This is the second of the mini podcasts that we're doing, so welcome to everyone watching the podcasts and welcome to you, too.
And on this one, we're doing day ontology. So let's get started.
One of the most famous technologists, in fact, the famous anthologist is Immanuel Kant.
This is the man himself. And in this session, I'm going to be talking mainly about Cancion de Ontology,
although we'll see at the end that there are different types of gerontologists.
And I can't believe that morality is a system of categorical imperatives.
A categorical imperative is an absolute rule, a rule that binds us irrespective of our desires or any other consideration.
And lots of people are anti de ontology precisely because they don't believe in an absolute morality.
They think because they couldn't be an absolute morality. This is this is just wrong.
So let's have a look at why can't believe this. Well, a little bit more about why what he believes.
First, he believes that we're truly moral agents only when we act out of reverence for the moral law.
So if you watch the video, the podcast on Virtue Ethics, you'll remember that virtue.
Ethicists say that our reason for writing is a very important part of what makes us moral.
Well, Kant would agree with that. In order to act morally, says Kant, we've got to act out of reverence for the moral law.
And when we obey the categorical imperative when we act,
because we see that it's a categorical imperative and that's why we do it, then we are acting morally.
But if we act for any other reason, we're not acting morally,
even if our act is identical to the one we would have performed if we were acting out of reverence for the law.
And give you a quick little illustration of that, imagine that here's a road I think of it actually is Brazde Newsline just behind my old
college and his mic coming from one direction and me coming from the other direction.
And in the middle is sitting a beggar, holding her baby and asking for money.
And as we're coming along, we each give her a pound, but Mike gives her a pound because he thinks it's the right thing to do.
And I give her a pound because I think I want like to think that I'm a nice person and you might think they're well,
which we've done exactly the same act. We've each given the the beggar a pound.
But one of us has acted morally, according to Kant, the other hasn't.
And we can see why he says that, can't we? You know, I'm acting out of self-interest and I'm acting to so that Mike thinks I'm a nice person.
OK, but what are categorical imperatives? OK, an imperative is a should or a must statement.
So both of these are imperatives. You should do this or I must do that.
Both of those are imperative utterances.
And here's an imperative of the sort that you act on daily little piece of practical reasoning.
I want to get to London by noon. I believe I can only get to London by noon.
If I catch the 10 30 train, I must therefore catch the 10 30 train.
Do you see that his desire of yours is a belief of yours and together they generate an imperative?
OK, so you're rationally bound by that imperative.
You must act on it by dint of your capacity for reason, so long as you have that desire and you have that belief.
OK, that's what an imperative is. But that one, the one I had up there, is a hypothetical imperative.
You are rationally bound by the conclusion of that piece of practical reasoning only if you have the desire and you have the belief.
So looking at these again, let's say eight o'clock in the morning, you do want to get to London by this time and you do believe this.
Therefore, you're bound by that. You believe you must catch the ten 30 train.
But at nine o'clock in the morning, your somebody rings up and says, I want you to do this.
And this becomes very important. So you lose that desire. Now, at that point, this imperative is no longer binding on you, is it?
As long as you had that desire, you were rationally bound by that.
As soon as you lost that desire, you weren't rationally bound by it.
So that was the hypothetical imperative. And what Kant is talking about is categorical imperatives, not hypothetical ones.
So what's a categorical imperative? It binds you in virtue of your rational nature.
Your desires are completely irrelevant. And let's give you an example of one.
OK, here's a categorical imperative. I believe it's right to do a therefore I should do a.
So let me ask you whether you think could you believe that it is right to do something without also believing that you should do it?
And by the same token, could you believe that it is wrong to do something without believing that you shouldn't do it?
Kant thinks that there's a logical link between the moral concepts of right and wrong and imperatives like should and must and so on,
because Kant believes that we can't believe that it's right to do something without believing that we should do it.
And we can't believe that it's wrong to do something without believing that we shouldn't do it.
So the moral concepts are intrinsically action guiding and they're the only concepts that are the imperative come straight from the belief.
No desire is needed. There's no desire here. Desire isn't needed.
You logically get the should straight from the belief, straight from the way of thinking of the world.
OK, now I can see on your faces that you may have an objection to this.
And here's the objection I think you may have you probably immediately think.
But hang on. There's a premise missing from this categorical imperative.
What about I want to do the right thing. Should not be in there.
I believe it's right to do a I want to do the right thing, therefore, I should do.
A lot of people think this. But actually Kant would say that if you think this, you haven't properly understood the moral concept.
Right. And I should have put and wrong there. And to say that in order to do the right thing,
you must want to do the right thing implies that you will only do something you recognise to be right if you want to.
And actually, if you say that what you're manifesting is that you haven't understood what it is for something to be right.
Because the thing about morality is it's. It requires us to act whatever we want.
I mean, it may if I need to save your life, my desire not to get my new boots wet, it becomes completely irrelevant.
The thing I should do is save your life.
So the categorical imperative differs from the hypothetical in that the imperative is not conditional upon any desire of yours.
Your recognition of the of the moral law,
of the fact that in this situation is right to do a or wrong to do a tells you straightaway what you should or shouldn't do.
So it bind you in virtue of your rational nature, not your affective nature, not your desires.
OK, so that sort of categorical imperative is it rationally binds us irrespective of our desires,
but that's the form of a categorical imperative at the moment.
It hasn't got any content at all, has it? All I've told you is what a categorical imperative is.
So just as there can be lots of different hypothetical imperatives, there can be lots of different categorical imperatives.
Let's have a look at them. Can offer several formulations of the categorical imperative.
And he says they're all equivalent. Whether they are or not is it is a big philosophical question not one will address here.
But here are two of the formulations he offers. One of them he calls the principle of humanity, which is always treat humanity,
whether in yourself or in another person, as an end in themselves, never solely as a means.
Well, what does that mean? And what it means is that I must always treat you as somebody who make your own decisions about your own actions.
I should never use you only as a means to my own.
And so that doesn't mean I can't use you. Can I borrow a pen, please?
Peter, thank you. Thank you. OK, I just used you as a means to my own ends there.
I wanted to make an example and I chose you as the means of making my sample.
But of course you had the choice to say no. I mean, you could have said no, I'm sorry.
I need the pen. I'm making notes or something, something like that. You did have the choice to say no.
So I wasn't using you solely as a means to my end.
That's what I mustn't do. So if I lie to you in order to get you to do what I want, I'm using you as nothing more than a tool.
And that's what's ruled out by that formulation of the moral law.
The second principle is that we must act only on that maximum we could will to be universal law.
Well, that's less easy to understand.
But what Kant means is that before we act for a any given reason, we should always ask ourselves what if everyone were to do this?
So let's say that I think about saying to my mum, no, you look terrible out of a feeling of spite, momentary spite.
Before I do that, I should ask, well, what if everyone were to be truthful only because they felt spiteful.
This would be terrible, wouldn't it? Therefore, I shouldn't do it.
And so what's important with this one is that Qantas saying that you shouldn't make exceptions based on who you are.
You shouldn't treat yourself as any more privileged than anyone else.
You should assume that if you have this reason for acting, everyone else will have this reason for acting, too.
And if they shouldn't act on it, neither should you.
So the principle of universalised ability means that you shouldn't privilege yourself above other people.
OK, you'll note that cancer doesn't seem to think that the absolute moral rules that bind us are the ones that we were taught as small children.
So don't lie, keep promises. Those were the rules that you were given that we were all given as small children.
But that's not what Kant says the moral law is.
Although I have to say that in his books he does give examples that that use those.
And and sometimes people do believe that he thinks of those as categorical imperatives.
If he there are certainly down ologists, who do think that lower order moral rules like keep promises and don't lie are the categorical imperatives.
But the way I'm interpreting Kant is a different sort of gerontologists,
one who believes that the categorical imperative is a higher order moral law like treat others only as ends in themselves.
So, OK, so for Kant,
the moral law binds us absolutely in virtue of our capacity to act rationally and to act immorally is for Kant to act irrationally,
which is a very important thing. And here are some considerations that might prompt you to accept de ontology.
So a doctor saves the lives of seven of his dying patients by gently killing a healthy tramp and using his organs for the transplant.
Well, you might think, well, hang on, no, he can't do this.
Even if he's saving seven other people, he's using the tramp as a means to the ends of the other people.
And he can't do that. Or a government official desperate to avert a food crisis and believing the fear of genetically modified food,
for example, to be overblown, orders his underlings to remove the labels and to distribute GM food as non GM.
Well, again, the ontologies will say, no, he can't do that because he's lying to people.
What he's got to do is to say to these people, you know, OK, here you are, you're starving.
There is this food here.
But I should tell you, it's GM food and let them make their own decision if they don't want to eat it because it's GM, that is their decision,
even if it leads to their death, because they are anderssen themselves, they have the right to make their own decision about their own lives.
And the third example, a father of two daughters believing the family will starve if they have to pay another dowry.
Forces is unwilling wife to abort a pregnancy when he discovers it's another daughter.
Well, again, the gerontologists will say, no, you can't do that. And the reason you can't do it is you can't force someone to do anything,
even if it's for their own good, because you're being paternalistic, you're treating them.
You think they ought to do this, therefore, you're saying they ought to do this.
And actually, that doesn't follow at all because they are different from you and they might decide differently and quickly problems for de ontology.
How do we know which actions are intrinsically right or wrong? Well, don't sort of just like can't believe we have a moral sense.
We can actually, just as I can see that the chairs in this room are blue, I can see that an action is right or wrong.
And there are many actions of which that is true.
Of course, there are many actions for which it isn't true as well, though, if you make a distinction between token actions,
just one individual action and type actions,
it becomes much more convincing that we can look at a particular action and think of that action that is right or wrong.
Another problem is we might ask, well, are there any actions that are intrinsically right or on the consequentialist?
Who will look at in the next podcast? Doesn't think there are, and maybe he's right.
Thirdly, how could blindly following a set of rules make us moral?
And this is probably an objection to a lower order anthologist rather than a higher order ontology, just like Kant,
because I think it's clear that you couldn't blindly follow the rule that says treat others as ends in themselves.
And actually, that's a very difficult rule to follow because what is it to be an end in themselves?
What what do I do in a situation not to do this, etc. and do rules like do as you would be done by,
which is another very difficult rule to follow, provide any guidance on action.
And we might ask whether there are sometimes moral reasons for breaking moral rules.
For example, are we allowed to kill a person in order to stop many other people dying or many other people being killed?
So am I allowed to kill one? A person, if I'm told that if I don't, 20 other people will be killed, for example.
So those are the problems for ontology. Those are a romp through the problems then.
They're not all the problems, of course.
And if you'd like to look further again, there's the slides that'll tell you all about how to learn a bit more philosophy, including more ontology.