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Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary
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Reasoning to Obligation
Barbara Herman
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Inquiry,
Vol. 49, No. 1, 4461, February 2006
Reasoning to Obligation
BARBARA HERMAN
University of California, Los Angeles, USA
ABSTRACT If, as Kant says, the will is practical reason, we should think of willing
as a mode of reasoning, and its activity represented in movement from evaluative
premises to intention by way of a validity-securing principle of inference. Such a view of
willing takes motive and rational choice out of empirical psychology, thereby
eliminating grounds for many familiar objections to Kants account of morally good
action. The categorical imperative provides the fundamental principle of valid practical
inference; however, for good willing, we also require correct premises. These come from
specifications of the two obligatory ends our own perfection and the happiness of
others. Interpreting good willing as good reasoning not only fits well with Kants
metaphysics of free action, it also offers a sound method for reasoning to and about
individual as well as role-dependent moral obligations.
Reasoning to Obligation
45
concern in its own right. The problem arises from a fact that Hegels own
ethics starts from, and that he believes Kant did not fully appreciate: that
most of our obligations are set by social roles of various sorts doctor,
parent, soldier, clerk. Ordinary moral life would not make sense otherwise.
The problem is that the institutions that set the social terms of our actions
may not be morally benign, even if they fill a morally necessary social
function (that is, they fill it badly). So the question naturally arises about the
limits of these socially-determined obligations. It may not be clear that we
can think about any of this from within Kants ethics. Kant doesnt
talk much about such issues; the discussion in the essay What is
Enlightenment? should make us hesitant to judge Kant unaware of them,
but its uneasy solution, balancing freedom of thought and obedience, is
not broadly illuminating. My conjecture is that features of the simplified
view amplify the resources Kantian theory has to make room for the
embeddedness of ordinary moral life in social roles and practices, while at
the same time preserving the kind of autonomous authority and individual
responsibility that is, if anything is, a touchstone of Kants moral theory.
I.
Suppose the identification of the will with practical reason amounts to (at
least in part) the claim that in the realm of action and choice (including the
setting of ends) we are to come to action by reasoning appropriately. When
our action follows from correct reasoning we act well. A good wills good
willing is then in its correct reasoning about action; this is what it means to
say that its goodness is in its principle. The terminus of practical reasoning
or willing is an intention to act or refrain from acting; the intention is
normally completed in action (unless it is impeded, or there is conflict or
weakness of will).
If good willing is a mode of good reasoning, then to understand good
willing we need to attend to what makes for good reasoning a matter of
getting it right about premises and about appropriate principles of inference:
warranted transitions from thought to thought, thought to belief, thought to
intention or choice (or between the propositions or sentences that represent
them). Anything that counts as reasoning will involve that. In the moral
case, it need not be easy to grasp what the appropriate premises and
principles are, only that it is premises and principles of inference that we
seek. Later on I will make a case that the two obligatory ends identified in
the Metaphysics of Morals determine correct premises. It is not much of a
reach to see the principles of the practical imperatives (however many there
are) as the candidate principles of inference. I think it is obvious that Kant
views the principle that underlies the categorical imperative (the principle of
the formula of universal law) as the ultimate standard or most basic
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principle of practical inference: the principle that sets final terms of validity
for the movement of thought from practical premises to intention to act.
Heres what reasoning to obligation looks like.1 Someone has given me
something of value to hold for her (a deposit), but she dies before its date of
return. No one else knows I have it. Correct practical reasoning takes me
from some complex evaluative premise about possession to some conclusion
about what is to be done by way of a principle or rule of inference that in its
most abstract form says: act only on that maxim that can at the same time
be willed a universal law. When, by contrast, my proposed principle is to
increase my property by every safe means when that is my maxim then
my reasoning by way of my maxim from the premise of possession to
keeping the deposit involves a contradiction in just the sense that it would if
I reasoned in some way to not q, when I knew that both p, and if p then q,
were the case.
A couple of cautionary points. I am assuming that for Kant there is no
barrier to talking about principles of inference in this broader way: that is,
that we are not restricted to the patterns of reasoning warranted by logical
connectives, modes ponens and the like, to what can count as a legitimate
principle of inference. Part of Kants purpose in insisting on the possibility
of synthetic a priori judgment is to extend the domain of necessary
connection between cognitions. So, for example, the category of causality
warrants our regarding some temporal sequences as involving cause and
effect; we can of course be wrong about which sequences are properly
represented as warranting the causal inference this so then that, but we
could not even be wrong unless we were warranted in forming causal
hypotheses. Downstream, we will encounter specific laws laws of gasses,
the laws of thermodynamics, etc. which are, ideally, empirically articulated
instances of the general a priori principle. It all gets very complicated as we
move into science, but the basic point the point that Hume denies and
Kant asserts is that causal reasoning, reasoning that maps the idea of
necessary connection between events, is possible. Moral reasoning involves a
parallel story.
Second, for purposes of laying things out, I will just accept Kants basic
claim about the generation of action: that a human rational agent has the
dual capacity to be moved by either inclinations or rational considerations.
That is, we have the ability to take our inclinations as giving us reasons to
act, and then, with a bit of means-end deliberation, form an appropriate
intention. Or, we can start the chain of reasoning elsewhere in rational
premises and decide on the appropriateness of an intended action by
attending, as Kant would say, to our maxims form, not merely its matter.
(We can also start in inclination and constrain our action by a rational
standard. This is the space where permissible action resides.)
With just this much, for now ignoring what the correct moral premises are
(but assuming there are some), and not worrying about the specific form of
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Refinements
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least to say that it is in some way inconsistent with the a priori principle of
rational willing. So if one erroneously supposed that ones maxim was
consistent with the a priori principle that it was (in conformity with) a
valid principle of rational willing methods of good reasoning ought to be
able to show a contradiction. Unhappily, we cannot follow this direction,
not having an adequate cognition of the a priori principle or of how to apply
it (this is in the argument Of the Typic of Pure Practical Reason, (KpV
6770)). But we are not without resources.
The task is assigned to the two tests of the formula of the law of nature.
By showing that a given maxim lacks the form of a possible law of (human
rational) nature, they show a fortiori that it is inconsistent with the a priori
principle of rational willing. We can think of the tests as the moral analogue
of truth trees, a heuristic for a priori rational inference. If the heuristic is
valid, in using it one is reasoning as one should. So while we cannot tell
which principles are the principles that all rational wills could rationally will,
we can show that some principles could not be rationally willed (e.g., a
maxim whose instrumental success noncontingently depends on its not being
willed by all). More precisely, the tests are a device of representation, a
projection of the bare idea of universal form in reasoning into a modality we
can employ. In speaking of a projection, I have in mind literal projections,
like maps. We cannot get around the city carrying a three-dimensional
model of the city, but we can with an abstract two-dimensional map. Using
the map we judge accurately about how to get from here to there, though
not about what well see when we get there. I take the idea of using a law of
nature as a heuristic to be just such a projection. Thinking about what
cannot be or be willed a law of (rational) nature allows us to say if a
principle of volition could not be derived from an a priori law of reason.
If the formula of the law of nature is a heuristic in this sense, we should
expect it to contain elements that are not present in the thing it represents, and
to lack elements that the thing represented has. So it will be no objection at all if
the argument-forms inside the projection use, for example, prudential or
instrumental practical considerations within the conditions of the device of
representation. It is what we should expect. In trying to work out what follows
from the bare idea of a universal law of reason, the materials we have to work
with are laws of nature, including our psychology, and empirical modes of
practical reasoning. The two tests allow us to manipulate material that we know
how to think about to produce conclusions that apply in a domain we cannot
think about directly.12 Whether the law of nature tests are an accurate device of
representation is another matter. My purpose here is only to explain the kind
of thing they are intended to be such that they could aid us in moral judgment.
It is important to emphasize that even though the formula of the law of
nature is a projection of the a priori principle of rational willing, because of
the limits of what it can show, conformity to its standard is only a necessary
condition of good willing. Maxims it allows can fail to have a moral premise
Reasoning to Obligation
55
(this is to say: permissibility is not sufficient for good willing). We will return
to this.
Having connected ideas of evaluation with an a priori principle and a
method of judgment, we can put another set of chronic questions to rest.
When we think of practical cognition as choice under some evaluative
concept, given the possibility of knowingly contra-moral choice, it seems
hard to show that the way we cognize or choose our actual standard of
choice is, contrary to appearances, not up to us. It can look as though we
need an additional principle or an act of endorsement to secure the adoption
of the moral law as authoritative for me, for each individual. But there
cannot be such an act of principled choosing (there are no terms of choice
for it), nor is any sort of bare endorsement intelligible.13 But if it is the
principle of practical reason that makes evaluative or practical cognition
and so choice possible, it is not a standard we can do without (or replace
with one of our own). Fundamental powers are normative for their exercise.
Natural powers determine their effects by necessity, but the rational power
provides motive grounds that must be interpreted by the agent to play
their role in choice. This creates room for error, and for the appearance of
free, contra-moral rational choice. But we should not conclude that our
permissive psychology can contest the authority of ability-constitutive
rational standards, nor humpty-dumpty like, embrace falsehood for truth.14
There is also no gap in the application of rational principles, though there
can seem to be one, given different and possibly conflicting objects of
choice: the best means may not be permissible; a moral requirement may be
costly in terms of ones happiness. This separation is, in the ordinary sense
of the term, practical, or world-driven: circumstances prompting us to
separate out objects of choice under the appearance of different evaluative
concepts. Further, because the same fundamental evaluative concept brings
order not just to our own desires but to the conditions of desire-satisfaction
of others the good is not my good any more than cause refers to the order
of things the way it seems to me there will be occasions when not everything
one might permissibly want is normatively-speaking available. This doesnt
show that there is any gap in morality or between morality and the pursuit
of happiness. That I turn out to want what you happen to have is a
consequence of limited material resources or our limits as agents (unless I
want what you have because you have it; then the issue is a moral one). It is
because our access to the concept is through reflection on the conditions of
different elements or moments of our practical experience, the side of the
good present to judgment and choice is circumstance-sensitive, so both
partial (or perspectival) and not unified into a whole. Nonetheless, like
reason itself, the good is one. This sets the agent the difficult practical task
of bringing what she initially encounters as competing elements of value
under a single practical concept.
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Premises
As I have assembled and discussed the elements of the basic story, I have left
to the side the matter of the premises from which we correctly reason. We
already have some parts of an account of them. The premises must be a
priori necessary and constituents or aspects of the concept of good, the
object of pure practical reason. The concept of the object of pure practical
reason is the concept of an end a necessary end of reason in its practical
mode. In the Metaphysics of Morals deduction of the basic principle of the
doctrine of virtue (the account of ends that are also duties), Kant says,
What, in the relation of a human being to himself and others, can be an end
[for pure practical reason] is an end for pure practical reason (MS 395).
This directs us to two obligatory ends, of our own perfection and the
happiness of others. These are to be the premises, or the general form of the
premises, of practical reasoning. Towards ourselves we have the task of
developing and maintaining our rational agency; towards others we are to
attend to the agency-related effects of our actions on their pursuit of
happiness. (At the extreme, making someones life too hard or too easy can
affect their ability to sustain or value rational activity.) How we should act,
given these ends, will be determined, or derived, by means of the rules of
inference of the categorical imperative.15
Obligatory ends thus set the fundamental norms of correct regard for self
and other: that is, they make certain considerations permanently salient in
correct reasoning, and so in our practical thinking about ourselves and
others. If I am considering acting in a way that will deceive you, or cause
you bodily harm, or obstruct your action, I may not ignore those features of
my action in favor of a more benign description (as I once put it, they
provide us with rules of moral salience). Whatever else I am doing, both the
needs of others and the well-being of my own agency matter.
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correctly; I do not have access to the range of norms that apply. But they do
apply, whether I apprehend them in the case or not.
This gives us the right answer to another common objection to Kants
ethics that an agent who misses or ignores morally relevant facts will not
be judged to have acted impermissibly if the maxim she acts on passes the
categorical imperative tests. We are responsible for getting the moral (and
morally relevant) facts right by virtue of obligatory ends that require that we
attend to what is reasonably obvious and morally salient in their purview
(ends direct our attention; obligatory ends require it). So if someone is
plainly in dire straits and in need of aid, it is a culpable mistake not to
register it.18 It is also a mistake to regard the situation only through the lens
of sympathy. The circumstances demand to be recognized as falling under
the duty to aid. That is as much a fact about them as is the injury or deficit
to be remediated in action.
IV.
Reasoning to Obligation
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over a sound rational process (if I cannot get what I want the right way, Ill
get it any way I can).
The Formula of Autonomy can be read in these terms as an expression of
the agential authority of rational norms. They are at once the principles of
our reason, and of reason tout court. That is how their authority can be our
authority over what we do and choose. Absent the rational will and its
principles, there is no freedom of choice, no imputable action.
The idea of a Kingdom of Ends follows. If we assume, as Kant does, that
instantiations of Reason are all in principle compossible, then a realm of
(human rational) ends (in themselves) willing ends that is, on the same
principles of rationality is a real possibility. It would be a possible world,
shaped by humans for human and other rational purposes. Kant expresses
this clearly in a famous passage in the Critique of Practical Reason: [T]he
moral law in fact transfers us, in idea, into a nature in which pure reason, if
it were accompanied with suitable physical power, would produce the
highest good, and it determines our will to confer on the sensible world the
form of a whole of rational beings (KpV 43).
V.
Hegels challenge
In this last section, I will consider, very briefly, some questions about moral
obligations based in social roles: whether the interpretation advanced here
makes room for them, and if it does, whether it is in a way that respects
agents moral autonomy. In addition to addressing yet another set of old
questions, the discussion will provide some idea of the resources this
interpretation offers to our thinking about hard cases.
First, there is nothing at all untoward about locally configured
obligations. Nothing in the moral theory requires there to be one way to
organize the family, or the burdens of taking care of those in need, or even
modes of promise or respectful address, though each local obligation is a
solution to a general moral problem. We can take it to be a general fact that
human beings require extended support through childhood, and that adults
tend to form (relatively) stable affiliations; there will therefore be
obligations with respect to children and family life because of the impact
of both on our rational well being. What must be the same across social
differences is the anchor of reasoning to obligation: our status and needs as
a rational being. We can see the obligatory ends of good willing as providing
a form for correct premises, the local variations shaping the matter. It
will be a real question whether this or that institution of marriage, or
charity, or friendship satisfies the form; but if it does, then one can reason
well in reasoning from it. Nonetheless, there is no reason why obligations
that depend on contingent social roles cannot be bona fide moral
obligations, and many reasons to expect obligations to have local content.
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Reasoning to Obligation
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
61
An action from duty has its moral worth not in the purpose to be attained by it but in
the maxim in accordance with which it is decided upon that is, in accordance with its
principle of volition (G 399).
Kant remarks in the Anthropology (p. 253), that sympathy and honor can guide us
provisionally: that is until reason achieve[s] the necessary strength.
Cf. Herman (1993) The Practice of Moral Judgment (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press), pp. 910.
Unless the conditional commitment alters the agents reasoning-to-action; then she will
be engaged in a different activity.
Cf. R 2628 and the essay, Conjectural beginning of human history (1786).
Only in some cases does a human being lack the power of free choice, e.g., in the most
tender childhood, or when he is insane, and in deep sadness... (A 255).
Because it is the concern that is subordinated, it remains an open question what the effect
on the pursuit of happiness will be.
We dont, of course, usually perform these operations explicitly; but we dont need to in
order for this to be an accurate representation or model of the process we use.
One might argue that happiness is formally the end of our ends, and so distinctive. But in
that sense it is also indeterminate, or empty.
One would say something like this of any norm-constituted activity its concept must be
represented by a principle for action.
Rawls Original Position is in just this sense a device of representation: self-interested
reasoning behind the veil of ignorance provides a representation of fairness. In this,
Rawls follows Kant.
Kant will speak in the Religion (pp. 2325) about a timeless adoption of a most
fundamental maxim, a Gesinnung. As related to choice, this can only be about the
constitution of the power that is the rational will our will and from no point of view
is that an act at a time.
Kant denies that we have a real ability to act contrary to the moral law (MS 226227).
Of course the same fundamental principle or law is the source both of obligatory ends
and the principle of rational inference. This is the point of Kants Paradox of
Method(KpV 6262): the moral law is a positive synthetic a priori principle for the
correct use of the faculty of free willing it objectively determines the good wills willing
and also is the object of good willing.
This fact alone should raise eyebrows in thinking about prudence as a practical norm.
Though we can of course abandon ends in the face of the evidence.
As with any standard where there is the possibility of negligence, it may be difficult to
say whether the agent is culpably or innocently mistaken.
References
References to Kants writings are given by abbreviated title G (Groundwork for the
Metaphysics of Morals); KpV (Critique of Practical Reason); A (Anthropology from a
Pragmatic Point of View); MS (Metaphysics of Morals); R (Religion within the Limits of
Reason Alone) and cited by the page numbers of the appropriate volume of Kants
gesammelte Schriften, Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: de Gruyter [and predecessors],
1902).