NOTE : THESE QUESTIONS ARE BASED ON THE COURSE NOTES FOR KANT/KANTIAN ETHICS THAT CAN BE FOUND HERE, HERE, HERE AND HERE. COMMENTS ON THE ANTHOLOGY EXTRACT FROM KANT’S GROUNDWORK FOR THE METAPHYSICS OF MORALS CAN BE FOUND BY FOLLOWING THAT LAST LINK. THE EDEXCEL SYLLABUS ALSO REQUIRES A COMPARISON TO BE MADE WITH ARISTOTELIAN VIRTUE ETHICS. THIS CAN BE FOUND HERE.
THIS TEST (AND MANY OF THE OTHERS ON THIS SITE) SHOULD ALSO BE OF USE TO STUDENTS FOLLOWING THE OCR OR AQA ADVANCED LEVEL RELIGIOUS STUDIES COURSES.
BEAR IN MIND THAT THEY ARE MEANT TO BE DIFFICULT. FOR THIS REASON THEY SHOULD BE ATTEMPTED AFTER THE AFOREMENTIONED NOTES HAVE ALREADY BEEN CAREFULLY REVISED. HAVING SAID THAT, IT IS POSSIBLE THAT ERRORS MIGHT HAVE BEEN MADE DURING THE CREATION OF THE TEST. PLEASE USE THE CONTACT FORM TO LET ME KNOW IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE SPOTTED ONE.
THE LANGUAGE USED IN ALL BLOG POSTS AND IN THE FOLLOWING TEST HAS NOT BEEN SIMPLIFIED. THIS IS BECAUSE EXPANDING YOUR PERSONAL VOCABULARY IS IMPORTANT IF YOU WISH TO ACCESS THE HIGHER GRADES AT ADVANCED LEVEL.
FOR THE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS, SCROLL DOWN TO THE END OF THIS BLOG ENTRY.
1.TRUE or FALSE? Kant’s ethical theory is an example of a deontological theory.
2. A deontological theory is one that emphasises….
a. the best consequences for everyone affected by a moral decision.
b. feelings over reason.
c. the minimization of suffering.
d. the observation of rules, duties and commands.
e. the cultivation of admirable character traits.
3. According to Kant, morality should be based on…
a. the laws of the land.
b. reason.
c. feelings of pleasure.
d. divine commands.
4. Kant argued that…
a. ethical principles change over time.
b. are absolute and universal.
5. For Kant, the only thing that is good all on its own and supplies the right motive for an action….
a. are the admirable virtues that are esteemed in society and that we should all aim to cultivate.
b. is a good will.
c. is selfless concern for others.
6. TRUE or FALSE? For Kant, performing an ethical action with a ‘good will’ means that you feel good about what you do.
7. TRUE or FALSE? To discover whether an action is truly moral, the first thing that you need to do is to formulate a maxim, a statement of the rule or duty that you think may relate to the situation at hand. This maxim then needs to be checked to see whether it is genuinely rational and ethical, and that it is not contaminated by any selfish motives that you may have for wishing to act in conformity with it.
8. Which of the following is NOT an example of a maxim that was discussed by Kant himself?
a. Making a false promise.
b. A grocer not overcharging a naive customer.
c. Killing one person to save the lives of 19 others.
d. Telling the truth (to a would-be murderer).
9. TRUE or FALSE? An imperative is a command. Kant argued that only two types of imperative are moral : hypothetical and categorical imperatives.
10. TRUE or FALSE? The principal moral rule in Kant’s ethical theory is what he calls the categorical imperative – essentially meaning ‘absolute command’.
11. TRUE or FALSE? Kant outlined a procedure to test whether a maxim could become categorical or an absolute command. The first part of this procedure involves establishing whether a maxim could become a universal law.
12. TRUE or FALSE? This first test of a maxim involves imagining what would happen if everyone followed it.
13. TRUE or FALSE? For Kant, the maxim ‘Whenever I need money, I should make a false promise about paying it back’ fails the test of universalization because it would then become a logically contradictory and self-defeating ethical principle.
14. TRUE or FALSE? Kant’s second formulation of the categorical imperative is as follows: ‘So act to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other, in every case as a means and never as merely an end.’
15. TRUE or FALSE? This second formulation of the categorical imperative involves acknowledging that every rational being should be respected because they are – like oneself – capable of rationality. From this it follows that he or she must never be exploited or manipulated or used by another person for selfish reasons.
16. TRUE or FALSE? The final formulation of the categorical imperative is stated by Kant as follows: ‘So act that your will can regard itself at the same time as making universal law through its actions.’
17. TRUE or FALSE? If a maxim conforms to the three formulations of the categorical imperative then it is one which all rational beings must observe.
18. TRUE or FALSE? Telling the truth conforms to all three formulations of the categorical imperative. So we must do so in all situations.
19. Which of the following is NOT a possible strength of Kantian ethics?
a. Kant forces us to take responsibility for our moral decision making by making us more aware of our duties. In doing so we avoid just selfishly doing what we feel like or giving way to urges and desires that we know are bad for us.
b. By insisting that we treat people as means not ends, Kantian ethics would (if followed by everyone) might lead to the disappearance of racism, sexism, homophobia etc. as all human beings are respected. Kantian ethics acknowledges that all human beings have rights simply because they are capable of being rational.
c. Kant’s theory makes morality possible for those who are not by nature kind, compassionate or generous. On Kant’s view, anyone who is rational and capable of understanding where their duty lies can be a good person.
d. By focusing on motives and intentions, Kant makes us reflect rationally on the motives for our actions instead of simply using reason to get where we want to go and do what we want to do via the problem solving process involved with the following of hypothetical imperatives.
20. TRUE or FALSE? If we are the only honest person in a society of liars, Kant believes that in this situation we do not have to follow the categorical imperative to tell the truth.
21. Which of the following is NOT a possible weakness of Kantian ethics?
a. One criticism of Kant is that there are maxims we can think of that may fail the test of universalisability but which still make sense morally. Take the maxim, ‘One ought to wear a condom to stop the spread of sexually transmitted infections.’ This seems logical and reasonable, but if universalised consistently, the human race would eventually die out because there would be no pregnancies.
b. It could be argued that respect has to be earned. It is not something that we are automatically entitled to. And one could add that the very worst kinds of people, like terrorists or paedophiles deserve to forfeit their right to be treated as an ‘end in themselves’ because of the terrible things they do.
c. For Kant, only rational beings are thought to be capable of making moral decisions. This does not include animals. So they can be treated as means and you would not have any particular duty to look after your pet dog or cat. However, recent research into animal psychology has found that some species (such as African grey parrots, chimpanzees and gorillas do seem to be able to reason in a simple way).
d. Kant discounts emotions. They have only a small part to play in moral decision making. But surely the strong feelings of affection for our friends and family, and the compassion that the suffering of others arouses in us count for something. If so, then Kant may be achieving moral consistency in his system of ethics but at the price of our humanity.
22. TRUE or FALSE? A prima facie duty is a ‘first sight’ duty, the thing that we would normally do in most situations. According to the philosopher Michael Sandel, our main prima facie duties are as follows:
Fidelity – Keep your promises.
Reparations – Right your wrongs.
Gratitude – Repay favours.
Justice – distribute goods fairly.
Beneficence – Help others.
Self-Improvement – Make yourself a better person.
Non-Maleficence – Bring no harm to others.
23. TRUE or FALSE? Kant has also been famously criticised for not making it clear what we should do if we have a clash of duties.
24. TRUE or FALSE? Where there is a clash of duties, it has been suggested that our prima facie duty (the thing that we would normally do) can be set aside in favour of a more compelling duty e.g. instead of telling the truth about the location of a person we are helping to hide from a would-be murderer we should lie to protect them.
25. TRUE or FALSE? The philosopher W.D. Ross has suggested that we can still adhere to Kant’s rule about truth telling by telling the would-be murderer a misleading truth e.g. by truthfully saying where the person we are hiding was when we saw them somewhere else recently.
ANSWERS
1. True
2. d – Deontological theories are based on rules,duties, commands and laws. The consequences of our actions are irrelevant for moral decision-making.
3. b – reason.
4. b
5. b
6. False – emotions and feelings are completely irrelevant for Kant when it comes to moral decision-making. An actions performed with a ‘good will’ is simply one that is rational and in conformity with the moral law. This is a major contrast with Aristotelian virtue ethics where emotions do have a part to play in moral decision-making.
7. True
8. c – see Bernard Williams’s example of Jim and the Indians in your course notes about Utilitarianism.
9. False – – hypothetical imperatives are of the kind, ‘If you want A, then do B’. For example, ‘If you want to go to university, revise hard’, or ‘If you don’t want the reputation of your business to suffer, then give even inexperienced customers the correct change.’ However, the formula for a categorical imperative is simply, ‘Do B!’, as that is what reason has confirmed to be the right thing to do. Hypothetical imperatives are contaminated by selfishness and reflect means-ends type thinking. So for Kant, they are not moral.
10. True
11. True – Kant’s first formulation of the categorical imperative was expressed as follows: ‘Act only according to that maxim by which you can, at the same time, will that it would become a universal law.’
12. False – it is a test of logical consistency. For Kant, morality NEVER involves thinking about the consequences of our actions, ‘What would happen if…?’
13. True – this is because no-one believes promises unless they expect them to be kept. The whole concept of a promise is based on this logical assumption. So when this maxim is universalized it therefore becomes contradictory and fails the test.
14. False – Kant actually wrote, ‘So act to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other, in every case as AN END and never as merely A MEANS.’ NOTE: you can use yourself as a means to an end too e.g. by becoming a prostitute to earn money. So for Kant, prostitution would be immoral. So this is also relevant to the topic of Sexual Ethics.
15. True – when we DO treat someone with respect we are recognising them as an ‘end in themselves’, according to the terminology used in Kantian ethics. But when the shopkeeper is honest (in Kant’s famous example), he is NOT doing this out of respect for the customer but only because he is worried about the damage to the reputation of his business if word gets out that he cheated the inexperienced customer. So his action is NOT moral. So you can use it as an example to show what a hypothetical imperative is AND to illustrate how the second formulation of the categorical imperative works. Basically, any maxim containing a sometimes hidden, ulterior motive fails this test.
16. True – Kant is asking you to imagine yourself in the role of someone who is making laws for everyone to follow. If the maxim is one that any rational being could observe, then this test is passed too. It is a suitable law for a ‘Kingdom of ends’, a community of rational beings. NOTE: this formulation of the categorical imperative is very similar to the first one. But it additionally reminds us of exactly who we have a duty to.
17. False – Kant also wrote that ‘ought implies can’. If our maxim passes all three of the tests just described it must still be capable of being realistically performed by a moral agent. So for example, it might be my intention to end world poverty. And the maxim ‘It is morally right to try to end world poverty’ might be in conformity with the three versions of the categorical imperative. But at the end of the day, none of us individually has the power and influence to end global poverty. So while it might be something we ought to do, it’s something we can’t actually achieve. So for Kant, we don’t have a duty to observe in cases like this.
18. True – Kantian ethics does not allow exceptions to be made.
19. b – Kant insists that we treat people as ‘ends in themselves’ not as a ‘means’ to whatever selfish goal we are pursuing.
20. False – Kant writes about the summum bonum, ‘the highest good’. This is something that he felt we might experience in the afterlife, when virtue and duty coincide and we get our reward for doing the right thing in this life. So if this is what will eventually happen, we should carry on being truthful. It is noteworthy that the virtuous character we have acquired (so emphasised by Aristotle) does come into play here, and so is a point of similarity between the two philosophers.
21. d – Feelings and emotions don’t have a ‘small part to play’ in Kantian ethics. As previously mentioned, they are considered to be totally irrelevant when it comes to the business of making moral decisions.
22. False – it was WD Ross who came up with this list of prima facie duties.
23. True – this relates to the criticism Kant received for insisting that we should tell the truth about the location of someone we are hiding even if a would-be murderer wants to know where they are. The criticism is that he is ignoring the competing duty we have to preserve the life of the person we are protecting.
24. True – but there is still a problem. Ross (the philosopher who came up with this idea) suggests that we should use our intuition to figure out which duty is the one to follow. But if we are using our intuition we have arguably stopped being Kantian in our moral decision-making, as Kant believes that all our moral decisions should be based on reason not intuition.
25. False – Michael Sandel proposes this solution.