University of Kansas, Fall 2002
Philosophy 672: History of Ethics
Ben Eggleston

Class notes: Kant

The following notes correspond roughly to what we cover, including at least a portion of what I put on the board or the screen, in class. In places they may be more or less comprehensive than what we actually cover in class, and should not be taken as a substitute for your own observations and records of what goes on in class.

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  1. a little biographical note: Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Königsberg, in East Prussia. His early writings concern the sciences, especially physics and astronomy. He even predicted the existence of the planet Uranus more than twenty years before it was actually discovered. In 1770, he took a philosophical post at the University of Königsberg and embarked on a series of works that would make him, by almost anyone’s reckoning, the most influential of all the modern philosophers. His Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, published in 1785, is an indispensable part of the history of ethical theory.
  2. preface
    1. the division of the sciences: Kant was very concerned with all areas of thought fitting together into one overall scheme
      1. formal: logic
      2. material
        1. related to nature (what does happen): physics
          1. rational part: metaphysics of nature
          2. empirical part: physics proper (empirical physics)
        2. related to freedom (what ought to happen): ethics
          1. rational part: metaphysics of morals
          2. empirical part: practical anthropology
        3. the distinction between a priori and a posteriori (Korsgaard, p. ix)
          1. These terms concern how we know the things we know.
            1. We know things a posteriori when we know them because of some experience: for example, I know that water boils only after several minutes on the stove, or that the Kansas River is very low right now, only because of experience: I’ve boiled water, and seen the river, and that’s how I know things about them.
            2. We know things a priori when we know them even without having to check them against experience. For example, the way I know that ice is frozen water is not because of some experience, as it is in the case of things known a posteriori. Once I become familiar with the concepts of water and ice (and frozen and one thing being another, I suppose) I’m able to know that ice is frozen water. Admittedly, I have to have had the experience of learning these concepts, but this does not make turn the judgment we’re talking about one into one that is known a posteriori. To see why, go back to the judgment that water boils only after several minutes on the stove. That I cannot know just by the experience of learning the concepts; further experience (first-hand or otherwise) is needed to see how long it takes for water to boil on the stove. But with the judgment that ice is frozen water, the concepts are enough.
          2. Kant is concerned, in this book, with what we can know about ethics a priori—that is, what we can learn just by sitting in our armchairs and thinking about ethics (given that we have acquired the concepts we need to work with), instead of having to go out and see how people behave, interview them about their moral beliefs, etc.
    2. Kant’s principal motive for emphasizing the distinction between rational and empirical parts of moral philosophy comes through on p. 389, in the paragraph beginning with ‘Since’. There he explains that he conceives of the moral law as applying to all rational beings, not just (e.g.) human beings. So, in order to do moral philosophy right, we must abstract from all the things about human beings that are not essential to them as rational beings. This point is made again at the end of p. 390.
    3. On p. 390, we find the first mention of a quintessentially Kantian claim: that, order for an action to be morally good, it must be done not just in conformity to the moral law, but for the sake of the moral law. He says this is so because other motives (aside from the motive of duty) “will often produce actions contrary to the [moral] law.”
      1. So the argument seems to be something like this:
        1. All actions done from motives other than that of duty are actions done from motives that will often produce actions contrary to the moral law.
        2. All actions done from motives that will often produce actions contrary to the moral law fail to be morally good.
        3. Therefore, all actions done from motives other than that of duty fail to be morally good.
      2. Presumably premise 2 is doing the bulk of the work, and may be questioned. (Some considerations in support of it can be gleaned from Barbara Herman’s paper, which we’ll consider shortly.)
    4. About halfway through p. 391, we find one of Kant’s most important assumptions: that “in moral matters human reason can easily be brought to a high degree of correctness and accomplishment, even in the most common understanding.” This confidence Kant has in common-sense morality informs his work throughout, and makes his task of one unearthing the theoretical basis of common-sense morality rather than (he thinks) revising it in any very substantial way.
    5. On p. 392, Kant says that the purpose of this book is to find and establish “the supreme principle of morality.” By this he means some fundamental principle, such as Mill’s principle of utility.
    6. In the last full paragraph of the preface, Kant invokes the analytic/synthetic distinction.
      1. Whereas the a priori / a posteriori distinction pertains to how judgments are known, the analytic/synthetic distinction pertains the the judgments themselves.
        1. An analytic judgment is one whose predicate is, it is said, “contained” in the concept of the subject. So, to recall an earlier example: the judgment that ice is frozen water is analytic because the predicate of being frozen water is contained in the concept of ice. All you have to do is analyze the concept ice, and the rest of the judgment follows.
        2. A synthetic judgment is one whose predicate is not contained in the concept of the subject. Again, to recall an earlier example: the judgment that water boils only after several minutes on the stove is synthetic because how long it takes water to boil is not implicit in the concept of water itself;  no amount of analyzing that concept is going to tell you anything about how long it takes. Rather, the judgment that water takes a while to boil synthesizes the concept of water and another concept that isn’t contained in the concept of water.
      2. So far it might appear the the analytic/synthetic distinction and the a priori / a posteriori distinction are just two different ways of expressing the same distinction: that all and only analytic judgments are known a priori, and that all and only synthetic judgments are known a posteriori. And in practice there is a great deal of overlap. But what Kant is looking for in this book is a synthetic moral principle that is known a priori: that is, he’s trying to keep all the empirical stuff out (i.e., know something a priori), but make that something more substantial than just an analysis of some moral concept or other. To know something synthetic a priori would be quite a feat, and this is just what Kant says he’s after.
        1. In the last full paragraph of the preface, Kant says he’s first going to proceed analytically. To do this, and know things a priori, is no big deal.
        2. Then Kant says that, second, he’s going to proceed synthetically. To do this, and still arrive at things known a priori rather than a posteriori, is the real feat.
  3. section I
    1. Before getting into the substance of this section, we should recall what Kant says its purpose is, both as reflected in its title and in Kant’s description of it in the preface. The title is “Transition from Common Rational to Philosophic Moral Cognition,” and in the last paragraph of the preface Kant says that his first task will be to proceed analytically. So we can take Kant in this first section to be analyzing common rational cognition in philosophical terms—that is, trying to pick apart common-sense morality and see what’s really there, and re-organizing and reassembling those ingredients within a philosophical framework.
    2. One very distinctively Kantian doctrine is that the only thing that is unconditionally good is a good will (p. 393).
      1. Other things—intelligence, courage, riches, etc.—may on occasion be good, but only on the condition that they are under the control of a good will. Otherwise they can be quite bad. Even happiness and equanimity, which seem to come close to being unconditionally good, we rightly regard as bad when they are enjoyed by someone “with a no feature of a pure and good will” (p. 393) or “a scoundrel” (p. 394).
      2. And, relatedly, the good will is good not because of what it accomplishes, but quite independently of its effects.
      3. an objection and Kant’s reply
        1. It might be objected (beginning of p. 395) that what makes a will good, or any of the faculties of the human mind good, is that it conduces to our survival and happiness. For this is what nature seems to have in mind for us.
        2. Kant’s reply is that it doesn’t make sense to think of the human will (governed by reason) as aiming at human survival and happiness, because that aim is much better served by instinct than by reason (p. 395). But since nature clearly has given us reason, we must identify some other purpose for it; and since reason is given to us as a practical faculty—i.e., one that can influence the will—then nature must have meant for reason to operate on the will so as to make it good (p. 396). Kant adds that this aim takes precedence over that of happiness, which he agrees nature has also apparently set as an aim for us, but he is not explicit here about why reason’s aim (of making the will good) ought to take precedence over instinct’s aim (of ensuring survival and happiness).
    3. Kant sets for himself, then, the task of analyzing the concept of a good will (p. 397).
      1. Note that he says that this concept “already dwells in natural sound understanding and needs not so much to be taught as only to be clarified” (p. 397). This goes with Kant’s saying, earlier (p. 391), that common-sense morality is already in pretty good shape, substantively, and needs only to be set on a firmer foundation.
      2. He says that we can come to understand the concept of a good will by understanding the concept of duty (p. 397). He seems to have in mind the idea that to perform an action with a good will just is to perform it from the motive of duty (also said to be done “from duty”).
        1. There are several cases to distinguish in order to isolate what we’re interested in (p. 397):
          1. actions not in conformity to duty—obviously not done from duty (Kant seems to be assuming that if you act from duty, you’ll succeed: that there aren’t any acts that are done from duty, but that then go awry and fail to conform to duty.)
          2. actions in conformity to duty
            1. actions done only because the agent is impelled to do so—also not done from duty
            2. actions done only from self-interest (e.g., in order to maintain your reputation for honesty)—also not done from duty
            3. actions done only from immediate inclination—also not done from duty
            4. actions done from no impulsion, interest, or inclination, but from duty. It is unclear here whether Kant means to maintain that every action is done “from” just one thing (inclination, duty, etc.).
              1. If he maintains that this is so, then this seems rather strange. For it would seem that a person can (e.g.) tell the truth both in order to maintain a reputation for honesty and because doing so is morally required.
              2. If he does not insist on this, then there are two things Kant might be saying, between which we have to choose.
                1. An action is good only if it’s done from duty, even if it’s also done from something else.
                2. An action is good only if it’s done only from duty.
    4. Near the end of p. 399 Kant mentions the “second proposition.” (Apparently we were to take the first proposition to be that only a good will—that is, a will that acts from duty—is unconditionally good.) The second proposition is that what makes an action done from duty good lies not in the purpose at which the action aims, but in the maxim, or principle, or (moral) law, by which it is decided upon. This he takes to follow from what he had said earlier, about various aims’ being good or bad, depending on the circumstances.
    5. On p. 400 Kant states the third proposition: “duty is the necessity of an action from respect for law.”
      1. What he means by ‘necessity’ is that when you regard an action as required by (the moral) law, you think of it as something that it is necessary for you to do: it strikes you as the thing to do, rather than just an option.
      2. He says this follows from the first two propositions. His thought seems to be something like this: since all the things that are aimed by by interest, inclination, etc., can be brought about without the operation of the will of a rational being, the operation of the will of a rational being must find its goodness, when it is good, in some other source. And this other source must be the very idea of (moral) law, as something worth following for its own sake rather than for the sake of any further end.
    6. Beginning on p. 402 Kant further specifies what it means for someone to act from duty, or (what he has argued is the same thing) purely out of respect for law.
      1. He says that it means acting on this principle: “I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.”
      2. In considering Kant’s discussion here it’s important to understand what Kant is claiming and what he’s not claiming. He is claiming that the principle is implicit in common-sense morality. He’s not claiming that he’s proved it, or established it, philosophically, only that (to repeat) he’s found it in common-sense morality after analyzing common-sense morality. Kant’s attempt to prove it will come later. Note, for example, Kant’s claim on p. 402 that “Common human reason . . . always has this principle before its eyes,” and his more explicit allusion to this objection at the end of p. 403.
      3. Here it might be objected that, given that Kant takes himself here still to be analyzing common-sense morality, then he has gone way off course, since surely it cannot be said that common-sense morality contains any principle as convoluted as this one as some essential ingredient. But Kant goes on to explain how this principle is implicit in common-sense morality, by reference to the example of the false promise. We learn from Kant’s discussion on p. 403 that the principle basically means, “Don’t make an exception of yourself.”
    7. In the closing pages of this section we get some sense of the the faith Kant puts in common-sense morality, and of the role that Kant nonetheless thinks moral philosophy can play.
      1. Kant’s confidence in common-sense morality
        1. p. 403.3: “I do not . . . need any penetrating acuteness to see what I have to do . . . . Inexperienced in the course of the world, incapable of being prepared for whatever might come to pass in it,” I can still figure out my duties.
        2. p. 404.2: “it would be easy to show . . . that there is . . . no need of science and philosophy to know what one has to do in order to be honest and good, even wise and virtuous.”
        3. p. 404.7: common understanding “can even have as good a hope of hitting the mark as any philosopher can promise himself.”
      2. the need for moral philosophy
        1. p. 405: “reason [which forms the basis of duty] issues its precepts unremittingly, without thereby promising anything to the inclinations. . . . But from this there arises a . . . propensity to rationalize against those strict laws of duty.” That is, we are liable, under pressure from our inclinations, to entertain corrupted conceptions of our duties, even though, in a sense, we know better.
        2. p. 405: “In this way common human reason is impelled, not by some need of speculation . . . but on practical grounds themselves, to go out of its sphere and to take a step into the field of practical philosophy.” That is, moral philosophy will not just help us understand morality better; it will help us act more in accordance with it.
      3. At the end of the section, Kant says that we need a “critique of our reason.”
        1. It is important to understand that Kant is using ‘critique’ in his special sense of ‘study’ or ‘examination,’ not in a particularly negative way. As we will see, Kant thinks that pure reason can be quite potent.
        2. So understood, this last sentence reminds us of the overall structure of Kant’s project: he has analyzed common-sense morality; what must follow is an inquiry into whether the substance of common-sense morality can be given firm philosophical foundations (and this latter task is what will involve a “critique” of reason—note, though, that this project, properly so called, is carried out Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, not in the Groundwork; though there is some overlap).
  4. Herman, “On the Value of Acting from the Motive of Duty”
    1. section I
      1. Herman discusses a then-recent article by Richard Henson. For the most part we are not concerned with what she says about this earlier paper.
      2. Rather, our concern is simply with the problem that gives rise to Henson’s and Herman’s papers. That problem is this: Kant seems to imply that only actions done only from the motive of duty have moral worth, and this seems to imply that right actions done grudgingly, or against one’s inclinations, have more moral worth than do right actions done willingly or with pleasure. This is taken to be a problem in Kant interpretation because it attributes to Kant a very hard-hearted view.
    2. section II
      1. Herman’s first concern in this section is to explain why non-moral motives—such as those that motivate the shopkeeper and the sympathetic person—do not give their dutiful actions moral worth (p. 363.1).
        1. The shopkeeper, even in doing the dutiful thing (giving correct change) acts from the motive of profit, and the problem with this is that it is unreliable in getting people to do the right thing (p. 363.7).
        2. The sympathetic person acts, of course, from sympathy, and the although sympathy is not as unreliable as the profit motive is (p. 364.4), it’s still essentially unreliable (p. 365.1): not all sympathetic or benevolent acts are right acts.
      2. Based on this inquiry, Herman asserts this: “For a motive to be a moral motive, it must provide the agent with an interest in the moral rightness of his actions.” And an action has moral worth only when the agent acted from a moral motive—i.e., with an interest in the moral rightness of his action (p. 366.8). This seems to establish a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition, for the attribution of moral worth to an action. Indeed Herman says that we can't yet specify these conditions (p. 366.4).
    3. section III
      1. We now move to cases of overdetermination (p. 367.1).
      2. the common way of dealing with this problem
        1. The common way of dealing with this problem is to say that an overdetermined action has moral worth if and only if the agent’s interest in the moral rightness of his action would have been sufficient, by itself, to get the agent to do the action (p. 367.3). Herman says this can be interpreted in a couple of ways, each of which is problematic.
          1. the two interpretations
            1. First, it can mean that cooperating motives (those that cooperate with the motive of duty) are to be set aside; then we see whether the moral motive would have been sufficient by itself (p. 367.3)
            2. Second, it can mean that cooperating motives are to be set aside, and that conflicting motives may remain; then we see whether the moral motive would have been sufficient to overcome the conflicting motives (p. 367.4).
          2. Herman’s problem: each of these specifies a condition (for an action’s having moral worth) that is too easy to satisfy. For a person might pass either of these tests, with the following still being true: if circumstances were to change, so that the cooperating motives become conflicting motives, then the person would no longer do the right thing. And yet if this last thing were true, then surely the agent wouldn’t deserve to be said to have been acting from duty (p. 367.8–9).
      3. Herman then considers two further approaches, rejecting one and embracing the other.
        1. One way of dealing with this problem is to say that an action has moral worth only if the moral motive was so strong that it would have prevailed even if the cooperating motives had been conflicting ones (p. 368.4). Herman’s objection to this is somewhat unclear to me. Her problem seems to be that we should not deny that an agent’s action had moral worth just because, in different (more onerous) circumstances it would not have been performed (p. 369.6).
        2. The approach Herman endorses is to say that an action has moral worth only if the moral motive was, in fact, the motive on which the agent acted (p. 369.8). Two things to notice about this:
          1. It refers to the motive on which the agent actually acted, rather than referring to how the agent would have acted under other circumstances.
          2. Sometimes it may be hard to tell on what motive someone actually acted, but this does not mean that this idea—the motive on which someone actually acted—should not be operative in our thinking about the moral worth of someone’s action.
    4. section IV
      1. Kant recognizes the distinction, familiar in common-sense morality, between actions that are morally required and those that are merely permissible. (For example, once you make a promise to do something for someone, then, barring exceptional circumstances, you’re morally required to do it: to keep the promise. But presumably you weren’t morally required to make the promise in the first place: that was, presumably, merely morally permissible.) Herman, having discussed morally required actions and their connection with the motive of duty, turns now to actions that are not required, but merely permissible.
      2. Herman asks, in effect, this: what role does the motive of duty play in actions that are not required, but merely permissible? (p. 372.2) Her answer is that, in some agents, the motive of duty serves to ensure that what one is thinking about doing is at least permissible, given that no moral requirements bear on one just now (p. 372.4). But such actions will not have moral worth, since they cannot be done from duty: it is some other motive which prompts the agent even to consider doing it, and then the agent checks it against the categorical imperative just to make sure it’s o.k. (pp. 374.8–375.2). Then the agent is virtuous, but the action is not morally worthy.
    5. section V
      1. In this section Herman goes through the sympathy, self-preservation, and happiness examples to interpret them in the light of the analysis presented in the preceding sections.
      2. Then she reiterates the main message of her paper: “Overdetermined actions can have moral worth so long as the moral motive has priority over the satisfaction of inclination” (p. 382.4).
  5. back to the Groundwork: section II, to p. 421.1
    1. Kant spends the first several pages of this section (from 406 to just about the middle of p. 412) reiterating and elaborating on the need to proceed a priori rather than a posteriori.
      1. theoretical need
        1. three considerations
          1. even in regard to humans alone—p. 407.5: “One cannot better serve the wishes of those who ridicule all morality as the mere phantom of a human imagination overstepping itself through self-conceit than by granting them that concepts of duty must be drawn solely from experience.”
          2. in regard to all rational beings—p. 408.4: “no experience could give occasion to infer even the possibility of” laws that “must hold not only for human beings but for all rational beings as such.
          3. the circularity problem—p. 408.7: “every example of [morality] represented to me must itself first be appraised in accordance with principles of morality, as to whether it is also worthy to serve as an original example, that is, as a model.”
        2. Neglect of these “produces a disgusting hodgepodge of patchwork observations and half-rationalized principles” (p. 409.8).
      2. practical need
        1. p. 410.7: “such a completely isolated metaphysics of morals . . . is also a desideratum of the utmost importance to the actual fulfillment of their precepts.”
        2. p. 410.8: “the pure thought of duty and in general of the moral law, mixed with no foreign addition of empirical inducements, has . . . an influence on the human heart so much more powerful than all other incentives . . .”
    2. Kant them turns to an examination of “the practical faculty of reason”—the capacity to make decisions about how to act—in order to discover how the concept of duty may operate within it (p. 412.7).
      1. p. 412.8: in accordance with the representation of laws vs. not
      2. pp. 412.9–413.1: actions as subjectively necessary vs. subjectively contingent
      3. p. 413.5: imperatives—expressed by ‘ought’
        1. p. 414.3: hypothetical vs. categorical
          1. p. 415.2: many hypothetical imperatives
          2. p. 416.3: one categorical imperative (though it is not clear how it is known at this stage of the discussion that there’s only one)
        2. p. 417.1: “how are all these imperatives possible?” What Kant is asking here is, How is it possible that certain commands can be validly issued, that is, backed by reason rather than just one person telling another person what to do?
          1. pp. 417.2–419.3: basically unproblematic how hypothetical imperatives are possible, since they are analytic
          2. the categorical imperative
            1. p. 419.4: question of the possibility of the categorical imperative in need of an answer
            2. p. 420.1: no sure example in experience, so we can’t point to any specific event and say, “There! The categorical imperative in action!”
            3. p. 420.5: synthetic a priori, not analytic, thus likely to be hard to establish
            4. p. 420.7: establishment of this to be postponed until section III
  6. Hill, “The Hypothetical Imperative”
    1. section I
      1. p. 429.6: statement of the hypothetical imperative
      2. p. 430.3: distinction between principle of conduct and explication of what a certain phenomenon consists of
      3. p. 432.9: first objection (that it can be irrational to take the means to every end one has)
      4. p. 433.7: second objection  (that the Hypothetical Imperative doesn’t allow for rational changes of mind about ends)
      5. p. 435.2: third objection (that the Hypothetical Imperative may require immoral conduct)
    2. section II
      1. two important features of what Kant calls (in translation, of course) ‘imperatives’
        1. p. 439.3: Imperatives are properly addressed only to “imperfectly rational” wills.
        2. p. 439.8–9: Imperatives express principles that are objective—ones to which any rational person would conform. For Kant, there are no bogus or invalid imperatives, any more than there are (for example) false true statements.
      2. What makes the Hypothetical Imperative a hypothetical imperative?
        1. p. 441.3: not its form (e.g., inclusion of a conditional clause, such as one beginning with ‘if’)
        2. p. 442.3: not the fact that it requires empirical data in order to yield substantive prescriptions
        3. p. 443.3: its dependence, in order for it to yield substantive prescriptions, in information about the agent’s ends
    3. section III to the bottom of p. 445 (where “positive freedom (autonomy)” is first mentioned
      • p. 445.2: question—Why did Kant lavish so much attention and praise on the Categorical Imperative, and so little on the Hypothetical Imperative?
        1. p. 445.3: one difference—it’s easier (in terms of willpower) to follow the latter
        2. p. 445.4: another difference—the former is synthetic, the latter merely analytic
        3. p. 445.9: the most important difference—the former involves positive freedom, or autonomy. This is a notion to which we will return, in connection with section III of the Groundwork.
  7. back to the Groundwork: section II, pp. 421.1–436.2
    1. the categorical imperative
      1. formulations
        1. p. 421.3: the autonomy formulation
        2. p. 421.7: the ‘law of nature’ formulation (supposedly equivalent to autonomy formulation)
      2. examples of application
        1. p. 421.9: suicide
        2. p. 422.4: false promise
        3. p. 422.9: cultivation of talents
        4. p. 423.4: charity
      3. p. 421.8: the categorizing of the examples
        1. perfect duties
          1. to self: duty not to commit suicide (example 1)
          2. to others: duty not to make false promises (example 2)
        2. imperfect duties
          1. to self: duty to cultivate talents (example 3)
          2. to others: duty to help others (example 4)
        3. p. 424.2: how to distinguish between perfect and imperfect
          1. perfect: a “contradiction,” an “inner impossibility,” in the very idea of universalizing the maxim
          2. imperfect: a contradiction not in the idea of universalizing the maxim, but in the will
    2. interlude: two possible objections
      1. first objection: the categorical imperative turns out to be too permissive (it doesn’t have the strict implications Kant thought it had)
        1. one example: false promise (What if it’s a really special situation?)
        2. first example: suicide (What’s so inconsistent about a system of nature including suicide at a certain point?)
      2. second objection: the categorical imperative turns out to be too strict: it seems to rule out, as immoral, practices of “making an exception of oneself” that seem perfectly harmless and morally innocuous
        1. one example: paying off credit cards on time (S.B.)
        2. another example: going to college to make more money than people who don’t
    3. progress report: done and not done (p. 425.1)
      1. done: shown that duty cannot be found in (merely) hypothetical imperatives, but only in categorical imperatives
      2. done: articulated the categorical imperative
      3. not done: shown it to be knowable a priori
    4. How can the categorical imperative be thus established (i.e., a priori)?
      1. p. 425.3–427.7: ignore everything empirical and specific to human nature
      2. p. 427.8–429.2: explore what is an objective end, not just a subjective end; this leads to another formulation of the categorical imperative
    5. the ‘end in itself’ formulation (p. 429.3)
      1. supposedly meaning the same as the previous ones
      2. the same examples of application
        1. p. 429.4: suicide
        2. p. 429.8: false promise
        3. p. 430.4: cultivation of talents
        4. p. 430.7: charity
    6. the ‘kingdom of ends’ formulation (p. 431.5)
      1. supposedly meaning the same as the previous ones
      2. p. 432.5: conspicuous exclusion of “interest” from the will
      3. p. 432.8: Kant’s great innovation—the agent himself or herself as author of the moral law
      4. p. 433.3: autonomy vs. heteronomy
      5. p. 433.4: kingdom of ends—each person as both member (subject) and sovereign
      6. p. 434.8: price vs. dignity
      7. p. 436.2: autonomy as the ground of dignity
  8. Hill, “Humanity as an End in Itself”
    1. p. 85.6: reversing the usual reading
      1. What is the usual reading?
      2. How does Hill reverse this?
    2. p. 86.3: “‘humanity’ as including only those powers necessarily associated with rationality and ‘the power to set ends.’ ”
      1. excluded
        1. “animal” nature
        2. physical abilities, many mental aptitudes as well
      2. included
        1. capacity and disposition to act on principles or maxims (or reasons)
        2. capacity and disposition to follow hypothetical imperatives
        3. power to set ends (adopt goals, work towards them, resist temptation, etc.)
        4. capacity and disposition to follow categorical imperatives
        5. ability to understand and reason
    3. treating humanity as an end
      1. p. 90.3: consider maxims from the point of view of those treated in accord with them
      2. p. 90.7: not “the more literal alternative readings”
    4. dignity (section III)
      1. 91.3: ends as things that have dignity
      2. 93.2: the priority of things with dignity
    5. practical implications (section IV)
      1. p. 94.6: drunkenness
      2. p. 95.3: suicide
      3. p. 96.7: allowing freedom of choice to others
    6. contrast with utilitarianism (p. 99.2)
  9. back to the Groundwork: section II, from p. 436.2 to the end
    1. the three formulations considered together (p. 436.3)
      1. p. 436.4: subjective differences
      2. p. 436.5: common elements
        1. form  (universality)
        2. matter (rational beings as ends)
        3. lawgiving
    2. autonomy vs. heteronomy
      1. p. 440.7: principle of autonomy (c.i.) synthetic, not analytic
      2. varieties of heteronomy
        1. empirical principles (happiness)
          1. p. 442.3: “special constitution of human nature”
          2. p. 442.7: “moral feeling”
        2. rational principles (perfection)
          1. p. 443.2: ontological concept
          2. p. 443.3: theological concept
        3. p. 443.9: why all these fail
    3. last paragraph
  10. acknowledgements
    1. S.B. = Simon Blackburn, Ruling Passions: A Theory of Practical Reasoning (Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 218