 As you can probably tell by now, I like making these videos in Friedrich Wilderness Park. It's a very nice park, and also it's kind of close by, so it's convenient in some ways. One of the reasons why Friedrich Wilderness Park is a nice park is because they have several rules in place. For instance, there are no bikes allowed in Friedrich Wilderness Park. All use of the park is by foot only. So you're either walking or you're running, but you're not bicycling, you're not mountain biking, you're not skateboarding, although it's probably not possible to skateboard on these rough roads, rough trails. But Friedrich has this rule in place where you are only walking or running on the trails, only foot traffic on the trails. Another rule you have in place is no pets. Pets aren't allowed in Friedrich Wilderness Park, and it helps with some of the upkeep. Another rule that's in place is that you do not deviate from the trail. There's no ... so we have the trail here in Friedrich Wilderness Park, and you can walk on that, but you can't leave the trail. So you couldn't ... the exit is roughly that direction. If I wanted to make a quick exit, I wouldn't be allowed to just trample on down through. I'd have to stay on the trail to make my way back. So a question comes up as to whether morality is like this, is as morality is set of these absolute rules, and by absolute rule it's meant this exceptionless rule. The rule is in place and there's no way you can deviate from that. Are there moral absolutes? So one way to start thinking about these moral absolutes is actually to think in terms of rationality, and this is what Emmanuel Kant is doing. Kant was a real big fan of rationality. Maybe a little too much in some ways actually if you read some of Kant's works. So one of the things that Kant noted about rationality is that actions have purposes. So I'm here and I'm in this park and I'm talking to a video camera, and hopefully you're listening to the product of the video camera later on. But I have a purpose here. The purpose here is not merely just to walk through the park. My purpose is to try to explain some of the concepts involved in the text that we're reading. Some of the concepts involved in ethical theory. Now I might seem a little weird that I'm actually in the park doing that, but there's a chain of reasoning, right? Lectures don't really seem to work anymore because lectures are difficult to listen to and they're boring. So I have class time and said, yet I still have to provide an explanation for the material. Well, I'm not going to do that in the classroom, so I have to do it outside the classroom. The best way to do it outside the classroom is to use a video. And I could have the video just say in some bland room and write things on the board, but this is more visually pleasing. There's a little more, I'm not saying that my videos are ever going to win any Oscars, but this is at least a little more visually pleasing and interesting than just a blank wall with me just talking. So that's my purpose for being out here is, weirdly enough, I'm walking in the park to explain philosophy to my students. And believe me, passers-by who wonder what I'm doing get that explanation and I get some puzzled looks. So every action has a purpose and it's irrational to take on an action that defeats the purpose. Now you may not know exactly what I mean, but this takes several different expressions in our everyday life. So for instance, I suppose my purpose is to be healthy. I want to lower my heart rate, I want to decrease my body mass index, I want to increase my strength and increase my endurance. So that's my purpose in mind. And the way to do that, the way I'm going to achieve this purpose is to eat potato chips, watch Netflix and sit on a couch. That's just weird, right? That's at best irrational. Anybody who's trying to be healthy doing that is either deeply mistaken or probably doesn't really want to be healthy. This is a major idea behind rationality, is that you do not perform actions that defeat the purpose of performing the action. So to be healthy, you exercise, you adjust your diet, so you decrease fats and solids and you have a certain ratio of protein to carbohydrates and you get a certain amount of vitamins and minerals. This is what you need to do to be healthy. So this first step in trying to understand absolute moral rules for Kant is first to understand rationality. And a big part of this is you do not perform actions that defeat the purpose for performing the action. So the first step in understanding Kant's little puzzle about absolute moral laws is this notion about rationality. You don't perform actions that defeat the purpose for performing the action. So this leads to different kinds of imperatives and imperative is just a command. Sit down in your seat. I give you several imperatives when you walk in the classroom. Turn in your video quiz, take out your notes and make sure you watch the video for next time, right? These are all imperatives for you to follow. So Kant starts describing at least two different kinds of imperatives. The first imperative is called a hypothetical imperative. And this is very closely linked to this idea of rationality. So a hypothetical imperative is something like, you know, if you want exercise, then you can bicycle or you can run or you can play a sport, right? So a hypothetical imperative is given some kind of, given some kind of goal, given some kind of desire or given, you know, some kind of, you know, need or want, right? You take a particular course of action to achieve that goal. So if you want to get a good grade, then you read the book, you take notes, you comprehend and you take all the tests. This would be a hypothetical imperative. So hypothetical imperatives, you know, if you, oh, I don't know, if you want to listen to music, turn on the radio. That's kind of a simple one. If you want to, if you want to learn more about the world, then start reading. These are hypothetical imperatives. And the idea of rationality applies here because we're given a certain desire, certain goal, a certain goal and a course of action to achieve that desire or goal. If your course of action defeats the purpose of that goal, it's irrational and it's not a hypothetical imperative in that case. So we have the hypothetical imperative and then we have the categorical imperative. Whereas the hypothetical imperative is a course of action given some kind of desire or goal. A categorical imperative is a course of action you should take regardless of any desire or goal. This is what you do no matter what you want to do. So the way Constrainty tied this in with rationality is, again, he's still trying to appeal to this idea of avoiding self-defeating actions. So whereas hypothetical imperatives would give you a specific course of action for a goal, the categorical imperative would be more general. It might be a hypothetical imperative is to say, well, if you want to exercise and you enjoy water, then you should swim. But that wouldn't be a categorical imperative. It's simply another case that everybody should swim given whatever they want to do. The categorical imperative is different. It's trying to apply courses of action across all desires, across all goals, all wants across all needs. And this would be your moral framework. These are the things that you should do or should not do. There are things that you shouldn't do with some of the categorical imperatives in order to achieve what you want. Now Kant has, that's the idea that Kant has in mind about the categorical imperative. And so far, it seems OK. None of it seems really weird at this point until we start asking the question of what are the categorical imperatives. And even more importantly, how do we figure out what the categorical imperatives are? So Kant's idea here is to say, look, the categorical imperative or the categorical imperatives are going to be those rules or laws that you put in place and you'd be willing that everybody would follow the same rules or laws. So it's those rules and laws that you put in place such that you'd be willing that everybody follow the same rules or laws. And what he's trying to get at here is if your course of action is one of those kinds of courses of action such that if everybody did it, then nobody can do it or nobody could get what they want doing it, then you can't take that course of action. So this actually has some kind of shades of social contract here in the background, right? Instead of multiple rational agents making these decisions, it's one person making these decisions. So there's some real close tie here, and the close tie is we're dealing with rationality and we're dealing with putting laws in place such that everybody would be following these laws. So his example is lying. Here's Kant's idea about lying. He thinks it's a categorical imperative that you should never lie. You should always tell the truth. Well, what is this supposed to mean? Or why would he think that this is a categorical imperative? He says, look, if everybody lied, then nobody could get anything done by lying. Why does he reach that conclusion? Imagine you lived in a world in which everybody lied. I know it kind of seems that way sometimes, but in fact, in our world, people tell the truth more often than you think. But even look at that situation where you're looking at it to our world and you notice that people are lying and you know they're lying. It's just obvious that they're lying. You don't believe those people. You don't want to listen to them. You don't want to follow whatever they have to say. You don't want to believe whatever they're trying to convince you. Well, Kant's pushing on this. Imagine if everybody were lying. If everybody were lying, then nobody would believe anybody else. Nobody would believe anybody else. We have all these problems of people not believing each other. In fact, you wonder if you could get anything done, because if everybody's lying somewhere along the way, one person is trying to teach another person language, but if they're lying the whole time, you can't even teach a person language. So Kant's point here with the Category Comparative is that these are the rules or maxims that you put in place that you'd be willing that everybody follows those same rules. Now, a universal maxim is just a fancy way of saying a law that you would want everybody to follow. If you could, you'd have everybody follow this law. This is how Kant thinks we're going to find the Category Comparative. Remember, the Category Comparative are those imperatives you follow no matter what desire, no matter what your goal is. They're suited for all goals and for all desires. And the way that Kant thinks you're going to find this is by trying to figure out which rules or laws that you would have in place such that everybody would follow those rules and laws. So it's kind of an issue with a lot of these absolute moral laws to begin with is the question of exceptions. We tend to think that there are exceptions to a lot of rules. If not all of them. So for instance, I'm here in Friedrich Wilderness Park and one of the laws is that I do not deviate from the path. I'm okay. That's a rule. Now, is this exceptionless? Meaning, is there any time where I can deviate from the path? Well, we tend to think that there are. Suppose the worst happens and Friedrich is ignited on fire and I've got to make my way as fast as possible to the exit. Well, you know, I think I'm pretty sure right now the exit is directly that way. But there's a whole roundabout way with the trails to get back to the exit. It's like, well, you know, if the place is on fire, then yeah, I should forget the rules about following the trail. I should bug out across the field. Blaze my own trail before the blaze catches me. Well, we tend to think this way about a lot of the absolute moral laws that are given to us. So even just looking at Kant's example, with Kant saying, you should always, always, always tell the truth. Because this is just part of what rationality is. You should put it to place those rules that you would have everybody follow. Well, some questions come up pretty fast. So somebody might say, so here's Kant and he says, you should always tell the truth. And then somebody else asks, really, always? There aren't any situations in which I can lie? And Kant says, no, there are no situations in which you can lie. Because if you had everybody lie, then nobody would believe anything. And the objector pushes the point even further. Say, look, I think there's some really good instances in which I should lie. If I'm at home and my next-door neighbor knocks on my door frantically, I open up the door, they run in, they say, I'm being chased by a murderer. I need to hide in your apartment. And then you go hide your friend in the apartment. You see, you put him in the closet and you're waiting. Then you hear another knock on the door and a murderer asks, you open the door and the murderer is there. The murderer is holding a knife. The murderer is holding a knife and says, I'm here to murder your next-door neighbor. Where is your next-door neighbor? Would you really tell the truth in that situation? Kant would say, sure. You really tell the truth in that situation. Because you can't will lying as a universal maxim. To which the objector says, I think it's a good idea to lie in that case. Because I need to protect the life of my friend. Now, it's hard to see what Kant's reply really could be here. I mean, maybe you think, well, you're being irrational. But this tends to be a case where the prohibition against lying really falls flat. And in fact, we lie to each other an awful lot for a wide variety of reasons, besides protecting life. Sometimes it's to protect feelings. Sometimes it's to, you know, just, you know, sometimes there's lying that happens and debates. Where you just, you say, okay, you know, you say, fine, you just kind of agree to a point for the sake of not having to argue for something, something even further. We lie quite a lot and it's just as a way to, you know, grease the social wheels. At least in America we do. It's going to be, I think it's going to be different across other cultures. So this is really kind of a pushing point against Kant's idea that lying is a categorical imperative. That lying is always, always, always immoral. Well, at this point it seems like Kant might have gotten himself stuck. On the one hand he wants to have these absolute moral laws and with this example of lying it looks like he really gets himself into trouble. What's going on here? Well, one way to approach this is to say, since lying won't work as an absolute moral law, then there are no moral laws. That's probably a really bad argument because there are other suggestions for what an absolute moral law would should be. Now another strategy to take is to say, look, when we're talking about this case of lying, there aren't going to be, there are going to be exceptions to the lying case. And we can start trying, we can start looking at other cases too. Say something like, you know, killing. Normally we say you shouldn't kill, but we think that there are exceptions to this rule. So in cases of self-defense or, you know, some people think in cases of capital punishment. So a suggestion here then is, you know, while this is not a deductive proof, a suggestion here is that there's always going to be an exception to whatever absolute law you can think of. Well, this would be the first objection to any kind of absolute moral laws is that there's always going to be an exception. Now, maybe we can still, maybe Conk can still dig himself out of this pit. Another problem that pops up with when considering absolute moral laws is the problem that moral laws seem to conflict, at least sometimes. So just in the case that we're talking about regarding lying, you know, there seem to be two absolute moral laws in conflict. We say, you know, you should never lie, you should always be honest. On the other hand, we also say you should protect other people, or you should protect life. Well, it looks like you can't do both in the situation of, you know, this murderer who's running to the house, because it looks like you're either going to violate one, you're either going to lie and protect the life of your next door neighbor, or you're going to tell the truth and, you know, let your neighbor get killed. So these are two apparent problems with this idea of absolute moral laws, the problem of the exceptions to the laws and the problems of the conflicts. Now, before we, you know, throw caution to the wind and say, there are no absolute moral laws, therefore we could do whatever you want. Yay! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, that doesn't follow. Now, look what's happening when we're talking about these problems with the absolute moral laws. I mean, one problem is the exceptions, and another problem is the conflicting moral laws. Now, in both of those cases, there still is a clear course of action that you should take. Namely, you should lie. You should lie and protect your friend. Now, we don't think that should change, right? We don't think that it's permissible in the case of the inquiring murderer that it's okay to tell the truth. In a sense, you know, there's, you know, that's inviolable. So, the suggestion here as far as Rachel is concerned is, you know, we still have good moral reasons, right? And these reasons are not relativistic. They're good moral reasons. And these reasons are always going to apply. In fact, you know, if they apply in one case, then they're going to apply in all relevant, similar cases too. So, you know, if we are dealing with this, with these good moral reasons that we're dealing with, consistency. And you should always have consistency. And since we're also dealing with consistency, and we're not dealing with these, you know, like real exceptions all the time, what he thinks falls in that is also impartiality. We should also consider everybody's interest to be equally important. So, he still wants to hold on to this minimum conception of morality that he talked about in the first chapter. Even though these absolute moral laws, like do not lie, don't really seem to work on their own, there's still going to be a demand for consistency and impartiality. So, you might wonder whether this is really a problem we're talking about absolutes of any kind, or is this just a problem with absolutes of like really simplistic kinds. But we'll talk about that in class.