A-level – Religious Studies – Ethics – Kantian Ethics



A-level – Religious Studies – Ethics – Kantian Ethics

Introduction

Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) presented a Deontological argument so in his theory the ACTION is what establishes the morality/duty - you establish your duty and then do it

Kant said that moral statements are not like normal statements.

• Normal statements are either a priori analytic (they are knowable without experience and verifiable through reason) or they are a posteriori synthetic (knowable through experience and verifiable through experience).

• For Kant, moral statements are a priori synthetic – you can know something is moral without experience, and it can be checked with experience.

Good will and Duty

Kant believed that there was nothing that could be said to be good except a good will:

Nothing in the world—indeed nothing even beyond the world—can possibly be conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will (Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 1785)

Something is good only when someone carries out their duty to do it – so goodness is based on doing the correct thing.

The Categorical Imperative

Kant specified that moral actions are absolute actions that must be done in all circumstances – there are to be no conditions attached.

Moral actions cannot be hypothetical (based on something else – e.g. if I want X I must do Y) because they become too subjective.

If an action is to be entirely objective, it must be universal and if it is to be made properly, the human must be in total control (autonomous) and assume all others are autonomous.

Therefore Kant has three key formulations of his Categorical Imperative

1. Always perform actions that may be made rules for everyone (universalisability) (Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. [Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, 1785])

2. Always treat people as ends in themselves, not as means to an end. (Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means. [Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, 1785])

3. Pretend you live as a member of (and as a leader of) the Kingdom of Ends where all people live as if these rules are totally valid ([E]very rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends. [Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, 1785])

The Summum Bonum

Kant noted that if we are to do our duty then we must be able to be rewarded for our actions.

He talked about the summum bonum – the place where our happiness and our virtue (good actions through doing our duty) come together.

This is obviously not something that can be found on earth – we see bad people living happy lives and good people living unhappy lives – therefore the summum bonum must be able to be achieved in the afterlife.

Three Postulates of Pure Practical Reason

Following on from this approach, Kant postulated three things that were necessary for his theory to work, but which rationally must exist.

1. We must be free to be able to make decisions.

2. There must be an afterlife (or immortality) for us to be able to achieve the summum bonum.

3. God must exist in order to be a fair judge to bring us to the afterlife or not.

This is why Kant is referred to in discussions about the Moral Argument for the Existence of God.

Strengths of Kantian Ethics

• It is universal so everyone is treated equally and given equal value.

• Human life is given particular value.

• You have particular rules to follow – you know where you are with the theory.

• It promotes good will, which is beneficial for society

• There are no references to the future or to consequences, which cannot be known.

Weaknesses of Kantian Ethics

• It does not seem to account for the complexities of life – universalisability cannot work as no two situations are the same.

• For example, would you tell a known murderer where his victim was? (Kant says we have to.)

• It does not account for any particular duty we may have for certain people (e.g. family).

• It does not account for times when two absolutes clash.

• Some would say that sometimes human life has to be sacrificed to stop others or more people being killed or suffering.

A-level – Religious Studies – Philosophy of Religion – Arguments for the existence of God

These arguments can be broadly grouped into:

• arguments that are based on experience (a posteriori arguments) – the cosmological, teleological (or design) arguments and the argument from Religious Experience;

• arguments that are based on no prior experience but on logic alone (a priori arguments) – the ontological argument; and

• moral arguments, which are less easy to classify one way or the other.

A-level – Religious Studies – Philosophy of Religion – Arguments for the existence of God - Cosmological Argument

Introduction

The key question asked by the cosmological argument is ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’

The argument works from our experience of the universe towards the existence of God – it states that we can observe the universe and the very fact that things exist and therefore must conclude that God exists.

However, we will not find the reasons for the universe within the universe – God is to be seen as an external being.

Aquinas

St Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) was a well-known monk, philosopher and theologian.

Aquinas offered five ways to prove the existence of God, of which the first three are forms of the cosmological argument – arguments from motion, cause and contingency.

Aquinas was influenced by Aristotle’s approach to causation.

First Way

This is the argument from motion or change (the two terms are equivalent as if you move from A to B then you have changed).

1) All things are in a state of change.

2) Everything is a secondary mover.

3) If all things are secondary movers then there must be infinite regress.

4) If (3) is correct then there is no Prime Mover. Without a Prime Mover, there can be no secondary movers, therefore, (3) is false as infinite regress is impossible. (The reductio ad absurdum technique.)

5) Therefore, there must be a prime mover. This we call “God”.

“The chain of movers cannot go on to infinity because then there would be no first mover and consequently no other mover.” Aquinas, Summa Theologica

Second Way

This is the argument from causation.

1) There is an order of efficient causes.

2) No efficient cause can cause itself.

3) If there is infinite regress then there is no First Cause.

4) If (3) is true then there can be no subsequent causes. Infinite regress is impossible. (The reductio ad absurdum technique.)

5) Therefore there must be a first cause of everything. This we call “God”.

Criticisms of the First and Second Ways

• Aquinas does not explain why there cannot only be secondary causes?

• Some argue he commits the Infinite Regress Fallacy by saying that infinite regress is wrong. In nature around us, we have an infinite series, so why shouldn’t nature itself be an infinite series?

• It is too large a leap from First Cause or Prime Mover to God. (However the argument doesn’t prove or set out to prove the God of Classical Theism.)

• Why should we make God the exception? Why not make the universe the exception?

• Who made God – why does God have to be the First Cause?

• The argument only works with an exception, therefore everything is a secondary mover except God, which is a contradiction. (But the very nature of the argument shows that there must be a contradiction because without a First Cause, nothing can exist.)

• Quantum Physics suggests that at a sub-atomic level there may be random movement and there exist things that do not have causes themselves.

Third Way

This is the argument from contingency and necessity.

A contingent being is one that relies on something else for its existence. A necessary being relies on nothing else for its existence.

1) Things are contingent.

2) If everything is contingent, there must have been a time when nothing existed.

3) Therefore (using reductio ad absurdum) nothing can come from nothing.

4) Therefore, there must be a necessary being.

5) Every necessary being must have a cause either inside or outside of itself.

6) Imagine every necessary being had a cause outside itself.

7) Therefore (using reductio ad absurdum) if (6) is true, then there is no ultimate cause of necessity.

8) Therefore, there must be a necessary being which causes and contains all other necessary and contingent beings. This being we call “God”.

Criticisms of the Third Way

For more criticisms see the criticisms of the First and Second Ways.

• Why can’t there be overlapping contingent beings going back to infinity? Also, causes may have more than one effect. The jump from (1) to (2) is a fallacy.

• There is no sense in which it proves the God of Classical Theism.

• It assumes that infinite regress is impossible.

• Some might say it is meaningless to ask what caused the universe.

Hume’s Criticisms of the Cosmological Argument

• “If the material world rests upon a similar ideal world, this ideal world must rest upon some other; and so on without out. It were better therefore never to look beyond the present material world.” Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Hume’s point is that we must not look beyond this world to anything metaphysical – The answers are in this world, otherwise we will end up going back to infinity.

• The Fallacy of Composition. Hume says that Aquinas has made a mistake in the way this argument was put together. Just because there is a common property to a group doesn’t mean that property must apply to the group. Just because every event in a series has a cause, doesn’t mean the series itself has a cause.

• Hume also said that we have no experience of a universe being created and so we cannot talk meaningfully about it.

• Hume rejected the idea of necessary existence – every being, according to Hume is contingent.

• Hume questions why motion needs to have a starting point – in other words why infinite regression is impossible. Surely if there can be an understanding of a prime mover there can be an understanding of perpetual motion?

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