Kant's Hypothetical Imperative

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Kant's Hypothetical Imperative Kant’s Hypothetical Imperative by Kelin A. Emmett A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy University of Toronto © Copyright by Kelin A. Emmett 2016 Kant’s Hypothetical Imperative Kelin A. Emmett Submitted for the Degree of Philosophy Graduate Department of Philosophy University of Toronto 2016 Abstract Kant famously distinguishes between hypothetical and categorical imperatives and the conditional and unconditional necessitation they express. Hypothetical imperatives command conditionally, and they govern our instrumental and prudential reasoning. Categorical imperatives command unconditionally, and they govern our moral reasoning. There is significant disagreement in the literature about how to construe the nature and normativity of Kant’s hypothetical imperatives. In the first part of the dissertation, I consider three, seemingly divergent, contemporary interpretations. I argue, that all three of these views collapse the crucial distinction between conditional and unconditional necessity that was supposed to distinguish between the imperatives. Moreover, on the standard interpretation of the hypothetical imperative’s command, an interpretation that each of these views share, the “material interpretation,” is the logical consequence. The material interpretation understands hypothetical imperatives as deriving from reason’s endorsement of our ends, and thus ends that are set by the categorical imperative. Accordingly, all practical rational failing is a form of moral failing, and so, on Kant’s view, we collapse the practical distinction between stupidity and evil. In the second part of the dissertation, I explain how the standard interpretation of hypothetical imperatives as ii anti-akratic rational principles that command agents to will the means to their ends, even in the face of any temptation not to, inevitably leads to the material interpretation. I offer an alternative understanding of hypothetical imperatives, and correlatively of Kant’s conception of willing an end, that avoids this view, and which preserves the distinction between the conditional and unconditional necessitation that Kant thought the two imperatives express, and so also the crucial practical distinction between stupidity and evil. iii Acknowledgments I would like to express my most sincere thanks and gratitude to my supervisor Sergio Tenenbaum, both for the many many helpful comments, conversations, and points of clarification he has offered over the years, but also for his on going support, encouragement, patience, and generosity. I would also like to extend thanks to my readers Arthur Ripstein and Philip Clark for their helpful feedback along the way. I would like to thank Nick Stang and Stephen Engstrom for agreeing to the roles of internal and external examiners. I would also like to thank Jennifer Nagel for being an especially attentive and supportive graduate coordinator and for her help in this process. I am also so very grateful for the many helpful and really enjoyable conversations with Dave Suarez, as well as for his written feedback on parts of this project. I would also like to thank Robert Howton for helpful conversations. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family for their love, support, understanding, and patience while I have worked on this project. I want to thank Jami Moore, Rick Moore, David Emmett, Susan Emmett, Bryan Emmett, Shawnee Emmett, Carl de Rocher, and Donna de Rocher. I would especially like to thank my niece Ella Rose Emmett for the many, and much needed, FaceTime breaks to sing ‘Wheels on the Bus.’ I would also like to thank Leyla Lau-Lamb for her encouragement and support, as well as for providing me with an opportunity to retreat to Ann Arbor, Michigan for a short semester, during which many of my ideas for the main line of argument crystalized. I want to especially, especially thank my mom, both for the late nights she put in helping me with last minute editing, but also for the constant source of motivation, inspiration, and love that she provided. I am so grateful to my friends who have also been nothing but encouraging, supportive, patient, and understanding. I want to especially thank Kristen Aspervig, Vida Panitch, Nico Salidas, Hasko von Kriegstein, James Davies, and Sara Miriam. Finally, I would like to thank my partner Gregory de Rocher for just absolutely everything, and for whom I am indebted quite beyond words. Here, I can only intimate my deepest appreciation, respect, love, and gratitude. iv Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iv Chapter 1 - Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2 - The Wide Scope View ................................................................................................. 7 Section 2 ..................................................................................................................................... 8 Section 3 ................................................................................................................................... 18 Chapter 3 – The Material Interpretation ....................................................................................... 27 Section 2 ................................................................................................................................... 29 Section 3 ................................................................................................................................... 47 Section 4 ................................................................................................................................... 53 Section 5 ................................................................................................................................... 57 Chapter 4 – A Third Possibility .................................................................................................... 61 Section 2 ................................................................................................................................... 65 Section 3 ................................................................................................................................... 75 Section 4 ................................................................................................................................... 85 Section 5 ................................................................................................................................... 91 Chapter 5 – The Material Interpretation, Again ............................................................................ 96 Section 2 ................................................................................................................................... 99 Section 3 ................................................................................................................................. 108 Section 4 ................................................................................................................................. 114 Chapter 6 – A Practical Principle with Theoretical Content ....................................................... 126 Section 2 ................................................................................................................................. 126 Section 3 ................................................................................................................................. 139 v Section 4 ................................................................................................................................. 154 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 161 vi 1 Chapter 1. Introduction In this dissertation, I aim to understand Kant’s conception of hypothetical imperatives. Kant famously claims that there are two kinds of imperatives—categorical and hypothetical, and that the latter are essentially distinct from the former. Trying to account for the normativity of this kind of imperative has generated significant disagreement in the literature about the scope of its requirement. It is generally agreed that hypothetical imperatives require us to will the means to our ends. Both sides of the debate treat the ‘ought,’ which expresses this practical imperative, as a sentential operator expressing practical necessity, but disagree on how to interpret its scope. According to the narrow-scope view the ‘ought’ has scope only over the consequent of the conditional statement in which it figures. According to the wide-scope view the ‘ought’ has scope over the entire conditional and it tells us that it ‘ought’ to be the case that if we will an end, then we take the means to it. In this case the hypothetical imperative is actually an unconditional imperative with disjunctive content and it requires an agent to will consistently. In the second chapter I take a closer look at the wide-scope view. I look primarily to Thomas Hill Jr. who offers one of the first and most prominent arguments for the wide-scope interpretation and who explicitly allies himself with Kant.1 Hill argues that there is,
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