Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics · John Dewey
XXIX.
Criticism of Kantian Criterion of Conduct. 1. _With reference to the unification of the conduct of the individual._ Of pleasure as the object of desire, we need now say nothing further, but may proceed at once to the criticism of the theory that the will, acting according to the mere idea of law in general, is the end of man and hence that it is the criterion of the rightness or wrongness of his acts. We shall attempt to show that such an end is wholly empty, and that it fails (as much as hedonism) to unify conduct or to place any specific act as to its morality. The difficulty of the end proposed by Kant is that it is an abstraction; that it is remote. The hedonist leaves out one element from conduct, and takes into account the merely particular or individualistic side; the Kantian abstracts the opposite element--the merely universal. The formal universal, or universal stripped of all particular content, has, considered as an end of action, at least three defects.
I. It is an end which would make impossible that very conduct of which it is taken to be the end--that is, moral conduct. In denying that pleasure is the end of action, we took pains to show that it (or rather the feeling due to the tension between pleasure of a state considered better and the pain of the experienced worse state) is a necessary element in the force impelling to action. The mere conception of an end is purely intellectual; there is nothing in it to move to action. It must be _felt_ as valuable, as worth having, and as more valuable than the present condition before it can induce to action. It must _interest_, in a word, and thus excite desire. But if feeling is, as Kant declares, to be excluded from the motive to action, because it is pathological or related to pleasure as the object of desire, how can there be any force moving to action? The mind seems to be set over against a purely theoretical idea of an end, with nothing to connect the mind with the end. Unless the end interests, unless it arouses emotion, why should the agent ever aim at it? And if the law does excite feeling or desire, must not this, on Kant's theory, be desire for pleasure and thus vitiate the morality of the act? We seem to be in a dilemma, one side of which makes moral action impossible by taking away all inducing force, while the other makes it impossible by introducing an immoral factor into the motive.
Kant attempts to escape from this difficulty by claiming that there is one feeling which is rational, and not sensuous in quality, being excited not by the conception of pleasure or pain, but by that of the moral law itself. This is the feeling of reverence, and through this feeling we can be moved to moral action. Waiving the question whether the mere idea of law in general would be capable of arousing any moral sentiment--or, putting the matter from the other side, whether Kant gives us a true account of the feeling of reverence--it is clear that this admission is fatal to Kant's theory. If desire or feeling as such is sensuous (or _pathological_, as Kant terms it), what right have we to make this one exception? And if we can make this one exception, why not others? If it is possible in the case of reverence, why not in the case, say, of patriotism, or of friendship, or of philanthropy, or of love--or even of curiosity, or of indignation, or of desire for approbation? Kant's separation of reverence, as the one moral sentiment from all others as pathological, is wholly arbitrary. The only distinction we can draw is of the feelings as they well up naturally in reaction upon stimuli, sentiments not conceived and thus neither moral nor immoral, and sentiments as transformed by ends of action, in which case all without exception may be moral or immoral, according to the character of the end. The Kantian separation is not only arbitrary psychologically, but is false historically. So far is it from true that the only moral sentiment is reverence for law, that men must have been moved toward action for centuries by motives of love and hate and social regard, before they became capable of such an abstract feeling as reverence. And it may be questioned whether this feeling, as Kant treats it, is even the highest or ultimate form of moral sentiment--whether it is not transitional to love, in which there is complete union of the individual interest on one hand, and the objective end on the other.
For these criticisms at greater length, see Caird, Critical Philosophy of Kant, Vol. II, Bk. II, ch. IV. II. The Kantian end would not bring about any system in conduct--on the contrary, it would tend to differences and collisions. What is required to give unity to the sphere of conduct is, as we have seen, a principle which shall comprehend all the motives to action, giving each its due place in contributing to the whole--a universal which shall organize the various particular acts into a harmonious system. Now Kant's conception of the good does not lead to such result. We may even say that it makes it impossible. According to Kant each act must be considered independently of every other, and must be capable of generalization on its own account. Each motive of action must be capable of being _itself_ a universal law of nature. Each particular rule of action is thus made absolute, and we are left not with one universal which comprehends all particulars in their relations to one another, but literally with a lot of universals. These not only fail to have a unity, but each, as absolute, must contradict some other. If the principles always to tell the truth and always to preserve life are universal _in themselves_, and not universal simply _through their relation to some total and controlling principle of life_, it must be impossible to reconcile them when they come into conflict.
See Caird, Op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 187-190, and p. 215. _Cf._ "Treated as universal and without exception, even two such commands as _e. g._, 'Thou shalt not steal,' and 'Thou shalt not kill,' must ultimately come into conflict with each other; for, if all other interests are to be postponed to the maintenance of the rights of property, it is impossible that all other interests should also be postponed to the preservation of human life--and to make either property or life an absolute end is to raise a particular into a universal, to treat a part as if it were a whole. But the true moral vindication of each particular interest cannot be found in elevating it into something universal and absolute, but only in determining its place in relation to the others in a complete system of morality." III. The principle is so empty of all content that it does not enable us to judge of any specific act.
A caution should be noticed here, which is equally applicable to the criticism of hedonism: When it is said that the end does not enable us to judge of specific acts, the objection is not that the _theory_ (Kantianism or hedonism, as the case may be) does not give us rules for moral conduct. It is not the business of any theory, however correct as a theory, to lay down rules for conduct. The theory has simply to discover what the _end_ is, and it is the end in view which determines specific acts. It is no more the business of ethics to tell what in particular a man ought to do, than it is of trigonometry to survey land. But trigonometry must state the principles by which land _is_ surveyed, and so ethics must state the end by which conduct _is_ governed. The objection to hedonism and Kantianism is that the end they give does not _itself_ stand in any practical relation to conduct. We do not object to Kantianism because the _theory_ does not help us as to specific acts, but because the _end_, formal law, does not help us, while the real moral end must determine the whole of conduct.
Suppose a man thrown into the complex surroundings of life with an intelligence fully developed, but with no previous knowledge of right or wrong, or of the prevailing moral code. He is to know, however, that goodness is to be found in the good will, and that the good will is the will moved by the mere idea of the universality of law. Can we imagine such an one deriving from his knowledge any idea of what concrete ends he ought to pursue and what to avoid? He is surrounded by special circumstances calling for special acts, and all he knows is that _whatever_ he does is to be done from respect for its universal or legislative quality. What community is there between this principle and _what_ he is to do? There is no bridge from the mere thought of universal law to any concrete end coming under the law. There is no common principle out of which grows the conception of law on one hand, and of the various special ends of action, on the other.
Suppose, however, that ends are independently suggested or proposed, will the Kantian conception serve to _test_ their moral fitness? Will the conception that the end must be capable of being generalized tell us whether this or that end is one to be followed? The fact is, that there is no end whatever that _in or by itself_, cannot be considered as self-identical, or as universal. If we presuppose a certain rule, or if we presuppose a certain moral order, it may be true that a given motive cannot be universalized without coming into conflict with this presupposed rule or order. But aside from some moral system into connection with which a proposed end may be brought, for purposes of comparison, lying is just as capable as truth-telling of generalization. There is no more contradiction in the motive of universal stealing than there is in that of universal honesty--unless there is as standard some order or system of things into which the proposed action is to fit as a member. And this makes not the bare universality of the act, but the system, the real criterion for determining the morality of the act. Thus Mill remarks, regarding Kant's four illustrations (_Ante_, p. 80), that Kant really has to employ utilitarian considerations to decide whether the act is moral or not. For the foregoing criticisms, see Bradley, Ethical Studies, Essay IV; Caird, Op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 185-186, and 212-214, and, indeed, the whole of ch. II of Bk. II.
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