“It reminds me of the golden rule: Do unto others . . .”
“Yes, that is also a ‘formal’ rule of conduct that basically covers all
ethical choices. You could say that the golden rule says the same thing as
Kant’s universal law of morals.”
“But surely this is only an assertion. Hume was probably right in that we
can’t prove what is right or wrong by reason.”
“According to Kant, the law of morals is just as absolute and just as
universal as the law of causality. That cannot be proved by reason either, but
it is nevertheless absolute and unalterable. Nobody would deny that.”
“I get the feeling that what we are really talking about is conscience.
Because everybody has a conscience, don’t they?”
“Yes. When Kant describes the law of morals, he is describing the
human conscience. We cannot prove what our conscience tells us, but we
know it, nevertheless.”
“Sometimes I might only be kind and helpful to others because I know it
pays off. It could be a way of becoming popular.”
“But if you share with others only to be popular, you are not acting out of
respect for moral law. You might be acting in accordance with moral law—and
that could be fair enough—but if it is to be a moral action, you must have
conquered yourself. Only when you do something purely out of duty can it be
called a moral action. Kant’s ethics is therefore sometimes called duty ethics.”
“I can feel it my duty to collect money for the Red Cross or the church
bazaar.”
“Yes, and the important thing is that you do it because you know it is
right. Even if the money you collect gets lost in the street, or is not sufficient to
feed all the mouths it is intended to, you obeyed the moral law. You acted out
of good will, and according to Kant, it is this good will which determines
whether or not the action was morally right, not the consequences of the
action. Kant’s ethics is therefore also called a good will ethic.”
“Why was it so important to him to know exactly when one acts out of
respect for moral law? Surely the most important thing is that what we do
really helps other peo-pie.”
“Indeed it is and Kant would certainly not disagree. But only when we
know in ourselves that we are acting out of respect for moral law are we
acting freely.”
“We act freely only when we obey a law? Isn’t that kind of peculiar?”
“Not according to Kant. You perhaps remember that he had to
‘assume’or ‘postulate’ that man has a free will. This is an important point,
because Kant also said that everything obeys the law of causality. How, then,
can we have a free will?”
“Search me.”
“On this point Kant divides man into two parts in a way not dissimilar to
the way Descartes claimed that man was a ‘dual creature,’ one with both a
body and a mind. As material creatures, we are wholly and fully at the mercy
of causality’s unbreakable law, says Kant. We do not decide what we
perceive—perception comes to us through necessity and influences us
whether we like it or not. But we are not only material creatures—we are also
creatures of reason.
“As material beings we belong wholly to the natural world. We are
therefore subject to causal relations. As such, we have no free will. But as