On the Old Saw. Immanuel Kant
as an intelligible system. It stimulates the scientist to seek out order, which leads to the discovery of hitherto unknown connections statable in mechanical terms.
Ideas play an important role in our moral thinking, but not in stimulating us to discover connections in the world. We possess, Kant claims, conceptions of moral goals which ought to be actualized. As such, they are ends which men are obliged to realize through their efforts. Just as knowledge is an achievement dependent on the labor of scientists, so the realization of moral goals depends on what men do. For example, Kant claims that we are obliged to create a just civil state, and, he maintains, we have an idea of the characteristics of this state which tell us what we must do to realize it. But, Kant insists, whether the Idea is actualized depends not on the power of the Idea but on the action of individual men.5
Although Kant insists on the importance of theory in decision making, theory, he is aware, is not enough. One cannot become a successful scientist by mastering the proper principles for investigating nature, nor a skillful statesman by having at one’s command sound political rules. Judgment is also required, which, for Kant, is the ability to determine “whether something … stand[s] under a given rule.” 6 While theory can be taught, judgment is a “natural gift,” 7 a peculiar talent which can be practiced only.8 Since there are no rules to guide or direct judgment, no theory can be developed to the point where decision making becomes a mechanical affair. While a theory provides principles which instruct us how to act in a given situation, there are no rules which tell us that a situation is an instance of a rule. Determining this requires judgment, and since judgment is an ability which all men do not have, progress in science and the realization of certain ideals depends as much on men of sound judgment as on sound theories.9
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN ETHICS
Just as Kant’s epistemological views are clarified by contrasting them with those of the empiricist, so is his moral theory. He believed that the empiricist bias as to what experience reveals makes it impossible for the empiricist to account adequately for our moral experience, and, accordingly, leads him to construct a false moral theory. The empiricist holds that to understand morality, we must begin with what experience tells us about human nature and the values men seek. If we are to construct a moral theory that is a reliable guide to action, then, the empiricist insists, it must be consistent with these facts.
According to the empiricist, what makes an action morally praiseworthy is that it promotes some value which men seek. Experience, he maintains, reveals that happiness is what all men consciously seek, and that men understand the relationship between happiness and those means most conducive to its achievement. Since the task of ethics is to determine what men ought to do, this determination is an empirical enterprise. The job of the moral philosopher is to tell men what they ought to do, which is to inform them of those actions causally instrumental in attaining happiness. Ethics reduces to a set of rules which prescribe those actions most likely to promote human happiness.
Although, for Kant, we must turn to experience to discover both what men desire and those actions most conducive to achieving it, experience, he insists, shows us not how men ought to act, but only how they ought to act if they want to achieve certain ends. While what the empiricist tells us is interesting, Kant insists that it has nothing to do with morality. Kant maintains that they have overlooked crucial features of our moral experience. One feature is what Kant calls the “fact of moral obligation.” Everyone, he insists, recognizes the clear difference between doing something because one wants to do it and doing it because he recognizes that he ought to do it. The experienced conflict between the two is just as much a fact about men as is the desire for happiness—and, Kant claims, it is a fact which the empiricist fails to explain. In addition, Kant insists that everyone acknowledges that the only actions deserving moral praise are those one performs because he recognizes that he ought to do them. That a person has performed what is considered a right action is not sufficient for saying that he acted morally. Something more is required, namely that he had the right reason for doing what he did. Kant claims that common sense reflection, when uncorrupted by the dialectics of philosophers, informs us that the feeling of moral obligation is distinct from the desire for happiness, and that the moral worth of a persons action is measured by his intention to do what he ought to do, and not by the supposed consequences of that action.10
The common man, Kant believed, knows what is right and what is wrong; he does not need the philosopher to tell him what he ought to do. Rather than providing us with moral rules, the moral philosopher is to explicate the principle or principles we use to determine how we ought to act, and to defend them against those who claim that morality reduces to a conflict between desires.11 In addition, the moral philosopher must show that there are no sound arguments against the conditions for moral action. Given the relationship Kant believes holds between our common moral thinking, and the principles of his moral theory, it is hardly surprising that he is anxious to counter the charge that his theory will not work in practice.
In Part I of the essay Kant replies to the claim that there is a conflict between what his moral theory demands and what we can do in practice. The claim rests on three objections raised by Christian Garve.12 Although attention will be restricted to the objections, these are not the only features of Part I worthy of attention.13
The first objection 14 is that Kant’s moral theory requires, as a condition for acting morally, that one renounce the desire for happiness. Since we naturally seek happiness, his theory requires one to act contrary to his nature.15 This persistent objection 16 rests on a basic misunderstanding of Kant’s theory. Kant’s theory does not require one to renounce the desire for happiness. Kant replies that one “cannot do so, nor can any other finite rational being.” 17 What is required is that we not make the desire for happiness the or a condition for acting morally. In deciding what I ought to do, it is not a relevant consideration. But this is not to say that one must renounce it.
The second objection is to Kant’s claim that I ought to do my duty simply because I recognize it as my duty. For Garve, it is “incomprehensible … how any man can be conscious of having achieved complete detachment from his desire for happiness, and thus having performed his duty quite unselfishly.” 18 If, he reasons, I cannot know that I have acted for no other reason than that I recognized it as my duty, it makes no sense to say that I ought to act in this way. Nothing, Kant replies, follows from Garve’s claim. Kant not only admits that “no man can ever be conscious with certainty of having performed his duty quite unselfishly” 19 but that it may be that no one either has or will do his duty. But, Kant observes, this does not show that I cannot do what is required of me. I may have done my duty for no other reason than that I recognized it as my duty, even though I am not certain of this. My being uncertain as to whether something was the reason for my action is consistent with the fact that it was. As long as it is not impossible for me to do what is required, I can do what I am obliged to do.
The third objection 20 is that in actual practice we are never sure which motive, duty, the desire for happiness, or some other motive or combination of them, actually carried the most weight in determining our action. Duty, it seems, is no clearer guide to action than any other motive, and, for the common man, plays no more important role in his decision making than do other conisderations. Hence, even though Kant’s theory is a guide to action, it is no better than some other theory.
Apart from the insistence that his theory alone is consistent with acting morally, Kant argues that his theory, unlike that which makes happiness the ground of action, provides a reliable guide to action. While his theory informs one immediately of what ought to be done, this, Kant insists, is not true of the opposing one. To decide which action will promote my happiness “always requires a great deal of skill and thought.” “The will thus pursuant to the maxim of happiness,” Kant observes, “vacillates between motivations, wondering what it should resolve upon. For it considers the outcome, and that is most uncertain.” 21 But, Kant claims, if one asks “where his duty lies, … he is instantly certain what he must do.” 22
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
Two questions which have been asked as long as men