A Kantian View of Practical Reason

Daniel Maglione
Intro to Ethics 01:730:107 Section 2
March 10, 2014

Humans are perhaps the most unique species on earth, capable of complex thoughts and actions
that no other species we know of is capable of, some however would say this is a curse. We are plagued
with such higher level questions that simpler species cannot even comprehend. For thousands of years
we have attempted to explain the unexplainable and come up with reasons for our actions. Perhaps one
of the most daunting questions that has faced humanity involve the concepts of good. What exactly is
good? Why should we do good? What separates a good action from a not so good action, who dictates
what is good and what is not? Meta ethics is a field of study dedicated to try and answer these
questions. There are a plethora of meta ethical stances one could take, many having yet to be solidly
disproved. These range from the more logical application of reason and natural facts to the following of
god's commands or will to even absolute indifference in all situations. In this paper I will be arguing for
the Kantian view of Practical rationality. Taking Kant's views into account it is apparent that he
supports a few key ethical theories which I will in turn explain and speak of their relation with his
overall theory of practical reason.
One of the most reoccurring questions in meta ethics is whether giving meaning to what good
is, directly implies the existence of god or not. Many theists have claimed that without the existence of
god there is no perfect definition of good, and thus we cannot define good. Without the existence of
god there is also no motivation to do good. We are nothing more then a bunch of hairless chimps on a
rock floating in space, all of our actions will amount to nothing, all of our actions will have no effect
on a cosmic scale. Why do good then? The only evidence that can be conceived that good can be done
simply for the sake of good can be seen in the altruistic behaviors of some animals. This seems strange
as we as humans consider ourselves truly superior to the small minded members of the animal kingdom
and yet they are doing actions beneficial to other members of the species other then themselves without
the justification of god. Our higher level cognitive reason saves us from such benevolent thoughts
however, greed and self gain being our primary motivators without god's commands being taken into
account. These animal behaviors perhaps give more evidence to the motivation behind doing good
actions, but do little to disprove the necessity of god's existence to truly define good. The briefest
explanation of god's necessity to morality is stated by William Lane Craig, I would attempt to
paraphrase but I believe his own words state it the best.
In summary, theological meta-ethical foundations do seem to be necessary for morality. If God
does not exist, then it is plausible to think that there are no objective moral values, that we have
no moral duties, and that there is no moral accountability for how we live and act. The horror of
such a morally neutral world is obvious. If, on the other hand, we hold, as it seems rational to
do, that objective moral values and duties do exist, then we have good grounds for believing in
the existence of God. In addition, we have powerful practical reasons for embracing theism in
view of the morally bracing effects which belief in moral accountability produces. We cannot,
then, truly be good without God; but if we can in some measure be good, then it follows that
God exists.
At this point in time with the evidence we have the greatest justification for why to do good is the will
of god, and the greatest definition of good is defined by god being representitive of the highest good
achievable.
The entirety of Kant's ideology is based upon the idea of moral rationalism. To begin with, Kant
defines all normal, sane, logically thinking humans as rational agents. Moral Rationalism entails the
following principal, If a rational agent P determines that action A in situation S is right, then in S, P will
be motivated to do A, or else be an irrational agent. This ideology states that if an individual determines
the moral decision of an action and decides to not act upon, they are irrational. The nature of the moral
obligation to perform a certain action is the practical reason for which that action should be done. This
seems a bit strange as many people clearly have the capacity for thinking rationally and knowing right

from wrong, and yet many people don't act righteously in these situations. This stems from where an
individual finds motivation to complete certain actions. There are two sources from which somebody
can be motivated to act, being internal and external. Either motivation is found from within themselves
or by the mere nature of the action itself; or externally such as some sort of reward for completing said
action or by command of god. The idea of moral rationalism is sort of like the physics equivalent of in
an ideal system. Of course many members of humanity choose immoral and irrational actions, but in
an ideal world everyone would make the morally rational decision. Moral rationalism may not exactly
represent the actions of the every member of society, but it creates an ideal model that if followed
would lead to a much more moral society.
Kant's ideology of practical reason stems from moral rationalism, practical reason is a line of
thinking in which one deduces the right course of action based purely upon logic and reason. A
situation is broken down into pros and cons, benefits and costs and from there the individual will
logically attempt to choose the option with the greatest outcome, whether they are motivated or not to
do that action is a whole different question entirely which I shall discuss later. While Kant opts for this
logical way of determining the morality of a situation, David Hume, who rejected these ideas is a moral
sense theorist, or a sentimentalist. Hume argues that the both reason and emotion are two separately
distinct faculties within the human thought process and the one responsible for moral decisions is the
emotion. The passion and motivation behind taking action in a moral way is all due to emotions incited
by this call to action. Applied to a real world situation, and an example that I like to use often due to it's
many interpretations is a Robin Hood example. Let's say Robin Hood steals from a wealthy
businessman and distributes his wealth to the townspeople where his business is located. Someone
motivated by passion and emotions such as Hume would perhaps see this as a benevolent cause, or
outright thievery depending upon their personal ideology. Some believer of practical reason however
would look more into the matter, that money could have been very important to the business man. The
business could even have been relying upon that money to keep his business afloat, and the town, in
turn could heavily rely on the business for their economic value. A sudden crash of the company could
mean economic ruin for the towns people. This is all highly hypothetical, but these are the sorts of the
things that a practitioner of practical reason would attempt to take into account. Practical reasons are
that which give Kant's moral rationalism the motivation for action. There exists a contrast to practical
reason known as theoretical reason. While practical reason is concerned with the what course of action
should be taken and what ought to be done, theoretical reason is more concerned with what the truth is
in relation to our beliefs. Kant goes in for practical reason for it's much more practical application.
Practical reason is much more focused on decided a plan of action while theoretical reason is much
more concerned with the truth and only the most productive solution.
The motivation for an action is a difficult aspect to pin down, this isn't only in regards to moral
actions, simple, everyday actions sometimes lack definite justification. Many actions in themselves are
the justification, why did you eat that bread? Well because I was hungry, primal instincts motivate. Well
how about, why did you steal that bread? Hunger can still be the motivation for this action, simply
following our internal natural instincts. In one instance the motivation lead to a perfectly fine moral
action, and yet with the absolute same justification another action is considered immoral under
different circumstances. What if, instead of an internal reason, some external motivation was used to
justify the action of stealing bread, such as, god told me to. Would the individual then be more justified
in his actions? Kant believes that the motivation for all moral actions come from within, he takes a
modest internalist approach. The motivation for moral actions come from the nature of the actions
themselves not from the desires of an individual. The rightness of an action is the justification for why
any moral agent should perform said act. From internalism Kant derives his categorical imperatives, his
categorical imperatives dictate what actions are required of an individual in any situation requiring a
moral action. Kant's categorical imperatives are a sort of an all encompassing theory as it can apply to
any situation, regardless of outcomes or consequences. To illustrate internalism with relation to Kant's

ideology lets look at his first formulation of Kant's categorical imperatives. The first formulation as I
interpret it states that if your action were to become universal law and all individuals would act as you
did, would societal crumbling chaos ensue. So going back to the bread example, you steal the bread for
your own benefit, this then being a universal law, it is okay for everyone to steal. What would happen if
everybody, everywhere were to go around stealing things. The very clear chaos that would ensue
demonstrates the immorality of the act of stealing. It is by this logical deduction of immorality that the
rational agent is supposed to be motivated to not steal the bread. Kant's other formulations follow in a
similar pattern, attempting to showcase to the rational agent the irrationality of acting in a way defined
by him to be immoral. Kant's categorical imperatives don't just act as a set of guidelines to abide by for
morality, they also somewhat provide the justification within themselves. The method of having to
apply an analysis to every situation rather then simply following some externally motivating dogma
such as do not steal, allows the rational agent to formulate their own motivation internally. As follows
an individual analyzing the moralty of stealing bread, realizing the rationally justified, moral decision
would be not to steal the bread and yet still does it anyway, can be considered nothing other than
irrational.
One of the bigget problems regarding Kant's internalism is the fact that his categorical
imperatives are a very broad way of analyzing situations that attempts to objectively determine the
moralty of any situation. The problem arises when motivation is brought into question, the motivation
coming internally from the individual means that it is quite subjective. When you apply subjective
opinions on an objective action you get a multitude of opinions based upon the individual. The man
who is very hungry and on the brink of starvation may very well ignore all rational thoughts in lieu of
his primal instincts and choose the option which benefits him the most. Does this man's actions still
follow Kant's reasoning? Well his actions are still motivated internally by his hunger, but does it now
go against moral rationality and make him an irrational being? While I will go as far to say that this
man is an irrational being by Kant's standards I would say that he is still applying practical reason to
some degree to the situation. The man stealing the bread evaluated the situation under his particular
circumstances and saw fit to act irrationaly for the trade off of saving himself from starvation. While
the man applied practical reasoning to his thought processes he did not act in accordance with moral
rationality. The argument in defense of this flaw in moral rationalism is to simply delcare this man an
irrational lunatic despite his application of practical reason, showcasing a rational thought process.
Kant assumes that for an immoral action to be made the agent cannot possibly be rational or fully
educated on the matter, he cares not for the outcome but only for the strict following of the moral code.
A famous quote of Kant's loosely translated, Let justice reign even if all the rascals in the world
should perish from it displays his attitude that death is no excuse for acting immorally or irrationally.
In a similar line of thought, another popular objection is the existence of an amoralist. A amoralist takes
an indifferent stance on all moral matters, this isn't to say that this individual is irrational. As an
amoralist can still be fully capable of deducing the correct moral action in a situation but simply
choosing to not act upon it. The actual existence of an amoralist is still a hot topic among philosophers
today. It had long been thought that morality was a characteristic intrinsicly related to humans, and
under this assumption ammoralists either do not exist or are deficiently human. However with no
concrete evidence of this and the existence of sociopaths who appear to display a strong lack of
empathy the case of the amoralist cannot be ruled out. In order to compensate for these two problems,
Kant is forced to incorporate a much looser form of internalism. This looser principle is as follows, For
any moral agent A, necessarily, if A has a good reason to do P in circumstance C, then possibly A will
be motivated to do P in C. The inclusion of the word possibly leaves enough room to allow the
amoralist to be included in this principle. With reference to his categorical imperatives, they only serve
as a reason for a rational agent to act if they can motive said rational agent. Kant impressivly lays
down the framwork for an objective, universal guideline for not only why an individual is motivated to
do good, but also the thought process behind determing the moralty of a certain action.

Bibliography
Craig, William. "The Indispensability of Theological Meta-Ethical Foundations for Morality."
ReasonableFaith.org. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-indispensability-of-theological-meta-ethicalfoundations-for-morality (accessed March 10, 2014).
Darwall, Steven. "Morality and Practical Reason: A Kantian Approach." In The Oxford handbook of
ethical theory. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 282.
Fredrick, Danny. "Theoretical and Practical Reason: A Critical Rationalist View." Academia.edu.
http://www.academia.edu/793164/Theoretical_and_Practical_Reason_A_Critical_Rationalist_View
(accessed March 10, 2014).