CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVES AND AN APPROACH TO VIRTUE ETHICS

A hypothetical imperative has a "means to end =means to goal" structure.  There is a single "ought" that rests on the means.

For example, if you want to play the piano, you ought to practice.   Playing the piano is the end or goal.  Practicing is a means to the goal of being able to play the piano.  The "ought" or obligation to practice is an obligation to take the means to reach the goal.  To escape the obligation to practice, one can always give up the goal of wanting to play the piano. Kant’s hypothetical imperatives have this feature.

 Kant’s categorical imperative(s) derive from reflection on the deep nature of persons.  Here is a way to think of Kant’s categorical imperative:

 1) Start with a hypothetical imperative of a very peculiar kind where the goal is tied up with becoming the person that
            you are.  [The Greek poet Pindar said: "Become what you are."]

 If you want to become what you are, in other words, if you want to actualize your personhood, then you ought to cultivate certain virtues. [Here we have the familiar ought on the means.]

 2) then add AND YOU OUGHT (you have an obligation) TO BECOME WHAT YOU ARE (alternate formulation:
        you ought -- you have an obligation -- to actualize your personhood.).
                 [Here is a second ought – an ought on the end or goal.]

 The whole sentence would read: If you want to actualize your personhood,
        then you ought ["ought"#1] to cultivate certain virtues
        AND you OUGHT (you have an obligation) – ["ought"#2] --to actualize your personhood.

         In this approach, a categorical imperative is tied up with personhood and has an "ought" on the means and an "ought" on the goal.  A double ought.  It means that you cannot walk away from the obligation to cultivate certain virtues because you cannot walk away from the goal of being or actualizing your personhood.  With the two "oughts" you are bound in a way that you were not bound by the "playing the piano" case.

     Of course, coming to understand the categorical imperative in this way is a bit like jujitsu.  We started by saying "if you want to  . . ."   Yet, when you think of it, categorical imperatives are not really about what you or I want.  And that is another way to make Kant’s point.

         As we saw in Manipulative Persuasion, you cannot agree to be manipulated in our strong sense. To do so would mean agreeing to be treated (a) as if you were NOT a center of worth in your own right, (b) as if you did NOT have an intellect and (c) as if you did NOT have freedom to choose.  You are a person, you are equal, rational and free and you cannot reasonably agree to be treated as if you were not a person.  In this way, MP is not Golden Rule reversible.

Think further about this business of what it means to be a person.

        If to be a person is, at the very minimum, to be a center of equal worth with intellect and free will,
then it follows that you have no right to treat another person as a thing to be used and you have no right to treat yourself that way either.  This leads to one of Kant's formulation of the categorical imperative.

A) Act always so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another,  always as an end and never as a simple means.
That is, persons are not things to be used, with no regard for their intelligence or free will.

A contemporary philosopher, E. Maynard Adams, speaks of the Prime Responsibility of Persons [PRP]. See his  A Society Fit For Human Beings (New York: SUNY Press, 1997)

The prime responsibility of personhood [PRP] is
   to define and live a life of your own --
    a life worthy of you    ( in the sense of being able to pass rational scrutiny )
          as a human being  and
   as the particular individual you are.
           In Kant’s terminology, this is a categorical imperative. It is inescapable for one sufficiently aware of one’s own nature as a knower-agent. Certain responsibilities follow from our nature as persons -- centers of worth with capacities to understand and to choose freely.  To escape these responsibilities would mean to consent to stop being a person -- something we cannot reasonable will to do.

 Here is Kant's other formulation of the categorical imperative:
 

B) Act in such a way that the maxim (or principle) of your will (and action)  could be
considered a universal law.
This follows from a view of ethics where reasons are given a central place.  (This follows again follows from our being equal, rational and free beings.)  Once we ask for reasons [and evidence] why some action should or should not be done, then certain aspects of logic click in.  If there is reason and reason enough (based in ethical criteria and the facts of the case) to disapprove doing the action by yourself and others, then the TESTS at Step 4 of the Star of David come in.

 The Reversibility Test:  we must be willing to affirm the principle whether we are on the "doer" side or the "done to" side.
 The "Equal Cases" Test:  If such and such is wrong to do for you in your situation, then it is also wrong to do for any relevantly similar person in a relevantly similar situation.
 The Universalizability Test:  Generalize the procedure mentioned above under "equal cases."
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Approaching Virtue Ethics:

 Virtue ethics, for Aristotle, has a similar "means to goal" structure as we saw above in Kant.
        It is goal-directed and rooted in person-in-community.

 The goal:  to actualize your distinctive human functions
                along lines of arête (Greek word for virtue/excellence)
                 in a life that supports this self-cultivation.      (my rendering)
 What is a virtue?  I won’t give Aristotle’s definition but will say that, for the ancients, the first thing to say is that a virtue is a good habit and a vice is a bad habit.  But this isn’t quite enough.

Virtues are good habits of mind-and-heart, good habits of awake and alert living, character traits of attitude and action.

Habits of this sort become like "second nature" rooted in our character.  They are habits in the sense that (a) we have internalized these large-minded ways of being and doing and (b) we think and act in large mind easily and joyfully – not grimly and under external constraint.  They are not habit as in acting on automatic pilot.  They are habits of mindfulness, wakefulness.  (Eastern philosophy approaches them in this way).

Next distinguish between vices and virtues.  Then look at some different kinds of virtues.

                             (a) Career-related virtues  -- excellences at doing certain tasks
Virtues  can be
                             (b) Moral virtues – virtues or skills / habits of living that are needed by persons as such,
                                  by everyone insofar as they are human beings with distinctively human capacities.

        In this approach, we recognize that we become who we are through our choices and the thinking and acting that follows.  We develop good habits for living large and bad habits that prevent our living large. We need to amplify the good habits and reverse the bad habits.  The first step is awareness.  Then dissatisfaction with the bad habits.  Then an alternative.  All three must be motivated by ongoing practices.

As we saw in Paradigm Conspiracy, some bad habits become addictions.  Some bad habits need strong processes to reverse them – e.g. the Twelve Step Approach of AA.

Key questions:
 

What traits of character make one a good person (as opposed to a good doctor, lawyer of Indian chief)?
What practices help one develop these traits?
Are there general habits of mind-and-heart that are needed for full human living?  What might they be?
Alternate way to put it:  Are the central moral virtues the same for all or do they differ from person to person and culture to culture?
Plato and the Cardinal Virtues:

 Plato in his famous dialogue, The Republic, distinguished three aspects of humans:

        The aspect within us              the virtue that cultivates the aspect                          aspect symbolized by

            The rational part                                      wisdom                                                 the "human aspect" within us

            The enthusiastic or energetic part             courage                                                 the lion within us

            The appetites (for food, drink, sex)          temperance                                           the "many-headed best" within us
 

            The fourth consideration is right order       justice

    Plato considers justice to be a virtue of good order; Aristotle speaks of "rendering  to each what is his or her due".

    Plato goes on to suggest that to let the lion or the many-headed beast run us is to enslave the human to what is less than human.  It would be like selling your son or daughter into cruel slavery.  Selling the best part into slavery under a lesser part.

These four virtues -- wisdom, courage, temperance and justice -- are called the cardinal virtues (from the Latin word "cardo" or hinge).  They are necessary for anyone to have in order to live a full and successful life.  They are "hinge virtues."

For example, all the virtues need practical wisdom -- good judgment -- in order to know when and how to act in particular circumstances.  Furthermore, if life has dangers and risks, then courage as appropriate risk-taking is needed. Since we all have appetites and desires, we need good judgment to know how to be moderate or temperate in regard to our desires and appetites.And since we live among others, then justice is needed to secure fairness in living.

What other virtues need to be cultivated in order to live and ethically good and large-minded life?

What practices need to be cultivated so as to realize our class mission statement?  What practices are called for  so that we can "come to life more fully so as to act more wisely and more effectively to reduce (unnecessary) suffering and to promote (constructive) possibility for our common life"?

Lastly, to what extent is moral development a matter of (a) development of one's decision-making powers or (b) development of one's capacities to care and cultivate relationships or (c) both?  This last question takes us to the work of Lawrence Kohlberg and his colleague and long-time "in house" critic, Carol Gilligan.  Gilligan's ground-breaking book In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982) was a key impetus for further work in feminist ethics.  For Kohlberg and Gilligan, click here for my enrichment material on Ethical Development.

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