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Kantian Ethics: The Categorical Imperative
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This lecture notes discusses Immanuel Kant's Ethics, famously known as the Categorical Imperative or the Ethics of Duty.
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Kantian Ethics: The Categorical ImperativeThe Human Person as the Foundation of Kantian Ethics
It is important to note at the outset that we cannot fully make sense of Kantian ethics
without first understanding Kant's concept of the human person. This is because the
concept of the human person is the foundation of Kantian ethics. In fact, for Kant, the
human person as a rational moral agent is the sole basis in determining the truth of the
categorical imperative. Indeed, behind the formal ethical façade of Kant’s categorical
imperative is the attempt of the human person to achieve moral perfection. Hence, we
can surmise that the ultimate goal of Kant’s moral teachings is for the human person to
become morally perfect. It is for this reason that we need to discuss first the
anthropological basis of Kant’s categorical imperative before we delve into its
specificity. And so, how does Kant view the human person?
According to Kant, the human person has a two-fold nature, namely:
1) homo noumenon and
2) homo phenomenon (Tucker, 1972).
On the one hand, the term noumenon, which is derived from Kant’s epistemology,
refers to the essence of things. For Kant, the nounmenon is the thing-in-itself (das Ding
an sich) (Copleston, 1963). According to Kant, the noumenon cannot be known because,
as the essence of things, it is beyond experience. For example, as Kant would have us
believe, we cannot know the “tableness” of the table, or that which makes a table really
“a table”.
On the other hand, the term phenomenon, according to Kant, refers to the thing as it
appears to the observer (Copleston, 1963). In other words, the phenomenon is the
empirical part of a thing. It is indeed that part of a thing that can be experienced by
humans. The hardness, texture, color, and shape of a table are all that we can know
about the table. For Kant, they are the phenomenal aspect of the table. Thus, for Kant,
everything that exists has two natures, namely: 1) the non-empirical part (noumenon or
essence) and 2) the empirical part (phenomenon).
Applied to humans, homo noumenon is the godlike self of the human person, while
homo phenomenon is the merely human self (Tucker 1972, p. 24). Now, Kant believes
that the human person as a noumenon is the idealized person who is destined to be
, perfect since she has in herself the godlike nature as belonging to the world of
understanding.
Logically then, we can infer that the noumenal self for Kant is the human person’s real
self. It is indeed the true self. Since we have this godlike self, Kant believes that it is our
duty to attain perfection by actualizing this godlike noumenal self. And according to
Kant, we can attain perfection or we can actualize our godlike self by developing
ourselves into moral persons, which can be done by obeying the command of the
categorical imperative. But how does the human person actualize herself if she cannot
know her noumenal self? The phenomenal self can provide us the key.
Since the human person cannot know her noumenal self, then she must take into
account the fact that part of her self belongs to the phenomenal world, that she has a
phenomenal self. In this way, she can have an idea of her phenomenal self. This is
possible because the phenomenal self, according to Kant, is the empirical
representation of the noumenal self. The phenomenal self, therefore, serves as the
springboard for the actualization of the noumenal self.
Because the phenomenal self always appeals to “desires”, which, according to Kant, is
the source of errors, the phenomenal self must be guided by a moral principle based on
reason. Thus, the human person as a rational being must consider herself as belonging
to the intelligible world if she hopes to attain perfection. This is where the categorical
imperative comes in. As Tucker (1972, p. 35) argues, the noumenal self tries to actualize
its godlike nature as the real self by obeying the dictate of reason through the
categorical imperative.
Kant’s Notion of Morality
The foregoing discussion implies that the phenomenal self has to grapple with desires
and take heed of reason to actualize her godlike nature. However, more often than not,
the phenomenal self violates the dictate of reason and succumb to her desires or
inclinations. Thus, the desire of the noumenal self to attain moral perfection is impeded.
To shed light on this matter, let us consider as an example the act of cheating in school.
Unfortunately, cheating in academic institutions has become very rampant. In fact, a
recent study indicates that nine out of ten college students commit at least one act of
dishonesty (in the form of cheating) in a given academic year (Quintos, 2017). And, as
we may already know, cheating, for whatever purpose, is unreasonable and morally
unacceptable. But because of the desire to pass an entrance examination and be
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