Deontology

Introduction
Reggie Cabututan
• Australian – Trent Shields
• Suitcase – laptop, passport, expensive earphones
• =P260, 000
• Consider closely the moment when Reggie found that Trent
had left a suitcase in his taxi cab: If he were to return the
suitcase, there was no promise of an award from the City
Government of Baguio and no promise of a reward from the
owner.

• What if he took the suitcase and sold its contents? That

could surely help him supplement his daily wages.

• Life as a taxi driver in the Philippines is not easy.

• A little extra cash would go a long way to put food on the

table and to pay tuition fees for his children.
• Yet, Reggie returned the suitcase without the promise of a
reward.

• Why? Perhaps, he had previously returned lost luggage to

passengers.

• Maybe, it was his first time to do so.

• Maybe, he received a reward before, or maybe he knows

some fellow taxi drivers who did or did not receive rewards
from passengers after they returned lost luggage.
• However, the point is that there was no promise of a reward.

• A reward, in the first place, is not an entitlement.

• It is freely given as an unrequired gift for one's service or

effort.

• Otherwise, it would be a payment, not a reward, if someone

demanded it.
• Why did Reggie return the suitcase?

• For now, let us suppose his main reason was simply because
it was right to return lost property to the rightful owner, no
matter how tempting it is to keep it for oneself.

• Is it possible that Reggie's reason for returning the Luggage

was not because of any reward whether psychic or physical?

• It is simply the right thing to do" Reggie might have told

himself
• What if Reggie did not return the suitcase, destroyed the
lock, then took and sold its valuable contents?

• What is wrong about keeping and benefitting from the

valuables that someone misplaced?

• "It is his fault; he was mindless and careless Reggie could

have thought.
• As the saying goes: Finders keepers, losers weepers.

• On one hand, Reggie could have mused: "He will learn

to be more mindful of his things from now on.

• Yet, Reggie returned the suitcase without the promise

of a reward.
• As we previously said, perhaps, Reggie believed that it
was the right thing to do.

• Even if he felt that he could have benefitted from the

sale of the valuable items in the suitcase, he must
have believed the principle that it is right to do the
right thing.

• Reggie could be holding on to this moral conviction as

a principle of action.
• To hold a moral conviction means believing that it is
one's duty to do the right thing.

• What is duty?

• Why does one choose to follow her duty even if doing

otherwise may bring her more benefits?
DUTY AND AGENCY
• The moral theory that evaluates actions that are
done because of duty is called deontology.

• Deontology comes from the Greek word deon,

which means "being necessary”.

• Hence, deontology refers to the study of duty and

obligation.

• The main proponent of deontology is Immanuel

Kant (1724-1804).
• Kant brings our attention to the fact that we, human
beings, have the faculty called rational will, which is
the capacity to act according to principles that we
determine for ourselves.
• To consider the rational will is to point out the
difference between animals and persons.

• On one hand, animals are sentient organisms.

• Sentience, meaning an organism has the ability to

perceive and navigate its external environment.
• Animals constantly interact with their surroundings.

• This is also true to us humans; we are also sentient.

• Thus, both animals and persons interact in and with

the world, reacting to external stimuli and internal
impulses to survive and thrive.
• On the other hand, people are also rational.
Rationality consists of the mental faculty to
construct ideas and thoughts that are beyond our
immediate surroundings.
• This is the capacity for mental abstraction, which
arises from the operations of the faculty of reason.
• Through the capacity for imagination and
reflection, we conceive of how we could affect,
possibly even change, the world we live in.
• Thus, we do not only have the incapacity to imagine and
construct mental n images, but we also have the ability to act
on to enact and make real -those mental it images.

• This ability to enact our thoughts is the basis for the rational
will.

• The rational will refers to the faculty to intervene in the world,

to act in a manner that is consistent with our reason.

• Animals = act on impulses = based on natural instincts

• They do not and cannot deliberate on their actions.

• In fact, we may say that animals do not "act: They only 'react" to their
external surroundings and internal impulses.

• In contrast, we humans have reason, which intervenes between impulse and

act.

• We have the ability to stop and think about what we are doing to evaluate
our actions according to principles.

• Simply stated, we are not only reacting to our surroundings and internal
impulses, but are also conceiving of ways to act according to certain rational
principles
• This triumph clarifies the meaning of rational will, the
capacity of a person to be the cause of her actions based on
reasons and not merely to mindlessly react to the
environment and base impulses.

• In philosophical discussions about human freedom, this

capacity is called agency, which is the ability of a person to
act based on her intentions and mental states.
• The moment he discovered that Trent
had left his suitcase in the taxi cab,
Reggie reacted according to his rational
will-to return the suitcase

• He determined that it was his duty to

return it inasmuch as his rational will
had conceived such a duty.
• Hence, to act according to a duty is a specifically human
experience.

• Animals, if it is true that they do not possess the faculty of

rational will, cannot conceive of having duties.

• This is the starting point of deontology.

• We may claim that as long as we have rationality, there will

always be the tension between our base impulses and our
rational will.
AUTONOMY
• Kant claims that the property of the rational will is autonomy
(Ak 4:440), which is the opposite of heteronomy.

• These three Greek words are instructive: autos, heteros, and

nomos, which mean "self” "other” and "law” respectively.

• Hence, when we combine autos and nomos, we get

autonomy; heteros and nomos to heteronomy.

• Crudely stated, autonomy means self-law (or self-legislating)

and heteronomy means other law
• In the case of Ryan and Liza, are they autonomous?

• Certainly not, as their parents are the ones that

legislate the principle that children should brush their
teeth before they go to bed and impose such a
principle by using threats or incentives.
• At a certain point, perhaps when they were growing up as teenagers,
they both reflected on the whole business of brushing one's teeth.
Both concluded that they (1) agree with the principle behind it (oral
hygiene) and thus, (2) every night they impose it upon themselves to
brush their teeth before going to bed. Number 1 refers to the act of
legislating a principle, while number 2 refers to the enacting of the
principle. Thus, it also refers to the willing of the adopted principle
into reality. Are they autonomous? Yes
• When we think of someone being "subject to the law' we usually
think of an imposing authority figure that uses his power to control
the subject into complying with his will. Imagine a policeman who
apprehends a suspected criminal by forcing him on the ground and
putting handcuffs on his wrists. Incidentally, "subject" comes from the
Latin words sub (under) and jacere (to throw).When combined, the
two words refer to that which is thrown or brought under something.
The will must comply with the law, which is the authority figure.
• Surprisingly though, the will must give the law to itself. Therefore, the
will is, at the same time, the authority figure giving the law to itself.
How can the rational will be subordinate to that which is
simultaneously its own authority figure? Isn't that contradictory to be
subject to the law and yet also be the authority figure for itself? Thus,
Kant describes autonomy as the will that is subject to a principle or
law
• This apparent contradiction is entirely possible to exist, but only for
self-reflexive human beings that have rational will. Remember Ryan
and Liza, and the principle of brushing their teeth.
• On one hand, heteronomy is the simple legislation and imposition of a
law by an external authority (a person must brush her teeth before
going to bed). Their parents are the authority figures, and the law is
imposed externally by rewards or punishments, On the other hand,
autonomy belongs to the grown-up and already rational Ryan and
Liza. who have adopted such a law about brushing their teeth. They
regularly impose such a law o themselves out of the enactment of the
will to follow the law.
• The distinguishing point here is the locus of the authorship of the law.
In any given scenario where a person complies with the law, we ask
where the author is, whether it is external or internal. If the author of
the law is external, the will is subjected to an external authority, thus
heteronomous will.
• In contrast, if the author was the will itself, imposing the law unto
itself, then we describe the will as autonomous. For the 25-year-old
versions of Ryan and Liza who brush their teeth before going to bed
without any prompting from their parents, their adoption of the
childhood law about tooth brushing makes the locus of the
authorship internal. Thus, they are autonomous.
• However, trivial actions such as brushing one's teeth can hardly be
considered "moral" Real moral issues often involve actions like
stealing, lying, and murder, in that they have a certain gravity, insofar
as those actions directly harm or benefit the well-being of persons.
Reggie's case, seen in this light, is clearly a moral issue.
• Let us remember that alternative scenario that we imagined earlier:
What if Reggie did not return the suitcase, destroyed the lock, then
took and sold its valuable contents? Is this not an act of rational will?
Can we not claim that Reggie's rational will determines for itself how
it enacts its duty in this alternative scenario? Is Reggie not, after all,
acting as an autonomous agent? Reggie could have easily come upon
the odious principle that he should benefit from Trent's loss because
people who lose their things are careless, and thus do not deserve to
keep those things. Therefore, Reggie may have concluded, "1 am
entitled to benefit from this lost suitcase. I am the author of this
principle. I am acting autonomously: He may conclude this since no
external authority 1s legislating laws for him by using rewards or
punishments. However, this kind of reasoning is mistaken from a
Kantian understanding as we will show below.
• What do you think of Reggie’s principle that he should benefit from
other people's loss because they are careless, and thus do not
deserve to keep those things? Is it still autonomous agency when a
person enacts any apparently self-legislated principle? We may argue
that the locus of the authorship of the law was certainly internal,
when he tells himself, "1 am entitled to benefit from this lost
suitcase" based on how we have described the difference between
autonomy and heteronomy--self and other. Is that what an autonomy
properly means? Certainly not.
• Thus, there is a difference between what determines a choice or
decision, whether it is caused by sensible impulse or by pure reason.
On one hand, sensible impulses are usually bodily and emotional.
Bodily instincts and desires, such as the urge to eat, drink, sleep, or
have sexual intercourse, comprise the set of human compulsions for
survival and the propagation of the species. Emotions and sentiments
also make up what Kant considers sensible impulses. Practical
examples are the jealousy from seeing your girlfriend or boyfriend
make eyes at someone, and the rage from being pushed foully by
your opponent in a basketball game. As we previously claimed, when
we discussed the difference between animals and humans, there is
immediacy to sensible impulses. There is hardly anything that comes
between the stimulus and the reaction. Kant calls this set of actions
that are caused by sensible impulse animal choice or arbitrium
brutum
• On the other hand, there is a choice or action that is determined by pure reason.
Kant calls this kind of action free choice, and one may argue that human freedom
resides in this capacity of reason to intervene, to "mediate" within arbitrium
brutum. Previously, rationality was described as the mental capacity to construct
ideas and thoughts that are beyond one's immediate surroundings. This mental
capacity is what makes the intervention possible between stimulus and reaction.
With the faculty of reason, a person can break the immediacy of stimulus and
reaction by stopping to deliberate and assess possible alternative actions. The
above-described jealous partner and raging basketball player, if they had enough
self-possession, could refrain from reacting mindlessly to the triggering stimuli and
instead construct a rational response. For instance, you may open up with your
partner to talk about trust and setting boundaries, or you may tell the guarding
opponent to take it easy and play the game well. In both cases, you orient your
actions toward an overall aim that you aspire for trust and sportsmanship,
respectively. These aims are mental constructions of the faculty of reason. These
examples do not imply that people are not affected by sensible impulses. The
jealous feelings and anger are present, but they do not immediately and
automatically cause the actions. Based on the quote above (Ak 6:213), Kant
describes that human choice can be affected but is not determined by sensible
impulses.
• What does it mean for a human to be affected but is not determined
by sensible impulse? It implies that we are indeed basically animals,
but we cannot be reduced to mere animality. This is where the
correlative conjunction 'not only, but also" is useful. When we claim,
"The human person is not only an animal, but is also rational" we
admit to two possible causes of our actions: sensible impulses and the
faculty of reason. Human freedom resides in that distinction
• Let us return once again to Reggie and the alternative scenario when he
tells himself lam entitled to benefit from this lost suitcase:" Is Reggie
acting autonomously supposing he did not return the suitcase and instead
sold its contents for his own benefit? We asked this at the beginning of
this section: Is it always autonomous agency when a person enacts any
apparently self-legislated principle? Certainly not. The difference between
human choice and animal choice is crucial to giving a correct answer here.
Autonomy is a property of the will only during instances when the action
is determined by pure reason. When the action is determined by sensible
impulses, despite the source of those impulses being nevertheless
internal, it is considered heteronomous. Why heteronomous? Because a
sensible impulse is external to one's self-legislating faculty of reason. Kant
confirms this point when he states that the action caused by sensible
impulses results always only in the heteronomy of the will because it is
what he calls "a foreign impulse" (Ak 4:444), insofar as the will does not
give itself the law.
• Therefore, Reggie is not acting autonomously, supposing he was to
take and benefit from the contents of the suitcase. Why would we
consider his will as being heteronomous? Because a sensible impulse
would be the cause of such an action, whether it is greed or the
excitement of obtaining easy money without working for it, or the
shame that arises from being unable to provide for his family. In any
of those causes, a sensible impulse is akin to a "foreign impulse" that
has the same immediacy of an external authority figure that imposes
its will on Reggie.
• Therefore, Reggie is not acting autonomously, supposing he was to
take and benefit from the contents of the suitcase. Why would we
consider his will as being heteronomous? Because a sensible impulse
would be the cause of such an action, whether it is greed or the
excitement of obtaining easy money without working for it, or the
shame that arises from being unable to provide for his family. In any
of those causes, a sensible impulse is akin to a "foreign impulse" that
has the same immediacy of an external authority figure that imposes
its will on Reggie.
• We can thus make the conclusion that heteronomy of the will occurs
when any foreign impulse, whether it is external (as in other persons
or institutions that impose their will on the agent) or sensible (as in
bodily instincts or base emotions) is what compels a person to act. In
contrast, autonomy is the property of the will in those instances when
pure reason is the cause of the action,
• But what consists in an action that is done by an autonomous will
insofar as the cause of the action is pure reason? What does it mean
to act according to pure reason?
UNIVERSALIZABILITY
• To figure out how the faculty of reason can be the Cause of an
autonomous action, we need to learn a method or a specific
procedure that will demonstrate autonomy of the will But before
explaining this procedure, it will be helpful to first make a distinction
about kinds of moral theories, namely, substantive and formal moral
theories.
• A substantive moral theory immediately
promulgates the specific actions that comprise
that theory. As such, it identifies the particular
duties in a straightforward manner that the rants
of the theory must follow. The set of Ten
Commandments of the Jude0-Christian tradition
is an unambiguous example of a substantive
moral theory. The specific laws are articulated
mostly in the form of a straightforward moral
command: “Honor your father and mother “You
shall not kill" and so forth.
• In contrast, a formal moral theory does not supply the rules or commands
straightaway. It does not tell you what you may or may not do. Instead, a formal moral
theory provides us the "form or "framework" of the moral theory. To provide the
"form" of a moral theory1s to supply a procedure and the criteria for determining, on
one's own, the rules and mora commands. Metaphorically, we can think of a cookbook
as akin to a formal moral theory. In using a cookbook, we are given instructions on
how to cook certain dishes, but we are not given the actual food themselves, which
would be "substantive: In following a recipe for sinigang, for example, we may add a
slight variation to the ingredients and sequence or steps. But if we want the dish to
remain sinigang and not transform it into some other kind of viand like pochero, we
need to follow the steps that are relevant to making sinigang. To be exact, a formal
moral theory will not give us a list of rules or commands. Instead, it will give us a set of
instructions on how to make a list of duties or moral commands.
• Kant endorses this formal kind of moral theory. The Grundlegung zur
Metaphysik der Sitten, which he wrote in 1785, embodies a formal
moral theory in what he calls the categorical imperative, which
provides a procedural way of identifying the rightness or wrongness
of an action. Kant articulates the categorical imperative this way:
• Act only according to such a maxim, by which you can at once will
that it become a universal law (Ak 4:421)
• There are four key elements in this formulation of the categorical
imperative, namely, action, maxim, will, and universal law. Kant states that
we must formulate an action as a maxim, which he defines as a "subjective
principle of action" (Ak 4:422). In this context, a maxim consists of a "rule"
that we live by in our day-to-day lives, but it does not have the status of a
law or a moral command that binds us to act in a certain way. Rather,
maxims depict the patterns of our behavior. Thus, maxims are akin to the
"standard operating procedures" (SOPs) in our lives, We act according to a
variety of maxims, even if we are not aware of them. Actually, we become
aware of our maxims when we talk about ourselves, when we reveal our
habits and the reasons behind them. For example, we tell our friends what
we ordinarily do in certain specific situations: When the weekend comes, I
usually go to the beach with my family to relax. When the exam week
begins, I go to mass so that I will be blessed with good luck. Whenever I
meet my crush, I wear my hair in a braid so that he will notice me. These
are usually personal “policies" that may or may not be unique to us, but
we act according to these maxims nonetheless. This is Why Kant calls a
maxim a subjective principle of action. We have many maxims in our dally
lives, and we live according to them.
• In the formulation of the categorical imperative, Kant calls our attention to
the kind of maxims that we live by. He claims that we ought to act according
to the maxim "by which you can at once will that it become a universal law."
What does it mean to will a maxim that can become a universal law? It
means that the maxim must be universalizable, which is what it means to
"will that it become a universal law." This means nothing other than
imagining a world in which the maxim, or personal rule, that I live by were
adopted by everyone as their own maxim. In this formulation, Kant is telling
us to conceive of the maxim as if it obligated everyone to comply. This mental
act of imagining a universalized maxim does not mean we picture a world in
which everyone actually followed the maxim. Instead, we merely imagine the
maxim as a law that everyone ought to follow. The proper way to imagine the
universalized maxim is not by asking, "What if everyone did that maxim?" but
by asking, "What if everyone were obligated to follow that maxim?" Here is a
clear example.
• In Groundwork towards a Metaphysics of Morals, Kant takes up the issue of
making false promises (Ak 4:422). He narrates the predicament of a man who
needs money, but has no immediate access to obtain it except by borrowing it
from a friend. This man knows that he will not be able to pay the money back,
but if he says he cannot return the money, then no money will be lent to him.
Hence, the predicament is simply about him borrowing money, while knowing
that he cannot pay it back. This is a specific act under the general category of
acts called false promising. Kant says that the man would like to make such a
promise, but he stops and asks himself if what he is about to do is right or
wrong: Is it really wrong to borrow money without intending to pay it back? If
we were to formulate this act as a maxim, it would go this way: "When I am in
need of money, I shall borrow it even when I know I cannot pay it back."
• Remember that Kant states that we should act according to a maxim by which
we can at once will that it become a universal law. What does it mean to
universalize the maxim about borrowing money without intending to return
it? It is simple. Imagine a hypothetical world in which each person, whenever
she is in need of money, is obligated to borrow from another even when she
knows she cannot pay it back. We do not imagine that people actually
borrowed money without intending to return it. Instead, we think of them as
obligated to do so. Now, there are two possibilities in this hypothetical world
where people are obligated to borrow money without intending to pay: the
maxim can either make sense or not make sense as a universal law. By
“making sense, we refer to the logical plausibility of the universalized maxim.
The opposite of logical plausibility is self-contradiction or logical impossibility.
• Let us assess that hypothetical world. If borrowing money without
intending to pay were everyone's obligation to comply with, what
would happen to the status of the universalized maxim? The purpose
of Borrowing money would be defeated because no one will lend
money. In a world where it is an obligation to Borrow money without
paying back, all lenders would know that they will not be paid and
they will refuse to lend money. The institution of money-borrowing
would lose is meaning if everyone was obligated to borrow money
without intending to pay it back. As a universalized maxim, it would
self- destruct because it becomes impossible. This is how Kant
assesses it:
• Here see straightaway that it could never be valid as a universal law
of nature and be consistent with itself, but must necessarily contradict
itself For the universality of a law that each person, when he believes
himself to be in need, could promise whatever he pleases With the
intent not to keep it, would make the promise and the purpose that he
may have impossible, since no one would believe what was promised
him but would laugh at all such expressions as futile pretense (Ak
4:422)
• In the passage above, Kant distinguishes between being "consistent with itself
and "contradict itself" Look at the maxim again: "When I am in need of money, I
shall borrow it even when I know l cannot pay it back. “The meaning of the act
"to borrow" implies taking and using something with the intent to return it. In the
maxim, the claim is to borrow "even when I know I cannot pay it back" which
contradicts the very meaning of "to borrow. The contradiction is evident: to
borrow (implies returning) but the intention is not to return. Of course, in the real
world, many people borrow money without intending to pay, but it is the logical
plausibility of the universalized maxim that is at stake. Here, we reveal the
contradiction that occurs when we scrutinize the maxim because, after all, one
contradicts oneself when one borrows money (implies intent to return) without
intending to pay it back. It makes no sense. This is why Kant claims that the
universalized maxim "could never be valid as a universal law of nature and be
consistent with itself, but must necessarily contradict itself" Thus, we can
conclude that the act of borrowing money without intending to pay is rationally
impermissible. Here, we discover two ways by which Kant rejects maxims. The
universalized maxim becomes either (1) self-contradictory or (2) the act and its
purpose become impossible.
• What is the result of all these? We reveal the rational permissibility of
actions insofar as they cannot be rejected as universalizable maxims. In
contrast, those universalized maxims that are rejected are shown to be
impermissible, that is, they are irrational and thus, in Kant's mind, immoral.
But what does rational permissibility mean? Simply put, it refers to the
intrinsic quality of an action that it is objectively and necessarily rational.
Using the universalizability test, we can reveal the objective necessity of an
action as rational. Observe, for example, the quality of the arithmetical
claim, "1 + 1= 2. It is objectively necessary because the quality of the claim is
universally and logically valid, and we understand this to be always true as
rational beings. Observe the difference between the qualities of objectively
necessary claims with contingent claims, such as claims about the world like
“the sky is blue" the truth of which depends on the actual situation in the
world. Therefore, we have demonstrated that borrowing money without
intending to pay, as a kind of false promise, is objectively and necessarily
wrong, insofar as it encounters a self-contradiction and logical impossibility
when it is universalized as a maxim.