Self self self

Immanuel Kant

This follows Going platinum as number 5 in a series of posts on the Golden Rule. The first was Any fool can make a rule. Next one is Good Samaritan.

Immanuel Kant was rather scathing about our Rules. He was talking about Silver rather than Gold, but he could have had both in mind:

Don’t think that the banal ‘Don’t do to anyone else what you wouldn’t want done to you’ could serve here as a guide or principle. It is only a consequence of the real principle, and a restricted and limited consequence at that. It can’t be a universal law, because it doesn’t provide a basis for duties to oneself, or benevolent duties to others (for many a man would gladly consent to not receiving benefits from others if that would let him off from showing benevolence to them!), or duties to mete out just punishments to others (for the criminal would argue on this ground against the judge who sentences him). (1785, 2017:30)¹

His first objection, about the Silver Rule excluding duties to oneself, could also be levelled at the Golden Rule. But is the objection sound? He seems to take it as self-evident that there are duties to oneself:

I want now to list some duties, adopting the usual division of them into duties to ourselves and duties to others… (1785, 2017:24)

But are there ‘duties to self’ – either at all, or ones which do not in some way derive from social existence? If they derive from social existence, can they really be described as ‘duties to self’?

Kant gives two examples, the supreme one being self-preservation. Suicide is wrong because it contravenes this duty to self. It is clear that many religions and legal codes forbid suicide. But that is not the point. A proponent of the Silver or Golden Rules could merely say she thinks her Rule is better, and then list all the ancient quotes as back-up.

It is not as if the Rules would have nothing to say about suicide. Few if any people are islands. We have family and friends and dependents. Suicide devastates survivors, so much so that it is often seen as a ‘selfish’ act. Would you choose to be left behind by the suicide of a loved one? No, so don’t impose that on your own loved ones.

This is not Kant’s point of course. The duty to self is distinct from the duty to others. Even if there was no one to grieve your passing; even if the world might be a happier place without you; even if, for these or other reasons, you were convinced your life was not worth living; – he would say you still have a duty to yourself to keep on going.

He attempts to derive this supreme duty to oneself from his categorical imperative. Personally I find his argument unconvincing, but I will not discuss it here. If Kant can prove from the categorical imperative that the concept of duty to oneself is sound, then fine: categorical imperative 1, precious metals 0. But for now, while we can see no other justification for the duty of self-preservation other than the fact that many ethical codes assume it, we cannot say it has refuted the Rules.

His other example of a duty to self fares little better. It is that of self-improvement – preserving and developing one’s talents. He describes a man who

finds in himself a talent that could be developed so as to make him in many respects a useful person. But he finds himself in comfortable circumstances, and would rather indulge in pleasure than take the trouble to broaden and improve his fortunate natural gifts. … He sees that a system of nature [like this] …could indeed exist, with everyone behaving like the Islanders of the south Pacific, letting their talents rust and devoting their lives merely to idleness, indulgence, and baby-making – in short, to pleasure. But … as a rational being, he necessarily wills that all his abilities should be developed, because they serve him and are given to him for all sorts of possible purposes. (1785, 2017:25)

Again a full discussion of this would mean getting to grips with the categorical imperative, which I will not attempt here. I will only remark that again Kant gives no independent justification as to why an example like this counts against the Rules. The passage above includes some telling phrases (with emphases added):

…a useful person

Useful to whom? To himself? If to others then the example could fall under the Rules. If to himself, does he not have the right to decide what he makes of his life?

…his abilities … serve him

If he would rather not develop his abilities then presumably they do not serve him as well as another use of his time and energy – even doing nothing?

…and are given to him

Given by whom? God? Nature? His parents? So it is not a duty to himself, but to God or Nature or his parents, that he should not waste their gift to him?

… for all sorts of possible purposes

Are these possible purposes to enrich other people’s lives or so he does not disappoint those who love him? If the purposes are purely a matter of his own possible objectives, then maybe he does not have those objectives. Does he have a duty to have different objectives from the ones he happens to have? Remember we are only talking about possible objectives which would fall outside the reach of either the Golden or Silver Rules.

Kant’s approach to ethics certainly had a significant teleological dimension. In another context he says (again with emphasis added):

In human nature there are predispositions to greater perfection that are part of nature’s purpose for humanity… (1785, 2017:30)

But again this teleology is not so self-evident that we have to take his objection as a knock-down argument against either of our Rules.

Read on.

References

¹ Kant‚ Immanuel 1785, 2017. Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals. Translated and annotated by Jonathan Bennett. Available online at: http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/kant1785.pdf

© Chris Lawrence 2018

[Adapted from thinkingmakesitso, a blog of mine from 10 years ago.]