According to Thomas E. Hill, Kant's moral theory deserves to be taken seriously as a viable contender in contemporary philosophical discussions of morality and justice. In fourteen essays published between 2002 and 2011 along with a helpful introduction, Hill argues that Kant's practical philosophy, suitably interpreted, is much closer to common sense morality than it is often portrayed as being, but certain adjustments will have to be made, he thinks, before a moral theory that is close to Kant's can be fully endorsed by reasonably conscientious people. Kant is often caricatured and dismissed by moral and political philosophers, according to Hill, because of misconceptions and exaggerations about how the categorical imperative is supposed to be applied to substantive moral and political issues. Kant's moral theory is commonly seen as a set of absolute duties that are insensitive to empirical information and that are meant to be followed only for the sake of duty itself. According to Hill, these mistaken impressions about what the categorical imperative implies in the real world are encouraged by those who over-emphasize the four examples of the Groundwork, who insist on using the formula of universal law (FUL) to test particular maxims one by one, or who primarily appeal to specific moral intuitions about respecting the dignity of persons. According to Hill, a proper understanding of Kant's ethics requires appreciating the structured and systematic normative framework that Kant develops in the Metaphysics of Morals for interpreting and applying the categorical imperative to persistent human conditions.
In Hill's previous work on Kant, much of which is summarized in a remarkable two hundred page introduction to, and analysis of the argument of, the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (Reference Kant2002), Hill argues that the kingdom of ends formula of the categorical imperative lies at the core of Kant's moral theory. That version of the supreme moral principle, according to Hill, incorporates elements from the other formulas into a ‘legislative perspective’ for assessing mid-level moral principles and ends. But instead of providing a criterion of right action or a determinate decision guide, the categorical imperative in this form gives us a perspective from which to deliberate and discuss what system of moral principles and ends we should all adopt and live by. Particular acts or maxims are conscientiously performed, Hill claims, if we sincerely think, on due reflection and in consultation with others, that they are required by moral laws that would be adopted from the legislative perspective in which autonomous, rational agents abstract from personal differences and respect the dignity of all. At this general level, suggests Hill, we conform to universal law and treat humanity as an end in itself by acting only in ways that others could endorse if they were to take up the ideal legislative standpoint.
In addition to clarifying and refining some of these earlier ideas about the supreme moral principle, Hill suggests that Kant's project in the Metaphysics of Morals draws on and applies the ideal legislative perspective from the Groundwork to persistent human conditions by specifying a normative procedure of construction, which incorporates elements from FUL and FH, for selecting a system of mid-level moral principles and ends for rational human beings in our world. Hill draws an analogy to the constitution of an ideal political commonwealth, which provides a set of procedures and values that guide legislators who are subject to the more specific laws they make and who must attempt to pass legislation that is acceptable to every citizen. In the Metaphysics of Morals, suggests Hill, Kant assumes that ideal moral legislators will take into account empirical information of various kinds and be moved by a thick idea of respecting humanity as an end in itself, which includes substantive presumptions against weighing and balancing the dignity of persons, killing them, deceiving or coercing them and for helping persons, expressing respect for them, protecting their freedom and providing the conditions in which they can live as rational, autonomous agents.
Kant's own attempt at constructing a system of substantive principles and ends from this ideal legislative standpoint is highly structured and incorporates duties that vary in their objects, latitude, stringency and sensitivity to context. Although Hill argues that this system of first-order duties, in the end, is not the best expression of Kant's core moral theory, he suggests that in three ways Kant's metaphysics of morals is more reasonable than it may appear.
First Kant, for example, is often criticized for denying that there is any right to overthrow a tyrant even when such a person is violating universal standards of justice. Kant does have a convincing argument, according to Hill, that the constitution of a political regime cannot sanction a legal right to revolution, because such a provision would give legal authority to destroy the very conditions that are necessary for legal authority to exist. But Hill claims that Kant needs further grounds to establish the substantive moral claim that, because revolution is illegal, it is therefore morally impermissible. Kant's scheme for classifying duties, if correct, would yield this conclusion because juridical duties always take precedence over imperfect ethical ones and all juridical duties are indirect ethical duties. But Kant does not adequately explain why he divides up his first-order system of duties in this way, so Hill concludes that Kant did not offer sufficient grounds for an absolute moral prohibition against revolution.
Second Kant is also portrayed as a paradigmatic retributivist, who believes that it is intrinsically good for the state to make people suffer for their immoral acts in the manner and degree that those criminals caused their victims to suffer. Kant's official view of punishment, according to Hill, is not as extreme as this. Kant distinguishes the practice of punishment, which does incorporate the lex talionis, from the ground for having a system of that sort, which is the universal principle of justice and its corollary authorizing the state to deter acts of injustice. Kant does not think systems of punishment are justified because they aim at matching harsh treatment to inner desert. Even within the practice of punishment, Kant makes exceptions to the law of retribution for degrading treatment and he incorporates some flexibility when judging the severity of offences and punishments.
Third Kant has been criticized for claiming that states have no right to forcibly intervene in the governance of other states. Hill claims that Kant did not provide sufficient reasons to forbid all forms of humanitarian intervention. Kant argues that rulers can never forfeit their right to rule, even by oppressing their own citizens, as long as they retain their power to govern. Rightful authority to govern, according to Kant, makes sense only in a determinate, unambiguous and enforced system of rules that clearly adjudicates disputes. Oppressed citizens do not therefore have a legal right to forcible and extra-legal intervention in their government because those claims fall outside of their legal system. Hill argues that there is a gap in Kant's argument, however, which focuses on the rights a ruler has with regard to her subjects. Even if we assume that citizens of a state have a near absolute juridical duty to obey their own laws, this does not mean that people who fall outside the jurisdiction of the ruler must also respect her right to rule and so refrain from humanitarian intervention. A further argument Kant might give against interfering with the governance of another state is that, because the ruler maintains a juridical condition, we must assume that she is backed by the united will of the people, which would mean that meddling in the affairs of the government violates the rights of citizens to govern themselves. Yet, according to Hill, when an oppressive tyrant mistreats her subjects, her acts are either not backed by the united will of the people, if this is understood as a will for the common good, or, if her acts are supported by the united will of the people, this is merely a stipulation and further argument is needed to show why it should exclude any and all forms of humanitarian intervention.
Kant's basic moral theory, as Hill interprets it, provides strong grounds for adjusting Kant's substantive system of duties. Kant's ideal moral legislators are concerned to preserve life and liberty, promote happiness, show proper honour and respect and secure the conditions in which everyone can live as rational, autonomous agents. Given empirical facts about human nature and our world, ideal legislators would recognize the need to maintain socially enforced moral codes, political institutions and systems of punishment that are justifiable to all. But, according to Hill, they would also recognize the need for flexible moral principles that are sensitive to context. The legislators would likely sanction at least some forms of revolution and humanitarian intervention, as well as look for effective alternatives to punishment, improve social conditions with the aim of diminishing crime, favour flexible sentencing guidelines that may not conform to the lex talionis and perhaps also ban capital punishment.
Kant's ethical theory, according to Hill, is not just about what moral principles we ought to follow, there are also overlooked aspects about what sort of person we should be. Hill highlights the moral significance of feelings in Kant's ethics and suggests that, when Kant claims we must always do our duty from a sense of duty, what he means is that we should strive to be the kind of person who takes the fact that an act is morally required as sufficient reason to do it, even though the thought of duty need not be before our minds when we act. A person of good will, according to Kant, has a basic commitment to do her duty in all circumstances, while a virtuous person also has the strength of will to do her duty despite obstacles. Virtue, for Kant, takes time and practice to develop and we possess specific virtues of beneficence, gratitude, truthfulness when we have a strong will to fulfil these specific duties.
Yet Kant's account of virtue seems to be inconsistent with his account of transcendental freedom, for if we must presuppose that we are always free to act independent of our inclinations, how can our wills be strong or weak, how can one person have virtue while another lacks it? The problem, according to Hill, is that our Wille, which is our rational legislative will, gives us authoritative moral prescriptions that can conflict with our inclinations, but these are not merely opposing psychological forces because our Willkür, or power of choice, gives us the ability to choose freely between morality and self-love. Hill's ingenious suggestion is that a weak-willed person exercises her power of choice to adopt morality as her most fundamental commitment but sometimes chooses to deviate from that policy on particular occasions. The weak-willed person manifests two conflicts of will. She has chosen to subordinate self-love to morality as her basic life-governing policy, but she has also chosen to act immorally on this occasion. And her immoral maxim conflicts with the prescriptions of her rational legislative will. A virtuous person has a strong will in the sense that she chooses to live up to her most basic life-governing commitment to morality, which she is rationally predisposed to recognize as supremely authoritative. A further sense in which a person's will can be weak, according to Hill, is that her policy of doing her duty in all circumstances may itself be vague and indeterminate, without clear guidance about what she is required to do in specific circumstances. When her fundamental commitment takes this form, her will is weak because she may not be aware that certain specific maxims deviate from it, she may not be sure how exactly to implement her policy and she may convince herself by special pleading that what she is doing is right even when it is not.
Finally, Kant is often criticized for his theory of value, which rejects metaphysical ideas of ‘intrinsic value’ that seem to be necessary in order to explain why such things as non-human animals, the environment or the arts are valuable for their own sake. Hill approaches this problem by exploring our ordinary judgements of value, which he thinks do not presuppose a commitment to independent, intrinsic values. When we judge that something is valuable for its own sake, we imply that it is worthy of being valued and that valuing it would not be a mistake. But Hill argues that mistaking what is valuable for its own sake need not be a failure to recognize its supposed non-natural value properties. There are other kinds of mistakes we can make when we value something for its own sake. We might not fully recognize its natural properties, we may be biased or close-minded, cynical or depressed, indoctrinated or pressured, or subject to irrelevant psychological associations. When we regard something as valuable for its own sake, we endorse that judgement and expect that ideal judges who were not subject to these various faults would value it in the same way that we do. We do not arbitrarily choose or create value, according to Hill, we often find value by learning about and reflecting on things for what they are, independent of their usefulness to us. We can therefore affirm the virtue of appreciating the good for its own sake from Kant's ideal legislative perspective without relying on metaphysical ideas of intrinsic value.
Reading this collection gives a real sense of interconnection among the persistent problems of moral and political philosophy and the need for systematic theory to address them. Kant's moral framework is not perfect, according to Hill, but it is worthy of continued study as an exemplar of a unified moral framework that reasonable people can almost fully endorse. The phrase ‘Kantian Aspirations’ in the title reflects the modest, exploratory and hopeful spirit of the book. In his characteristically accessible and modest style, Hill draws limited conclusions, raises further questions, clears away misunderstandings and proposes paths for future research, all in the hope of helping others engage with the true virtues and vices of Kant's ethics.
