Kant's Deontological Ethics: The Categorical Imperative and Duty (Moral Philosophy Episode 2)

An overview of Immanuel Kant's deontological approach to morality as well as some potential issues for this ethical theory.

Kantian deontological ethics is all about duty. According to Kant's categorical imperative, we have a moral duty to follow rules (or maxims) that can be made into universal laws. In other words, whether something is good or bad depends on whether you would want everybody to follow the rule you're acting on all the time. This approach - the categorical imperative - leads to black-and-white rules, such as "don't steal", "don't tell lies", and so on. However, we look at several issues for this approach, such as that following these rules too strictly means ignoring consequences, that not every rule that can be made into a universal maxim is good, that there are other valuable motivations besides duty, and what to do in situations where two or more duties contradict each other.

These videos are based around the AQA A-level philosophy syllabus.

00:00 Intro
02:54 Good will and duty
05:24 The categorical imperative (universal law formulation)
06:04 The categorical imperative (universal law formulation: contradiction in conception)
10:21 The categorical imperative (universal law formulation: contradiction in will)
13:43 The categorical imperative (humanity formulation)
18:07 The ignores other valuable motivations problem
26:21 The conflicting duties problem
33:32 The not all universal maxims are morally good (and vice versa) problem
39:25 The ignores consequences problem
47:00 Philippa Foot's morality as a system of hypothetical imperatives problem
55:33 Summary: Kantian deontological ethics
01:00:20 Outro and books

References/further reading:
- The Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant
- Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant

#philosophy #ethics #kant #alevelphilosophy

[viniciustoresan]

Wow, great channel! The video edition is amazing! Crongatulations.

[ankushds]

I'm not convinced about the stealing bit. In some sense no one can really own anything to begin with -- how we decide someone owns something (by buying it, for instance) is arbitrary. If we use an alternative definition of ownership, let's say, "you are using it right now or it's in your possession hence you own it", then stealing can be a maxim that you want everyone to follow (if I'm using the word maxim correctly)

[DarkLink]

Just a joke, as I liked your video: Kant is asked to be the negotiator in a hostage situation. He's quickly briefed about the situation by the police and asked to talk to the kidnappers.

They ask if the police is going to keep their promise to allow them to flee the scene.

Kant thinks for a moment, takes a deep breath, then answers: "Not really. As my duty to be truthful is absolute, and I cannot use you for as means for an end, I'm obliged to inform that it's just a plan to free the hostages and kill you afterwards"