Unit 3: Morality, Markets, and Immanuel Kant
John Locke and the libertarian philosophers he inspired held that justice and morality are a matter of respecting the fundamental rights that all individuals hold in common – life, liberty, and property (including the property of one's self). Libertarians such as Milton Friedman argue these principles are incompatible with the government placing restrictions on the free market. But what happens when the market itself brings our rights into conflict with one another? In this unit, we examine several case studies in which individual rights are disputed, and we consider whether these cases provide sufficient reason to doubt the libertarian position.
Are individual rights enough to determine how to answer moral questions and how to propose a just society? Perhaps we need a more substantive philosophical approach to answer some of our moral and political questions. This is the position of Immanuel Kant, who suggests that we have certain moral obligations because we are human beings with moral reasoning capabilities. These capabilities lead to certain duties which we need to consider. We call Kant’s philosophy deontological, which means it is rooted in duty.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 10 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- explain the connection between moral behavior and economic pressures of the market, as in situations connected to parental rights and the sale of human organs;
- discuss the implication of Kantian ethics for decisions involving lying and buying and selling of goods and property;
- define the categorical imperative;
- apply the categorical imperative to specific decisions and situations; and
- compare and contrast Kant's ethical theory with libertarian political theory and utilitarian theory.
3.1: The Morality of the Market
- Watch this video starting at 1:52, which gives an argument regarding the concept of individual consent as it relates to military conscription and giving up aspects of one's own liberties in service to one's country.
- This article is a reaction to Michael Sandel's ideas on the moral limits of markets. What things do you think money should not buy? What principle should legislators use to write laws about these matters?
3.2: The Morality of Surrogate Motherhood: The Case of Baby M
- In this video, Erika Fuchs explains the process of surrogacy and the argument that from a free market perspective these relationships are ethical with proper legal representation and the involvment of agencies.
Read this description of the Baby M case from the New Jersey Supreme Court.
- This reading includes specific facts and timeline describing the Baby M surrogacy case and the interactions between the Sterns (the couple seeking to be parents) and Mary Beth Whitehead (the surrogate).
3.3: Humans Organs as Commodities
- Read this article describing the ethical questions surrounding kidney transplants. List the ethical dilemmas which arise surrounding the donation and scarcity of kidneys. Write a one paragraph position paper about one of those issues, arguing for your position with concrete arguments.
3.4: Grounding Moral Action in Rational Principles: Immanuel Kant
- In this video Talbot discusses the role of emotions and reason in determining ethical decisions. The use of reason and rule following is related to the deontological ethics of Kant. Acting purely from duty is emphasized, and the idea that having good intentions is having a good will.
- Watch this lecture from 21:17. The lecture introduces Kant's moral theory and his conception of duty, maxims of action, and categorical imperatives. Kant holds that actions should be guided by principles.
- Read the Preface and First Section of Kant's 1785 text about morality. Attempt to answer the following questions in your own words:
What does Kant say is the only thing good without qualification? What types of actions does Kant reject as examples of pure duty? What are the three proposition of morality? What Kany argues here is that the only absolutely good thing in the world is good will, or the human desire to act morally, and that this desire is only possible for us because we are rational beings. According to Kant, we have an absolujte duty to act on the basis of the moral principles that are the result of our own rationality. This is, in fact, what separates us from the animals, and it is why Kant so opposes the utilitarian view, which seems to make human beings into the slaves of their desires for pleasure and to avoid pain. - In this video on Kant's ethics, the ideal life is based on using reason to determine what one's duty is in any given context. Always acting from duty means following specific rules that are universal, that apply to anyone in a similar situation, and that are aligned with ceteris parabis rules in law. If one follows these rules and always acts from duty, then one is a Good Will, who always intends to do the right thing, with the right intentions and motivations.
3.5: Kant's Metaphysics of Morals
Read the Second Section from Immanuel Kant's Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant says five things are clear:
- The origin of moral concepts is entirely a priori in reason.
- Moral concepts cannot be abstracted from empirical knowledge.
- The non-empirical, pure, nature of moral concepts dignify them as being supreme practical principles.
- This value of moral concepts as pure and thus good practical principles is reduced if any empirical knowledge is added in.
- One must derive for oneself and apply these moral concepts also from pure reason – unmixed with empirical knowledge.
Do these claims seem as clear and correct to you as they do to Kant? What is Kant referring to in his concept of the categorial imperative?
Kant gives a second version of the categorical imperative which he called the practical imperative. Interpreters sometimes call it the imperative of dignity or of human dignity. Can you describe that version of the categorical imperative?
Kant says these two versions of the categorical imperative ultimately say the same thing. Why do you think he believes this?
Unlike our study of hypothetical examples in this course, Kant believes that morality is not something that can be derived from examples. What he wants is to find universal principles of morality that spring wholly from reason and not from experience. This is why he calls his system metaphysics of morals. In the second section, Kant argues forcefully against utilitarian (or popular) moral theories, and he puts forward his own, absolutely binding moral principle: the categorical imperative.
In Kant's ethical theory, a categorical imperative is a universal command, a principle that should be followed by anyone in any situation. If a command like "always tell the truth" can be chosen and represents a moral rule we all should follow, then it has the status of a categorical imperative, and is therefore a duty. Kant's examples in this section are meant to show that actions can only be considered truly moral if they are motivated by the duty to follow this imperative.
What does Kant mean by autonomy and heteronomy? Kant gives a third version of the categorical imperative in this section. What is this version? Here, Kant is concerned here that our principles of morality must come from ourselves and from our own rationality. However, he thinks of our rationality in universal terms, not as our own individual persuasion or opinion. Rationality and rational morality is always an objective science for Kant.
In the third section, Kant presents his view of what human freedom consists in, namely, following our rational principles rather than being guided by our appetite for please and our desire to avoid pain. Because Kant has based both freedom and morality on rationality, this means that to be free is to be moral. Or, in other words, to be free is to be bound by our duty to ourselves.
- This video starting at 7:45 describes a variety of examples of lying and the problematic effects of lying within the military.
- Read this section, which shows some of the difficulties of an objective, "categorical" approach. Do the circumstances affect the morality of lying, or is it always wrong to lie? Is it really lying if Weinstein chooses not to write the book? Is there conflict between telling the truth and the imperative of dignity in Weinstein's dilemma?
Unit 3 Discussion
Post and respond to the following topics on the course discussion board, and respond to other students' posts.
- Kant's critics complain that his theory often leaves us with two conflicting duties. Imagine a student who is finishing their college degree, who learns their mother has been diagnosed with cancer. The student's first instinct is to go home to take care of their mother. However, what if their mother asks them to stay in college to complete their degree program? How would Kant advise us to choose between these two conflicting duties (to their mother and to finish school)?
- In the past, doctors would often fail to tell a patient the truth about a diagnosis. For example, a doctor might decide to wait to tell a patient that they have a terminal illness until after the patient returns from a highly-anticipated vacation. Many communities would consider this decision to withhold medical information from a patient to be unethical and a violation of the patient's right to participate in their own treatment. Do doctors have a duty to tell their patients the truth, no matter what, even if the information might cause them great pain and suffering (or ruin a vacation)? Why, or why not?
- A famous Kantian example concerns two shopkeepers. One shopkeeper always gives correct change because they feel they should do so, even when they are tempted to do otherwise. Another shopkeeper always gives correct change because they want their customers to like them so they can receive their vote during an upcoming city council election. For Kant, the first shopkeeper, who lacks an external motivation to do the right thing, is more morally praiseworthy. Does this same distinction apply to companies? Should companies always act from the right intention even if doing so may decrease their profits or market share? Why, or why not?
- Kant's critics complain that his theory often leaves us with two conflicting duties. Imagine a student who is finishing their college degree, who learns their mother has been diagnosed with cancer. The student's first instinct is to go home to take care of their mother. However, what if their mother asks them to stay in college to complete their degree program? How would Kant advise us to choose between these two conflicting duties (to their mother and to finish school)?
Unit 3 Assessment
Take this assessment to see how well you understood this unit.
- This assessment does not count towards your grade. It is just for practice!
- You will see the correct answers when you submit your answers. Use this to help you study for the final exam!
- You can take this assessment as many times as you want, whenever you want.