Social Ethics continued Immanuel Kant John Rawls

Immanuel Kant Expanding on Individual Morality, “Duties To One’s Self,” Kant explores our duties to others For Kant, our own happiness and “good,” brought about by Self-Duty, must be qualified by an Other-Duty to remain pure

Duty Grounded In Reason Kant’s Other-Duty is Noconsequentialist, that is, it has nothing to do with results, only with the actions themselves Moral Law is universal and binding: it applies to all things Humans, as rational beings, are capable of acting in accordance with this law, and so we must: this is our Other-Duty

The Categorical Imperative 1 “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” Moral laws should operate as rules that cannot be contradicted and that apply to everyone

Categorical Imperative 1, cont. For example, “Never help others, but always be helped by them” doesn’t work, because of its logical inconsistency A moral rule, or “maxim,” has to be logical in order to be acceptable as a guiding principle: Reason is the Rule

Categorical Imperative 2 “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end.” We can never exploit others for our own ends: there must be a respect for the humanity of the all

Formalistic Criteria Universality: it applies in all events Rationality: it must be reasonable Consistency: it must be consistent in all cases Reversibility: it must be reversible in all cases Prescriptivity: it must prescribe or condemn Impartiality: it must apply to all people, and Unconditionality: we can’t avoid morality just because we want to - it is binding

John Rawls ( ) American philosopher born in Baltimore, Maryland Studied at Cornell University, and earned his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1950 Rejected Utilitarianism for a system of his own creation: A Theory of Justice

Social Contract Theory Rawls based his ideas on the Social Contract notions of Locke, Rousseau, and Kant The idea is that we all live and function together based on unspoken agreements which make this possible

The Identity of Interests In society, social cooperation allows for a better life for all than would be possible for any single person surviving through their own efforts These are all defined and adopted according to an agreement about the meaning of “justice”

The Original Position Rawls’ basic concept states that, in a hypothetical Original Position of humanity, we exist behind a Veil of Ignorance which keeps us from knowing who we will be and what will become of us when we exit the Original Position and enter the world

The Original Position, cont. Rawls explores this idea in order to determine which principles of justice and equality we would all agree to from within the Original Position: not knowing where we’ll land, what can we all agree to about how we should organize society?

Equal Liberty & Difference Two principles derive from the OP: Equal Liberty: one should have as much freedom as is possible which doesn’t impinge on another’s freedom; and Difference: difference leads to some necessary inequalities, which are acceptable only in that they serve society as a whole

The Maximin Solution Rawls thus arrives at his Maximin Solution: that choice among choices with the best possible “worst outcome” is the correct choice in a situation We should maximize results for those who are minimally advantaged