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This is the second of the mini podcasts that we're doing, so welcome to everyone watching the podcasts and welcome to you, too.

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And on this one, we're doing day ontology. So let's get started.

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One of the most famous technologists, in fact, the famous anthologist is Immanuel Kant.

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This is the man himself. And in this session, I'm going to be talking mainly about Cancion de Ontology,

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although we'll see at the end that there are different types of gerontologists.

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And I can't believe that morality is a system of categorical imperatives.

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A categorical imperative is an absolute rule, a rule that binds us irrespective of our desires or any other consideration.

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And lots of people are anti de ontology precisely because they don't believe in an absolute morality.

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They think because they couldn't be an absolute morality. This is this is just wrong.

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So let's have a look at why can't believe this. Well, a little bit more about why what he believes.

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First, he believes that we're truly moral agents only when we act out of reverence for the moral law.

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So if you watch the video, the podcast on Virtue Ethics, you'll remember that virtue.

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Ethicists say that our reason for writing is a very important part of what makes us moral.

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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.

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And when we obey the categorical imperative when we act,

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because we see that it's a categorical imperative and that's why we do it, then we are acting morally.

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But if we act for any other reason, we're not acting morally,

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even if our act is identical to the one we would have performed if we were acting out of reverence for the law.

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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

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college and his mic coming from one direction and me coming from the other direction.

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And in the middle is sitting a beggar, holding her baby and asking for money.

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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.

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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,

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which we've done exactly the same act. We've each given the the beggar a pound.

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But one of us has acted morally, according to Kant, the other hasn't.

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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.

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OK, but what are categorical imperatives? OK, an imperative is a should or a must statement.

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So both of these are imperatives. You should do this or I must do that.

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Both of those are imperative utterances.

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And here's an imperative of the sort that you act on daily little piece of practical reasoning.

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I want to get to London by noon. I believe I can only get to London by noon.

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If I catch the 10 30 train, I must therefore catch the 10 30 train.

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Do you see that his desire of yours is a belief of yours and together they generate an imperative?

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OK, so you're rationally bound by that imperative.

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You must act on it by dint of your capacity for reason, so long as you have that desire and you have that belief.

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OK, that's what an imperative is. But that one, the one I had up there, is a hypothetical imperative.

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You are rationally bound by the conclusion of that piece of practical reasoning only if you have the desire and you have the belief.

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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.

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Therefore, you're bound by that. You believe you must catch the ten 30 train.

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But at nine o'clock in the morning, your somebody rings up and says, I want you to do this.

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And this becomes very important. So you lose that desire. Now, at that point, this imperative is no longer binding on you, is it?

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As long as you had that desire, you were rationally bound by that.

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As soon as you lost that desire, you weren't rationally bound by it.

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So that was the hypothetical imperative. And what Kant is talking about is categorical imperatives, not hypothetical ones.

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So what's a categorical imperative? It binds you in virtue of your rational nature.

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Your desires are completely irrelevant. And let's give you an example of one.

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OK, here's a categorical imperative. I believe it's right to do a therefore I should do a.

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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?

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And by the same token, could you believe that it is wrong to do something without believing that you shouldn't do it?

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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,

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because Kant believes that we can't believe that it's right to do something without believing that we should do it.

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And we can't believe that it's wrong to do something without believing that we shouldn't do it.

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So the moral concepts are intrinsically action guiding and they're the only concepts that are the imperative come straight from the belief.

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No desire is needed. There's no desire here. Desire isn't needed.

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You logically get the should straight from the belief, straight from the way of thinking of the world.

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OK, now I can see on your faces that you may have an objection to this.

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And here's the objection I think you may have you probably immediately think.

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But hang on. There's a premise missing from this categorical imperative.

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What about I want to do the right thing. Should not be in there.

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I believe it's right to do a I want to do the right thing, therefore, I should do.

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A lot of people think this. But actually Kant would say that if you think this, you haven't properly understood the moral concept.

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Right. And I should have put and wrong there. And to say that in order to do the right thing,

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you must want to do the right thing implies that you will only do something you recognise to be right if you want to.

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And actually, if you say that what you're manifesting is that you haven't understood what it is for something to be right.

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Because the thing about morality is it's. It requires us to act whatever we want.

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I mean, it may if I need to save your life, my desire not to get my new boots wet, it becomes completely irrelevant.

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The thing I should do is save your life.

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So the categorical imperative differs from the hypothetical in that the imperative is not conditional upon any desire of yours.

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Your recognition of the of the moral law,

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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.

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So it bind you in virtue of your rational nature, not your affective nature, not your desires.

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OK, so that sort of categorical imperative is it rationally binds us irrespective of our desires,

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but that's the form of a categorical imperative at the moment.

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It hasn't got any content at all, has it? All I've told you is what a categorical imperative is.

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So just as there can be lots of different hypothetical imperatives, there can be lots of different categorical imperatives.

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Let's have a look at them. Can offer several formulations of the categorical imperative.

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And he says they're all equivalent. Whether they are or not is it is a big philosophical question not one will address here.

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But here are two of the formulations he offers. One of them he calls the principle of humanity, which is always treat humanity,

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whether in yourself or in another person, as an end in themselves, never solely as a means.

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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.

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I should never use you only as a means to my own.

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And so that doesn't mean I can't use you. Can I borrow a pen, please?

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Peter, thank you. Thank you. OK, I just used you as a means to my own ends there.

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I wanted to make an example and I chose you as the means of making my sample.

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But of course you had the choice to say no. I mean, you could have said no, I'm sorry.

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I need the pen. I'm making notes or something, something like that. You did have the choice to say no.

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So I wasn't using you solely as a means to my end.

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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.

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And that's what's ruled out by that formulation of the moral law.

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The second principle is that we must act only on that maximum we could will to be universal law.

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Well, that's less easy to understand.

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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?

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So let's say that I think about saying to my mum, no, you look terrible out of a feeling of spite, momentary spite.

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Before I do that, I should ask, well, what if everyone were to be truthful only because they felt spiteful.

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This would be terrible, wouldn't it? Therefore, I shouldn't do it.

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And so what's important with this one is that Qantas saying that you shouldn't make exceptions based on who you are.

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You shouldn't treat yourself as any more privileged than anyone else.

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You should assume that if you have this reason for acting, everyone else will have this reason for acting, too.

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And if they shouldn't act on it, neither should you.

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So the principle of universalised ability means that you shouldn't privilege yourself above other people.

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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.

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So don't lie, keep promises. Those were the rules that you were given that we were all given as small children.

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But that's not what Kant says the moral law is.

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Although I have to say that in his books he does give examples that that use those.

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And and sometimes people do believe that he thinks of those as categorical imperatives.

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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.

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But the way I'm interpreting Kant is a different sort of gerontologists,

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one who believes that the categorical imperative is a higher order moral law like treat others only as ends in themselves.

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So, OK, so for Kant,

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the moral law binds us absolutely in virtue of our capacity to act rationally and to act immorally is for Kant to act irrationally,

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which is a very important thing. And here are some considerations that might prompt you to accept de ontology.

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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.

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Well, you might think, well, hang on, no, he can't do this.

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Even if he's saving seven other people, he's using the tramp as a means to the ends of the other people.

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And he can't do that. Or a government official desperate to avert a food crisis and believing the fear of genetically modified food,

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for example, to be overblown, orders his underlings to remove the labels and to distribute GM food as non GM.

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Well, again, the ontologies will say, no, he can't do that because he's lying to people.

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What he's got to do is to say to these people, you know, OK, here you are, you're starving.

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There is this food here.

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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,

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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.

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And the third example, a father of two daughters believing the family will starve if they have to pay another dowry.

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Forces is unwilling wife to abort a pregnancy when he discovers it's another daughter.

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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,

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even if it's for their own good, because you're being paternalistic, you're treating them.

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You think they ought to do this, therefore, you're saying they ought to do this.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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And there are many actions of which that is true.

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Of course, there are many actions for which it isn't true as well, though, if you make a distinction between token actions,

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just one individual action and type actions,

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it becomes much more convincing that we can look at a particular action and think of that action that is right or wrong.

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Another problem is we might ask, well, are there any actions that are intrinsically right or on the consequentialist?

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Who will look at in the next podcast? Doesn't think there are, and maybe he's right.

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Thirdly, how could blindly following a set of rules make us moral?

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And this is probably an objection to a lower order anthologist rather than a higher order ontology, just like Kant,

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because I think it's clear that you couldn't blindly follow the rule that says treat others as ends in themselves.

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And actually, that's a very difficult rule to follow because what is it to be an end in themselves?

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What what do I do in a situation not to do this, etc. and do rules like do as you would be done by,

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which is another very difficult rule to follow, provide any guidance on action.

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And we might ask whether there are sometimes moral reasons for breaking moral rules.

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For example, are we allowed to kill a person in order to stop many other people dying or many other people being killed?

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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.

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So those are the problems for ontology. Those are a romp through the problems then.

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They're not all the problems, of course.

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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.