life, is deferred to the Hereafter, as we learn in the second Critique again that our endless struggle for moral perfection will make us worthy of happiness -- which it is our hope that God (another Postulate of Practical Reason) will provide. Thus, the Kingdom of Ends, which in this world provides us with no more than the formal goal of moral duty, will contain a substantive and material fulfillment of our existence once we are ourselves translated into the mundus intelligibilis after death. This is a point where Kant's dualism, so often helpful and illuminating, has shot off into serious error -- an error corrected by the Friesian critique of moralism.
In the mature thought of the Foundations and the second Critique, Kant held that the only truly good thing is good will, and the only truly pure motive for moral action is the rational determination of duty. A younger Kant, however, in his Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (1764), was aware that people have various motives for good actions, not all of them unworthy. This is examined in more detail elsewhere, as an example of a 
typology of temperament.
Using the ancient theory of the four humors, Kant distinguished those who act out of principle (the melancholic), those who act out of goodhearted impulse (the sanguine), those who act with their honor and reputation in mind (the choleric), and those who act out of self-interested prudence (the phlegmatic). While reputation may often be a matter of self-interest, those who worry about their honor often act in irrational, foolish, and imprudent ways (one thinks of Don Quixote). Those who act from goodhearted impulse may err through being too credulous and overly trusting. For the mature Kant, all the motives but the first fall short morally, since goodhearted impulse is not a matter of will and determination but of feelings that may be accidential and irrational, appearances of honor may have no moral or prudential connection at all, and self-interested prudence may reject immoral action as merely inexpedient -- or embrace it as the opposite. What the mature Kant seems less aware of is that those who act from principle may be embracing the wrong principle, by which, as has been truly said, the path to Hell is paved with good intentions. The younger Kant was clearly aware of this:
Among men there are but few who behave according to principles -- which is extremely good, as it can so easily happen that one errs in these principles, and then the resulting disadvantage extends all the further, the more universal the principle and the more resolute the person who has set it before himself. [Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, translated by John T. Goldthwait, University of California Press, 1960, p.74 boldface added]
Rationality, if deceived into embracing vast and impressive but fallacious theorizations (e.g. Marxism), can produce a magnitude of evils far beyond the errors of the goodhearted, the proud, or even the covetous.
What we might expect from a fully rounded human being is elements of all -- a consciousness of principle, goodhearted feeling, an awareness of appearances, and a healthy and prudent sense of self-interest. The possible errors of one are thus checked and balanced by the others. Thus, the person who, out of principle, might believe in the extermination of kulaks (the prosperous peasants murdered by Stalin), could ideally be restrained by compassion and sympathy. Certainly, those who robbed and murdered the kulaks can be condemned as unfeeling, as well as evil.
Thus, if we ask why someone would not commit a murder, the melancholic answers, "It would be wrong," the sanguine, "I couldn't hurt anyone like that," the choleric, "I would embarrass and dishonor my parents and myself," and the phlegmatic, "I might get caught." The motivation descends from the most purely moral to the least, but it will always be good if each exists and reinforces the others. The younger Kant consequently can be credited with a better sense of human nature, even if the mature Kant was correct that the properly moral motive is that concerning moral principle.
Return to Fallacies of Egoism and Altruism
Typology of Motives and Virtues
Reviews
Ethics
Home Page
Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2011 Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved
The Fallacies of Egoism and Altruism,
and the Fundamental Principle of Morality, Note 2
PeTA has had a long running campaign, "I'd rather go naked than wear fur," where they get fashion models and actresses to pose naked to attract attention to their cause -- as with Dominique Swain at right. The shoots for these ads have often themselves been public events, with the press and spectators directly inspecting said nakedness. Attention this certainly does attract. One might wonder about its politically correct propriety, however. Using women's bodies to engage public interest, especially male interest, may not be as bad as commercial advertisements or pornography with naked women, but it does seem to violate the political moralism of the feminist condemnation of using women's bodies for anything irrelevant to female hygenic purposes. Also, this sometimes results in some awkward sequels. As fashion designers have tended to return to the use of fur, some model veterans of the "naked" campaign, like Naomi Campbell, have been spotted sporting such fashions. Nevertheless, this is certainly a more aggreable means of publicizing the animals rights agenda than the assaults of paint throwing and vandalism that have otherwise characterized the movement.
Return to text
The Fallacies of Egoism and Altruism,
and the Fundamental Principle of Morality, Note 3
It is noteworthy to see that Buddhism, for instance, did not elevate animals to equality with humans. There is one story in the Buddhist canon where a snake impersonates a human being in order to become a monk. One might think that a snake that was able to do this would thus be a rational being and would qualify for membership in the Order. Not so. When the identity of the snake is found out, the Buddha says to him:
You, verily, are a serpent, and not capable of growth in this Doctrine and Discipline; go you, remain in your state as a serpent, and keep fast-day on the fourteenth, fifteenth, and eighth day of the half-month; thus shall you gain release from your state as a serpent, and quickly become a human being. [Henry Clarke Warren, Buddhism in Translations, Atheneum, 1987, p. 402]
Thus, the best that the snake can hope for is rebirth as a human being. The idea that only human beings can achievement enlightenment and salvation is universal in Indian religions. The Jains, otherwise exemplars of non-violence, vegetarianism, and regard for animals, nevertheless only allow (on a particular interpretation, to be sure) that male human beings can achieve salvation: Women must be reborn as men in order to practice as naked monks. At least, this was the traditional belief -- I would not be surprised to hear it contradicted today. The Buddha himself did not originally allow women into the Sangha, the Buddhist monastic order.
Return to text
Non-Contractual Duties of Commission
and Privileges of Necessity
(after Richard Epstein)
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
Benjamin Franklin, in "The Encouragement of Idleness," 1766
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C.S. Lewis
Contracts imply that some balance, in the informed estimation of the contractors (where that is possible), has been struck between the interests pursued by one in behalf of the other (the goods or services rendered), and those pursued or rendered in return. Since a contract is an exchange of goods, it contrasts with non-contractual duties of commission, which call on the agent to act for the good of others without certainty of recompense, or with privileges (rights, powers) of necessity, which compel another to provide certain goods, but with a positive duty on the beneficiary for later recompense. Normally anyone is free to give supererogatory aid and assistance out of charity and compassion -- goods for nothing in return -- but making this a general obligation, as altruistic moralism does, erases the existence of contracts -- an agreement to exchange goods is hardly necessary when one is obliged to give goods anyway, for nothing in return.
A line therefore must be drawn between goods for others that will only concern us through contractual actions rebounding to our self-interest, and those goods for others that may make demands on us to act out of moral duty for the sake of those others even without expectation of benefit to ourselves. This motivates condition #2 above, that there is an duty where the other is in danger of serious and irreversible harm, the situation where someone would acknowledge their helpless state, perhaps, just by crying, "Help." Such a "help," however, cannot always be taken at face value. Some people may be in need of help without being able to acknowledge it; others may ask for or continue asking for help when they actually are not in need of it -- their helplessness can become a way of using others and so wronging them rather than being responsible for their own self-interest. That helplessness can be real fraud, a deliberate manipulation of others, or it can arise merely from incontinence, which like negligence is a moral weakness or carelessness of will. This is the problem with Marx's principle for the utopian society: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"; for according to that principle it is worth the most to each individual to have as little ability and as many needs as possible. Ability is easily concealed -- and many abilities are not even revealed except under stress and real need -- and needs are easily claimed, with any critical response attacked as heartless and selfish. It is a lot easier to claim need rather than exert oneself to develop and apply abilities.
No agent can remedy the moral weakness of will of another except by forcing them to be responsible for their own self-interest -- i.e. by denying aid. (Hence the sentiment of Benjamin Franklin above that the poor become richer when less provision is made for them.) The agent faced with acknowledging non-contractual duties of commission must judge whether the need of the other is genuine, fraudulent, or incontinent. In case of doubt, of course, one must tend to assume genuine helpless need; but a consistently credulous attitude towards need, or a determination that even incontinent need should be answered with charity and compassion, can only aid and abet incontinence. Such charity and compassion can even become morally culpable if they become the means of perpetuating moral helplessness: and the dependency of the helpless thus promoted can validate the moral superiority and self-righteousness of the agent -- i.e. the self-interest of the agent in using the other as a means to moral self-satisfaction and power over others. Thus the agent uses the helpless and wrongs them. It is these issues of competence, incontinence (or negligence), and motivation that result in the complexity of the rule for non-contractual duties of commission.
An important point that results from all this is the right of personal privacy. The denial of altruistic moralism means that the primary business of life is the pursuit of goods for the self, and these are the goods of private life. Public life and public goods only exist in so far as they ultimately serve the goods of private life. Because different things can appear (non-morally) good to different people -- i.e. some people devote their lives to baseball, others to medicine, to art, to charity, etc. -- public life cannot provide directly what everyone wants, since that cannot be predicted or anticipated. Instead each is provided the freedom to (innocently) seek what satisfies them. Altruistic moralism, which makes it our duty to provide personal goods to others, erases the distinction between private and public. That opens personal affairs to public scrutiny and also moralizes them: personal choices become subject to public judgment about their worthiness; and since aesthetic variety cannot be certified in such a way, an anaesthetic and anhedonic condemnation will be lodged against anything not regarded as morally worthy. This is all a move well represented in the slogan, "The personal is political," and it is an important effect, again, of paternalism.
The same effect renders non-contractual duties of commission a category to be carefully constrained and not needlessly expanded: for judging others incompetent and helpless removes their privacy and, so that need can be properly evaluated, opens all their preferences to examination by the intervening agent. That examination will not be moralistic so long as the intervention is directed to establishing (or reëstablishing) autonomy in the helpless other. Indeed, this now gives us a general rule for non-contractual duties of commission:
Just as duties of omission are to avoid violating the autonomy of others, non-contractual duties of commission are solely to establish, preserve, or reëstablish that very autonomy, so long as the agent is able to do so and his own autonomy or preëxisting duties are not disproportionately compromised -- which is to say that contractual duties of commission, if involving necessities, have priority over non-contractual duties of commission.
Duties of omission are to respect privacy, while duties of commission, although violating privacy, view this only as a necessary evil which all efforts must directed towards remedying. Moralistic altruism and paternalism militate against respect for privacy or for autonomy -- privacy and autonomy are by definition selfishness, willfulness, and anarchy -- and so there is no point in trying to break or abridge the relationships of dependency that they establish, or to restore any personal privacy. Such dependency, however, essentially means abject and demoralizing peonage.
Although the emphasis above has been on the duties of agents towards the needs of others, the other side of the principle is the moral right of needy agents to enforce those duties. If you emerge from the desert on the verge of death from lack of water, you have the right to take water from a well, even if the owner of the well doesn't want to give the water to you or even sell it at a reasonable price. Indeed, if the owner of the well tries to stop you from taking water by force, you are justified in using force to take the water. On the other hand, if you simply encounter someone in the desert who has some water, but it is not enough water for them to survive if they give you any, you have no right to it and the owner has the right to defend it by force. If they believe it will not be enough for them to survive, but it actually is enough, then they paradoxically have the right to defend by force what you have the right to take. On the other hand, you do owe the owner for the value of the water, and what you owe is some fair value of the water -- what the owner would have gotten if you had not needed it out of necessary -- and not what the owner might want to ask for it. If you are really on the verge of death, it might seem like a good deal to sell all your possessions or even your freedom for the water. But that would not be just. If the owner cannot be reasonable about the value of the water, some judicial resolution might be necessary.
These rights based on necessary may be called "powers" or "privileges" of necessity, the Jus necessitatis. It is a category of rights that suffers from the same uncertainties and possibly the same abuses as anything that is based on estimations of needs and abilities. It is a category that clearly justifies the classic case of "stealing to feed starving children," but in specific cases whether the stealing is really necessary to feed the children is often a good question. The principle in Latin is: Necessitas non habet legem, "Necessity does not have a law."
The principle of necessity is susceptible to false generalizations: since everyone needs employment, many are tempted to posit a "right to a job" which amounts to a power to compel someone in particular to offer a job. Since in a large and fluid market jobs could be obtained from many people, and jobs could even be obtained by self-employment, it is not clear how the "right to a job" could be reasonably enforced on the basis of the real ability and opportunities of any specific person. The "right to job" also easily becomes the "right to the kind of job, with the kind of pay, I would like." Freely handing out legal powers in that direction ends up damaging the employment of others in often hidden ways. If jobs and wages for some are bought at the cost of a crippled labor market that leaves 10% or 20% of the labor force unemployed (as during the Great Depression, when high wages were promoted by both Hoover and Roosevelt administrations -- or as in Western Europe today, where legally manipulated high wages translate into an average of 11% unemployment), then a very peculiar, self-defeating trade-off has been effected. Privileges of necessity thus properly must refer to immediate necessities, not generalizations about what people "need" in general when there are multiple ways in which those "needs" can be fulfilled.
At the same time, as political forces push the idea that jobs or medical care (or even food and housing) are necessities that must be provided by government, genuine necessity is otherwise eroded. Even the authoritarian and monarchist Thomas Hobbes said, "No law can oblige a man to abandon his own preservation." Yet judges, like George H. King, of the United States District Court, have ruled that medical necessity could not be used as a defense in drug cases. This has usually involved the anti-nausea and appetite promoting properties of marijuana. The reasoning of such judgments is noteworthy. If even the defendant would or will die without using mairjuana (as author Peter McWilliams actually did in the case before Judge King), the Law according to these judges requires, in essence, that they die. Violating the drug laws is so awful that the death of patients is preferable to making exceptions on the basis of compassion or necessity. In other cases, however, appelate Courts have ruled that medical necessity defenses must be allowed. Nevertheless, this has not become a general practice; and what we seem to see is the bias, animus, and antipathy that judges feel for the defendants prejudicing their application of the legal principles at their disposal. I have considered elsewhere the recourse that is open to judges who find the laws before them unconscionable.
Morality, Justice, and Judicial Moralism
Ethics
Political Economy, Law
Home Page
[Penguin Books, 1962, p.52]
and thus not existing at all outside positive law; and we can never explain to him through external experience what does not belong to external experience. Hobbes characterizes his completely empirical way of thinking very remarkably by the fact that, in his book De Principiis Geometrarum, he denies the whole of really pure mathematics, and obstinately asserts that the point has extension and the line breadth. Yet we cannot show him a point without extension or a line without breadth; hence we can just as little explain to him the a priori nature of mathematics as the a priori nature of right, because he pays no heed to any knowledge that is not empirical.
){kind=link}