Notes on the Moral Argument

8/2/2019 Notes on the Moral Argument

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Notes on the Moral ArgumentThis pack covers Kant’s argument and Freud’s challenges

Kant

First: it’s important to realise that although everyone calls itKant’s moral argument , it’s not really an argument. It’s apostulate. For Kant God’s existence is something, given the

nature of morality, we should postulate (assume).

To grasp the ‘argument’ we need to be certain about the meaning of some terminology.

• Summum bonum: the highest good. This what we’re all always aiming for. For Kant thhighest good was both virtue (morality) and happiness.

• Autonomy : Kant held that we were free to make our own choices and to decide what wamoral.

• Ought implies can: Kant argues that if we say we should do something it implies we are ablto do it.

In a nutshell: Kant’s Moral ArgumentKant’s moral argument is part of his ethical theory. In his Critique of Practical Reason Kanttries to solve the following problem:

1. Humans are rational, autonomous (free will), moral decision-makers.

2. Morality is a matter of doing one’s moral duty.

3. For Kant God’s commands are not the basis for morality. Reason is the basis for

morality. Morality is not a divine command. Rather God wills the moral law, which

we discover through reason.

4. So how does God fit into morality? Kant claims: “it is morally necessary to assume

the existence of God.”

To break it down …

1. Moral action is about doing one’s duty. Human beings can work out their moral dutyby reason and they should aim to succeed in their moral duty.

2. The reason to do one’s duty is to achieve the Summum Bonum (The highest good).

It is the act of doing your moral duty and achieving a state of happiness.

3. Kant and happiness – acc to Kant your moral duty is not a matter of doing what is

right in order to make you happy. Rather you do your duty because it is morally

Overview of Kant’s moral argument

Kant’s moral argument focuses on the notion that God must exist to provide structure to the morauniverse. Technically he did not believe that is was possible to prove the existence of God througrational or empirical means. It is important to outline two key ideas before explaining the details o

the moral argument. These ideas centre around his assumptions of the universe: that the univers

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was fair; and that the world around us is fundamentally rational. He begins with the unspokeassumption that the world is fair, owing to the dominance of the enlightenment belief that thuniverse was fundamentally knowable through reason. It is important to note that Kant began a newway of looking at knowledge. He believed that we could know the world through reason in a priosynthetic way.

This was a complete change from how the world had been view previously and was known as KantCopernican revolution. In essence Kant believed in two separate worlds of knowledge: noumenaand the phenomenal worlds. The noumenal world is the world as it truly is without being observedIt is fundamentally unknowable because the act of observation changes the very thing that wobserve. It is as though human beings have a specific set of spectacles that cannot be taken off anlike the proverbial rose tinted ones they change our perception of the world around us. Thpersonalised view of the universe is the phenomenal world. However, what is key to explaininKant’s moral argument is the fact that reason is the tool that can be used to know the true nature othe universe, as it does not and cannot change.

Kant’s moral argument focuses on reason, good will, duty and the notion that we ought tstrive towards moral perfection. It begins with the claim of two things that have him in awe: thstarry heavens above; and the moral law within. This moral law for Kant was universal anobjective. An example of this might be seen in the wide scale agreement that murder or torture iwrong. There seems to be agreement across cultures that certain actions are intrinsically wrong

This, for Kant, suggests that there is a universal objective moral law. He believed that the highesform of goodness was the notion of good will, namely that someone would freely choose to do goofor no reward whatsoever, only for the sake of goodness. Moreover, Kant believed that we have moral duty to do such good things. He would argue that we have an awareness of what is right anwrong and that good will should make us act accordingly as reason dictates this to be the case. In way it doesn’t make any rational sense to act in an immoral way. If I were to act out of nepotism(favouritism) or from emotion then I could never discern the universal objective moral law as thesfactors would cause me to change my opinion of what was right or wrong depending on how I wafeeling or what the circumstances happened to be. So I must choose the good based on good wiand reason.

Duty was seen by Kant as a way of fulfilling this end without being misguided by emotion or factorof personal gain. It is here that we come to a key point in Kant’s argument, namely the notion o‘ought’ implies ‘can’. He believed that we can only have a duty to do some thing that we can do. Foexample, I cannot have a duty to fly unaided as it is not something that I can do; or if I were tocome across someone drowning in a lake but could not swim Kant would suggest that I would nohave a duty to jump in and save them. My duty in the latter case would be to find someone whocould swim so I would need to raise the alarm. Once we have this notion of ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ iour mind the argument becomes much clearer. If I can choose to do the good (using reason, goowill and duty) in one case then I should be able to do this in every case, moreover that I have a dutto achieve this moral perfection. Kant called this moral perfection the Summum Bonum. He arguethat the Summum Bonum was a state of moral perfection existing coincidently with perfechappiness. It is important to note, as stated earlier, that Kant did not believe that acting out of selfinterest (in this case achieving perfect happiness) would ever bring us to the correct moral decisionIf my aim in life were to achieve perfect happiness then this would not cause me to act morally. FoKant, the problem for human beings acting morally was that it did not lead to happiness. I could bthe most moral person in the world yet personal tragedy could befall me, while another individuamay lead an immoral life and be happy in some way. This would appear to make the world unfaand would potentially discourage us from acting morally at all. Kant believed that we must have duty to achieve the Summum Bonum and because it was not achievable in this lifetime that wmust be able to achieve this in the next life.

Notice that Kant does not see this as ‘proof’ of God’s existence only that in order for morabehaviour of human beings to make sense we must postulate three things. These are known athe three postulates of practical reason: free will, immortality of the soul and God. Kan

believed that if we were not free to make moral decisions then we could not achieve a state o

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moral perfection because we would not be morally blameworthy or praiseworthy for our actions. Halso argued for the immortality of the soul as we have seen above; behaving morally in this lifdefies reason if we cannot achieve the Summum Bonum in this life, as others who act immorallappear happy as opposed to those who behave morally, not to mention the fact that we may dibefore this state of moral perfection is reached. The afterlife is therefore necessary to provide thopportunity to achieve the obligation of moral perfection and perfect happiness that reasodictates. The final part of the conclusion of Kant’s moral argument is that God must exist as postulate of practical reason. Without the existence of God we cannot have the afterlife and wwould not be able to fulfil our obligation of reaching the Summum Bonum. Therefore God necessary to ensure fairness in the universe and provide the exact coincidence of moral perfectioand perfect happiness known as the Summum Bonum.

Moral Argument

Strengths Weaknesses

Gives purpose to being good: thesummum bonem achievable in theafterlife and it is an explanation forwhere our sense of right / wrongcomes from

FREUD: For Freud our moral awareness comes through a clasbetween our subconscious desires, instincts or wants (known as thid) and societal and cultural pressures on the conscious mind (oego). If this were demonstrated to be the case then Kant’s claim oan objective moral law within every human being would be incorrecWithout this objective moral law then Kant would not require God tensure fairness in the universe. Freud claims that our guiltconscience is formed from the pressure of societal expectation othe mind but he makes these claims based on a very narroevidence base.

But:- only used five case studies to reach his conclusion- challenged by others in his field who claim that his methods werunscientific.DAWKINS: Richard Dawkins might also attack Kant’s argumealong a similar theme, namely that morality comes from a sourcother than God. Like Freud, if Dawkins could prove that moralitcomes from a source other than God then Kant’s moral argumenwould potentially be indefensible. Dawkins would argue that moralithas not come from God but has developed as a part of evolutionMorality for Dawkins fulfils certain functions within society. It keephuman society stable which is beneficial for all human beingDawkins has argued that if we existed in a society without morathat this would not be of any use for our species; if we lived in society where murder was the norm of behaviour we would havquickly died out as a species.

But:- Dawkins makes the assertion that this morality comes from humabeings alone. Is it not possible that there has been a divine hand awork which has implanted moral behaviour within human beings? this were the case then Dawkins’ claim that morality comes from source other than God could not be defended and the criticism woucease to be effective against the moral argument. HUME: David Hume would have challenged the notion that ‘oughimplies ‘can’ by stating that we cannot derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is

This is known as the ‘is’-‘ought’ fallacy. He claimed that we cannomove from a descriptive statement about the universe, such a‘there is a bookcase in my living room’, to a prescriptive o



normative claim, that said bookcase has any moral status. Humwould therefore challenge the notion of ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ that integral to Kant’s moral argument by stating that it is a leap of logto move from a descriptive statement to a moral statement. Humbelieved that morality was nothing more than an emotional responsfrom the individual observing the world around them. If this were thcase then Kant’s argument would fail in two ways: firstly the logic othe argument would break down, so much so that we would nlonger have an obligation to achieve the Summum Bonum as ‘oughdoes not imply ‘can’; secondly the source of human morality woube derived from emotional responses to environmental stimuli. essence for humans there is no universal objective moral law withus.

“The thesis that we ought to promote the highest gooimplies that we can only seek to promote it. But this does norequire that the full realisation of the highest good should b

possible” (J.L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism)

Sigmund Freud

Key question for Freud: Where do our moral ideas come from?

Freud disagreed with Kant’s claim that God could be postulatedfrom the experience of morality.

Freud believed that the unconscious holds the key to our physicaland mental health, that memories deep down can be responsiblefor real physical symptoms. He thought that the unconscious shows itself through jokes and slips othe tongue. He said that “a dream is a [disguised] fulfilment of a [suppressed or repressed] wish.”

Freud thought that the mind was structured into three parts:The ego – the conscience itself, the everyday personality.The id – the unconscious itself including repressed desires and wishes and memories.The superego – the standard of morality of the society in which the person lives, imposed fromoutside.

Freud thought that humans were driven by two instincts – love and death. Both of these are presenin the Oedipus Complex which he came to understand after the death of his father. In Greemythology, Oedipus was a character who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. Hbelieved that male children are at first attached to their mothers and see their fathers as rivals fotheir mothers love. Feelings of fear and jealousy of a boy toward his father are mixed with the senseof guilt because the child has some feeling of love towards the father.

Because of his early experience, the boy’s sexual feelings are repressed until puberty. A man’s goain life is to detach himself from his mother, to reconcile himself with his father and to find someonto love who is not identical to his mother. Everyone must aim to do his but most never do.



Freud applied psychoanalysis to many other areas including religion. He was an atheist whconsidered religion to be ‘wish fulfilment’, that humans wish for in an alien world – justice in aunjust society, an afterlife and knowledge of how the world began.

He thought religion was a ‘universal obsessional neurosis’. This illness stems from the unconscioumind and incompletely repressed traumatic memories and invariably stems from sexual trauma

Thus, religion is an illusion stemming from sexual difficulties.

Freud’s view of Religion and Moral Awareness

1. Religion is a “obsessional neurosis”Religion provides a way for people to satisfy their desires such as:

• The world is ordered

• Life is meaningful

• God exists

• The promise of reward for good behaviour after death

The answers religion provides are appealing. N.B. This refutes Kant’s moral argument. ThSummum Bonum being achievable is a very persuasive human desire, but this in no wamakes it or God, as a postulate of pure reason, a reality.

2. Moral values are the results of our experiences through upbringing and theinteraction with the subconscious.

This argues against Kant’s claim that morality is objective and can be discovered througreason. According to Freud morality is the product of society and upbringing (subjective).



Documents

Notes on the Moral Argument