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Both of these problems have been noted before. L. W. Beck cites the first problem in ‘Apodictic Imperatives’ (Kant-Studien, Band 49, Heft 1, 1957/58, pp 7–24). J. Harrison explicity raises the second problem when he notes that Kant's argument for a principle of sincere promising requires empirical assumptions (‘Kant's Examples of the First Formulation of the Categorical Imperative’,The Philosophical Quarterly VII, No. 26 (1957) 50–62). Neither problem, however, has been adequately dealt with; not have the connections between them been articulated.
Kant,Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (trans. by L. W. Beck), Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1959. p. 39; Prussian Academy Edition, p. 421.
Ibid., pp. 37–38; Prussian Academy Edition, p. 420.
Ibid., pp. 39–42; Prussian Academy Edition, pp. 422–25.
Kant, theMetaphysical Elements of Virtue (the first part of theMetaphysics of Morals) translated by J. Ellington, Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1964. See especially pp. 82–140; Prussian Academy Edition, pp. 421–74.
Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, p. 31; Prussian Academy Edition p. 414.
Ibid., pp. 29–31; Prussian Academy Edition, pp. 412–14.
Ibid., p. 30; Prussian Academy Edition, p. 413.
The claim that a law valid for all rational beings as such correctlydescribes the behavior of an ideally rational being is intended to capture the force of Kant's claim that “no imperatives hold for a divine will or, more generally, for a holy will” (Foundations, p. 31; Prussian Academy Edition, p. 414). Kant's point here is that laws for an ideally rational being would be indicative, rather than imperative in form. They would be expressed in sentences of the form ‘A doesX, inC’, whereA an ideally rational being,X is an action, andC is some circumstance or situation. Inperatives, on this view, express the relation of our imperfects wills to laws describing the behavior of an ideally rational being..
Ibid., p. 31; Prussian Academy Edition, p. 414.
Ibid., p. 31; Prussian Academy Edition, p. 414.
Limitations of space require that I restrict my remarks to a reconstruction of one of the four moral principles Kant argues for in the Four Examples in theFoundations. The principle of beneficence was selected both because it is a basic moral principle and because Kant's justification of this principle is in many respects representative of his justificatory arguments genrally.
Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, p. 41, Prussian Academy Edition, p. 423.
Metaphysical Elements of Virtue, p. 117, Prussian Academy Edition, p. 453.
In a recent article T. Hill notes that Kant's justifications of various moral principles in theFoundations require empirical premisses. Hill's account of hypothetical imperatives, however, fails to distinguish between the two different ways in which empirical premisses stating that the agent has some end function in practical arguments for Kant. Hill assumes that if an imperative rests on an empirical premise stating that the agent has some end, then the imperative is a means/end imperative — what Kant calls an imperative of skill or of prudence. Hill overlooks the fact that even though Kant's arguments for various moral principles require empirical premisses stating that the agent has some end, they arenot arguments to the conclusion that the agent ought to do something (e.g., act beneficently) in order to achieve that end (e.g., the agent's own well-being). Hill's account erroneously classifies the principle of beneficence as an imperative of prudence (‘The Hypothetical Imperative’, T. Hill,The Philosophical Review, October 1973, especially pp. 442–43).
Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, p. 34; Prussian Academy Edition, p. 417.
Ibid., p. 28; Prussian Academy Edition, pp. 411–12.
Ibid., p. 5; Prussian Academy Edition, p. 389.
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Buchanan, A. Categorical imperatives and moral principles. Philos Stud 31, 249–260 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01855230
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01855230