Jan
30
Are There Categorical Imperatives?
Filed Under Mindful Ideas | 3 Comments
Of all the diverse viewpoints on ethical topics, the Kantian notion that moral rules are categorical imperatives is one claim that is not often disputed. An imperative is a statement about what someone should or ought to do. An imperative is categorical if it applies regardless of my own interests or how I may feel about it. “Torturing children is always wrong” is an example of a categorical imperative, in that it holds and applies to me even if I happen to enjoy torturing children and see nothing wrong with it.
Our common-sense morality seems to suggest that categorical imperatives exist. Regardless of one’s cultural norms, there are claims such as the above statement about torturing children that is not really disputable. Kantian ethics claims that these types of moral claims have the force of intrinsic reason and do not require any additional justification. These rules apply to you and should motivate your actions regardless of your interests or feelings about them. Our human nature as rational agents and the rationality of categorical imperatives that stems from this inherent human quality necessarily requires our compliance with these moral rules.
But is that really true?
This criticism originated with Philippa Foot, who utilizes an analogy with etiquette to suggest that the absolute applicability of categorical imperatives is not as obvious as the Kantian wants to believe. Etiquette rules also tell us what we ought to do. These rules apply to us even if we think they are silly or unimportant. But we don’t make the same kind of claims about etiquette that we do about morality. Specifically, we wouldn’t say that you have a reason to follow etiquette rules simply because they are categorical imperatives. The Kantian wishes to make this statement about moral rules, and Foot points out that the agent lacks a reason for believing this to be true.
It is important to note that this criticism relies upon a particular notion of rationality associated with interest fulfillment. Practical rationality, as it is commonly known, states that an act is rational if it is consistent with pursuit of an agent’s interests. From this, we can conclude that the agent has a reason for acting in a particular way if it supports his interests. If an action is not consistent with an agent’s interests, they do not have a reason for acting.
This is essentially the crux of Foot’s argument. If moral rules are categorical imperatives, the Kantian claims that this is itself a reason for the agent to act as the rule requires. But we wouldn’t say this about etiquette, so there must be something special about morality that gives it the action-guiding force that practical rationality requires. Foot’s point is that what this reason may be is not at all clear, and it seems that if the agent’s interests are not consistent with what morality requires, the agent has no reason to act according to a particular moral rule. Morality still applies to the agent, but the rule itself is not sufficient to guide the agent’s action.
I find this to be a strange claim, because it is not clear to me how Foot can claim that a rule applies to the agent, yet deny that this applicability is a reason for acting. It seems obvious to me that both things cannot be true, and I see a clear connection between applicability and action-guidance. But this is not the point that I wish to make here.
Foot’s point is significant to our discussion because common-sense morality often supports certain moral claims without further justification. The phrase “I just think its wrong” is often quoted in everyday moral discussion. This is symptomatic of the Kantian moral view, and it is important to ponder the notion that if the theory supporting our common-sense morality is flawed in this way, perhaps our common-sense morality is equally suspect.
Jan
22
A Brief History of Intelligent Design
Filed Under Mindful Ideas | 4 Comments
Intelligent design has recently been popular in the news media, primarily because a school board in Kansas decided that this theory should be taught in science classes as a reasonable alternative to evolution. While creationism clearly is not science, intelligent design proponents contend that their theory is comparable to Darwinian evolutionary theory. Many individuals, including several noncompliant school board members, agreed that this decision was not only publicly embarrassing, but totally unreasonable. I am inclined to agree.
What many people do not realize is that intelligent design is not a new idea, but a very old one. Intelligent design is better known as the cosmological argument for God’s existence. One of the earliest proponents of such a view was Thomas Aquinas, a theologian who lived at the close of the medieval period. Aquinas was an Aristotelian with a particular interest in cause and effect relationships.
Aristotle believed, roughly, that everything in existence was an effect which began as a potential to be what it effectually becomes. The transition from possibility to actuality is facilitated by some sort of cause. For example, the effect of my car crashing into another car is caused by my tires slipping on the icy road and preventing me from stopping in time. Although Aquinas develops many formulations of this argument, they all rely on a similar type of “potential to actual” relationship.
Several of Aquinas’s other cosmological arguments are more convincing, but the argument from design has a certain monotheistic appeal likely explaining its popularity.
Aquinas states, from his own observations of the world, that everything appearing to have a purposeful nature was, in fact, designed with its demonstrated purpose in mind. Reliance on observations of the world to support a theory is another example of Aquinas’s Aristotelian tendencies. This is another factor leading to the popularity of the argument from design. Its appeal to scientific-type principles is consistent with the “science is king” mentality of our era. Thus, for religious and scientific reasons, the argument from design continues to be propagated.
A common example of Aquinas’s conclusions regarding purposeful nature and design is that of the pocket watch. A pocket watch has the clear purpose of keeping the time correctly. We can deduce this based on observations. As it turns out, the purposeful nature of the pocket watch is due to the fact that it was, in fact, designed with that goal in mind.
This relationship is repeated throughout the natural world. Animals store food and grow longer fur in preparation for winter, with the purpose of surviving the winter. Plants grow in whatever direction leads to maximal sunlight collection, with the goal of growth facilitation through photosynthesis. The world, it seems, is filled with purposeful activity. If such a tendency always stems from the work of a designer, it is reasonable to conclude that the world also has a designer. Such a designer, Aquinas believes, could only be God.
It is tempting to berate the absurdity of comparing intelligent design to evolution. It is also important to note that Aquinas lived in the sixteenth century, well before Darwin developed his theory of natural selection. It is therefore difficult to say what impact Darwin’s ideas might have had upon Aquinas’s argument. I will resist the urge to dismiss intelligent design as a reasonable alternative to evolution at this time, noting simply that this idea is not at all new, and more importantly, was developed prior to the emergence of evolution, archeology, and science. Perhaps this information alone is sufficient to deny the relevance of intelligent design to anything other than a philosophy class.