Morality of Capital Punishment: A Kantian Perspective

From guest blogger, Amara,

The morality of capital punishment has always been up for debate among philosophers. There is always controversy when deciding when or when not it is permissible to take someone’s life as their punishment. The perspective I want to analyze is of the philosopher, Kantan. Though there are some drawback to capital punishment, there are more benefits to having a death penalty, such as increased security, decrease in crime rate, proper justice would be served and also, human life will be more valued and respected.

From a Kantian perspective, I believe that Kant would be all for the death penalty because he strongly believes in justice. Kant had a phrase, lex talionis, which translated into “eye for an eye”, which explains how he felt justice should be served. Kant believes that human beings are rational and autonomous creatures. This meaning that we as humans know what is morally acceptable and what is not. We are able to reason, and eventually come to a decision on our own. Since we are able to self-legislate, we ultimately are the ones responsible for the decisions we make and the consequences that they cause. So if we, as rational and autonomous beings, thought everything out, and still decided do something that is immoral towards someone else, according to lex talionis, the victims have a right to do either the same thing back or something equally as bad to you.

Another principle that Kant had was the principle of humanity which states: always treat a human being (yourself included) as an end, and never as a mere means. An “end” being a species that was part of the moral community, so they deserve proper respect and treatment. A “means” is when you use a person or thing to achieve your own personal goals and show no respect towards them. So when we do something immoral to others that are part of this community, we are violating the principle because we are not treating them as an “end”.

Relating everything back to capital punishment, if a rational and autonomous person decides to kill another rational and autonomous person, then I believe Kant would say that the person who killed them should receive the death penalty, because he broke the principle of humanity, therefore the lex talionis principle comes into play. There are some counter-arguments against this theory, and many think that lex talionis is flawed because of the following:

·         It cannot explain why criminals who intentionally hurt their victims should be punished more than those who inflict the same amount of pain and hurt on people by accident.

·         The punishment given to those who committed the crime is sometimes deeply immoral.

My suggestion to fix the first flaw would be to punish the person based off of their intentions. For example, if someone pushed some off of a building intending to kill them, then they should be killed according to the “eye for an eye” principle. On the other hand, if someone accidently bumped into another person, causing them to fall off the building and die, it was not intentional and therefore should not be punished. If the person is moral, their guilty conscious of accidently killing someone should be enough punishment for them. Another skeptic may ask, how will you find out their intentions? This will be the more difficult part, but I feel like through investigation, our judicial system is able to come to proper conclusions and appropriately serve justice, so we should keep doing just that.

Here is an example for the second flaw: someone burned someone else at the stake, so according to lex talionis, is it morally permissible for someone else to burn the murderer at the stake to serve justice? Many feel like this deeply immoral because it causes someone else, who is an outsider in the situation, to do this immoral act to someone. I believe that though, inflicting death is an immoral action, if a person takes someone else’s life, they deserve to have their life be take from them. On the issue of it being deeply immoral, I feel like the way the murderer dies can be in a less inhumane way, as long as dying is the end result. As for the outsider having to kill someone, I feel like if it is their job to serve justice, and this is the ruling on a case, then the outsider should not be seen as immoral when killing. Or maybe Kant could edit his definition of members in the moral community to when a rational and autonomous person kills another rational and autonomous being, their moral status should be revoked, and they are kicked out of the moral community. Thus, it is morally permissible to kill them. 

Kant's Reply to Anselm's Ontological Argument

I'm teaching a philosophy of religion course this term and we're beginning with a discussion of Anselm's ontological argument. The IEP entry has a pretty clear statement of this argument:

1. It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined (that is, the greatest possible being that can be imagined).
2. God exists as an idea in the mind.
3. A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is, other things being equal, greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind.
4. Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (that is, a greatest possible being that does exist).
5. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined.)
6. Therefore, God exists.

Kant famously objected to premise (3) and claimed that existence is not a "real or defining predicate." On his view, the concept of God cannot include existence. The upshot here seems to be that existence is not a "great-making property" because it's not really a property at all. According to Kant, what we do when we say something like "God exists" is to simply affirm that the entity described by the various properties belonging to the concept (omnipotence, moral perfection, creator of the universe, etc.) is actual or real. It's not as if we're ascribing to God some further property--i.e., the property of existence--on Kant's view.

Here's how Kant's main point is spelled out in the IEP entry:

"The idea here is that existence is very different from, say, the property of lovingness. A being that is loving is, other things being equal, better or greater than a being that is not. But it seems very strange to think that a loving being that exists is, other things being equal, better or greater than a loving being that doesn't exist. But to the extent that existence doesn't add to the greatness of a thing, the classic version of the ontological argument fails."

But is it true that existence doesn't add to the greatness of a thing? Consider two possible loving beings, one exists and the other does not. The real loving being could express its love and bring about various positive things in the world whereas the non-existent loving being is not able to do such things. It could be argued that the former is better--in some sense--than the latter precisely because it can do such things and this is due to the fact that it exists. It might then seem that existence is a great-making property after all.

I can think of a few objections to this move. Perhaps Kant might reply that it's not the property of existence which makes the former better, but rather it's the fact that the being engages in certain activities and that these activities have certain results. So it's not as if the former (qua loving being) is better than the latter (qua loving being). They're both the same on the "loving-being-front."

But I don't find this reply persuasive. With respect to lovingness we might say that the two beings are on par--they're both loving. But it still seems that when we compare the two beings and all of their properties taken together, the one which is actual is, in some sense, better than the one who isn't. I'd rather have the former as a friend. Imaginary friends, however loving, aren't as good to have as real, loving friends.

Of course, there's a lot to say about what we might mean by "better" here, but I'll save that for another day. For now, I wonder what you think about whether (a) existence is a property and (b) whether it's the sort of property which "adds to the greatness" of a thing or is a "great-making property."

Kant’s Deontology—questions regarding contradictions in the Principle of Universalizability

**This is from guest blogger, Danny W.**

Alright, here begins my attempt to say something intelligent about Kant’s Deontology—a tall order indeed. I’ll lay some groundwork first to review what we know. Kant proposed his ethical doctrine, deontology, as a moral guide which suggests doing only those actions in which an individual acts out of intrinsically ‘good will’—or to fulfill some objective duty. Hence, Kant would say that acting with the motivation to exercise good will, and conversely, to have goodness of will be the only end sought, would garner the highest moral praise. In connection with these claims, Kant did not ultimately think the consequence of an action played a role in the moral evaluation of someone’s action—the evaluation would center around the motivation or intention of performing the action. One question that naturally arises surrounding Kant’s ethical system is: How do we know when someone is acting out of good will? As the kind, thoughtful philosopher that he was, Kant made sure to provide several tests. I plan to focus on the Principle of Universalizability—one of Kant’s litmus tests for determining whether actions are moral or immoral.

A quick aside before we continue with the Principle of Universalizability. Another test in his deontology (which roughly means the “study of duty”) is the “Principle of Humanity” test. Despite the potential confusion surrounding which actions are actually done as ‘means’ versus ‘ends’—the definitions of which remain elusive in certain hypothetical scenarios—I think the principle boils down to respecting and caring for fellow human beings. Sure there are flaws, and Kant didn’t state it so abruptly, but that seems to be the gist of his thinking. There may be holes, but I will not focus on this test any further.

The Principle of Univeralizability, on the other hand, is a three step process which allows any person to judge whether an action is moral or immoral. (1) Formulate a maxim, rule, law, or state of things, (2) universalize the maxim (i.e., imagine that everyone in the world is following maxim), and (3) assess whether there is a contradiction in the hypothetical world from part (2). If there is a contradiction, then the action described in the maxim from step (1) would be immoral, and vice versa.

My biggest concern with the PoU arises when we speak about step (3)—deeming hypothetical worlds to be contradictory. It is interesting how Kant uses this word, and confusing what he actually expects when someone is using this test. It is common to think of contradictions in formal logic as statements of the form A&~A (i.e., something, A, is true and false simultaneously). Let’s try out our paradigm case: I want to cheat on my wife; I imagine everyone in the world cheating as well; the result is a world in which monogamous relationships cannot exist and the cheating could thus not logically be called cheating. It seems like the only way you can report this contradiction—in a strict logical sense—would be to assert that “cheating” (as we know it in our real world) cannot exist in our hypothetical world (in which the maxim is that everyone cheats on significant other). However, it does not follow that just because everyone cheats (in our hypothetical world) that the “action of cheating” is made impossible. Significant others will still exist and one will cheat on that partner—the metaphysical circumstances do not change between our real and hypothetical worlds. It is not as if there is “cheating” and “not cheating” taking place in a metaphysical sense. “Cheating” persists but our anthropocentric definition of cheating (sexual interactions with a person A while you are simultaneously engaged in a monogamous relationship with another person B) loses all meaning and descriptive power. The word becomes hollow of meaning, since “monogamous relationships” do not exist and thus our definition of “cheating”—inherently built on the metaphysical status of monogamous relationships— from the real world does not make sense and disintegrates. Thus, an action persists but we no longer have the vocabulary to label the action—vocabulary we obviously do have in the real world. Okay this might be major backtracking, but here goes. I suppose that through the lens of the hypothetical world, we wouldn’t even regard the action as “cheating”. So, Kant achieves his contraction based on a logical contraction across worlds. I guess my previous thoughts had been focused on having the contradiction occur in the same world—which didn’t make sense.

Part of my thinking was that Kant was also using contradiction to generally state that there is a contradiction to our accepted social structure and stability. If everyone is cheating, there is no more social order as we know it in this world. These are just some of my trailing thoughts, but I think I will open it up for comments. I’m interested to know how all of you view the tests that Kant puts forth for his deontology!

Intentions vs. Consequences

**This is from guest blogger, Talia.**

As I was writing my paper, I came across a few things that I'd love to get your opinions on. First, in class, we had discussed that Kant's formulations of The Categorical Imperative stressed the importance of intentions when determining the moral rightness/wrongness of an action. But, as I started thinking about it more, it really doesn't seem like the first formulation, i.e. the Principle of Universalizability, does this at all. Moreover, if anything, it seems to focus on the consequences of an action, though not intentionally. For Kant, the importance is in the universalizability of an action, not its intentions/consequences, but it seems as though the outcome of the action actually is important, in retrospect. Let's take the bank robbing example. The reason Kant says that stealing is wrong is because, if everyone stole, there would be no more money left to steal, which creates a contradiction, making the maxim un-universalizable. But, doesn't it seem like this is very much consequence-based? The outcome of stealing, not the intentions of the robber, is what is relevant to the moral rightness/wrongness. I guess my issue here is that the first formulation of CI (Principle of Universalizability) seems consequences-based, while the second formulation (Principle of Humanity) is intention-based. If we are to act in accordance with the good will, as Kant suggests, we are certainly focused on our intentions, rather than the consequences of our actions. So, moral of the story: Kant seems to contradict himself in determining whether the intentions or consequences are more important in determining moral rightness/wrongness. I know that was a lot of rambling, but I'd love to hear any clarifications or responses you all might have to offer.

Deontology

**This is from guest blogger, Kelsen.**

Kant will reject Consequentialism as the means to moral goodness and promote his ideas about good will. In this process there are many steps and one point of focus can be on his definition and implications of duty. We will go from there.

Kant defines the concepts of duty and in conformity with duty as separate things. Both of these will be actions that arise despite no immediate inclination and yet one will do the action anyway because of another inclination. This is the easy case to see that it comes from duty. The less easy case is where there is an inclination but the action is still done from duty. In his example with a shopkeeper, the shopkeeper will charge everyone the same even if he sees that it is a child who won't know the right price. He does this either out of honesty or out of self interest in being able to sell to anyone. They trust that the prices are fair and so it is also in his self interest to keep a fixed price for all customers. He argues however that preserving one's life is from duty due to an immediate inclination to do so. "But on this account the often anxious care that most people take care of it still has no inner worth and their maxim has no moral content." (527, Ethical Theory). This is a case of in conformity with duty and not from duty. The main purpose of looking after their lives is not because of the duty but because they want to keep on living. So contrary, if a person is considering death and decides to live without wanting to because of his duty to preserve his life; this is from duty. Kant continues and argues that a person who is from inclination of duty has less moral content than a man acting from duty alone. He says that an act that is an inclination of duty is honorable and praiseworthy but it has no moral content as the morality was never tested.

Kant argues that there is an indirect duty to happiness and that happiness can sum up many but not all of the inclinations a person can have. The rest of the argument follows from here and will not be discussed in this blog post. The groundwork for determining how happiness plays a role starts with clear definitions of duty and inclination. 

I don't particularly have any qualms with his definitions or explanations but it doesn't seem so clear that a person can't act from duty when there are other inclinations motivating him. The primary cause of any action seems relevant and not the appearance of particular components.

Here is an example which I think will provide a good foundation for discussion:

Consider a jar full of colored balls, we can place balls into other jars which will break when a specific color is placed in them or when too many total balls are loaded. So if we are loading the jar that breaks from a blue ball with red ones and finally place a blue ball in it, we have two options. Either the jar reached maximum capacity and then broke, or the blue ball broke it. If this ball was red and wouldn't have broken the jar, the property that is important would have been the blueness of the ball and not the number of balls. If the ball had been red and the jar would still have broken however, we have two causes for the jar breaking. The primary cause however is the number of balls. No matter which color was placed in the jar it would have broken. So, the property that matters is that is was a ball no matter the color. The blueness is irrelevant in this case although on it's own also would have been good enough to cause the action. 

I can come up with two interpretations:

(1) the property of being blue is relevant when it is the only cause and so duty is only relevant when it is the only cause.
(2) the property of being blue is only one of the properties and can be the primary cause so the number of balls in the jar before the blue one is placed is irrelevant because the blue ball would do it no matter how many balls. So, even if the inclinations were a big consideration, a slight consideration, or no consideration at all, the duty to do an action was trumping all of that.

I want to agree with (2) but (1) is the simple, more compelling answer based on the examples above. What do you think?