>> Welcome back.

We just finished rather lengthy thing on the issue of

homosexuality, homosexuality in the Bible, applied ethics. Now, we'll shift back to
metaethics or ethical theory. Particularly a guy by the name of Immanuel Kant. Now,
Kant is hard. That's all there is to it. One of the reasons Kant is so hard is he
so damn smart. I'm not saying he gets everything right, but his brain was a
machine. I'm sorry. So you read a page out of any of Kant's books. I have all of
his writings. I was obsessed with him in grad school, not because I agreed with
him, I disagreed with a lot of it, but he could literally make a sentence last a
whole page with all these colons and semicolons. It was nuts. And it's even harder
to read in the original German. But at any rate, Kantian deontology is what it's
called. And if you remember, deontological ethical systems are duty based. The root
word is duty. So if you're taking notes or what have you, while you watch these
things, I would write the word duty in all capital, circle it, underline, etc. Kant
is all about duty, period. Now, he can get so labyrinthine that I think we need to
set it up before we even get into the actual theory itself. First of all, like I
said, it's a deontological ethical system. It's based on duty. It's also an example
of moral objectvism. Now, if you remember what that is, if your ethical theory is
morally objective, that means moral truths are knowable and they are applicable to
all rational beings. That's what being morally objective is. That's Kant. He takes
it a step further. A more stringent species of moral objectivism is moral
absolutism. What does that mean? Moral objectivism. Moral truths are knowable and
they apply to all rational beings. When I add to that the idea that they're also
absolute, that means once I find these moral truths that are applicable to
everyone, they are non-overridable. In other words, there are no exceptions. So
morally objective ethical theory could arrive at the idea that lying is wrong.
Divine command theory was also an example of moral objectivism. So according to
divine command theory, we're not to bear false witness, don't lie. I think we can
make exceptions if you tell a lie to the Nazis because you're hiding Jewish orphans
in your basement. So there are exceptions. Like the speed limit thing, 70 miles an
hour is an objective rule on the highway. It applies to everyone, but there are
justifiable exceptions, emergency vehicles, etc. Moral absolutism, on the other
hand, takes it a step further and says, once we arrive at this knowable moral truth
that's applicable to all people, that lying is wrong, there are no exceptions,
period. Now, if that sounds like that's going to be problematic, it is, though Kant
didn't think so. We'll get into that as we dig through Kant. Sorry, my allergies
are total. So again, Kant's moral truths, his duties that we will arrive at
applicable to everyone. They're knowable and there are no exceptions to them. To
act moral for Kant is to act in what he called a disinterested fashion. In other
words, let's go back to divine command theory for a second. If I say, why do you
try to be moral? Why do you try to be a good person and you're Muslim, let's say?
And you say, well, because it's pleasing to God and that's what God wants of me and
so and so forth. And it benefits me. If I do the right thing, which is pleasing to
God, I'm more likely to get blessed. He will smile upon me, however you want to
phrase it. But to act in a disinterested fashion, you say, okay, why are you moral?
Why do you always do the right thing? If you say, because it's the right thing to
do, period. That's acting in a disinterested fashion. You're doing what is right
because it's right, full stop. There at the bottom of the slide, you'll see, it
says 2+2 =. This may sound silly, but this seems to work in explaining what he
means here. If you have a math professor, puts on the test 2+2 =, well, you put
four. But let's say he's a crazy math professor, and he has an aversion to four.
The Number 4, things that comes in fours make him nervous, give him anxiety, etc.
But he's obsessed with the Number 5. He loves the Number 5. He's got different
manifestations of the Number 5 all over his office. It makes him happy and getting.
He starts throwing around extra credit points. So you're not a dummy. 2+2 =, what
are you going to put in his class? Five. You get extra credit. Does that make 2+2 =
5 true? Well, of course not. So even if you're in this professor's class, you put
2+2 = 4. Why did you do that? Because that's the right answer. Yeah, but he's going
to get pissed. You won't get extra credit. Don't care. That's the right answer.
That's how Kant views morality. When we arrive at what the right thing to do is,
why do we do it? Because it's the right thing to do. This interest in us. There are
moral theories based on happiness, that morality should produce more happiness than
pain, more pleasure than displeasure. That morality should include our self-
interest as part of our psychological makeup. And it should be concerned with
social welfare. So morality is tied into these things, and after we finish with
Kant, we'll look at the utilitarians, which agreed with all of those things I just
said, happiness, self-interest, social welfare. Now, Kant is not against happiness.
He's not against self-interest. He calls it self-love. Yes, social welfare is
important. But these cannot be the ground. These cannot be the foundation of any
kind of moral law because they're subjective by their nature. Morality must be
objective and absolute, non-overridable. It can't be subjective. Happiness. What
makes you happy might not make me happy. What's in my self-interest might not be in
yours. What I view as what is socially benefits our society, as far as social
welfare, we may have two completely different civic ideas on what that looks like.
So these are subjective. But 2+2 is 4, that's objective. Unless you're not
rational, you don't see it. Or you're in pre-K. It just is. It's objective. It's
absolute. It's no overridable. Kant says that's the way the moral law should be.
You'll see that on the slide, the moral law. He means law in the most robust sense.
If morality is not law like, objective, non-overridable, then it's not morality.
Excuse me. I've got this weird thing going. This is important too, right there in
the middle of the slide, it says the moral law is equivalent to reason and
autonomy. Divine command theory. Where is the moral law? In divine command theory,
we find morality, moral truth, moral law in God's will. Whatever scripture that may
be, whatever scripture you adhere to. It's in God. It comes from God and ideally
the thing is revealed through scripture. For Kant, the moral law is not external.
It's not out there somewhere. The moral law is your rational nature and your
capacity for autonomy. That is the moral law. You've got to get that straight or
the stuff won't make sense as we go further. So the moral law, he says, the things
that give me the most wonder are the starry skies at night and the moral law
within. So the moral law is within you because you're rational and you have the
capacity for autonomy. You and I both are walking moral laws. Just like mathematics
is in you because of your rationality. Let's see, can get this started. Immanuel
Kant. Now, I think in one of the videos that's attached. If you're British, you're
allowed to say Kant, but Kant. But we say Kant. Anyway, Kant in search of the
supreme principle of morality, in other words, the moral law. The way I did this in
the text, again, as I mentioned earlier on, I wrote the textbook for you guys to
make it digestible, not dumb it down, so you could grasp it. Yeah, it's got its
philosophy. There's going to be some heavy stuff and you got to think your way
through it. I thought the best way to do Kant, is to break it down into what I call
three contrasts. And the textbook follows this exact same thing. So the slide, the
lecture I've been doing here, these will follow exactly how the textbook plays out.
Contrast number 1, freedom, the idea of freedom. The contrast is between autonomy
versus heteronomy. You know what autonomy is. Heteronomy, we just don't use the
word very much. Heteronomous, if you do something heteronomously, you're doing it,
you're motivated, so to speak, forced, coerced, whatever, by some external or even
internal force. For instance, divine command theory. If morality comes from God,
that is heteronomous, comes from scripture, that is heteronomous. It's coming from
something outside of you. So Kant says, "To even talk about morality, to even begin
to have a conversation about the moral law, we must first assume freedom." In other
words, we must assume we have free will, autonomy. In the Greek, autos meaning self
or alone and the nomos meaning the law. So you'd literally a law unto yourself,
self governed, self directed as in Kant's word, the ability to self legislate. You
are a self legislator. Let's back up. So we must assume that we have free will.
Now, the key there is assume. The free will debate has gone on in philosophy
forever and it will never end. Personally, it drives me up a tree. When I teach
metaphysics or just intro to philosophy, I do cover the free law debate, and I
don't know if I'll do it anymore. I just find it pointless, but I don't want to go
there. Anyway, what the debate is, we all know that many of the things we do are
determined by the way we were raised, traumatic events in our past, just our
genetic makeup, hereditary things, etc. We know that. That's just science. But
within that deterministic system, do we actually have the ability to act purely
freely to have this free will? And the debate goes on and on. And the reason it's
so problematic is, for the most part, most of the things you do throughout the
course of
your day every day feel like they're free. I feel like I freely chose to come in
here on Sunday afternoon and record this. But just because something feels free,
doesn't mean it's not determined. So that's why Kant just says, "We're not having
that debate, we must assume we at least have the capacity for free will." He didn't
say assume everything we do is free, but assume that we have the capacity to act
freely on occasion, that we can self legislate. So what does that mean? I'm
recording this now, so it's up for Week 10, which starts Monday tomorrow and you
guys that are using these things will need them. Now, if I said, you know what, I'm
really tired and I'm bored with doing this, and I'm hungry. I'm going to get
something to eat and I turned it off. You guys figure it out. Read the book. It
would assume to you that what I did those were free actions. I freely said, screw
this, I'm going to go eat. But Kant would say no, it wasn't because what motivated
me was hunger. That was my main motivation. I want to go eat, screw this. You can't
make yourself be hungry, so that's an internal heteronomous cause. So let's say I
leave because I'm hungry. I go get in the car, I start driving around Norman. I
pass Thai food place that we like, a Chinese food place, our favorite Mexican
restaurant, Hideaway Pizza. Korean food, etc, all these different places, Indian
food. And then there's this little hole in the wall called the diner. It's closed
now, but it's just good like breakfast food. That's it. Go to the diner. Now, I
didn't freely leave because that was caused by the heteronomous source of hunger,
but given all the options I just mentioned, and I like all of those, I chose to go
to the diner instead of our favorite Thai restaurant. Well, that was a free choice.
Kant would say no. The reason I chose that, the diner over the Thai restaurant is I
had the idea of eating a big greasy thing of biscuits and gravy and sausage and
eggs and all that stuff. That satisfied a desire that Thai food wouldn't. On a
different day, I've got to have spicy Thai. I don't want biscuits and gravy. So
what the hell does a free action look like? What does free will mean then? Constant
self legislature, self legislation. What he means by that, you see here to act
according to a law, your rational nature gives yourself. Now, your self. That is
supposed to be two words. What he means is your rational nature gives you a law and
you act on that. For instance, mathematics, again, 2+2 = 4, you act on that law.
Mathematics is in here, it's written in books and it's displayed in classrooms,
etc, but it's in here. It's an abstract. So when you act according to those laws or
the laws of logic, those are purely rational systems and you're acting according to
laws then that your rational nature has given to you. That's what he means by free
will, the capacity to self legislate, not be legislated by some instinct you can't
control, hunger, thirst, sex drive, fatigue, boredom, whatever, or some external
source that you may or may not be able to control, religion, a spouse, a child,
authority figures, whatever. So he says, we must assume, first of all, that we at
least have the capacity for free will to self legislate. Because if we don't, I'm
sorry, I'm jerking around with this thing, then we can't even talk about morality.
Because if there is no free will, think about it. If free will is virtually
impossible that we cannot act of our own accord, we cannot self legislate, then he
is really right. If I build a robot and program it to go kill my neighbor, we don't
punish the robot. It didn't do it on its own accord. That was not self, it was
determined, it was programmed to do that. So if everything is determined, the idea
of moral accountability really makes no sense. Now, obviously, we could take the
robot and destroy it, dismantle it, reprogram it to protect others, but we're not
punishing it. It's ridiculous. So that's what he means. We have to assume this idea
of free will or we can't get anywhere. So that's the first contrast between
autonomy, heteronomy, where we must assume autonomy, that means assume we have
freewill just to get going. And that's what we'll do next time is we'll try to
actually get going on this. See you there.