Kantian Moral Theory And The Destruction Of The Self

Sandra Jane Fairbanks

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367015152
• eBook ISBN: 9780429723964
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Mind & Body in Philosophy

This book explains Kantian morality against an interrelated set of criticisms that constitute the most influential contemporary critique of Kantian morality. It demonstrates that a theory which emphasizes the guidance of impartial moral principles does not threaten a person's feelings of attachment.

1
Introduction

In this book I defend Kantian morality against an interrelated set of criticisms that constitute the most influential contemporary critique of Kantian morality and even of modern ethical theory in general. Critics such as Bernard Williams, Susan Wolf, Michael Stocker, Lawrence Blum, John Hardwig, and Lynne McFall¹ charge that adherence to Kantian morality damages, if not destroys, one's personality and crushes one's hopes both of having satisfying personal relationships and of attaining happiness. This alleged character alienation and destruction is traced to three primary causes within Kantian moral theory: (1) the motive of duty, (2) the requirement of impartiality, and (3) the overridingness thesis.

Since these three causes are basic requirements of Kantian moral theory, the Kantian agent is allegedly subject to various assaults on her personality including the loss of integrity moral schizophrenia, and personality atrophy. Moreover, the agent is supposed to be rendered incapable of conducting healthy and mature personal relationships, and is deprived of all hope of attaining happiness. For Kantian morality these criticisms are especially troubling and ironic because the theory is hailed as the guardian of human dignity, personal autonomy, self-development, and self-respect. Consequently, we would expect Kantian morality to secure conditions that are favorable to an agent's integrity, personality development, capacity for good personal relationships, and opportunity for happiness. However, should the criticisms prevail, the formal requirements of Kantian morality would appear to sabotage or defeat these specific aims. Not only would the theory subject the agent to personality destruction, but it would also maintain a moral ideal that is ultimately self-defeating.

The following defense of Kantian morality has two parts. The first part addresses those formal requirements of Kantian morality that allegedly sabotage an agent's attempt to develop a caring and well-integrated personality. Given the critical attack against the motive of duty, impartiality, and the overridingness thesis, it is futile to defend Kantian morality by merely pointing out that Kant recognizes the value of self-respect, benevolence, and friendship. An effective and complete defense must exonerate all three requirements. To this end, I include the responses of prominent Kantians to these criticisms as well as provide new lines of defense that supplement those already offered in the literature.² This comprehensive approach results in plausible interpretations of the three requirements of Kantian morality that are immune to critics' objections.³

The second part of the defense draws attention to Kant's commitment to the self-regarding side of morality, and to its relevance to the contemporary debate concerning integrity, personal relationships, and happiness. It describes the nature of Kant's duties to oneself and their priority over duties to others. These duties include, among others, the duty to develop natural talents, the duty of self-knowledge, the duty to avoid self-deception, the duty to avoid servility, and the duty of conscience. I then provide a detailed account of how these various duties not only prevent the destruction of the self but actually promote and enhance an agent's integrity, personality development, positive personal relationships, and opportunity for happiness.

Although the arguments developed here are designed to rebut a well-defined set of criticisms against Kantian morality, their application is broader in scope. I cannot begin to address these broader applications given the purpose of this book, but I can point to them. The criticisms urged by Williams, Stocker, Wolf, Blum et al. are directed to any and all moral theories that endorse any of the three formal requirements. Any moral theory that encourages a motive of duty, prescribes impartial moral principles, or places greater deliberative weight on moral considerations than on nonmoral considerations is open to these criticisms. This would include various forms of utilitarianism, deontological intuitionism, and natural law theories.

The current trend in social and political theory is to champion the personal as opposed to the impersonal, the particular as opposed to the general, the partial as opposed to the impartial, and feelings of personal attachment as opposed to a sense of duty guided by rational principles. This trend, which coheres with the set of criticisms addressed here, is evidenced in different departments of modern value theory. For example, feminist political and moral theorists emphasize these themes in their attack on traditional male theories. According to some feminists, traditional value theories, including Kantianism, exalt reason and devalue emotion by focusing on universal and impartial principles.⁴ They argue that although traditional theories provide some guidance for structuring public institutions and for regulating impersonal adult relationships, they are inappropriate for personal relationships, including those between unequal parties, for example, children and adults. The point is that universal principles are unresponsive to the particularities of concrete situations. Some feminists conclude that this approach valorizes justice over care and that it is inadequate because its one-sided approach does not recognize the experiences of women.

Similarly, communitarian political philosophers argue that the liberal self, including the Kantian self, is impersonal, disembodied, abstract, ahistorical, isolated from others, autonomous, and interested only in protecting individual rights.⁵ These philosophers argue that liberal political theories, which rest on this conception of the self, ignore the fact that the self is a relational being, historically embedded in a particular community. Therefore, liberal political theories, with their emphasis on individualism and autonomy, ignore the common good.

The arguments developed in this book are relevant to those engaged in either of these debates. My defense demonstrates that a theory which emphasizes the motive of duty and the guidance of impartial moral principles does not threaten a person's feelings of attachment, nor does it destroy personal relationships and a sense of connectedness to others. Although it is true that Kantians are guided by impartial principles, this does not entail that Kantian morality is impersonal or out of touch with the concrete, relational, and historical context of a person's life. In other words, a commitment to impartiality does not necessarily presuppose an abstract, isolated, ahistorical, or disembodied self. Consequently, there is no need to polarize value theory by relegating impartial theories to the realm of justice and impersonal relationships and by relegating partial theories to the realm of care and personal relationships. It is misleading to suppose that impartial theories are essentially, if not exclusively, impersonal. A chapter-by-chapter synopsis of this volume follows.

Chapter 2: The Destruction of the Self

This chapter outlines in detail the criticism that Kantian morality leads to the destruction of the self. Separate sections cover each of the three requirements—the motive of duty, the requirement of impartiality, and the overridingness thesis—which explain the nature of these doctrines and the personality destruction they allegedly cause. As noted above, critics describe four distinct types of harm suffered by those who attempt to follow Kantian morality: the loss of personal integrity, an atrophied personality, an inability to function appropriately in personal relationships, and a significant loss of happiness. Therefore, an important goal of Chapter 2 is to show how the three requirements of Kantian morality are supposed to contribute to the four types of personality destruction.

Chapter 2 begins with an examination of Williams's critique of Kantian morality because his critique defines the themes of the contemporary attack and inspires the views of other critics, especially Wolf, Stocker, McFall, and Blum. The objections that Williams raises against the motive of duty, the requirement of impartiality, and the overridingness thesis are elaborated and expanded by these other critics. Although this chapter is organized around the general arguments against Kantian morality, the particular arguments of each critic are spelled out in detail. All of these philosophers blame these three requirements of the theory for the destruction of the self, but they emphasize different aspects of this destruction. For example, Williams and Stocker are primarily concerned with the agent's loss of integrity and sense of moral alienation; Wolf emphasizes personality atrophy; Blum analyzes the damage done to personal relationships, particularly to friendship; and Wolf and Stocker offer the most explicit demonstration of how these assaults on the agent greatly diminish her chances of happiness. Together their views provide a powerful indictment against Kantian moral theory.

Chapter 3: The Motive of Duty

This chapter contrasts the Kantian portrait of the morally good person with the critics' portrait. The essential difference between the two is the motive of duty. A Kantian agent has an awareness of moral requirements and of what makes certain actions right. This awareness not only guides her actions but also accounts for the moral worth of her actions. In contrast, critics argue that the motive of duty is deficient because it displaces more admirable motives such as love, compassion, and sympathy. It is more desirable for a person to perform actions directly from these motives without the additional thought of whether or not the action is commanded by duty. Indeed, Williams criticizes the motive of duty as providing "one thought too many"; that is, the thought of moral requirements comes before an agent's mind and displaces emotion-based motives such as sympathy and love. This allegedly creates an agent who is coldhearted, sanctimonious, and alienated from others. Therefore, critics claim, there is something deficient about the motive of duty as well as the Kantian portrait of a morally good person.

The Kantian response to such criticisms is that critics mistakenly presume that the motive of duty functions exclusively as a primary motive.⁶ Kantians propose a broader conception of the motive of duty describing the three separate roles that duty may play. Although Kant did not explicitly distinguish between these roles, his remarks imply that he did have a broader conception of duty. Although the motive of duty may function as a primary motive, it may also function as a second-order motive or as a limiting condition. When the motive of duty functions in either of these capacities, it requires that other motives be present, including emotion-based motives such as compassion, sympathy, love, and care. Since duty does not drive away these admirable motives, a Kantian agent may be compassionate, sympathetic, and capable of conducting healthy personal relationships.

To defend a broader conception of the motive of duty is not to concede that duty as a primary motive leads to various character deficiencies. I argue that there is nothing objectionable per se about displacing an emotion-based motive in favor of duty. In fact, in many cases we have reason to be pleased that an agent did not act from natural sentiments. Moreover, whatever moral deficiencies an agent may have—a sanctimonious attitude, a lack of natural affection, or insensitivity to the feelings of others—they are not caused by the motive of duty. If anything, these deficiencies are caused by an agent's failure to grasp what it is that duty requires.

After showing how duty in its various roles escapes criticism, I argue that any adequate moral theory must give some role to the motive of duty. Indeed, all moral theories imply some need for a sense of duty on the part of moral agents, except for those theories that idealize the moral agent who acts without any thought or awareness of moral requirements. Such theories are inadequate because they subject a moral agent to a form of schizophrenia quite different from the form of schizophrenia described by Stacker.

Chapter 4: The Requirement of Impartiality

Chapter 4 deals with the various criticisms of impartiality. It sets out three criticisms of impartiality arid then offers responses to each. One prominent theme of the criticisms is that impartiality requires us to treat everyone fairly, even though we may want to treat some persons preferentially because we have special relationships with them. This criticism is often expressed by the complaint that "no one is special" in the Kantian universe. Impartiality allegedly demands equal concern for all, for a number of reasons. First, impartiality is characterized as the point of view of a detached observer or a disinterested judge. This characterization conjures up an image of complete indifference on the part of the Kantian agent toward personal attachments to friends and loved ones. Second, Kantians hold that each person is of equal moral status in virtue of our shared humanity and, therefore, is entitled to be treated with respect and dignity. Consequently, no one should receive special treatment. Third, impartiality requires moral principles to be general and universal. This precludes any sort of preferential treatment.

The Kantian response to the above criticism is that impartiality is a formal requirement imposed at the level of debate about which moral principle should govern our conduct, rather than a substantive requirement that we live our daily lives as detached or disinterested judges.⁷ With this distinction between formal and substantive impartiality in place, Kantians may argue that impartiality at the formal level is compatible with partiality—special treatment for loved ones or friends—at the substantive level of daily life decisions. For example, principles that require care for parents or children encourage the special or preferential treatment of loved ones, even though they are impartially derived principles. Consequently, Kantian impartiality does not demand that all persons should be treated alike, that is, as inter-substitutable beings stripped of all distinguishing features.

The argument is taken one step further by debunking some myths about the nature of impartiality at the formal level of debate. I show that even at this level of debate the image of impartial legislators as detached observers, under a "veil of ignorance," handing down authoritative decrees without communicating with others, is at best a misleading picture of Kantian impartiality. Although Kant depicts impartiality as a legislative process, this does not necessarily entail that debate about moral principles takes place in an antiseptic environment among characterless and disengaged spectators.

Another criticism of impartiality is that the application of impartial moral principles requires subsuming particular persons and circumstances under general categories. This process, according to critics, is impersonal and depersonalizing, both to oneself and others, because it ignores and devalues what is unique and special about the person. Consequently, impartial principles should apply exclusively to impersonal relationships, whereas personal relationships should be governed by personal principles.

In response to this criticism, I argue that the "personal" principles suggested by critics, such as "treat friends and loved ones personally" or "persons who are my close friends may invade my privacy or disrespect my property rights," also require subsuming particular individuals under general categories. Consequently, it looks as though one cannot escape the process of subsuming particular individuals and circumstances under general categories. So, even if it is granted that there is something impersonal about subsuming individuals under general categories, it does not follow that this process is thereby destructive of personal relationships. Presumably, personal principles do not depersonalize others, even though they also subsume individuals under general categories. This leads one to suspect that it is not the application of principles that causes depersonalized relationships. Instead, it is the violation of moral principles that depersonalizes and devalues persons in the context of personal relationships. Therefore, not only are impartial moral principles not destructive in this way, but they are in fact indispensable to good personal relationships.

Chapter 5: Duties to Oneself

Chapter 5 is essentially an examination and explication of duties to oneself as characterized in Kant's Doctrine of Virtue and Lectures on Ethics. According to Kant, there are two ends that are also duties: self-perfection ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Destruction of the Self
• 3 The Motive of Duty
• 4 The Requirement of Impartiality
• 5 Duties to Oneself
• 6 The Overridingness Thesis
• 7 The Promotion of Integrity and Self-Realization
• Bibliography
• Index