Classic Criticisms of Kant

A. Positive

1. Universalizable - applies to everyone alike, avoids problems of ethical egoism and problem of making oneself an exception

2. Absolute- Unconditional - not relative

3. Autonomous

4. Rational

5. Freedom

6. All principles derived from 1 so should be able to avoid conflict between requirements of 2 or more principles.

7. Motives not consequences/duty not selfish interest or inclination.  (avoids some problems with consequentialist ethical systems such as utilitarianism)

8. Something attractive about a system that preserves values like dignity of humans without price, cannot use people, treat others as you would be treated, etc.

B. Typical Problems with C.I. and Possible Replies

1. What does the C.I. actually cover? In how many and what kind of cases will it apply?

2. What is "Contradiction"? Assumes current definitions and practices.

3. Difficulty in Forming Maxims

a. Stealing medicine example (See Solomon and Martin, 306-07)

b. Alvin, Betsy, and Clarice and Gestapo Examples -  Alvin has Betsy over to dinner.  Clarice knocks on the door.  She asks if Betsy is there.  She tells Alvin she wants to kill Betsy.  What is Alvin's maxim?  Gestapo knocks on the door and asks if you have seen any Jews in the area.  You are hiding some Jews in your basement.

4. Conflict of Duty

a. Sartre - Go To War Against Nazi's With Free French or Stay Home and Take Care of Aged Mother. 

From Existentialism Is a Humanism (Bolding Mine)

As an example by which you may the better understand this state of abandonment, I will refer to the case of a pupil of mine, who sought me out in the following circumstances. His father was quarrelling with his mother and was also inclined to be a “collaborator”; his elder brother had been killed in the German offensive of 1940 and this young man, with a sentiment somewhat primitive but generous, burned to avenge him. His mother was living alone with him, deeply afflicted by the semi-treason of his father and by the death of her eldest son, and her one consolation was in this young man. But he, at this moment, had the choice between going to England to join the Free French Forces or of staying near his mother and helping her to live. He fully realised that this woman lived only for him and that his disappearance – or perhaps his death – would plunge her into despair. He also realised that, concretely and in fact, every action he performed on his mother’s behalf would be sure of effect in the sense of aiding her to live, whereas anything he did in order to go and fight would be an ambiguous action which might vanish like water into sand and serve no purpose. For instance, to set out for England he would have to wait indefinitely in a Spanish camp on the way through Spain; or, on arriving in England or in Algiers he might be put into an office to fill up forms. Consequently, he found himself confronted by two very different modes of action; the one concrete, immediate, but directed towards only one individual; and the other an action addressed to an end infinitely greater, a national collectivity, but for that very reason ambiguous – and it might be frustrated on the way. At the same time, he was hesitating between two kinds of morality; on the one side the morality of sympathy, of personal devotion and, on the other side, a morality of wider scope but of more debatable validity. He had to choose between those two. What could help him to choose? Could the Christian doctrine? No. Christian doctrine says: Act with charity, love your neighbour, deny yourself for others, choose the way which is hardest, and so forth. But which is the harder road? To whom does one owe the more brotherly love, the patriot or the mother? Which is the more useful aim, the general one of fighting in and for the whole community, or the precise aim of helping one particular person to live? Who can give an answer to that a priori? No one. Nor is it given in any ethical scripture. The Kantian ethic says, Never regard another as a means, but always as an end. Very well; if I remain with my mother, I shall be regarding her as the end and not as a means: but by the same token I am in danger of treating as means those who are fighting on my behalf; and the converse is also true, that if I go to the aid of the combatants I shall be treating them as the end at the risk of treating my mother as a means. If values are uncertain, if they are still too abstract to determine the particular, concrete case under consideration, nothing remains but to trust in our instincts. That is what this young man tried to do; and when I saw him he said, “In the end, it is feeling that counts; the direction in which it is really pushing me is the one I ought to choose. If I feel that I love my mother enough to sacrifice everything else for her – my will to be avenged, all my longings for action and adventure then I stay with her. If, on the contrary, I feel that my love for her is not enough, I go.” But how does one estimate the strength of a feeling? The value of his feeling for his mother was determined precisely by the fact that he was standing by her. I may say that I love a certain friend enough to sacrifice such or such a sum of money for him, but I cannot prove that unless I have done it. I may say, “I love my mother enough to remain with her,” if actually I have remained with her. I can only estimate the strength of this affection if I have performed an action by which it is defined and ratified. But if I then appeal to this affection to justify my action, I find myself drawn into a vicious circle.

. . . . .

There is this in common between art and morality, that in both we have to do with creation and invention. We cannot decide a priori what it is that should be done. I think it was made sufficiently clear to you in the case of that student who came to see me, that to whatever ethical system he might appeal, the Kantian or any other, he could find no sort of guidance whatever; he was obliged to invent the law for himself. Certainly we cannot say that this man, in choosing to remain with his mother – that is, in taking sentiment, personal devotion and concrete charity as his moral foundations – would be making an irresponsible choice, nor could we do so if he preferred the sacrifice of going away to England. Man makes himself; he is not found ready-made; he makes himself by the choice of his morality, and he cannot but choose a morality, such is the pressure of circumstances upon him. We define man only in relation to his commitments; it is therefore absurd to reproach us for irresponsibility in our choice.  (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm; accessed 1-25-07)

b. Example of Alvin, Betsy, and Clarice - Duty not to lie vs. duty to preserve a life.

See Kant's On a Supposed Right to tell Lies from Benevolent Motives:

If, then, we define a lie merely as an intentionally false declaration towards another man, we need not add that it must injure another; . . . . For it always injures another; if not another individual, yet mankind generally, since it vitiates the source of justice. This benevolent lie may, however, by accident (casus) become punishable even by civil laws; and that which escapes liability to punishment only by accident may be condemned as a wrong even by external laws. For instance, if you have by a lie hindered a man who is even now planning a murder, you are legally responsible for all the consequences. But if you have strictly adhered to the truth, public justice can find no fault with you, be the unforeseen consequence what it may. It is possible that whilst you have honestly answered Yes to the murderer’s question, whether his intended victim is in the house, the latter may have gone out unobserved, and so not have come in the way of the murderer, and the deed therefore have not been done; whereas, if you lied and said he was not in the house, and he had really gone out (though unknown to you) so that the murderer met him as he went, and executed his purpose on him, then you might with justice be accused as the cause of his death. For, if you had spoken the truth as well as you knew it, perhaps the murderer while seeking for his enemy in the house might have been caught by neighbours coming up and the deed been prevented. Whoever then tells a lie, however good his intentions may be, must answer for the consequences of it, even before the civil tribunal, and must pay the penalty for them, however unforeseen they may have been; because truthfulness is a duty that must be regarded as the basis of all duties founded on contract, the laws of which would be rendered uncertain and useless if even the least exception to them were admitted.

To be truthful (honest) in all declarations is therefore a sacred unconditional command of reason, and not to be limited by any expediency. (http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/HTML.php?recordID=0435; accessed 1-25-07)

c. Various responses -

i. C.I. will help you not to do something immoral.

ii. Rigid perfect duties supersede imperfect duties

On this scale - promising comes above helping someone in distress. Not lying may supersede not murdering.

iii. Use all forms of C.I. to provide test of morality not just one. Ends not means only gives us gives us concern for others well-being.

iv. Singer - maxims must be more specific. 

5. Kant's "Logic" Really Concern for Consequences

("What if everyone did it?" - Rule utilitarianism -  rather than, "Is it still possible to do if everyone did it?" I.e., is it self-defeating?)

6. Lack of Integration of Emotion, Compassion,  and Ethos

 

7. Particularism v. Universalism