Jared Moore and David Gottlieb
Recall Hume’s parricide argument. How does Kant oppose this argument?
Hume:
’Tis not sufficient to reply, that a choice or will is wanting. For in the case of parricide, a will does not give rise to any different relations, but is only the cause from which the action is deriv’d; and conse- quently produces the same relations, that in the oak or elm arise from some other principles. (Hume 1739, 300) —
That is: it can only be wrong to choose an action because the action is wrong.
The wrongness of choosing doesn’t explain the wrongness of the action.
The wrongness of the action must explain the wrongness of the choosing.
This is what Kant is going to deny.
Kant:
I freely admit that it was the remembrance of David Hume which, many years ago, first interrupted my dogmatic slumber and gave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy a completely different direction. (Ak. 4:260)
Kant never read the parts of Hume’s Treatise that we read, but Hume’s systematic thought had a tremendous impact on him (de-pierris-and-friedman-2018-kant-and-hume-on-causality?). It was exactly Hume’s arguments about the limits of reason that led Kant to write his great work, the Critique of Pure Reason.
Kant was convinced by Hume that necessary laws must be discoverable a priori by thinking rather than a posteriori by experience. If something can only be discovered by experience, then it could have turned out otherwise and is not necessary.
Hume concludes from this that we can never have knowledge of causation. This is because we only ever observe (what seem like) causal connections in our experience. If we have observed the sun to rise with morning one trillion times in the past, we expect it will rise again, but this is only habit, not knowledge.
Kant wants to preserve Hume’s insight, but also say that we can have knowledge of causal laws. He does this by identifying the objects of thought with the objects of experience.
Hitherto it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to objects. But all attempts to extend our knowledge of objects by establishing something in regard to them a priori, by means of concepts, have, on this assumption, ended in failure. We must therefore make trial whether we may not have more success in the tasks of metaphysics, if we suppose that objects must conform to our knowledge. (kant-1998-critique-of-pure-reason?, Bxvi)
On metaphysics, Kant thinks Hume is basically right, except that he is drawing the wrong conclusion. We can avoid the conclusion of causal skepticism “if we suppose that objects must conform to our knowledge.”
Where we find Hume making the same argument about morals, we should expect, Kant also thinks he is basically right, except that he is drawing the wrong conclusion. Here’s Hume on morals:
In order, … to prove, that the measures of right and wrong are [necessary] laws…: We must … point out the connexion betwixt the relation and the will; and must prove that this connexion is so necessary, that in every well-dispos’d mind, it must take place and have its influence…. … [I]t has been shown, in treating of the understanding, that there is no connexion of cause and effect … which is discoverable otherwise than by experience…. ’Tis only by experience we learn their influence and connexion; and this influence we ought never to extend beyond experience. (Hume 1739, 3.1.1 / 299-300)
If morals were the kind of thing discovered by reason, then the relations would be necessary laws and a priori. But we actually learn our morals from experience. So rationalism must be false. (So says Hume.)
This book is an argument for moral rationalism: that moral judgments are based on laws of reason. It consists of three parts:
Kant aims to show that, in our ordinary moral thinking, we are already rationalists instead of sentimentalists. The argument looks something like this:
Understanding, wit, … judgment … or courage, resoluteness, persistence …, … can … become extremely evil and harmful if the will that is to make use of [them] is not good. (Kant 2018, Ak. 4:393 / 9)
To be beneficent where one can is a duty, and beside this there are some souls so attuned to sympathetic participationa that even without any other motive of vanity or utility to self, they take an inner gratification in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in the contentment of others insofar as it is their own work. But I assert that in such a case the action, however it may conform to duty and however amiable it is, nevertheless has no true moral worth, but is on the same footing as other inclinations. (Kant 2018, Ak. 4:398 / 13)
To act from duty means, to do the right thing for the reason that makes it right. (Not because of something that could be present whether or not it was right.)
Suppose I see someone struggling, late at night, with a heavy burden at the back door of the Museum of Fine Arts. Because of my sympathetic temper I feel the immediate inclination to help him out … We need not pursue the example to see its point: the class of actions that follow from the inclination to help others is not a subset of the class of right or dutiful actions. (herman-1981-on-the-value-of-acting-from-the-motive-of-duty?)
The good will is good not through what it effects or accomplishes, not through its serviceability for the attainment of any intended end, but only through its willing. … Even if through the peculiar disfavor of fate, … this will were entirely lacking in the resources to carry out its aim, if with its greatest ef- fort nothing were accomplished by it, then it would shine all by itself a like a jewel …. (Kant 2018, Ak. 4:394 / 10)
Kant suggests that reason is not well-adapted for the ends of happiness. Instinct would have served better.
Now if, in a being that has reason and a will, its … happiness were the real end of nature, then nature would have hit on a very bad arrangement in appointing reason in this creature to accomplish the aim. … Nature would have taken over not only the choice of the ends but also of the means, and with wise provision would have entrusted both solely to instinct. … The more a cultivated reason gives itself over to the aim of enjoying life and happiness, the farther the human being falls short of true contentment. From this arises in many … a certain degree of misology, i.e. hatred of reason. … They … find that [their reason has] only brought more hardship down on their shoulders than they have gained in happiness, and on this account … they sooner envy than despise human beings of the more common stamp. (Kant 2018, Ak. 4:395-6 / 10-1)