On Kant's Transcendental Theory of Moral Judgement and Moral Worth

On Kant’s Transcendental Theory of Moral Judgement and Moral Worth of Character, with Educational Implications*

Abstract

A longstanding absence from the critical scholarly literature on Kant’s writings on moral education is a comprehensive and systematic articulation of his views on moral education in light of his transcendental theory of moral reasoning and judgement. This theory primarily attempts to set out the a-priori requirements justifiable moral judgement and reasoning must satisfy when assessed by the Categorical Imperative (CI), primarily under its Universal Law formulation (FUL), and it offers an account of moral virtue as a character disposition to act in accordance with duty and from the motive of duty. While I occasionally make reference to other “equivalent” formulations of the CI offered by Kant, I argue that FUL rests at the core of Kant’s moral theory, defining the intrinsic worth of character dispositions for rational moral autonomy, serving as the necessary foundation for the other three equivalent formulations of the CI, and identifying what Kant maintains are our duties to others and ourselves as autonomous persons (ends in themselves). Despite recent appearances of a number of eminent scholarly studies of Kant’s views on moral education, we still lack a comprehensive and systematic account of the distinct nature of moral reasoning as governed by FUL, and the distinct virtue of character (“the good will”) that such reasoning and judgement displays. This paper offers an interpretation of the primary significance of the CI/FUL within Kant’s account of moral justification and moral worth of disposition (character). In articulating and illustrating the testing procedure the CI applies to maxims, I examine Kant’s famous example of the lying promise maxim, in an adapted version, and I explain two forms of validity that maxims in accordance with duty and acted on from duty must satisfy: objective universal validity and subjective universal validity. The paper concludes by articulating FUL’s significance for Kant’s conception of the fundamental aim of moral education as progress in the formation of the “purity of the good will,” understood as the rationally autonomous disposition/virtue for moral deliberation and judgement motivated “from duty”/respect for moral law.

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[I am asked] what the cause might be that the teachings of virtue … accomplish so little. … [M]y answer is simply that the teachers themselves have not brought their concepts to purity … For the most ordinary observation shows that if we represent, on the one hand, an action of integrity done with steadfast soul, apart from every view to advantage of any kind in this world or another and even under the greatest temptations of need or allurement, it leaves far behind and eclipses any similar act that was affected in the least in like manner oneself. Even children of moderate age feel this impression, and one should never represent duties to them in any other way Immanuel Kant (G, 22-3)

Introduction

Kant’s moral theory maintains that while the development of technical skills, artistic talents and sound prudential judgement may all be admirable achievements, their distinct moral worth, should these possess any, is dependent not on the effects and consequences these skills, talents and dispositions are able to bring about in the world, but rather from the motive of a morally “good will.” Only the good will can set the morally worthy ends to which such skills, talents and dispositions ought to be directed. Kant writes that, as such, only a good will possesses absolute and unconditional moral worth, an intrinsic worth which shines forth with the lustre and brightness of a diamond, eclipsing all other ends, talents, achievements and virtues (G, 8, 42). It is towards the development of the good will in persons that genuine moral education must aim at. Moral learning for Kant can only be properly fostered by exposing the student to “the pure representation of virtue” (CPrR, 126.); “the pure moral motive must be brought to bear on the soul” (ibid. See also G, 22-3). Kant maintains that enabling the student to understand and assimilate this purity of motive is the surest “method of founding and cultivating genuine moral dispositions” (CPrR, 126 See also CPrR, 22-26, 28, 37, 56, 68, 72, 79, 91, 129; LE, 77; G, 58-9). This method seeks to shape “a disposition conformed with law from respect for law …” (CPrR, 107. See also CprR, 67-9). And this, as we shall see, is less a matter of explicit didactical instruction than of a Socratic “drawing out,” an “elicitation,” of what is implicitly already there (a priori) in the student’s heart and mind portending engagement in what Felicitas Munzel terms “the vocation of humanity.”

My central aim in this paper is to lay out something of the core of Kant’s transcendental theory of morality as an explication of his understanding of the “purity” of moral disposition and judgement constituting the distinctive moral worth of dispositions (character) and the essential aim of moral education. I try to avoid as much as possible the use of Kant’s often technical vocabulary, and his pursuit of technical philosophical issues not directly germane to my project. The transcendental aspect of his views on moral education has consistently been neglected in the scholarly literature, despite the appearance of some excellent more general accounts. (Endnote 1). Such purity of disposition for Kant derives from apriori grounds which a rationally autonomous agent necessarily appeals to in moral deliberation, choice and judgement, even if initially only tacitly, in a pre- thematic, occurent manner. I address the learning and teaching involved, in accordance with Kant’s own writings, as a Socratic “drawing out” or “elicitation” of the student’s pre-objective understanding of the a priori presuppositions conditioning the rationality of moral judgement and the moral worth of practical agency. My account will focus on two inter-related epistemic conditions Kant held to be a priori to the justifiability of moral judgement: “objective universal validity” (OUV) and “subjective universal validity” (SUV). I explain how the “supreme moral principle,” the Categorical Imperative (CI), primarily in its Formula of Universal Law is understood by Kant to command us to satisfy the epistemic requirements these a priori conditions set for the maxims we will.

This agenda will take us through a consideration of Kant’s test for the justifiability of judgement / the permissibility of maxims, as formulated by the CI/FUL. I will articulate and illustrate the test through an adaptation of Kant’s famous example of the lying promise. We will see that the procedure tests maxims for “the form of lawfulness,” or “the giving of lawfulness,” and that the test for universal validity/universalizability of maxims determines whether a maxim displays self-contradiction and free-riding (illegitimate self-exemption). Maxims displaying these features are morally impermissible, contrary to duty, and we have an obligation not to act on them. The disposition to act on such maxims constitutes moral unworthiness of character. As Kant writes:

That will is absolutely good which cannot be evil, hence, whose maxim, if made a universal law can never conflict with [contradict] itself (G, 44).

I want to allay a particular concern at the outset. While the core of Kant’s moral theory is transcendental in that it seeks to identify a priori (universal and necessary) conditions of moral justification and worth of disposition, he remains very much alive to the fact that capabilities for the assessment of the universalizability of maxims, as well as for the constitution of moral character, requires empirical knowledge of human beings that can only be had through socialization (G, 23; CPrR, 7). Kant recognizes the essential role of acculturation into the cultural traditions and political institutions of a rationally ordered society for the development of moral competences of deliberation and virtues of character. Barbara Herman has contributed significantly in this respect by showing how Kant’s understanding of the fostering of moral dispositions in general, and the development of competence in the testing of maxims via the CI procedure in particular, clearly acknowledges the empirical necessity for an entire skein of background moral knowledge, intuitions and sensibilities, operative as “rules of moral salience,” that can be acquired only via acculturation into a reasonable cultural conception of the good/authentic life (PMJ, 77-93). [Endnote 3]

I. Two Types of Universality: OUV & SUV Kant maintains that the intelligible and justifiable assertion of an empirical proposition or a moral judgement presupposes an understanding on the agent’s part that rational engagement within such an epistemic practice commits her to abide by the requirement of accordance with “the form of lawfulness” (CPrR, 23; 61). This general epistemic requirement, valid across both practical and theoretical reason, yields a specific moral requirement legislated to (by) us as universal moral law: “The moral law … requires only that the form of a maxim be universally lawgiving” (CPrR, 91. See also G, 15, G, 31, CPrR, 28). This general form of

4 universality or lawfulness possesses two dimensions: objective universal validity (OUV) and subjective universal validity (SUV). Kant’s thesis of the “unity of theoretical and practical reason,” in it’s immediate relevance to our discussion here, maintains that the a priori conditions of justifiable judgement hold across both our knowledge of the empirical world and our engagement in the moral world. Indeed, the former offers the latter a model, a “typic,” of rational judgement (CPrR, 58-62). Nature, for Kant, constitutes an example of intelligible order. It is intelligible to us only because “[e]verything in nature works in accordance with laws” (CPrR, 24). Objective knowledge of nature is possible because it presents itself to us not as a random, fleeting, series of events but rather as a law-governed cosmos. Governance by law is also a fundamental feature of the moral realm, and it is to such governance that we may attribute the intelligibility and objectivity of moral deliberation and judgement. However, the moral realm bestows freedom on agents’ deliberations and actions; the determinism of natural laws cannot be applied to moral agency. Laws governing persons are laws we give ourselves in the recognition that rational moral action and thought would not be possible independent of such self-governance.

Everything in nature works in accordance with laws. Only a rational being has the capacity to act in accordance with the representation of laws, that is in accordance with principles, or has a will (G, 24). Let us then first look at the epistemic function of OUV and SUV in empirical statements/hypotheses before turning to what OUV and SUV epistemically and morally require of our maxims.

Consider my empirical claim that individuals’ driving skills and judgement are adversely affected, in various degrees due to individual differences of tolerance, by smoking pot of a certain potency and amount. My judgement takes the form of a universal proposition along two dimensions. I am claiming/asserting that all persons are so affected (to variable degrees) by smoking pot of a certain potency and amount. And I am claiming that all instances/cases of pot of a certain potency have this effect (though variable across individuals.) We can say that the effects on people of a certain dose of pot of potency X is the intentional object of my claim, i.e., it comprises the content about which I am asserting something. In making this knowledge-claim, I presuppose OUV as an epistemic condition, and I

5 claim my proposition satisfies OUV. That is to say, I am claiming that the truth- value of my proposition depends upon whether it is objectively the case that a certain amount of pot of potency X will cause individuals under its influence to suffer (variable) diminishment in performance of driving skill and judgement. The claimed validity here is of the OUV form in that the claim regarding the object of the proposition – i.e., driving skills as affected by pot of potency X – is true, and that this truth-claim is open to all competent agents for verification/falsification on epistemically objective grounds of empirical testing. Kant writes: “The necessary universal agreement ..[is] capable of being compelled by proofs” (CJ, 129). The agreement I intend to attain in making my claim here is the agreement from others that all cases/instances/doses of pot of potency X have the stated effect on persons’ driving ability and judgement.

Recall that, for Kant, knowledge claims in the empirical realm presuppose a priori that as rational beings we collectively share experience and understanding of a “cosmos” – i.e., of a lawfully governed causal/functional order (G, 24). I could not learn to be a rational knower and agent, were I to fail to recognize, and presuppose in my knowledge-claims, that the natural world is one we all share in common as a cosmos. This understanding entails the conviction that the intelligibility and justifiability of my knowledge-claims presuppose satisfaction of both OUV but SUV. In claiming intelligibility and justifiability for my knowledge-claim, I claim satisfaction of OUV in that I claim what it is I am stating about the object of my claim is true. As such, I thereby also claim to meet SUV in that I believe all rational persons could agree to its truth were they to possess the necessary competences and have access to the relevant evidence. However, Kant maintains that the converse does not hold: satisfaction of SUV does not entail satisfaction of OUV. Agreement on the truth of an empirical statement/hypothesis may turn out to be wrong, (and, as we shall see, inter- subjective agreement on the universalizability of a maxim be mistaken.) Kant writes:

A judgement with objective universal validity is also always valid subjectively; i.e., if the judgement holds for everything contained under a determinate conceptualization of it, [i.e., all grass of a certain potency and dose], it also holds for everyone who represents an object by means of this concept. But from a [perspective of] subjective universal validity, i.e., aesthetic [judgements of taste]

… resting on no concept, we cannot infer that which is logical [objective] because that kind of judgment does not extend to its object (CJ, 49)

And in CPrR Kant writes:

It goes without saying that universality of assent does not prove the objective validity of a judgement (i.e., its validity as cognition) but only that, even if universal assent should happen to be correct, it could still not yield a proof of agreement with the object; on the contrary, only objective validity constitutes the ground of a necessary universal agreement” (CPrR, 10, trans altered).

Let’s now move on to the moral realm. For Kant, OUV and SUV constitute inter-related criteria apriori to the intelligibility and justifiability of all rational judgement, including moral judgement. A moral judgement paradigmatically takes the form of a subjective maxim, a policy or principle which an agent formulates and acts upon (G, 14). A maxim has three components: an identification of an end, an identification of means chosen for the attainment of the end, and the context/circumstances of action in which the agent formulates her maxim. It is as such that maxims presuppose a priori the conditions of satisfaction of OUV and SUV for their intelligibility and justifiability as moral judgements. Kant maintains that this a priori understanding of what moral rationality requires of our actions is something we all share in virtue of “our common reason.” This understanding is carried by the moral law: “the moral law is given [to us]… as a fact of pure reason of which we are a priori conscious …” (CPrR, 41). The moral law legislates for humanity an imperative that all rational judgement must abide by, regardless of agents’ own particular subjective inclinations, strategic interests and cultural allegiances. This is the imperative that agents’ maxims satisfy OUV and SUV. As such, it is a “Categorical” imperative, not a hypothetical or conditional rule, as in the case of technical, prudential or instrumental counsels and competences which in themselves possess no moral worth (G, 26-7).

We have seen Kant to maintain that if a knowledge-claim or moral judgement/maxim satisfies OUV, then it also satisfies SUV, but in a different respect. We need to be clear on how these two epistemic requirements, while

7 related, differ. A subjective maxim fulfilling the CI’s command that it also hold as a universal law satisfies universality of the SUV type on the condition that others could agree that it does/could hold as a moral law and would themselves be willing universalize it and be subject to it. Kant writes, the CI obligates me to ensure that “… my maxim … should hold as a universal law (for myself as well as for others) (italics added)” (G, 15). I am to abide by the command “[S]o act as if your maxim had to serve at the same time as universal law ([acceptable to] all rational beings)” (G, 38). I must act only on maxims that “at the same time contains in itself its own universal validity for every rational being” [italics added] (G, 45; See also CPrR, 19; MM, 91, 147). Universality of the SUV type requires agreement across all rational subjects that the OUV I claim for my maxim could be accepted as such by others. In taking my maxim to also hold as a universal law (OUV), I am thereby claiming all others could accept my maxim as a universal law (SUV). Stephen Engstrom writes, “[M]y maxim as such claims that because it is objectively valid when universalized, i.e., when considered as a moral universal law, it is possible for all persons to agree to [its universality and agree to] be subject to the maxim” (FPK, 115-6. See also KPR, 78). [Endnote 4]

Regarding the criterion of SUV, Kant writes that claims as to the universalizability of a maxim require that “all men decide for all men and each decides for himself” (PW, 77. See also PW, 73 & FPK, 115). Important to note here is that Kant maintains SUV to serve a specific epistemic role. While distinct from OUV, Kant explains that in seeking agreement from others, I am comparing my maxim or judgement “with the collective reason of humanity,” a comparison that can potentially diagnose “illusion arising from the private conditions that could so easily be taken for objective which would injuriously affect the judgement” (CJ, 136). In so doing, I abide by the dialectical rule Kant calls “enlargement of thought.” The rule prescribes that my judgement be able to incorporate the perspectives of others, thus representing a “universal standpoint,” a “sensus communis” between agents (CJ, 136-7). But the epistemic priority remains ascribed to OUV:

It is requisite to reason’s lawgiving that it should need to presuppose only itself, because a rule is objectively and universally valid only when it holds without the

8 contingent, subjective conditions that distinguish one rational being from another (G, xy)

The criterion of SUV is also developed by Kant in his account of the Formula of the Kingdom of Ends (FKE). This aspect of the CI requires us to act only on those maxims which could harmoniously cohere with “a systematic union of rational beings through common objective laws …” (G, 41). In such a Kingdom, which Kant emphasizes is only an ideal but one bearing efficacious. motivational force, all members collectively agree on “common objective laws,” universalizable maxims, acceptance of which maintains mutual respect for each others’ autonomy and dignity as ends in themselves (G, 41). Such a socio-political order clearly is only possible through members’ agreement on, and accordance with, the principle that no individual member will pursue ends that free-ride on others, (i.e., pursuits that treat others simply as means for the provision of conditions necessary for the success of one’s own ends), or act on maxims that are self-contradictory, (i.e., maxims which, when universalized, render impossible successful collective attainment of ends.) [Endnote 5]

Let us turn to consider specifically what constitutes the OUV which the willing of my maxim claims all could agree to. As we have seen, a maxim projects an end, a means to its attainment and identifies a set of circumstances in which the deliberating agent is placed. Satisfaction of OUV requires that my maxim (the object of my assessment of universality), when universalized, is able to attain its stated end via employment of the means specified and under the circumstances as stated. I correctly take my maxim to meet OUV in that, if universalized, i.e., if all persons in relevantly similar circumstances were to act on it, all would be able to attain the end set in the maxim via employment of the means identified in the maxim. Kant’s test for moral justifiability of the OUV type is a test of whether the maxim is itself universalizable as the object of my claim. Kant explicitly renders the CI test in these terms when he writes: “[T]he categorical imperative can also be expressed thus: act in accordance with maxims that can at the same time have as their object themselves as universal laws of nature [italics in original]” (G, 44); “[A]ct in accordance with a maxim that can at the same time make itself a universal law” (ibid). (See also G, 42, 62). Only as such can we ask “objectively,

… that is, from grounds that are valid for every rational being …” (G, 25) whether our maxim is universalizable.

On the interpretation we are developing here, the question raised by OUV is whether the maxim is itself free of self-contradiction and free-riding. As the above quotations confirm, the status of a maxim’s universalizability, and hence moral permissibility, is understood by Kant to be a semantic predicate/property intrinsic to the maxim itself. [Endnote 6] It is as such that the maxim’s OUV remains independent of SUV agreement as to whether the maxim is accepted as objectively self-contradictory and free-riding. Recall that SUV of a maxim does not bestow OUV to the maxim. But in that OUV entails SUV, a claim as to satisfaction of OUV – i.e., a claim that all persons in relevantly similar circumstances could successfully act on the universalized maxim, and hence the maxim (as object) is itself universalizable – is a claim itself presupposing the further claim as to SUV – i.e., the claim that all could agree that it satisfies OUV, all could accept the maxim to also hold as a moral law, and thus agree to be governed by it.

If the intent of the action [in a maxim] can without self-contradiction be universalized, it is morally possible [permissible]; if it cannot be so universalized without contradicting itself, it is morally impossible [impermissible/forbidden] (LE, 44). Kant also renders his formulation of CI/FUL with reference to whether an agent could “rationally will” that her maxim also hold as a universal law (G, 15, 16, 31, 33, 40). I believe that this formulation equally requires and presupposes satisfaction of OUV by a maxim. A maxim that is objectively, intrinsically, not universalizable could not possibly be rationally willed to also hold as a universal law. Rational willing of a maxim is necessarily consequent upon a correct determination by the agent of the universalizability/justifiability/permissibility of a maxim. From Kant’s account, it is difficult to see the cogency of the idea that the universalizability/non-universalizability of a maxim is not intrinsic to itself but is instead somehow relationally determined by whether it can be willed to also hold as a universal law. This would seem to put the cart before the horse.

On the basis of what we have seen OUV and SUV to epistemically require of maxims for universalizability and hence justifiability/permissibility, we can turn now to consider a particular maxim – Kant’s famous lying promise maxim, in an adapted form, - in order to illustrate how the CI procedure functions as a test of moral permissibility/impermissibility of maxims. My account here of the CI/FUL testing procedure, and the nature of the “self-contradiction” which morally impermissible/unjustifiable/maxims display in failing to attain OUV and SUV, generally follows the accounts of “practical contradiction” given by John Rawls (LHM), Onora O’Neill (AP) and Christine Korsgaard (CKE), though not always faithfully. (Endnote 8)

II Applying the Theory: The Lying Promise Maxim (Adapted)

My scotch supply is down to the fumes and I have no money to replenish it. I ask David to lend me $123 for a bottle of Oban, promising to pay him back with 15% interest at the end of the month. But I have no intention of paying him back, as I have better things to do with my money.  My maxim reads: Whenever I desire to replenish depleted resources, and am unable to do so by my own means, I will make a lying promise to secure my self-interests.

[Endnote 9: For Kant’s own testing of the lying promise maxim see G, 15 & 35. See also the testing of a maxim appropriating a deposit left to oneself in trust, CPrR, 25.]

Testing for universalizability, first on the OUV condition, we ask whether the maxim itself is free of self-contradiction and free-riding and can as such also hold as a universal law. Recall that the test for determining whether the maxim itself (as object of assessment) is universalizable asks whether it is possible for all persons, when in relevantly similar situations, to successfully attain the end posited in the maxim through employment of the means it sets out. So let’s first formulate our maxim in universal terms to see whether it is universalizable. Recall that a subjective maxim rendered in universalized form is not necessarily a

11 universalizable maxim. Testing may show that once universalized it is not universalizable and thus fails to also hold as a moral law. Formulated in universal terms, our maxim reads:

All persons wishing to promote their self-interests but find themselves in circumstances not allowing for satisfaction of such interests make lying promises in order to attain their desired end.

Kant’s examination of the universalizability of the lying promise maxim concludes:

I … turn the demand of self-love [my subjective maxim] into a [question of] universal law and put the question as follows: how would it be if my maxim became a universal law? I then see at once that it could never hold as a universal law … and be consistent with itself, but must necessarily contradict itself. For, the universality of a law that everyone, when he believes himself to be in need, could promise whatever he pleases with the intention of not keeping it would make the promise and the end one might have in it itself impossible [self-defeating], since no one would believe what was promised him but would laugh at all such expressions as vain pretenses” (G, 32.)

Kant is here applying the criterion of OUV to the maxim. He asks whether the subjective maxim itself when universalized is actually universalizable, i.e., can objectively also hold as a moral law. The question reads as to whether in a world in which all persons acted on this maxim, could everybody successfully attain the end set in the maxim through the means identified? As in the above quotation, Kant maintains that the CI test finds that the means set for the attainment of the end undermines a specific condition necessary for the attainment of that very end. That condition is the existence of trust in the community, such that the agent making the lying promise could successfully attain her end through the lying promise. If the agent’s promise is not trusted by others, she fails in securing her end through such means. But willing the elimination or non-existence of a practice her own maxim relies on as a necessary condition for its success is self- contradictory (self-defeating). In willing an end, a rational agent also wills the necessary condition(s) for the attainment of that end (G, 28). Moreover, the agent

12 is mired not only in a practical contradiction but in a logical contradiction as well, as she wills both that her maxim hold universally and that it allow for exceptions, i.e., as her own case (G, 33-4). Kant concludes that OUV thus fails to be satisfied by a maxim of a lying promise motivated by self-interest.

Continuing to test for OUV, now with respect to free-riding, the agent is required by CI/FUL not to illegitimately exempt herself from that maxim which she requires others to consent to and act on for the successful attainment of the end set in her own maxim. While the free-rider clearly recognizes that her maxim is self-contradictory on criteria of OUV when universalized – i.e., if everybody acted on it, nobody could successfully act on it – she proceeds to will it anyway, prioritizing her own particular subjective interests “self-love”) over the interests and ends of all others. As such, she ends up treating others simply as means to the attainment of her own ends. She free rides on others’ truthfulness, others’ refusal to act on her subjective maxim, in that others’ truthfulness provides her with the necessary conditions for the success of her maxim. In instrumentally relying on others in this way, she illegitimately exempts herself from acting in accordance with the promotion of a necessary condition for the success of her own maxim. As Kant puts it, free-riding/illegitimate self-exemption displays “a contradiction in our will, namely that a certain principle [maxim] be objectively necessary as a universal law and yet subjectively not hold universally but allow exceptions” (G, 34).

Turning now to examining our maxim for SUV, we ask whether our maxim can be agreed by all others to hold as universal law, i.e., whether we can rationally will that others accept and be willing to themselves act on our maxim. Kant finds that there cannot be such an agreement rationally attained, due to the fact that the maxim displays free-riding. SUV fails to be met in virtue of the consideration that nobody could rationally consent to being used simply as a means to ends pursued by free-riders who willfully disregard conditions necessary for their own and others’ successful rational agency (G, 38). Consequently, agreement from all others that people, including oneself, be treated as victims of free-riders cannot be attained.

Now I say that the human being … exists as an end in itself, not merely as a means to be used by this or that will at its discretion; instead he must in all his actions … always be regarded at the same time as an end (G, 37. See also G, 38 & CPrR, 111). This conception of the autonomy and dignity of the human person, is explicitly stated in CI’s Formula of Humanity (FH):

“So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” (G, 38).

As applied to the lying promise maxim in particular, Kant states:

[H]e whom I want to use for my purposes by such a promise cannot possibly agree to my way of behaving toward him, and so himself cannot contain [will] the end of this action [of mine] (G, 38. See also CPrR, 111).

This example clearly shows that a maxim in violation of the CI as FUL, is also in violation of the CI as FH, and conversely. This illustrates Kant’s claim that all 4 versions/formulae of the CI, come down to stating/commanding the same thing: “any one of them of itself unites the other[s] … in it” (G, 43.)

We have now completed our examination of how our lying promise maxim displays self-contradiction and free-riding, thus failing to also hold as a universalizable maxim, a moral law. As such a maxim is contrary to duty, it bears direct consequences for moral character or disposition (G, 44). A character disposition for acting on such maxims is morally unworthy. Those who incorporate the CI testing procedure in its FUL /FH version into their judgements and dispositions, be it explicitly or pre-thematically, are motivationally compelled by the requirement not to contradict, or exempt themselves from promoting, conditions necessary for others’ and one’s own rationally autonomous agency. In this way, they promote respect for humanity as such – i.e., respect for the autonomy and dignity of others and themselves as persons (ends in themselves) and not simply as means for the promotion of their own interests. We now turn to consider Kant’s thoughts on how we are to pedagogically foster dispositions of

14 deliberation and judgement according with and promoting what Kant refers to as the “moral purity” of the good will.

Educational Implications: The Ideal of Moral Purity through Socratic Elicitation

Kant maintains that the moral disposition to be motivated in conduct and judgement by respect for moral law, set by CI as FUL/FH, can only be assimilated by an agent through a recognition of the a priori status of OUV and SUV as functionally inter-related necessary epistemic criteria of moral judgement worth of character. This is the fundamental argument of the Groundwork and the Second Critique: “… all moral concepts have their seat and origin completely a priori in reason …” (G, 23). Kant maintains it is essential, for both educational and philosophical purposes, for educators to understand that “the ground of moral obligation must not be sought in the [phenomenal] nature of the human being or in the [empirical] circumstances of the world in which he is placed, but apriori simply in concepts of pure reason” (G, 3). In chastizing the “moral enthusiasts” amongst us for misguided, indoctrinative educational practices (CPrR, 73), Kant admonishes educators for their misrepresentation of the purity of morality as defined exclusively by moral law, and as given to us in the forms of the CI. Many forms of indoctrination are critiqued, but religious “enthusiasm” is particularly targeted in a number of his writings:

Nor could one give worse advice to morality than by wanting to derive it from examples. … Even the Holy One of the Gospel must first be compared with our ideal of moral perfection before he is [justifiably] cognized as such …” (G, 21). Such misrepresentation, Kant maintains, contradicts all genuine educational efforts to foster the development of rationally autonomous moral judgement in the student’s character by basing learning and teaching on such empirical factors as socialization into a particular culture or religion, conformity to external authority figures, and/or the acquisition of competences in prudential or technical judgement (G, 27). For Kant, genuine educational efforts at the development of autonomous judgement and moral worth of disposition must directly aim at facilitating the dawning of the student’s own insight that her moral obligations to respect the

15 dignity of others and herself are given to her a priori by her own autonomous capacity for rational deliberation through the CI. (Endnote 10: My PES paper)

We can say that genuine moral learning aims at the student’s commitment to a certain *self-understanding* – i.e., the understanding that while recognizing her indebtedness to the village that socialized her into its “rules of moral salience,” her autonomy as a representative of the dignity of humanity requires that she not defer her use of her own intelligence to others’ conceptions of the good/authentic life as final grounds of moral authority, or by acting simply on the desires and interests she has acquired through socialization. In ignoring Kant’s central moral exhortation “Sapere aude” (“Dare to rely on your own intelligence”), such heteronomous deference would define all my choices and decisions as prudential or technical rather than as morally worthy judgement (WE, 323.) The student is brought to understand that in abdicating from her own autonomous judgement, she demonstrates her incapacity to experience and judge the world, herself and others in distinctly moral terms. Her decisions and judgements as such fail to arise from the pure motive of respect for the equal moral worth of all persons; she fails to act “from duty” (G, 11, 13, 15). They would be governed not by OUV and SUV as criteria of universalizable judgement, but rather by her empirical predictions of which of her judgements would accord with external authority, i.e., civil, ecclesiastical, familial. [Endnote 11: My interpretation here is indebted to Warner Wick (KMP, xxxiv-xxxv).]

What specific pedagogical methods does Kant then advise us to draw upon in fostering moral learning understood as the assimilation within judgement and disposition of a priori requirements of moral autonomy and rationality? What is “the method of founding and cultivating genuine moral dispositions” (CPrR, 126) that Kant prescribes? Method, for Kant, must bow its knee to the “purity” of the moral motive (CPrR, 129) as founded in the a priori requirements set by the CI, and the a priori self-understanding all rational agents already possess, though only tacitly, in non-thematic terms. In that a priori self-understanding cannot originate in or be induced from external sources, it can only be elicited, “drawn out” Socratically - drawing primarily on the resources already immanent within the student’s own a priori understanding of rational judgement (G, 16; MM, 222).

This understanding can be stimulated through a “moral catechism” which the student is to commit to memory (CprR, 127 ff). It involves articulations of the differences between happiness and worthiness to be happy, between acting on sensuous inclination and on duty, between appeals to the heart and appeals to the head in deliberation, and between obedience to external authorities and respect t for the authority of moral law. Examples of morally virtuous actions from the biographies of individuals in ancient and modern times are presented to the student, but not as models for the student to compare himself with, but as possibilities of fulfilling one’s obligations regardless of the cost ( CPrR, 130). The student is instructed to compare herself “with the idea of humanity … and so .with the law” (MM, 223). The student is thereby being prepared to grasp what it means to “think for oneself.” The catechism explicitly instructs:

To employ one’s own reason means simply to ask oneself, whenever one is urged to accept something, whether one finds it possible to transform the reason for accepting it … into a universal principle … (WO, 249).

It is this epistemic capacity for what Kant also refers to as “enlarged thought” (CJ, 66) that functions as the already given resource for the possibility of insight into, and respect for the CI as moral law: “This amounts to saying that you need not learn this … [principle] for your conduct from experience or be taught it by others” (MM, 224). Nothing “new,” nothing outside “the [a priori] moral cognition of common human reason” (G, 16) needs to be taught. Building upon the catechism, all that is subsequently required pedagogically is a Socratic drawing attention to (elicitation/eduction as “educere”) the principles governing a priori her own rational understanding of obligations to others and oneself as a free, rational and responsible person (end in itself). This “drawing attention to” the considerations the CI procedure identifies in its tests for OUV and SUV involves only an articulation of common human reason’s reliance on “the norm for … [the] appraisals” of the moral justifiability and worth of maxims willed” (ibid). Because it is an a priori norm or “compass” that is not initially thought “abstractly in a universal form” (ibid), the pedagogical task is one of dialogically reflecting with the student on how her judgements and decisions already tacitly accord with the CI/FUL/FH in considering OUV and SUV in judgement and action. The

17 dialogic examination of such examples of impermissible maxims as the one we have considered above aids the student to explicitly articulate for herself why and how the willing of maxims which contradict the promotion of necessary conditions of rational agency and human dignity constitutes a violation of that purity of motive which only a good will can seek to attain.

*I am grateful for critical commentary on an earlier draft of this paper ,presented as Co-Keynote Address with Robert Laudon at the Third International Conference on Kantian Studies, Department of Philosophy, Memorial University 2016 on the theme: “Kant and Education”. I am also grateful to Chris Martin, Scott Johnston and Darron Kelly for critical commentary on that draft.

Endnotes

1. Selected works on Kant and moral education: CKM; EMW; KE; KC; KCM; MLM; TA; TI; TMM.

2. Kant offers four formulations of the CI, claiming all four express “the very same law” (G, 43). The formulation closest to FUL’s testing procedure is Formula of Law of Nature (FLN). I do not discuss this formula as I believe it adds no substantively new considerations for the testing procedure. For Kant’s application of FLN to maxim testing see CPrR, 60. John Rawls, Onora O’Neill and Ted McNair disagree with my view on FLN. See Rawls LHM, 167 ff, O’Neill AP, 136-173, and McNair UNC, 25-43) Kant himself bestows priority on FUL over the other three: “But one does better always to proceed in moral appraisal by the strict method and put at its basis … [FUL]” (G, 44).

3. Other important empirical conditions Kant identifies as necessary for the development of autonomy in judgement and action are discussed in Robert Louden’s KIE and MMT, Felicitas Munzel’s KCM and Scott Johnston’s MLM.

4. John Rawls’s Constructivist rendition of “objective moral conviction” actually serves to articulate what we here understand to constitute SUV: “[For Kant] [t]o say that a moral conviction is objective … is to say that there are reasons sufficient to convince all reasonable persons that it is valid or correct. To assert a moral judgment is to imply that there are such reasons and that the judgment can be justified to a community of such persons” (LHM, 245). Rawls here conflates what I take to be Kant’s distinction between OUV and SUV.

5. Andrews Reath offers an excellent account of FKE as a criterion of what we are calling “SUV” in LRE, 214-39. His locution renders this formulation of the CI as “Realm of Ends.”]

6. I develop this claim further through Joseph Heath’s account in my DJE, 704- 705. Onora O’Neill articulates the view that because the “form” of a maxim is intrinsic to the maxim itself, the assessment as to whether it accords with the form of a universal law allows permits a claim as to OUV, independent of agreement as per SUV. See AP, 97-110 .

x. The specific kind of “contradiction” I take Kant to have in mind is a “practical contradiction” as interpreted by Christine Korsgaard. I understand it as also containing a “logical contradiction.” For Korsgaard’s account of different conceptions of the contradiction in the literature see CKE, 77-105.

y. For an earlier attempt of mine to interpret the CI/FUL testing procedure see KC.

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