Our meeting is two days away, so I wanted to post the basics of Kant and Mill on Ethics. It is a good set of dueling concepts that immediately presents us with the problem of institutions and our reliance on them for our understandings.
Kant believed that Ethics is and should be about principles. The famous example is the "guy with the knife" thought experiment. Let us say that, like Kant, we believe that lying is ALWAYS wrong. Thus, our Ethical principle would be: Never Lie. Let us then say that your doorbell rings, you open the door and your friend runs past you and down into your basement without a word...and then minutes later an angry guy with a knife rings your doorbell and asks if you have seen your friend lately. Kant would argue that one should never lie in any circumstance or Ethics becomes meaningless and relative. According to this view, one should not tell the guy with the knife a lie to misdirect him. You are not obligated to say anything at all (maybe you could just act really scared and shut the door) but you SHOULD NOT say "he went down the street that way" to buy your friend time. Needless to say most people find this view extreme but Kant would argue that Ethics is about principles and standing by them or Ethics becomes meaningless and does not stand in particular for anything at all. Let us call this the rule-based view of Ethics.
Mill believed that Ethics is about maximizing happiness and minimizing pain. He believed that all principles are devices merely to serve this purpose, and so one should follow the principles that work best in a given situation. Thus, for Mill, there are possible circumstances in which one should lie because it results in the best outcome. Many people find this view insufficient for Ethics because one would have no Ethical system at all, though Mill would argue that any Ethical system is for the purpose of making people happy and doing good in the real world. Let us call this the use-based principle of Ethics.
Notice that Kant believes in anchoring Ethics in good beginnings, and Mill believes in anchoring Ethics in good ends. Kant believes that one must have correct beginning (principles and good intentions) to be Ethical, regardless of the outcomes. Mill believes that one must have good ends (results and consequences) to be Ethical, regardless of the causes.
Now notice this: many powerful institutions exist in our lives that prescribe rules and describe outcomes. While we should all be people who are reasoning and taking responsibility for our own ideas, we live in a large and complex world and so we take our rules from experts in institutions (science, religion, politics) and we get our descriptions of the outcomes from experts in institutions (media, politics etc). I have seen both sides argue, "but if you are right, then we are at the mercy of institutions". Rule-based Ethics, siding with Kant, worries that institutions will simply tell us what made people happy to suit their own purposes. Use-based Ethics, siding with Mill, worries that institutions will set up rules that suit their own purposes.
So, what do the people think? Which side do you find yourself on, and how does your position reflect your position to particular institutions in your life?
(fight! fight! fight!)
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I'll save the fighting for Friday - I'll be bringing my boxing gloves - but one thing I noticed in this is the ideas of "prescribing" and "describing" as connected to the theories of Kant and Mill, respectively. My feeling is this: that both Kant and Mill (and whatever other ethicists exist out there, not that they matter according to 98% of philosophy programs for which Kant = Ethics, and Mill and perhaps Aristotle or Machiavelli is an interesting tidbit to go along with him) are interested in both the prescription AND the description, but feel as though only one can be articulated such that it will hold true when needed.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what kind of ethical system we could conjure up that would both prescribe rules and determine ideal outcomes. Since these do not seem to exist, are they therefore impossible? I mean you'd think all these brilliant dead white dudes would have figured it out if it were possible. Or were said brilliant dead white dudes so focused on specifying their particular brand of idea such that other, perhaps seemingly opposing but actually corrollary ideas, fell by the wayside, deemed impossible to integrate?
Also, as I wonder if Friday's club will basically be a huge Mill festival (based on the logic class, at least), and if it is so, a word in Kant's defense: the second formulation of his categorical imperative, despite being (oddly enough) his categorical imperative, that same seemingly ridiculous maxim which would have us handing our friends over to scary men with knives willy-nilly, is very often the idea that pops into my mind when I am faced with ethical choices myself. (The second formulation essentially says, Treat people as ends and never just as means to an end.) This resonates so deeply with me that I begin to wonder if all the Kant I've been forcefed has actually meant something... Not that there's anything wrong with learning Kant; he's actually quite fun. He's just not the only one out there.
Nice post Rachel! I am also (in accord with my bias) hoping that we do not just turn the club meeting into a Mill fest. You are right that Kant is often taught centrally in Ethics and Mill and others get put on the back burner, and that many of us would likely side with Mill. You are also right that Kant is cool in saying that people are ends, not means. This is a big point for Kant against Mill. We should totally make this a focal issue for our discussion because it makes Kant's position quite arguable in a way that the "guy with the knife" does not. It is quite a beautiful idea (I find much of this very beauty in Confucius) that we should treat others as a full stop end the way we do with ourselves (especially when we are selfish and only thinking in the short term). This is a sort of balance of self and other that Mill believed in but Mill's theory could still be used (HA HA!)to justify thinking of people as means AND ends (and this opens worlds of genocidal crap).
ReplyDeleteOne of the most interesting things for me as far as Kant is concerned is the idea that the 3 forms of the categorical imperative are all actually saying the same thing. (This is confusing enough that I totally understand how people can be lifelong Kant scholars and still never reach the end of it. I had a class where we had to describe how this was so for some given situation. I tried to do it in my head again the other day and totally could not.) I always prefer the second formulation because it is so elegant and much more spiritual I think - as you mentioned with the Confucius connection - and this is appealing for the reason that it could be a bridge of sorts between secular ethics and religious ethics. Or, shall I say, institutions :)
ReplyDeleteWhat if good beginnings were necessary for good ends empirically?
ReplyDelete