In this course, we discussed two main categories of ethical theories, theories of the good, which describe what makes something good or bad, and theories of morality, which describe what makes an action right or wrong. One such theory of morality is the non-consequentialist theory of Kantianism. Kantianism is a non-consequentialist view because according to the theory, the rightness of an action does not depend on its consequences. Kantianism is broken up into four parts, the principle of autonomy, the principle of universalizability, the principle of the kingdom of ends, and the principle of humanity. In this essay I will argue that Kantianism, specifically the principle of humanity, is the most plausible moral theory because it allows for fair punishment and can explain the intuitive wrongness of actions that would be considered morally okay under other theories.
According to the Kantian principle of humanity, to do what is morally right you must treat every human being, so long as they are rational and autonomous, as an end, and never as a means only. In the context of this theory, rationality is defined as the capacity to reason and deliberate and autonomy is defined as the ability to make independent choices. Put simply, to do what is morally right, you must treat all people with the respect they deserve and not use them solely to benefit yourself.
In Kant’s view, a human life is valuable above all else, and a person’s dignity should always be respected. He believed that a person’s humanity, as defined in this principle, is what gives them their dignity, and humanity rests on two major pillars: rationality and autonomy. According to the principle of humanity, what makes an action wrong is not based on its consequences, but if it undermines a person’s humanity. The principle of humanity also has an emphasis on punishments, not only the ways in which we treat people when using them for our benefit.
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To deal with punishment, the principle of humanity relies heavily on the lex talionis, or the law of retaliation, one of the oldest and most commonly used laws for punishment, which says that a punishment for a crime must be of the same type and degree as the crime committed. The principle of humanity requires that people abide by this rule because to give someone an unfair punishment, good or bad, would be to undermine their humanity. Thus, the principle of humanity is at the same time able to morally justify appropriate punishments for crimes while still maintaining that human life is precious and that there are universal human rights.
Another principle of Kantianism is the principle of universalizability. The principle of universalizability states that for an action to be morally right, its maxim must be unverbalizable. That is to say that for an action to be morally right, it must pass a test in which in a world where everyone shared your same maxim, or goal, it would still be possible to perform the action. Although the principle of universalizability is closely related to the principle of humanity, as they are both non-consequentialist views and they were both developed by Kant, they have very different approaches to determining the morality of actions.
The main ways that the principle of universalizability is different from the principle of humanity is that the principle of universalizability assesses the moral rightness or wrongness of an action based on the action itself, while the principle of humanity assesses the rightness or wrongness of an action based on the person to which the action is being done. This is a key difference because it allows the principle of humanity to be more easily applied to different types of people and to explain the intuitive moral wrongness of some situations that the principle of universalizability would consider morally right, as the aspect of humanity is used as a deciding factor for the morality of an action.
I believe that the principle of humanity is more plausible than the principle of universalizability because it can explain why some actions that are morally wrong intuitively even when the principle of universalizability says that the action would be morally right. An example of this could be if you killed a mailman for walking on your lawn, ruining your perfectly manicured grass, after you had warned the mailman not to walk on their lawn on several occasions.
If you apply the test for universalizability, you will find that if everyone killed people for walking on their lawns, you would still be able to kill the mailman for walking on your lawn, so killing him would be the morally right thing to do, even though intuition says that it is wrong. However, if you were to use the principle of humanity, killing the mailman would be considered morally wrong because it is not an equivalent punishment for what he did, so to kill him would be to undermine his humanity, and thus, it would be immoral. It is cases such as this that show why the principle of humanity can line up much more with intuition in determining the morality of an action than the principle of universalizability is able to.
The principle of humanity can be applied in many real life circumstances. One of the most common ways in which the principle of humanity can apply in real life is explaining the universal wrongness of some actions. The principle of humanity applies in these cases because while some actions are intuitively morally wrong, many moral theories cannot explain this. A more specific example of this would be the case of rape.
While the theory of universalizability sees no problem with this—in a world in which everyone intended to rape others, it would still be possible for rape to occur—the principle of humanity is able to explain why this is wrong: to rape someone for your own personal pleasure would be to disrespect the victim’s humanity, and thus rape would be morally wrong. The principle of humanity can also apply in situations where one innocent person would be harmed in order to save many people. A specific example of this would be a case in which an innocent African American man was framed for a murder that in reality was committed by a white man. In this case, the area in which the murder occurred had a very high Ku Klux Klan presence and the murder was committed by a Klan member.
After the murder had been committed, the Klan approached the government with a warning that if the person who committed the murder was arrested, the Klan would kill many innocent African American citizens of the area which, in turn, may cause riots in the African American community—all very bad consequences. To avoid those consequences, the government could frame Jones, a young African American man they had incarcerated for a much smaller crime, for the murder. While Classical Act Utilitarianism, a consequentialist theory of morality which says that the morally right thing to do is whatever will provide the most good for the most people, says that framing Jones would be right—it would prevent the possible deaths of many innocent African American citizens of the area—intuition says that framing the man is morally wrong.
However, the theory of humanity is able to explain why framing the man would be the morally wrong thing to do. Because it is a non-consequentialist view, the principle of humanity does not look at the consequences of framing Jones to determine what is the morally right action, but instead it looks at how the action would effect Jones. Because to frame Jones would clearly be using him only as a means, not as an end, and because Jones is a rational and autonomous person, the theory of humanity says that framing Jones would be wrong. In real world cases such as these in which the principle of universalizability is easily applicable and succeeds where others fail.
I believe that the strongest possibly objection to the principle of humanity is that it is sometimes difficult to determine what one justly deserves. The most troubling example of this would be if a German family in World War II was hiding a family of Jewish people when a high ranking Nazi officer, one who willingly chose to join the Nazi party, knocked on the family’s door and asked if they were harboring any Jews in their household.
According to critics of the principle of humanity, the principle would require that the family tell the Nazi officer that they are in fact hiding a Jewish family in their home because lying to the officer, a rational and autonomous being, would undermine his humanity and thus be immoral. This is a problem for many people because the German family lying to the Nazi officer to save their family as well as the Jewish family would be widely regarded as the morally right thing to do, even if the principle of humanity does not allow for it. The argument for the objection as is follows:
- If the principle of humanity is true, then lying to the Nazi officer is morally wrong
- Lying to the officer is morally right
- Therefore, the principle of humanity is false
I believe that the strongest possible response to this objection comes in two parts. The first part demonstrates why, according to the principle of humanity, lying to the officer is the morally right thing to do, which makes the argument invalid due to premise 1 being false. The second part shows that while lying to the officer may not, in fact, be morally wrong, it is not the main action that would be required by the principle, so the argument may not apply at all.
I believe that premise 1, that the principal of humanity says that lying to the Nazi officer is the morally wrong thing to do, is false because the principle requires that punishments be done according to the lex talionis. Because the type and degree of a punishment must be equivalent to the crime, and one of the things that the Nazis commonly did was use tactics of deception to trick Jewish people to come out of hiding, then it is morally right to lie to the Nazi officer because to tell the truth would not be giving him what he deserves, which would undermine his humanity.
The second part of the response describes why the objection is invalid because lying to the officer is not the response that would be required by the principle of humanity. This is because when it comes to punishment, the principle of humanity requires that people be punished for their wrongdoings and that those punishments are done according to lex talionis.
The principle of humanity, and Kantianism in general, describe human life as infinitely precious, and thus killing as morally wrong. Because of what the Nazi officer did, attempting to get Jewish people to come out of hiding so they could be sent to concentration camps and likely be killed, he was responsible for the deaths of many innocent people. Because of this, the lex talionis, which supports capital punishment as for crimes involving the death of another person, would the proper punishment for the wrongs the Nazi officer had committed would be death.
Because death is considered to be the proper punishment for his actions, and because the principle of humanity says that to give someone a punishment better or worse than what they deserve is to undermine their humanity, then the morally right thing to do would be to kill the Nazi officer. Thus, it makes no difference as to whether it is morally right or wrong to lie to the Nazi officer, as what he deserved had nothing to do with lies, for the main crime he committed was murder, so he should be murdered instead.
In conclusion, I believe that the non-consequentialist moral theory of Kantianism, and more specifically the Kantian principle of humanity, is the most plausible moral theory because it is able to explain the moral wrongness of many actions that are intuitively wrong, but considered right by many other moral theories. The principle of humanity, which states that any rational and autonomous person can be used as an end, but never as a means only, is able to justify the moral wrongness of many actions better than the related Kantian principle of universalizability, which says that an action is morally right only if it is unverbalizable, because it allows the morality of an action to be determined based on the people it effects and nothing else.
Although the case of lying to the Nazi at the door would appear to be morally wrong according to the principle of humanity, but is intuitively morally right, it is, in fact, a misinterpretation of the principle of humanity that would cause this perception, as the principle also requires just punishment for wrongdoings, which include lying and killing. Because of this, the objection that lying to the Nazi is morally wrong according to the principle of humanity can be shown not only to not be a valid argument, but to be based on the wrong action altogether, furthering my belief that the principle of humanity is the most plausible moral theory.
