Kant’s Deontological Ethics: The Duty Framework

Kant’s Deontological Ethics

✔ Kant’s Ethics is now referred to as deontological.
✔ The term deontological has its root from the Greek “deon” which means “duty”.
✔ Hence deontological ethics focuses on “duty, obligation and rights” instead of consequences or
ends.
✔ An act that proceeds from the will which wills it because it can be the will of all is a right action.
Willing and doing the will of all is a duty, regardless of the consequences.

The following clarifies Kant’s duty-based approach:

✔ The duty-based approach, sometimes called deontological ethics, argued that doing what is right
is not about the consequences of our actions (something over which we ultimately have no
control) but about having the proper intention in performing the action.
✔ The ethical action is one taken from duty, that is, it is done precisely because it is our obligation
to perform the action.
✔ Ethical obligations are the same for all rational creatures (they are universal), and knowledge of
what these obligations entail is arrived at by discovering rules of behavior that are not
contradicted by reason.
✔ Kant’s famous formula for discovering our ethical duty is known as the “categorical imperative”.
It has a number of different versions, but Kant believed they all amounted to the same
imperative.
o The most basic form of the imperative is: “Act only according to that maxim by which you
can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” So, for example, lying is
unethical because we could not universalize a maxim that said “One should always lie.”
Such a maxim would render all speeches meaningless. We can, however, universalize the
maxim, “Always speak truthfully,” without running into a logical contradiction. (Notice
that the duty-based approach says nothing about how easy or difficult it would be to
carry out these maxims, only that it is our duty as rational creatures to do so).
o In acting according to a law that we have discovered to be rational according to our own
universal reason, we are acting autonomously (in a self-regulating fashion), and thus are
bound by duty, a duty we have given ourselves as rational creatures. We thus freely
choose (we will) to bind ourselves to the moral law. For Kant, choosing to obey the
universal moral law is the very nature of acting ethically.

The Duty Framework

Correspondingly, the duty-based approach can be applied as a framework for ethical decision making:
✔ In the Duty framework, we focus on the duties and obligations that we have in a given situation,
and consider what ethical obligations we have and what things we should never do.
✔ Ethical conduct is defined by doing one’s duties and doing the right thing, and the goal is
performing the correct action.
✔ This framework has the advantage of creating a system of rules that has consistent expectations
of all people; if an action is ethically correct or a duty is required, it would apply to every person
 in a given situation. This even-handedness encourages treating everyone with equal dignity and
respect.
✔ This framework also focuses on following moral rules or duty regardless of outcome, so it allows
for the possibility that one might have acted ethically, even if there is a bad result. Therefore, this
framework works best in situations where there is a sense of obligation or in those in which we
need to consider why duty or obligation mandates or forbids certain courses of action.
✔ However, this framework also has its limitations:
o First, it can appear cold and impersonal, in that it might require actions which are known
to produce harms, even though they are strictly in keeping with a particular moral rule.
o It also does not provide a way to determine which duty we should follow if we are
presented with situation in which two or more duties conflict.
o It can also be rigid in applying the notion of duty to everyone regardless of personal
situation.

Kant’s theory of right

✔ According to Kant, the “universal principle of right” is that “an action is right if it can coexist with
everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law, or if on its maxim the freedom of choice
of each can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law”.
✔ In other words, your exercise freely whatever rights you have on your property but only in
accordance with universal law. Universal law means a maxim that can be the maxim of all.
✔ You can use, dispose, enjoy its fruits, but only in such a way that you do not violate the rights of
others.
✔ This exercise of a right bearing in mind the obligation to respect the right of others is tantamount
to good faith or good will.

Legally and Morally Right

✔ It appears that in Kant, what is legal must be at the same time moral.
✔ An action is legally right if it is at the same time in accordance with universal law, that is, in
accordance with the categorical imperative. In another context, what is legal is not necessarily
moral.
✔ For instance, what is legal is limited to compliance with law, be it laws of a state or country; but
being moral may not be just following the law, but doing more than what the law requires like
responding to the need of another.
o Paying an employee his minimum wage is legal; but paying more than his minimum
wage because of care and concern of his needs is more than what is legal.

Good will
✔ Kant says, “Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even of it, which can be called
good without qualification, except a good will”.
✔ Kant’s criteria or framework of what is right or wrong is “good will”.
✔ An act is said to be right or wrong depending on whether it is done with or without good will.
 ✔ The rightness or wrongness of an action depends in one’s good will or intentions.
✔ The usual criticism, or weakness cited, regarding this concept is that “The road to hell is paved
with good intentions”. Is good will enough?

Categorical imperative: To serve the will as a principle Kant has two (2) versions of the categorical
imperative.
✔ The first version states “I never to act other than so that I could will that my maxim should
become a universal law”. If one cannot wish or what that a certain rule or maxim becomes the
maxim of all, that is not right to follow it.
o For instance, one cannot will that “thou shalt steal” becomes a rule to be followed by all
because others may ultimately and steal his property. One cannot wish that “killing”
becomes the maxim of all because he would not of course wish that someone will come
to kill him.
✔ The second version is as follows: “Always treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of
another, never simply as a means but always at the same time as an end.”
o Treating the another merely as a means to an end means equating him to a mere
instrument, a tool, an object which is cast aside after use, or can be sold or exchanged
when no longer needed, or has value only for as long as it is useful. Such act makes one
a “user”.
o In contemporary philosophy, like Marcel or Buber’s term, it is treating the other as an IT,
a thing. That’s why they call the act as “thing-ization.”
o In the parable of “Hope for the Flowers” by Trina Paulus, Stripe’s climbing the
caterpillar’s pillar to reach to top, where all that could be seen as a reward of climbing
are other caterpillar’s pillars, was no other way than stepping on other caterpillars as
means of moving up higher.

Ought implies Can. This means the If and only if we can or are free to act in certain ways can we be
commanded to do so.
✔ This is one more moral principle ascribed to Kant, derived from two passages in his works.
✔ One is stated as follows: “For if the moral law commands that we ought to be better human
beings now, it inescapably follows that we must be capable of being better human beings.”
✔ Another one states as follows: “The action to which the “ought” applies must indeed be possible
under natural conditions.”
✔ The Situation Ethics author, Joseph Fletcher, used this maxim several times to illustrate his
situationism. In full statement the saying would be, “If I ought to do something, then I can do it.”
By way of logical analysis, the statement means, one’s ability to do something is a necessary
condition for his being obliged to do it. In Fletcher’s terms, “you are obliged to do only what you
can where you are.”

✔ “I can” may also be interrupted to mean one’s degree of freedom, if by freedom we understand
as what Hornedo said about it, “the autonomous energy being.” Since the degree of one’s
freedom is the degree of one’s responsibility.
 o Hornedo says, the stuff of freedom is energy or strength. It follows that the degree
of one’s obligation is also the degree of one’s freedom. One can no more be
responsible than what he can knowingly, freely, and voluntarily do.

Three rational principles according to Kant on “righteous law”:

1. The liberty of every member of the society as a man
2. The equality of every member of the society with every other, as a subject
3. The independence of every member of the commonwealth as a citizen

✔ Kant believes that these principles are necessary above all, not only for the founding of
“righteous laws”, but for the state to function in the first place
✔ This is so because without the acceptance of the people a state would not exist therefore rights
are necessary within states to keep the support of the people of the state

The book Metaphysics of Morals has two distinct parts:

1. Doctrine of Right
2. Doctrine of Virtue
Kant limits right by stating three conditions that have to be met for something to be enforceable as right:
1. Right concerns only actions that have influence on other persons, directly or indirectly, meaning
duties to the self as excluded;
2. Right does not concern the wish but only the choice of others, meaning that not mere desires
but only decisions which bring about actions are at stake; and
3. Right does not concern the matter of the other’s act but only the form, meaning no particular
desires or ends are assumed on the part of the agents
While Kant must include consideration of beneficent action as part of right, he does not conclude that
beneficent actions are required by right but only that most are permitted by right and others violate
right.
Kant also offers direct contrasts between right and virtue. He thinks both relate to freedom but in
different ways:
RIGHT VIRTUE
Concerns outer freedom Concerns inner freedom being master of one’s own
passions
Concerns act themselves independent of the Concerns a necessary end beyond the mere
motive an agent may have for performing them formality of universality

Cosmopolitan Rights – restricted to the right of hospitality

✔ Limited to a right to offer to engage in commerce, not a right to actual commerce itself, which
must always be voluntary trade
✔ A citizen of one state may try to establish links with other peoples; no state is allowed to deny
foreign citizens a right to travel in its land
✔ An important component of perpetual peace

Nature of Rights
Laski’s concepts on the nature of rights are enumerated as follows:
 1. Rights are the basic social conditions offered to the individual who is an indispensable member
of the society;
2. Rights enable man to fully enhance his personality; to achieve his best self, in the words of Laski
they are ‘those social conditions without which no man can seek to be his best self’;
3. Rights are inherently social because they are never against social welfare; the rights did not exist
before the emergence of society; they are those fundamental necessities that which are very
much social;
4. The state plays the role of recognizing and protecting the rights by providing for the full
maintenance and observance of the rights;
5. Right are never absolute, the nature and extent for the fulfilment of the rights are relative; as
long men endeavour for the upliftment and betterment of the conditions of life, rights to
continue o serve as means for the satisfaction and gratification of individual’s needs; so there
can be no rights which are absolute in nature because absolute rights are a contradiction in
terms;
6. Rights are dynamic in nature because the essence and contents of rights vary according to
change in place, time and conditions.

Kinds of Rights
1. Natural rights – stated that people inherent several rights from nature
✔ They appreciated certain natural rights, like the right to life, right to liberty and right to
property
✔ Parts of human nature and reason
✔ John Locke claimed that men are naturally free and equal as part of the justification for
understanding legitimate political government as the result of a social contract where
people in the state of nature conditionally transfer some of their rights to the
government in order to better ensure the stable, comfortable enjoyment of their lives,
liberty and property
2. Moral rights – are based on human consciousness
✔ supported by moral force of human mind
✔ based on human sense of goodness and justice
✔ not assisted by the force of law
✔ includes rules of good conduct, courtesy and of moral behaviour
3. Legal rights - rights which are accepted and enforced by the state
✔ any defilement of any legal right is punished by law
✔ law courts of the state enforce legal rights
✔ equally available to all the citizens
✔ all citizens follow legal rights without any discriminations

Distinction between Moral Rights and Legal Rights

Moral Rights Legal Rights
Natural: Moral rights are discovered, not created. Created: Our legal rights are created by legislation.
(This is a form of Moral Realism)
Equal: Moral rights are equal rights; there is no Can be equal: There are many situations in which
injustice in how they are distributed. the distribution of legal rights is unjust.
Inalienable: Moral rights cannot be taken away Alienable: Your legal rights can be taken from you
from you without consent (although you can against your will.
voluntarily surrender them).
Universal: Your moral rights are the same no Local: Your legal rights change when you move
matter where you are. from one jurisdiction to another.

St. Thomas’ Natural Law Ethics

Meaning of Natural Law and Other Laws

Natural law – is the “ordinance of Divine Wisdom, which is made known to us by reason and which
requires the observance of the moral order”
✔ It may also defined to be “The eternal law as far as it made known by human reason”
✔ By the eternal law which reason reveals as directive of human acts, we call the natural law….

✔ Eternal law is what God will for creation. We are part of God’s creation and so we are part of
Gods eternal law.

✔ St. Thomas Aquinas wrote:

o There is in man an inclination to good, according to the nature of his reason, which is
nature is proper to him; thus man has a natural inclination to know the truth about God,
and to live in society; and in this respect, whatever pertains to this inclination belongs to
the natural law; for instance to shun ignorance, to avoid offending those among whom
one has to live, and other such things regarding the above inclination.

✔ Rev. Charles Coppens, S.J. explains the various kinds of law according to St. Thomas:
o A law decreed by Almighty God is a divine law; one established by man is a human law
o Those laws for human conduct which God, having once decreed creation, necessarily
enacts in accordance with that decree constitute the natural law; those which God or
man freely enacts are positive laws.
o Now, between the natural law and positive laws, there are these 4 points of difference:
1. The natural laws, does not depend upon the free will of God; its requirements flow
from the intrinsic difference between right and wrong, which is determined by the very
essences of things. Hence, under this law, certain acts are not evil primarily because they
are forbidden because in themselves they are evil.
2. Consequently, the natural law is the same at all times, in all places, and for all persons;
but this is not true of positive laws, which may be changed with changing circumstances,
or, if the law-giver so wills it, even without change of circumstances.
3. The natural law emanates from God alone; but positive laws may be enacted by men.
4. The natural law is promulgated through the light of reason; positive law require for
their promulgation a sign external to man.
 In summary, we have an eternal law, God’s law for the whole creation, which we cannot fully
grasp given our limitation. But with our gift of reason we have a grasp of the eternal law, that is natural
law. Divine law is decreed by God while human law is decreed by man.

Natural Law as a Universal Formula

As an ethical framework, the natural or maxim may be applied as implicitly illustrated in the following:
✔ A universal formula which contains in brief an expression of the whole natural law is this: “Keep
the moral order,” or “Observe right order in your actions.”
✔ Some writers state it simply as, “Do good and avoid evil”.
✔ Now, the right order of human acts consists evidently in their proper direction to man’s last end,
God Himself. God must direct His free creature to their last end, hence He commands them to
observe the moral order and forbids them to depart from it.

So what is natural and ethical for a human person is to “keep the moral order, to “observe right
order,” to “do good and avoid evil” to preserve his/her being. Suicide and murder work against
preservation of human life, therefore, are a violation of the natural law.

St. Thomas Aquinas grounded the directedness of nature in God. All of creation is directed
toward their final end God, God Himself. To direct us to Himself, He gave the divine law. The divine law
given to us in the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament and the new commandment of “love God …
“ and “love your neighbour ….”by Jesus Christ in the New Testament and in the we were St. Thomas
synthesized faith and reason. He believed that natural law is part of the divine law, that the “natural law
shares in the eternal law.” All of creation is directed.

Analogous to logical reasoning, it may be applied as follows: Premise: Stealing is immoral and
evil to avoided. Second Premise: The act of taking someone’s property without his consent is stealing.
Conclusion: Therefore, the act of taking someone’s property, which I actually intend to do, is immoral
and an evil to be avoided, which I should do avoid.

Law Defined
✔ St. Thomas explained that the natural law is promulgated through the light of reason.
✔ Positive laws require for their promulgation a sign external to man. Laws that are enacted are
called positive laws.
✔ St. Thomas defined law in general as “an ordinance of reason which is for the common good,
and has been promulgated by one having change of the community.”
✔ For a law to be a law, it must have the four requisites, namely,
o a. ordinance (order, command) of reason,
o b. for the common good,
o c. promulgation and
o d. by one who has charge of the community.
✔ Based on the definition, an unreasonable law is not law; a law that favors one to the prejudice of
another or does not equally protect all is not a law; a law that is not promulgated or published
 or made known to all, is not a law; and the law that is enacted by unauthorized persons is not a
law.

✔ A law must be a product of reason not purely of emotion.

✔ When the heart rules he mind, we can highly unreasonable.
✔ A law is promulgated for the common good because we are meant to be social, we belong to a
community.
✔ A law that favors the male gender at the expense of the female gender cannot be a law.
✔ A law must be promulgated by one whose primary task is to care for his/her people, the
community.
✔ The primary task of our lawmakers is to care for and protect their people by legislating laws for
the common good.
✔ The law must be made known or communicated to all people to ensure correct understanding
and compliance.
✔ A law that is promulgated does not take effect immediately. In the Philippines, laws take effect
after 15 days following the completion of the publication in the official Gazette or a newspaper
of general circulation unless it is otherwise provided.

✔ The moral philosophy of St. Thomas involves a merger of at least two apparently disparate
traditions:
1. Aristotelian eudaiimmonism
2. Christian theology

✔ Aquinas follows Aristotle in thinking that an act is good or bad depending on whether it
contributes to or deters us from our proper human end – the telos or final goal at which all
human actions aim. That telos is eudaimonia, or happiness, where “happinesss” is understood in
terms of completion, perfection, or well-being.
✔ Achieving happiness, however, requires a range of intellectual and moral virtues that enable us
to understand the nature of happiness and motivate us to seek it in a reliable
✔ For Aquinas, final happiness consists in beatitude or supernatural union with God
✔ Natural virtues are virtues that pertain to the happiness of this life is “proportionate” to human
nature
✔ Theological virtues pertain to the beatitude that is not proportionate to human nature, the
supernatural good of life with God
✔ The intellectual virtues perfect the intellect and confer an aptness for the good work of the
intellect which is the apprehension of truth
 ✔ The moral virtues are the habits that perfect the various powers concerned with human
appetites, including rational appetite, conferring upon them an aptness for the right use of those
appetites
✔ The cardinal virtues are Prudence, Justice, Courage and Temperance
o Prudence is an intellectual virtue since it bears upon the goal of truth in the good
ordering of action
o Two specific powers of the generic sensitive appetite and the two cardinal virtue that
pertains to it:
▪ Concupiscent appetite inclines one toward what is suitable and away from what
is harmful to human bodily life. Temperance is the cardinal virtue that pertains
to it
▪ Irascible appetite inclines one toward resisting those things that attack human
bodily life. Courage is the cardinal virtue that pertains to it
o Justice is a virtue of the rational appetite or will
o Temperance and Courage are ordered toward and perfect the good of the individual as
while Justice is ordered toward and perfect the good of others in relation to the
individual
✔ The theological virtues are Faith, Hope and Love
o Bear upon eternal beatitude and are simply infused by God’s gift of grace
o Charity, as we’ve seen, is the love of God and neighbor in God
o Hope is the desire for the difficult but attainable good of eternal happiness or beatitude
o Faith is the intellectual assent to reveal supernatural truths that are not evident in
themselves or through demonstration from truths evident in themselves

Utilitarianism: The Consequentialist Ethical Framework

Origin and Nature of the Utilitarianist Framework

Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill - two British philosophers, known to be the original advocates of
utilitarianism, the former being considered the founder

Bentham, described this moral philosophy as follows”

● Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.
● point out what we ought to do
● By the principle of utility is mean that principle which approves or disapproves of every action
whatsoever according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness
of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words to promote
or to oppose that happiness.

Similarly, John Stuart Mill’s What Utilitarianism Is, opens with the following paragraph:
The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals “utility” or the “greatest happiness
principle” holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they
tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by
unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure.
 ✔ In brief, utilitarianism as a moral principle is “the principle of utility or the greatest happiness
principle.’
✔ It is also phrased as the principle of “the greatest good of the greatest number.”
✔ This is the quality (greatest good) and quantity (greatest number) criteria.
✔ Utilitarianism is a “form of consequentialism”, focusing “on the consequences of action” in
contrast with deontology.

Two Versions of Utilitarianism:

1. Act utilitarianism - consider the consequences of some particular act such as keeping or
breaking one’s promise
2. Rule utilitarianism - consider the consequences of some practice or rule behavior – for
example, the practice of promise-keeping or promise-breaking.” Whichever, whether act or
practice of rule, if they produce good consequences, the act or the practice of the rule would be
right.

✔ Simply put, what is ethical according to the consequentialist, utilitarianist ethical framework?
That which is ethical is that which gives pleasure and happiness as a consequence.
That which is unethical is that which gives which gives pain and unhappiness.
That which is ethical is that which produces the greatest god (happiness) for the greatest
number.

The Consequentialist Framework

The following describes the application of the consequentialist framework:
✔ In the Consequentialist framework, we focus on the future effects of the possible courses of
action, considering the people who will be directly or indirectly affected.
✔ We ask about what outcomes are desirable in a given situation, and consider ethical conduct to
be whatever will achieve the best consequences. T
✔ The person using the Consequences framework desires to produce the most good.

✔ For Bentham and Mill, avoid pain, pursue pleasure. That is what it means to be ethical.
✔ What kind of pleasure is morally preferred? Mill asserts intellectual pleasure. So it is not physical
pleasure as expressed by the song of the alcoholic “In heaven, there is no beer; that’s why we
drink beer here.” Mill wrote:
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied
than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig is, of a different opinion, it is because they only know their
own side of the question. The other party of the comparison knows both sides..

Some of the earliest utilitarians:

1. John Gay – held that since God wants the happiness of mankid, and since God’s will give us the
criterion virtue, “the happiness of mankind may be said to be the criterion of virtue, but once
remove”.
 ⮚ Combined with a view of human motivation with egoistic elements
⮚ A person’s individual salvation, her eternal happiness, depended on conformity to God’s
will, as did virtue itself
⮚ Promoting human happiness and one’s own coincided, but, given God’s design, it was
not an accidental coincidence

2. Anthony Ashley Cooper – the 3rd Earl of Shaftsbury, generally thought to have been the one of
the earliest ‘moral sense’ theorists, holding that we possess a kind of “inner eye” that allows us
to make moral discriminations
⮚ This seems to have been an innate sense of right and wrong, or moral beauty and
deformity
3. Francis Hutcheson – very much interested in virtue evaluation
⮚ Adopted the moral sense approach
⮚ However, in his writings we also see an emphasis on action choice and the importance of
moral deliberation to action choice