Parfit and Kant on Moral Dilemmas

In the previous posting on Parfit I looked at Chapter 8 of Climbing the Mountain, the first full monograph-length version of what later was to become published as On What Matters and suggested some significant problems with the treatment Parfit gave there of Kantian formulas of universal law. In this posting I'm going to look at Chapter 9 of Climbing the Mountain where Parfit moves on to addressing some moral dilemmas and connects the understanding of these dilemmas to questions about universalisation tests.


One of the points that this chapter raises concerns the world that is being referred to when universalisation tests are formulated. Is it the "actual" world or not? There are good reasons to think not, not least some remarks Kant makes in his discussion of the typic in the Critique of Practical Reason where he makes clear that we frequently give ourselves a pass with regard to moral requirements precisely on the grounds that not everyone will follow our example in the actual world. Parfit construes this point as requiring the test that is formulated by the Law of Nature Formula to be understood as asking us whether it would be better if no one acted in a certain way.


Parfit takes the Law of Nature Formula to work best when applied to maxims of which 3 things are true: a) it is possible for many people to act on this maxim; b) whatever the number of people who act on it the effects of each such act would be similar; c) these effects would be roughly equally distributed between different people. After stating these points Parfit moves on to the real business of this chapter which is to discuss moral dilemmas, beginning with the case of "each-we dilemmas" in which "if each rather than none of us does what would be better in some kind of way, we would be doing what would be, in this way, worse" (171). These cases are next summarised in terms of well-being.


The basic move that Parfit thus makes, apparently casually, in this chapter, is to examine types of moral dilemma that are based on a general consequentialist appraisal basis and to apply versions of the universality test to cases so considered. Such cases have a wide range, involving free-rider considerations for example, as applied to "public goods" such as the provision of law and order (with cases of tax evasion having force here). The general cases of each-we dilemmas also touch upon special questions from common sense morality that involve those to whom we have special obligations (such as children, clients or colleagues). Each-we dilemmas arise in these cases in particular affecting the people Parfit dubs M-related to us.


Moral cases of each-we dilemmas are often resolved by appeal to forms of utilitarianism but Parfit considers here Kantian solutions though he does so not by asking the question with which the chapter is titled, namely, "what if everyone did that", but rather its negative complement, "what if no one did that". The reasons for invoking this formula in these cases, according to Parfit, is that it will lead us to revise widely held moral beliefs that are mistaken. Not only will appeal to Kant's Law of Nature Formula have this effect, on Parfit's view, it will also challenge common sense beliefs here in an especially forceful way.


When Parfit comes to apply the Law of Nature Formula to the each-we dilemmas he does so with a proviso. This is that we consider acts whose rightness depends at least in part on their predictable effects. The point Parfit is after here is that certain types of maxims are fine if restrictively applied whilst they would become problematic if widely adopted. This type of problem is widely stated in secondary literature on Kant's universal law formulas and would require more consideration than can be given here. Parfit's example is of the maxim "have no children so I can devote myself to philosophy", a maxim that is fine in restricted application but would be disastrous if adopted universally.This is what is termed by Parfit the "permissible acts objection".


With regard to these "permissible acts" most maxims concerning them are formulated in a conditional way and this points to Parfit to restrictions on the maxims in question that are taken by him to be broadly in accord with the standards of the hypothetical imperative (though he doesn't explicitly refer here to the hypothetical imperative). However, in accord with Parfit's general conflation of maxims with intentions he reformulates the Law of Nature Formula to say that we act wrongly unless what we are intentionally doing is something that we could rationally will everyone to do.


After considering this first objection Parfit moves on to a second one. This again is formulated in terms of effects of adopting certain maxims. However, in this case, the problem is taken to be that Kant's general standard is that of an ideal world. Parfit here follows Christine Korsgaard in stating that there might be a problem with stating things in terms of ideal worlds since, in the "actual" world, disastrous results could ensue from following maxims that would ideally be alright. This "Ideal World Objection" applies, for example, to any maxims that rule against violence as such since, in the "actual" world, use of it cannot be unrestrictedly ruled out. However, once we have admitted this and formulated maxims to meet it, there is a different ideal world objection, namely, that maxims might thus become too permissive.


This objection concerning permissiveness is applied by Parfit to the general formulations that are often given of rule consequentialism, and used to further revise the Law of Nature formula. However the revision that arises from considering the permissiveness objection also has the effect of making the kind of consequentialism that Parfit has been building in to the moral situation one that becomes closer to that envisaged by act consequentialists. The chapter closes with this construal of the Law of Nature Formula having become thus close to a modified notion of rule consequentialism that appears well on the way to act consequentialism.

Humanity and Contradiction in the Will

Recently I mentioned looking at the way the "examples" of the second part of the Groundwork are treated in relation to the formula of the universal law of nature. When expounding the two examples of contradiction in the will I suggested that the way Kant's argument there worked was not as might be expected. In this posting I want to look, by contrast, at how the two examples of contradiction in the will look in the second part of the Groundwork when the formula of humanity is introduced.

The formula of humanity is stated as: "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" (Ak. 4: 429). One of the immediately interesting points to note about this formula is how it effects the sense we have of means-ends relationships. In what Kant had earlier described as "hypothetical imperatives" there are two basic things at issue, either "skill" in terms of devising means to a given "technical" end or "prudence" through thinking about how to devise means to the pre-given end of happiness. In both situations the means-ends nexus is as we normally tend to think it. An end is given and we work out the best means to achieve it. Here, with the formula of humanity, we realise the import of the difference between such hypothetical imperatives and what is occurring in the case of the moral imperative. In the case of the latter we are working with a sense of end that cannot be distinguished from means as we do in hypothetical cases. Here "humanity" is treated as something that cannot be treated as a means to some further end but rather as an end-in-itself and this notion of an end-in-itself is one that we might term an "eschatological" sense of end. The normal instrumental notion of end is not strictly, as is often assumed, a "teleological" one since teleology as the generic name for purposes is not equivalent to instrumentality or at least need not be equivalent. The usual sense of ends is, however, clearly instrumental. By contrast with this notion if we think of an end as something that exists and not something we are aiming to bring about and assume that this end is one that we relate to as requiring modification of all notions of means then we have a radical conception. Since this is an "end-in-itself" it makes sense to me to think of it as an eschatological sense of end.

Now, after giving this formula, Kant looks again at the same four examples that were given to the formula of the universal law of nature. Again, the first two examples are cases of contradiction in conception and I don't want to consider these (suicide and false promising). But the second two were shown to have some odd characteristics in relation to the universal law of nature so now I want to consider them in relation to the formula of humanity. They are again given in the same order with cultivation of talents first. When presented in relation to the formula of humanity Kant adds an additional characterisation of the cases treated as involving contradiction in the will. They are now described as "meritorious" duties suggesting, correctly I think, that there is something about such duties that appears additional to the most minimal sense of duty.

In the case of cultivation of talents Kant mentions that "it is not enough that the action does not conflict with humanity in our person as an end in itself; it must also harmonize with it" (Ak. 4: 430). This requirement is like the shift, in Perpetual Peace, from the negative to the affirmative sense, of publicity. It would appear that the negative notion of lack of conflict with humanity in oneself is sufficient to rule out suicide but we require bringing in, when considering the case of "meritorious" duty, the additional notion of harmonization of the action with the sense of humanity as an end-in-itself. And it is by means of this move from a negative to a positive sense of relation to the formula that Kant justifies the need for cultivation of one's talents for, as he puts it, there are "predispositions" to "greater perfection" and to neglect these is not consistent with the "furtherance" of humanity.

The second example, concerning beneficence, makes the same basic move of invoking the distinction between negative and positive forms of relation to humanity and indicates that when we make this move we can see the need to act beneficently. Given that this example of beneficence has been studied at some length in contemporary writings on Kant's ethics I don't want to say too much more here. But what is apparent is that the extension of humanity to the positive harmonizing sense to include the ends of others is not exactly parallel to what is happening in the case of cultivation of talents. In the case of cultivation of talents I am considering a duty I owe to myself and hence the question concerns the status of humanity in my self. With the example of beneficence I have a duty to others and this requires thinking about the status of humanity in others and how it relates to humanity in myself. So in the case of beneficence Kant focuses on this relation and how it connects to the sense of furtherance of humanity: "the ends of a subject who is an end in itself must as far as possible be also my ends, if that representation is to have its full effect in me" (Ak. 4: 430).So the case of beneficence adds the question of how the representation of others as ends in themselves is to have its full effect and if we consider that we are led to endorse the need for beneficence whereas without such consideration we would be led to neglect the need for it.

If we now compare the treatment of the cases of contradiction in the will given when we are working with the formula of humanity to that given when we have the universal law of nature formula we can note some important differences. In the case of cultivation of talents the argument given from the universal law of nature seemed to in fact convert the moral imperative into a kind of prudential one. The treatment of this case with regard to the formula of humanity, by contrast, does not do this. The latter treatment does, however, still appear to invoke something from the earlier formula's treatment as Kant refers to predispositions to perfection and says that they "belong to the end of nature with respect to humanity in our subject" (Ak. 4: 430). This "end of nature" is not here made fuller so it is not clear from this text alone what Kant means but it does suggest that we are still, when we connect the formula of humanity to the example of cultivation of talents, thinking about nature as an important part of our considerations. It is not, though, a prudential reference that emerges but the need to think of how to go farther than preserving humanity and to the need to work out how to further it as well.

The case of beneficence again seemed to involve prudential considerations when considered in relation to the universal law of nature formula and such considerations are, once more, not present when the example of beneficence is considered in relation to the formula of humanity. Instead, a kind of imaginative extension of the relation I have to the sense of humanity in myself is required and this might point to the need to think about the role of such imaginative work in ethics but there is not here any kind of prudential consideration given as rather the question is how to ensure the understanding of others as ends-in-themselves is to have its full effect on me.

As was the case when these cases were treated in relation to the universal law of nature formula so also here when we are considering the formula of humanity we clearly get a sense of the importance of understanding purposes when we look at the cases of contradiction in the will. If willing, though, requires a conception at work not just of the world one would create in universalizing the maxim of my will but also a relation to what is capable of so willing then questions do appear to arise about the status of this reference to "humanity". The other point to note though is that the formulas of humanity do seem to have enabled a more consistent focus on moral imperatives than seems possible from the universal law of nature alone.