Lies and False Propaganda:Selfless Motives and Kant

Immanuel Kant based his ethical inquiry on the notion that in order for moral considerations to be a priori or “pure”, they must be undertaken for the sake of duty alone. (p.10; 398.6-7) This means that the motives of the moral agent must be without any outside inclination other than because it is that person’s duty as a rational moral agent to perform a certain action. An action is not judged because of the purpose it was meant to achieve, but rather because the maxim, or moral principle serves as the motivation. Hence, Kant’s Categorical Imperative (CI) commands that an action is necessary in and o

So if there are no selfless motives, why bother doing the morally permissible action in the first place? Apparently, doing an action from duty alone is not realistic; in order to do an action from duty, one would have to want to do the dutiful action. Once again the problem of inclination comes into play. Kant and even other philosophers view this as a problem with morality; however in order to be moral, one should want to do the right thing, otherwise humans are reduced to robots simply following a computer program. This ultimately denies human nature as not only involving rationality, but also emotion. Rationality involves being able to make the connection between instinct, emotion, and intellect. If we can imagine an immoral that knows what is moral and not, yet continuously chooses the morally impermissible actions, or amoral agent that has no inclination at all to do morally right actions, then there must be a connection between inclination and morality.

The second formula of the categorical imperative says to treat all humanity, whether it is one’s own self or any other human being, always as an end-in-itself and never as a means only (p.36; 429). If advancing one’s own ends could possibly prevent the ends of another person or if that other was manipulated or coerced in any way to doing or not doing an action, then the action fails the second formula. This principle is the underlying reason to adhere to the maxim about lying. Lying is a way of manipulating the information that one allows others to know, which is essentially for selfish reasons. Therefore the liar is advancing his or her own ends while failing to treat the person being lied to as an end-in-itself.

However, the example of the father and the gunman brings to light a self-contradiction on Kant’s part. While Kant is concerned with doing acts out of duty to the moral maxim, he fails to fully understand human beings duty to other human beings. Kant does state in the second formula to treat all humanity, whether in one’s own person or in other human beings, always as an end and never as a means only. However, when one is supposed to perform a duty for the sake of the duty and for no other reason, it fails to consider that humans have duties and responsibilities outside of the moral maxim.

The problem with allowing exceptions to moral maxims is that it violates Kant’s ideas about duties. In order for moral actions to be pure, they must be made free from circumstantial consideration. A moral act

Some topics in this essay:
Imperative CI, Kant’s Kant, Kent Argument, Surely Kant, Immanuel Kant, , moral maxim, morally permissible, categorical imperative, moral agent, gunman father, treat humanity, protect children, moral act, one’s own, action duty, Clark Kent, maxim lie false, morally permissible action, lie false promises, free circumstantial consideration, formula categorical imperative,