“Hume’s skepticism with regard to what reason and the senses can tell
us forced Kant to think through many of life’s important questions again. Not
least in the area of ethics.”
“Didn’t Hume say that you can never prove what is right and what is
wrong2 You can’t draw conclusions from is - sentence? to ought-sentences.”
“For Hume it was neither our reason nor our experience that determined
the difference between right and wrong. It was simply our sentiments. This
was too tenuous a basis for Kant.”
“I can imagine.”
“Kant had always felt that the difference between right and wrong was a
matter of reason, not sentiment. In this he agreed with the rationalists, who
said the ability to distinguish between right and wrong is inherent in human
reason. Everybody knows what is right or wrong, not because we have
learned it but because it is born in the mind. According to Kant, everybody has
‘practical reason,’ that is, the intelligence that gives us the capacity to discern
what is right or wrong in every case.”
“And that is innate?”
“The ability to tell right from wrong is just as innate as all the other
attributes of reason. Just as we are all intelligent beings, for example,
perceiving everything as having a causal relation, we all have access to the
same universal moral law.
“This moral law has the same absolute validity as the physical laws. It is
just as basic to our morality as the statements that everything has a cause, or
that seven plus five is twelve, are basic to our intelligence.”
“And what does that moral law say?”
“Since it precedes every experience, it is ‘formal.’ That is to say, it is not
bound to any particular situation of moral choice. For it applies to all people in
all societies at all times. So it does not say you shall do this or this if you find
yourself in that or that situation. It says how you are to behave in all
situations.”
“But what is the point of having a moral law implanted inside yourself if it
doesn’t tell you what to do in specific situations?”
“Kant formulates the moral law as a categorical imperative. By this he
means that the moral law is ‘categorical,’ or that it applies to all situations. It
is, moreover, ‘imperative,’ which means it is commanding and therefore ab-
solutely authoritative.”
“Kant formulates this ‘categorical imperative’ in several ways. First he
says: Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a
Universal Law of Nature.”
“So when I do something, I must make sure I want everybody else to do
the same if they are in the same situation.”
“Exactly. Only then will you be acting in accordance with the moral law
within you. Kant also formulates the ‘categorical imperative’ in this way: Act in
such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in
the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same
time as an end.”
“So we must not exploit other people to our own advantage.”
“No, because every man is an end in himself. But that does not only
apply to others, it also applies to you yourself. You must not exploit yourself
as a mere means to achieving something, either.”