A Kantian Approach to Business Ethics

2018

Introduction Kant"s Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals was published in 1785. It is in fact a preliminary section of his philosophy, directed to the discovery of the supreme principle of morality. The Critique of Practical Reason was published in 1788. This is a full-scale examination of the practical activity of reason. Taken together with the Groundwork, it represents the most abstract side of Kant"s ethics. Kant"s Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone was published in 1793. The relevant sections of this contain an account of the evil principle in man and a discussion of the relations between morality, religion and theology. The Metaphysic of Morals was published in 1797. This is a systematic working-out in their application to human beings of the rational principles of morality laid down in the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason. This paper mainly focuses on Kant"s primary ethical principles as laid down in Groundwork. In Groundwork Kant argues that every person is worthy of respect as a rational being, capable of reason and capable of acting and choosing freely. Kant does not mean that we always succeed in acting rationally. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don"t. He means that we have the capacity for reason and for freedom and that capacity is common to human beings as such. When reason governs our will, we are not driven by the desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Our capacity for reason makes us distinctive and sets us apart from mere animal existence. It makes us more than mere creatures of appetite. Discussion According to Kant, the moral worth of an action consists not in the consequences that flow from it, but the intention from which the act is done. What matters is the motive. What matters is doing the right thing because it is right not for some ulterior motive. Kant writes, "A good will is not good because of what it affects or accomplishes.... Even if... the power is completely lacking in power to carry out its intentions; if by its utmost effort it still accomplishes nothing... even then it would still shine like a jewel for its own sake as something which has its full value in itself"(Sandal 111).

Many regard Kant’s account of the highest good as a failure. His inclusion of happiness in the highest good, in combination with his claim that it is a duty to promote the highest good, is widely seen as inconsistent. In this essay, I argue that there is a valid argument, based on premises Kant clearly endorses, in defense of his thesis that it is a duty to promote the highest good. I first examine why Kant includes happiness in the highest good at all. On the basis of a discussion of Kant's distinction between 'good' and 'pleasant', and in light of his methodological comments in the second chapter of the Critique of Practical Reason, I explain how Kant’s conception of the good informs his conception of the highest good. I then argue that Kant's inclusion of happiness in the highest good is best understood in light of his claim that it is a duty to promote the happiness of others. In the final section, I reconstruct Kant’s argument for the claim that it is a duty to promote the highest good and explain in what sense this duty goes beyond observance of the Categorical Imperative.

Sonja Haugaard Christensen, 2013

Two things fill the mind with ever new increasing admiration and reverence, the more often and more steadily one reflects on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. (1:5:162) For Kant our existence is divided into two: The first implies our place in the world of sense and extension. The second points to the invisible self – our personality, which we meet during understanding because the world is not contingent but universal and necessary. The second raises our worth as intelligent beings with personality, to the moral law revealing a life independent of animality. (1:5:163) The questions of freedom and our ability to be responsible agents will be considered in relation to Kant´s work Critique of practical reason.

The Southern journal of philosophy, 1987

In what sense, if any, does Kant's moral theory "belong in a religious setting?"] The question continues to command attention not only because scholars take seriously the Kantian approach to ethics, but because of Kant's own conviction that belief in God plays an important role in his theory. Kant often reasons as follows. As moral agents, we have a duty to promote the highest good, that state of nature in which happiness is had in proportion to virtue. Since we cannot intend to do what we know or believe to be impossible, and since unaided nature yields us no hope of success, we must postulate the existence of an omnipotent, moral being-a God who could transform nature in the required way.2 Recent debate over the place of theism in Kant's ethics has centered around the question whether the non-theist can act (in Kant's sense) morally well. Answering in the affirmative, Stephan Korner says "a person could without self-contradiction recognize the categorical imperative and yet believe that it is not his duty to try to bring about the highest good, since this duty would imply the existence of God which he denies." Lewis White Beck points out that the highest good cannot command us to do any thing that the moral law has not already commanded. Ralph Walker writes, "one can perfectly well be a serious moral agent while remaining altogether pessimistic about whether virtuous acts achieve anything or will ever be rewarded." And Thomas Auxter has argued that "Kant's own explanation of how a moral ideal is constructed and of how practical judgments are made precludes an appeal to the highest good as a standard for conduct."3 The view that Kant's ethics cannot do without belief in God has also found able, if fewer defenders. Thus, for John Silber, the highest good brings a material content to what would otherwise be a merely formal principle; for only the highest good obliges us to "strive for the realization of happiness in proportion to virtue in the lives of all men." And according to Allen Wood, someone who abandons pursuit of the highest good must "at the same time cease to act purposively in obedience to the moral law. Pursuit of the highest good could not be

Interest in Kantian ethics is flourishing. The past twenty years have provided a flood of books and articles explaining how Kant's ethics is more interesting and promising than its detractors have realised. Despite their disagreements on detail, Rawls, Hill, O'Neill, Herman, Korsgaard, and their many followers, are part of a real revival of interest in Kantian ethics. Kant's Ethical Thought, by Allen Wood, has both incorporated and extended many of the distinctive insights that fuel this revival. The influence of Korsgaard is perhaps the strongest here. Wood, however, goes significantly further than other interpreters in his emphasis on the centrality of Kant's conception of humanity as an end in itself and the practical importance of the formula of autonomy and the realm of ends in the derivation of duties. Unlike Korsgaard and others, he emphasises the inadequacy of Kantian universalisability procedures. Wood, however, has contempt for critics who have hastily rejected Kant's ethical theory because of the inadequacy of the formula of universalisability. Wood argues that we only discover the full promise of Kantian ethics when we move beyond the formal principle of morality and focus on Kant's conceptions of human dignity, of autonomy as the source of normativity, and of a harmonious human community. Although Kant's conception of the dignity of humanity has received a good deal of recent attention, Wood has provided an exceedingly careful and detailed reconstruction of Kant's argument. The first half of Kant's Ethical Thought goes over every argument of the first two sections of Kant's Groundwork and seems to consider every possible objection. The result is very slow going. Although I am not sure how many people will work their way through this thicket of arguments, this first part of the book is careful, thorough, and valuable. The conclusion of these arguments is that Kant's ethics is based squarely on the absolute and unconditional value we must find in humanity and thus on the equal dignity of all persons. Wood also concludes that it is only in the idea of the realm of ends that we truly see what the formula of humanity requires and that it is only by willing as we would in a realm of ends that our autonomy is fully realised. Like Kant's critics, Wood argues that we cannot construct an adequate universalisability test without first specifying the morally relevant features of maxims (p. 105). Unlike most of Kant's critics, however, Wood considers (and rejects) the more sophisticated recent attempts to salvage the universalisability procedure. Furthermore, he shows that the concept of obligation requires a more substantive determining ground for the will than a universalisability test of maxims, alone, can provide. The requirements of morality must be based on a substantive value that moral agents must acknowledge to be an objective end. Only such an end could provide the necessary motivational basis for a categorical imperative (p. 114). On Wood's interpretation, Kant's controversial claim that a good will is motivated by duty and that actions motivated by sympathetic feelings alone lack moral worth is much more plausible. Morally good conduct expresses the value or dignity of both ourselves and the equal worth and dignity of other persons. Beneficent actions, motivated by duty, express our respect for the humanity of another person. So, when Kant argues that beneficence motivated by duty, and not inclination, has moral worth and reflects a good will, his point is that principled beneficence express a deeper concern and caring about others. The core of the moral motive is not formal duty but a recognition of the value and importance of both oneself and others. If I

Business Ethics Quarterly, 2011

Does effective moral judgment in business ethics rely upon the identification of a suitable set of moral principles? We address this question by examining a number of criticisms of the role that principles can play in moral judgment. Critics claim that reliance on principles requires moral agents to abstract themselves from actual circumstances, relationships and personal commitments in answering moral questions. This is said to enforce an artificial uniformity in moral judgment. We challenge these critics by developing an account of principle-based moral judgment that has been widely discussed by contemporary Kantian scholars. In so doing we respond to some basic problems raised by so-called “moral particularists” who voice theoretical objections to the role of principles as well as to contemporary business ethicists who have criticized principle-based moral judgment along similar lines. We conclude with some future areas of research

Journal of Business Ethics, 2013

1996

Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will. Intelligence, wit, judgement, and the other talents of the mind, however they may be named, or courage, resolution, perseverance, as qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects; but these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them, and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good. It is the same with the gifts of fortune. Power, riches, honour, even health, and the general well-being and contentment with one's condition which is called happiness, inspire pride, and often presumption, if there is not a good will to correct the influence of these on the mind, and with this also to rectify the whole principle of acting and adapt it to its end. The sight of a being who is not adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will, enjoying unbroken prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial rational spectator. Thus a good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness.

Journal of Business Ethics, 2019

Moral purism is a commonly held view on moral worthiness and how to identify it in concrete cases. Moral purists long for a moral world in which (business) people—at least sometimes—act morally worthy, but in concrete cases they systematically discount good deeds as grounded in self-interest. Moral purism evokes moral cynicism. Moral cynicism is a problem, both in society at large and the business world. Moral cynicism can be fought by refuting moral purism. This article takes issue with moral purism. The common strategy to tackle moral purism is to reject the exclusion thesis which states that self-interest and the ‘pure’ moral motive (and thus moral worthiness) exclude each other. We develop a different strategy. We argue that moral purists are mistaken in the way they judge moral worthiness in concrete cases. They employ the wrong procedure and the wrong criteria. We develop a proper procedure and proper criteria. We build on Kant, who we argue is unfairly regarded as the champio...