Allison’s chapter surveys some prominent criticism of Kant’s claims that immoral actions involve a kind of contradiction.
I added another quotation about what “maxim” means on April 2.
We are discussing Kant’s celebrated categorical imperative: act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law (4:421).1 That was the so-called formula of universal law. An alternative formulation of the categorical imperative is called the formula of law of nature: “act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature” (4:421). Kant says these amount to the same thing. (And there will be still more formulations that are also supposed to be equivalent to these.)
What is a maxim? Well, that is going to be an issue today. But as a first cut, let’s take Kant’s own words. He says that a maxim is “the principle in accordance with which the subject acts” (4:421n) and that “A maxim is the subjective principle of volition” (4:401n).2 Later in the book, we get this: “maxims, that is, rules imposed on oneself” (4:438).
The idea, then, is that you are supposed to imagine that your maxim is a universal law (or a law of nature). Would that result in a contradiction? That is, if everyone thought like you do, would you be able to do the thing that you plan to do?
If the answer is “yes, there would be a contradiction”, then your maxim is bad and acting on it would be immoral. If the answer is “no,” you are in the clear and get to do what you wanted to do.3
Kant illustrates how this works with examples drawn from the four categories of duties that, he thinks, are commonly recognized.
| Duties to ourselves | Duties to others | |
|---|---|---|
| Perfect duties | No suicide | No false promises |
| Imperfect duties | Develop talents | Benevolence |
Maxims that conflict with perfect duties yield a contradiction in conception, meaning you cannot imagine these maxims being universal laws that everyone acts on
Maxims that conflict with imperfect duties produce a contradiction in will, meaning you can imagine a world where everyone shares your maxim, but in that world you would not be able to do the things that you want to do. Kant thinks this means you cannot both act on your maxim and will that your maxim is adopted as a universal law at the same time.4
Allison’s book is a commentary. That means he is going through Kant’s book in order and commenting on what he thinks are the major points. Part of the commentary involves discussing what other scholars have said. That is what we are going to use him for today: to get a condensed account of what scholars think about Kant’s examples.
Note: Allison uses abbreviations in his text. Here is what they mean.
Scholars have raised a variety of objections to Kant’s claim about false promises. Allison thinks the most substantial ones fall into three broad classes. There are two kinds of false positives, that is, cases where clearly immoral actions seem to pass the categorical imperative tests. And there are false negatives: cases where clearly innocuous actions seem to fail the test.
We are going to start with false promises, since that is the case that scholars regard as the most, ahem, promising for Kant’s theory. But the discussion will cover examples other than ones involving promises.
The first kind of false positives concern very specific maxims: I will make a false promise to this person on this date (Allison 2011, 191–92).
Allison says that these are not genuine counter-examples. Kant says that you should subject your actual maxims to the categorical imperative test and, Allison asserts, no one has maxims that are this specific. I think it is worth discussing whether that is so or not. Elizabeth, for example, has already said that she thinks we often frame our immoral behavior as being very limited: just this once! Who is right about how we think when we want to break the rules? I think it’s a good question!
The second kind of false positives involve a distinction between conventional actions and natural actions (Allison 2011, 193). The reason why the promise case works, according to critics, is that promising depends on social rules. When I make a false promise to you, I only benefit if you believe it is a genuine promise. But if everyone, including you, thinks the way I do, you won’t believe it is genuine. That’s where the contradiction comes from. But what about murder or mayhem? Where is the contradiction in beating someone up because they made you mad?
Allison surveys three ways of dealing with this problem and concludes that none of them are satisfactory (Allison 2011, 193–95).
Finally, the false negatives come from maxims that are innocuous but seem to generate contradictions if they were to become universal laws. For example, “I will play tennis at 10am on Sunday because the courts will not be crowded then” or “I will buy a clockwork train but never sell one” (Allison 2011, 197). The idea is that if everyone decided to play tennis at 10 am on Sunday, the courts would be very crowded, defeating the original plan. But that plan is not, for that reason, immoral.
Allison argues that the false negatives are not a problem since the examples do not involve genuine maxims. Maxims, according to Allison, have six features (Allison 2011, 198).
They are subjective practical principles (vs. objective ones, the moral rules)
They presuppose the particular ends and interests of the person who acts on the maxim (the “agent”)
They are general rules or policies and not about specific actions.
They are “consciously adopted”
They have the form “When in S-type situation, perform A-type actions in order to attain end E”
Maxims provide “the normative criterion for the rules” that fall under them and the rules “are determined by a judgment that is attendant to particular circumstances” (Allison 2011, 198). (I do not know what this means but I do not see that it plays a major role in the argument.)
Allison says that the maxims in the examples about tennis and trains are not general, and so run afoul of condition 3 (Allison 2011, 199).
In our discussion, I think it will be worth talking about whether we have maxims that are general in the way that Allison has in mind.