Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) is the first of Immanuel Kant's mature works on moral philosophy and remains one of the most influential in the field. Kant conceives his investigation as a work of foundational ethics--one that clears the ground for future research by explaining the core concepts and principles of moral theory, and showing that they are normative for rational agents.
Kant purposes to lay bare the fundamental principle of morality and show that it applies to us. Central to the work is the role of what Kant refers to as the categorical imperative, the concept that one must act only according to that precept which he or she would will to become a universal law. He provides a groundbreaking argument that the rightness of an action is determined by the principle that a person chooses to act upon. This stands in stark contrast to the moral sense theories and teleological moral theories that dominated moral philosophy at the time of Kant's career.
The Groundwork is broken into preface, followed by three sections. Kant's argument works from common reason up to the supreme unconditional law, in order to identify its existence. He then works backwards from there to prove the relevance and weight of the moral law. The book is famously obscure, and it is partly because of this that Kant later, in 1788, decided to publish the Critique of Practical Reason.
In the Preface to the Groundwork, motivating the need for pure moral philosophy, Kant makes some preliminary remarks to situate his project and explain his method of investigation.
Kant opens the preface with an affirmation of the Ancient Greek idea of a threefold division of philosophy into logic, physics, and ethics.
Logic is purely formal--it deals only with the form of thought itself, not with any particular objects. Physics and ethics, on the other hand, deal with particular objects: physics is concerned with the laws of nature; ethics with the law of freedom. Additionally, logic is an a prori discipline, i.e., logical truths do not depend on any particular experience for their justification. By contrast, physics and ethics are mixed disciplines, containing empirical and non-empirical parts. The empirical part of physics deals with contingently true phenomena, like what kind of physical entities there are and the relations in which they stand; the non-empirical part deals with the fundamental concepts like space, time, and matter. Similarly, ethics contain an empirical part, which deals with the question of what--given the contingencies of human nature--tends to promote human welfare, and a non-empirical part, which is concerned with an a priori investigation into the nature and substance of morality.
Because it is a priori, Kant calls this latter non-empirical part of ethics the metaphysics of morals. It corresponds to the non-empirical nature of physics, which Kant calls the metaphysics of nature.
Kant procceeds to motivate the need for the special sort of inquiry he calls the metaphysics of morals: "That there must be such a philosophy is evident from the common idea of duty and of moral law." The moral law must "carry with it absolute necessity."
The content and the blindingness of the moral law, in other words, do not vary according to the particularities of agents or their circumstances. Given that the moral law, if it exists, is universal and necessary, the only appropriate means to investigate it is through a priori rational reflection. Thus, a correct theoretical understanding of morality requires a metaphysics of morals. Kant believes that, until we have completed this sort of investigation, "morals themselves are liable to all kinds of corruption" because the "guide and supreme norm for correctly estimating them are missing." A fully specified account of the moral law will guard against the errors and rationalization to which human moral reasoning is prone. The search for the supreme principle of morality--the antidote to confusion in the moral sphere--will occupy Kant for the first two chapters of the Groundwork.
In essence, Kant's remarks in the preface prepare the reader for the thrust of the ideas he goes on to develop in the Groundwork. The purpose of the Groundwork is to prepare a foundation for moral theory. Because Kant believes that any fact that is grounded in empirical knowledge must be contingent, he can only derive the necessity that the moral law requires a priori reasoning. It is with this significance of necessity in mind that the Groundwork attempts to establish a pure (a priori) ethics. Such an ethics explains the possibility of a moral law and locates what Kant calls the supreme principle of morality. The aim of the three sections of the Groundwork is to explain what the moral law would have to be like if it existed and to show that, in fact, it exists and is authoritative for us.
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