Episode post here. Thanks once again to David North for all his work on this!
Matt Teichman:
Hello and welcome to Elucidations, a philosophy podcast recorded at the University of Chicago. I’m Matt Teichman.
Francey Russell:
And I’m Francey Russell.
Matt Teichman:
With us today is Stephen Engstrom, professor of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, and he’s here to discuss the categorical imperative. Stephen Engstrom, welcome.
Stephen Engstrom:
It’s very nice to be here.
Matt Teichman:
The categorical imperative was the centerpiece of the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Kant thought that this was the most basic principle from which all of the rest of ethics was derived. What is the categorical imperative, exactly? What does it say?
Stephen Engstrom:
Well it’s a term that Kant uses to characterize the single principle of morality which he sets out in his practical philosophy. He speaks of a ‘categorical imperative’ specifically to mark certain features of this fundamental principle. It’s an imperative, he says, meaning thereby that it consists in a kind of command to us as moral persons; a command that’s issued by reason. He takes the principle of morality to be a principle of reason and he calls this command, or this imperative, ‘categorical’ to indicate that the requirement that it consists in is not conditional or dependent upon any special interests or objectives that this or that person might happen to have. It’s a command that pertains to us all simply in virtue of being persons or beings who have some share in the capacity of reason. That’s what the phrase is intended to signify.
Matt Teichman:
So it’s called “imperative” because it’s a rule for us to follow and we’re commanded to do it. And it’s called ‘categorical’ because it applies equally to everybody in different circumstances. It’s not like it just sometimes applies and sometimes doesn’t. It’s not like accidental events will determine whether or not it’s a rule we should follow. No—it’s a rule we always should follow, and we all should always follow it.
Stephen Engstrom:
Right.
Matt Teichman:
What does this rule tell us to do?
Stephen Engstrom:
Well, I suppose in a word you might say it tells us to live and act in accordance with reason. It is a rational requirement, as Kant understands it. So it’s a prescription that directs us to order our lives in accordance with certain conditions that we at least implicitly recognize are conditions of being a rational person, or a reasonable person.
Francey Russell:
So, it’s not immediately intuitive how reason could either be a source of a command, or tell us anything about what we should do in the world. How could it tell us something about ethics? Can you tell us a bit more about what Kant thought reason was?
Stephen Engstrom:
Very good question. One of the distinctive features of Kant’s understanding of morality lies in the way in which he sees reason as underlying this moral principle, or as being the source of it. We tend, today, to think of morality as concerned with action—what we ought to do—instead of requirements. But Kant is thinking of morality as consisting in certain—well, requirements—but which emanate ultimately from a capacity we have which he calls ‘reason’, and which has a kind of application in contexts which are quite distinct from what we think of as moral contexts. So for instance, reason plays a role in our investigation of nature: we use reason to form hypotheses about how the world works, to discover laws that govern the phenomena that we’re investigating in the natural world. Kant thinks of this same capacity that we’re using to understand the world we live in as playing a role in directing how we ourselves should live. And it’s in the form of these imperatives or commands that he spells out what that requirement is.
To give you a quick description of what I take to be two principal factors in the requirements of reason that apply both in our use of reason to investigate nature and also in practical matters, let me just distinguish two different kinds of universality in our thinking or judging. Kant contrasts a kind of requirement that is built into our understanding of what rational knowledge is, according to which, if we really know something by means of our reason, then it’s got to be something that’s in some way in conformity with law, so when we investigate the natural world, trying to understand what orders it, how it’s structured, and find the explanations for phenomena, it’s really reason that’s guiding us in a search for general principles or laws according to which the phenomena occur. And that kind of generality or universality he will speak of as an ‘objective’ universality. It’s a universality pertaining to the objects we think of as standing under law: so all things that fit a certain description will have to behave in a certain way. For example, all events must have a cause. That would be an example of a kind of universality that extends across all events in the natural world. And it says of them that they all have causes. So there’s a kind of objective universality that registers one of the two requirements that reason express the rationality of our investigation of nature.
The other sort of requirement is on the ‘subjective’ side. This requirement, again, is a requirement of universality. The thought here is that if I actually know something about the natural world, then it ought to be possible for any other subject who is capable of using reason to know the natural world to agree with me in my judgement (provided that they are properly positioned to have access to the objects that I’m making my judgement about, and provided that their rational capacities are not somehow impaired). So there’s a kind of implicit requirement that my judgements be such as could be agreed with by everyone—by all knowers. So we have two different kinds of universality, then, that are implicit in rational cognition, or rational knowledge of the natural world: an ‘objective’ kind of universality, that governs the objects we know, and a ‘subjective’ universality, that embraces all of the possible knowers. And then what Kant does in his practical philosophy is carry these two requirements over and interpret our moral obligations in accordance with them, or as reflecting these two requirements.
Francey Russell:
It sounds like objective universality means that if one person does an action in a certain circumstance, everybody should do the same action: it’s objectively universal. And subjective universality means that we’d all agree with it. There’d be no moral disagreement about what the right thing to do was. How do these two forms of universality tell me anything about what it means to be a good person?
Stephen Engstrom:
Well, Kant thinks of these two forms of universality as expressing two ways in which we are related to the basic law or requirements of reason. I described just a moment ago the way in which rational knowledge of nature involves these two kinds of universality. What’s striking in the case of the practical use of reason is that these two sorts of universality are going to capture exactly the same individuals or subjects when I’m investigating nature. The judgements I make about nature concern the objects I’m thinking about: for example, events. And the subjects with respect to my knowledge as universal are candidate knowers—not events, but people.
In the practical case, the two sorts of universality coincide non-accidentally, or essentially, because the very beings about who we’re judging in our practical thinking are the sorts of beings who are candidates, or qualified to have knowledge about how we should act and live our lives. And so, when we think about what we ought to do, Kant is claiming we need to be attentive to not only whether the action that we’re contemplating is one that everyone could follow, or do together, but also whether the judgement we’re making is one that everyone could agree upon.
So there are two different ways people stand to these laws, or ways of acting, that we might consider as candidate ways of living, or might propose to act in accordance with. On the one hand, we have to think of these ways of acting that we’re considering undertaking such that everyone could act in the same way, and we also have to think about whether everyone could agree upon the act. And they’re not quite the same thing; they may seem closely related, but they’re different thoughts. It’s one thing to be under a law and it’s another thing to be agreeing with a law, or affirming it, or, as Kant will sometimes say, ‘legislating’. Having a kind of say-so in whether the law applies or not. It’s a kind of two-sided relation which we stand in to these laws that’s distinctive about the way in which practical laws bear on ourselves.
Matt Teichman:
Ok, so Kant formulates this categorical imperative, the basic principle behind all of ethics, in a couple of different ways. He has three different definitions. And the one that a lot of philosophers have focused on is sometimes called the formula of universal law. So based on what we’ve been saying, it sounds like the idea here is: suppose I’m trying to figure out e.g. whether to give my mom a ride home from the airport, or whether to give money to the poor. I’m involved in some decision about what to do in my life. The thing to do is: think about whether anybody who was in my situation would do the thing that I’m considering doing. And: would everybody in my situation agree that the thing I’m considering doing is the thing to do? So what helps me figure out what to do has both these subjective and objective dimensions.
Stephen Engstrom:
Yeah, that’s the thought. I think the way Kant understands practical knowledge as rational knowledge is sort of top-down, so that in something like the way in which a system of scientific knowledge, such as we might have in Euclidean geometry, or some other science, will have certain general principles that provide starting points for our knowledge. And we’ll try to understand special cases underneath the general principles. He thinks of practical knowledge as rational knowledge, and therefore the same kind of structure—a kind of top-down order.
So, when he thinks about the way in which reason gives its command to us, he’ll think about it as applying, in the first instance, to the most general acts of judging or practical thinking that we engage in. Often, if you read his works you’ll see him speaking about happiness, which he takes to be a fundamental object of interest for any human being. In fact, it’s the most fundamental object of concern for any finite (i.e. human) person. It’s easiest to think about how his principle applies by considering very general interests, or ends that we set for ourselves relating to our own happiness. So he’ll argue that it’s part of our nature as beings with needs (rational animals) that we have some conception of our own good as our basic end. He’s really thinking about how we regard our end of happiness in relation to others; that’s the fundamental level at which his thinking is directed.
It’s easiest to see how the categorical imperative applies by starting with very simple basic views we have about our own happiness, how important it is relative to happiness of others. And it’s here we can see how the two kinds of universality really get a grip, or make a difference. If I think of my happiness as an end that matters for me and judge it to be something good, what the categorical imperative will require in virtue of the objective universality of it is that I also regard others’ happiness as likewise good. And, in a similar way, it will require on the subjective side that I be able to satisfy myself that others could agree with my own judgement placing importance on my own happiness.
Now, described in that way, it seems straightforward enough. But a lot will depend on what kind of content is included in what I think my happiness to consist in. If the ends I set for myself include, say, achieving certain kinds of relations of power or control over other people—if what I would like is to have control other people—then the judgement will run afoul of these rational requirements. Because if I try to conceive of a world in which others act on that same judgement, I’ll be forced to try to make coherent the idea of a world in which everyone is trying to get the better of everybody else. And it seems as though—and Kant argues that it is so—in this kind of scenario we can’t really coherently think of such a world, where I’m succeeding and fulfilling my wish to be in a position of superiority over others, controlling how they live to the extent that I can, and others are doing the same to me, in turn. There seems to be a kind of conflict between our ends that the requirement of objective universality brings to the fore.
Matt Teichman:
It sounds like this formula of universal law that we’ve been discussing—it seems very altruistic, which is to say that it places an emphasis on not just looking out for yourself, but looking out for other people as well. And the last remark you just made makes it sound like on Kant’s view, selfish behavior is not just wrong, but illogical or self-contradictory. But what exactly is self-contradictory about being selfish?
Stephen Engstrom:
Ah, good point. The way Kant illustrates the application of this principle does suggest that if you will a certain action, or if you choose to act in a certain way that conflicts with a rational requirement, you end up contradicting yourself, or falling into some kind of contradiction. And that can make it sound as though there’s some kind of rank incoherence involved in wrongful action. In fact, that’s not what he himself thinks, and we need to distinguish between sheer inconsistency of the sort that’s involved in thinking in violation of, say, the laws of logic, the law of non-contradiction. Contradicting oneself is not quite like that—but it’s a kind of inconsistency that arises if you (as he would put it) will your maxim or your action as a universal law. There’s nothing inconsistent about willing to lie to somebody, or willing to get the better of somebody else. But there is an inconsistency, he thinks, that arises if I try to will, or to judge, or affirm everybody’s doing that. So the inconsistency only arises when I think by the lights of reason, so to speak. As long as I’m focused on what I’m after, or want I want to do, there’s no contradiction at all.
Matt Teichman:
Suppose I’m a radical libertarian—not in the metaphysical sense; in the political sense. Suppose I think that the most important thing a person should respect in their life and decision making is their own benefit, and it’s my view that that applies generally. Everybody should do this; everybody should look out for number one. Where, according to Kant, have I contradicted myself?
Stephen Engstrom:
Kant himself describes the case of an individual who resembles the libertarian you were just describing. Someone, he says, for whom things are going well, who sees other people struggling with hardships, and decides not to lift a finger to help them. His idea is: let everybody live and pursue their own happiness, and let the chips fall where they may. Kant thinks of this way of thinking as quite understandable. Indeed—he doesn’t say this, but I think he would recognize—many people think that it’s the way we actually think, and that the world runs basically on that kind of principle. That’s how the world works, some people might say.
So it’s a very familiar way of thinking, and Kant himself says that there’s no explicit contradiction that results if we try to conceive of a world where everyone is acting in this way. So there’s a sense in which there isn’t a contradiction. But Kant does argue that such an individual couldn’t will to be part of this world—that is, a world where everyone is acting in this way. There’s a question in what sense this can’t be willed. Some argue you can perfectly well will to be in such a world. You might, in a sort of Stoical way, be prepared to go down without being helped by others if that’s what fate requires. But Kant thinks that if we’re really talking about persons—human beings who have needs that are based in their animal makeup—although this way of thinking might come easily as long as things go well, when push comes to shove—when things aren’t going so well—one’s in a better position to appreciate one’s needs as a finite or limited vulnerable human being.
I think he regards it as in fact rational, in such a case, to wish to be helped by others, if one has serious needs to maintain to keep going for one’s own survival. And so, he thinks that someone who might talk that talk—if they reflect and kind of step out of their libertarian ideology—on what it would be like to be in the position of the people who need their help and who they don’t care to help, they will be able to appreciate that they couldn’t will to be part of such a world. And as I’m understanding this categorical imperative, with the two different kinds of universality that are implicated in that requirement, we can spell out the point that the person couldn’t will to be in such a world by thinking about the problem that arises when we think of the subjective universality requirement. That is, I think that what he is pointing our attention toward here is that when you’re in that kind of situation, should you fall into it, you would yourself expect others to regard your own happiness—your own survival perhaps—as something good. At least to the point of regarding it as important to help further if they can.
That’s a kind of implicit registering of the subjective universality of the claim one makes about the value of one’s own happiness. When one reflects upon what it’s like to be in that kind of situation where one needs help, one can appreciate that one views one’s happiness in such a way that one expects others to also recognize one’s happiness as having some value or worth. What I think Kant is drawing on when he considers this character is that we, as persons, think of our happiness as something that’s good, and that we know to be good, and that therefore, others should recognize as good also, because of the subjective universality of the judgments and claims we make practically. But if they should recognize the goodness of our happiness, then, he says, we’re under an obligation to suppose that we should recognize their happiness to be good also. Our own judgements about the value of our happiness, to the extent that we think they should agree with us, then we’re committed to supposing that when they make similar judgements about their happiness, we should agree with them. This kind of case turns more directly on the subjective requirement on universality of practical judgement and practical cognition or knowing. Whereas in the example we considered earlier, I focused more on the objective side. That’s a somewhat long-winded answer, but I think that’s how he handles the case of the person who, as you put it, is kind of libertarian. A moral libertarian.
Francey Russell:
I found that answer helpful because I think it helps show that Kant is not of the mind that moral life is somehow fully separable from our vulnerabilities, our concrete relationships with others—that there might even be limitations to what we can rationally want in light of those vulnerabilities, and in light of our social mode of life. I wonder if you could talk about a case that’s the inverse of the one we just imagined: what if I find myself in a corrupt state and I make what I think is a moral judgement that’s correct, and I find no subjective agreement with my fellows. I meet complete disagreement. Should this be something that impacts my moral judgement at all? How much should the judgements of my fellow citizens inform my own?
Stephen Engstrom:
That’s a fine question. Here’s a thought or two about it. This requirement of subjective universality—the requirement that we be able to agree in our judgements about how we should live—I think runs very deep in Kant, and it plays out in a variety of ways that maybe aren’t immediately obvious from the description I’ve given so far. This categorical imperative that we’ve been discussing until now is one that Kant illustrates with various examples, and they’re meant to bring to light the way in which we can, in reflection, scrutinize or criticize our own ways of thinking by asking: ‘well, what if everyone acted according to this plan of mine’?
But there’s a lot more to practical life than just individuals sitting around, reflecting by themselves whether others could agree with the way of acting they’re proposing, or whether everyone could follow this plan or maxim. There’s a lot more than that. After all, many of the problems of practical life are problems that involve coordinating our actions, and just sorting out how we’re going to live together. And none of us are able to figure out how that should go by ourselves. We have to communicate with one another, work out together how we’re going to live together, and at this stage of the game, just sitting around and reflecting isn’t going to get us anywhere. We need to have an attitude towards one another that will make us good collaborative co-deliberators about how we should live together. But there’s the actual business of reaching agreement, and this requirement of universal agreement is still in operation now, but it’s actually in play in our back and forth—our co-deliberation about how we should live together.
And so, if you find yourself in a situation where everyone around you seems to disagree with you, that’s not a good place to be. You’ve got to work it out with your fellows, one way or another. Maybe it will mean you need to leave. Maybe you’ll need to make due as best you can. But in the first instance there, should be some effort on the part of you and your fellows to see whether you can reach some kind of agreement. The fact that you’re outnumbered does make it hard to persuade everybody that the way you’re seeing things is the way they should see things too. But that’s the beginning of a conversation. It’s a requirement that we work these things out as persons. That brings into view that there’s a lot more to being a good person than just sitting alone in your ethical armchair, asking whether everyone could follow the maxim or rule of action that you are contemplating.
Francey Russell:
That’s helpful and that really seems to place Kant’s moral philosophy in the context of his enlightenment thought, where he thought that part of what human life is about is coming to agreement about how we want to live, not based on being governed by anybody else—not based on following some sort of leader’s rules—but on really reflecting together about how we want best to live.
Stephen Engstrom:
Absolutely. That’s very much the spirit of his ethics.
Matt Teichman:
It’s been quite some time since Kant was around. But even today, Kant’s position is considered one of the major positions that you can take in ethics. But is Kant’s view just of historical interest, because of its influence, or do you think there’s intrinsic philosophical interest to it?
Stephen Engstrom:
Excellent question. For a good time in 20th century Anglophone moral philosophy, there wasn’t a whole lot of attention paid to Kant’s moral philosophy. That’s been a more recent development over the last few decades. I think it’s been very salutary, and I hope it continues. Because Kant, in a way that I’ve been bringing out to a certain extent in my earlier remarks, is a philosopher who conceives of reason as a capacity of knowledge. And what he is doing in developing an account of the practical use of reason, and interpreting morality as having a basis in practical reason, is really interpreting our moral thinking as cognitive, or a kind of knowledge. He would call it knowledge of the good, or of what we ought to do, as opposed to knowledge of the real or actual—knowledge of nature, which he thinks of as theoretical knowledge, not practical. And this knowledge is rational knowledge, but distinctive in certain ways that I’ve been trying to bring out earlier, when I spoke of the way in which the two kinds of universality coincide.
In any case, what I think is really helpful in thinking of morality in terms of a principle which has its source in a capacity we have to know (to know the good, in this case) is that it brings philosophical reflection upon morality more closely in touch with how we ordinarily think about our obligations, in the first instance. Our ordinary thinking is just run through with the assumption, usually tacit, that we know how we ought to act. There may be difficult cases that we encounter, where we’re not sure what the right thing to do is. And of course, philosophy classes are full of examples where it’s really a head-scratcher to know what the right answer is about what to do. Philosophers are drawn to the difficult cases, and that can feed a sort of skepticism and help us come to doubt whether we actually do have any knowledge of the good, or what we ought to do. But if you go back to the way we ordinarily think about things, when we’re just on the street, acting and making decisions about what to do, we suppose through and through that we have knowledge of how we ought to act, at least in the normal range of cases. We’ll say things like ‘I know I should help this person, although it’s not convenient for me to do so’. Or if someone’s giving us a hard time, browbeating us or something, we might reply to them by saying: look, I know right from wrong—you don’t need to tell me how to live my life. That’ll just come out of our mouths. We say we know right from wrong. So it’s in our ordinary thinking; it’s there. It’s very robust, it’s very powerful, but it tends to fall out of view when we start to put our philosopher’s hats on and reflect about morality. It’s not as though this has not been noticed. But there’s a lot of skepticism, because of moral conflict, about whether we can have knowledge of the good or how to order our lives. And that has a cost of leaving us not well-positioned to interpret moral thinking in a way that’s in line with the way we, on the ground, think of it. Kant is valuable in bringing us an account of moral obligation that has those roots in our ordinary thought.
Matt Teichman:
Stephen Engstrom, thanks so much for joining us.
Stephen Engstrom:
A great pleasure.
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