ETHICS: FOUNDATIONS OF MORAL VALUATION

CHAPTER VI: DEONTOLOGY

Chapter Objectives:
After reading this chapter you should be able to:

1. Discuss the basic principles of deantology:

2. Apply the concepts of agency and autonomy to one's moral experience; and

3. Evaluate actions using the universalizability test.

INTRODUCTION
During the flag ceremony of that Monday morning, January 24, 2017, the mayor
of Baguio City awarded a certificate from the City Government that commended Reggie
Cabututan for his "extraordinary show of honesty in the performance of their duties or
practice of profession." Reggie is a taxi driver who, just three days before the awarding,
drove his passenger, an Australian named Trent Shields, to his workplace. The
foreigner, having little sleep and was ill the previous day, left his suitcase Inside the taxi
cab after he reached his destination. The suitcase contained a laptop, passport, and an
expensive pair of headphones, which Trent claimed amounted to around P260,000

Consider closely the moment when Reggie found that Trent had left a suitcase in
his taxi cab: If he were to return the suitcase, there was no promise of an award from
the City Government of Baguio and no promise of a reward from the owner. What if he
took the suitcase and sold its contents? That could surely help him supplement his daily
wages. Life as a taxi driver in the Philippines is not easy. A little extra cash would go a
long way to put food on the table and to pay tuition fees for his children.
 Yet, Reggie returned the suitcase without the promise of a reward. Why?
Perhaps, he had previously returned lost luggage to passengers. Maybe, it was his first
time to do so. Maybe, he received a reward before, or maybe he knows some fellow taxi
drivers who did or did not receive rewards from passengers after they returned lost
luggage. However, the point is that there was no promise of a reward. A reward, in the
first place, is not an entitlement. It is freely given as an un required gift for one's service
or effort. Otherwise, it would be a payment, not a reward, if someone demanded it.

Why did Reggie return the suitcase? For now, let us suppose his main reason
was simply because it was right to return lost property to the rightful owner, no matter
how tempting it is to keep it for oneself. Is it possible that Reggie's reason for returning
the thing to do." Reggie might have told himself. luggage was not because of any
reward whether psychic or physical? “It is simply the right.

What if Reggie did not return the suitcase, destroyed the lock, then took and sold
its valuable contents? What is wrong about keeping and benefitting from the valuables
that someone misplaced? "It is his fault; he was mindless and careless" Reggie could
have thought. As the saying goes: Finders keepers, losers weepers. On one hand,
Reggie could have mused: "He will learn to be more mindful of his things from now on."
Yet, Reggie returned the suitcase without the promise of a reward,

As we previously said, perhaps, Reggie believed that it was the right thing to do.
Even if he felt that he could have benefitted from the sale of the valuable items in the
suitcase, he must have believed the principle that it is right to do the right thing. Reggie
could be holding on to this moral conviction as a principle of action.

To hold a moral conviction means believing that it is one's duty to do the right
thing. What is duty? Why does one choose to follow her duty even if doing otherwise
may bring her more benefits?

DUTY AND AGENCY

The moral theory that evaluates actions that are done because of duty is called
deontology. Deontology comes from the Greek word deon, which means "being
necessary." Hence, deontology refers to the study of duty and obligation. The main
proponent of deontology is Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). He was a German
Enlightenment philosopher who wrote one of the most important works on moral
philosophy, Groundwork towards a Metaphysics of Morals (1785). In this work, Kant
brings our attention to the fact that we human beings, have the faculty called rational
will, which is the capacity to act according to principles that we determine for ourselves.

To consider the rational will is to point out the difference between animals and
persons. On one hand, animals are sentient organisms. Sentience, meaning an
organism has the ability to perceive and navigate its external environment. Insofar as
dogs and carabaos are sentient organisms, we do not see them bumping into trees and
walls unless their senses are weak. Animals constantly interact with their surroundings.
This is also true to us humans; We are also sentient. Thus, both animals and persons
interact in and with the world, reacting to external stimuli and internal impulses to
survive and thrive. On the other hand, people are also rational. Rationality consists of
the mental faculty to construct ideas and thoughts that are beyond our immediate
surroundings. This is the capacity for mental abstraction, which arises from the
operations of the faculty of reason. Thus, we have the ability to stop and think about
what we are doing. We can remove ourselves mentally from the immediacy of our
surroundings and reflect on our actions and how such actions affect the world. We can
imagine a different and better world, and create mental images of how we interact with
other people in that world. In the same way, an architect "first" constructs her blueprint
of a house in her mind. When the draft of that construction is drawn, she can then give
instructions to masons and carpenters on how to build the actual house, which becomes
the "second" construction. This happens often in our lives such as when a young girl
puts on her nice dress and makeup, when a student writes the outline for an English
essay, or when a painter makes initial sketches on a canvass. The first construction
consists in how we imagine things can be, then we implement that in the second
construction. Through the capacity for imagination and reflection, we conceive of how
we could affect possibly even change, the
world we live in.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German
enlightenment philosopher who is thought to
herald the "Copernic Revolution in
Philosophy. What is meant by Copernican
Revolution? Nicolaus Copernicus was the
fifth century astronomer who proposed the
heliocentric model of the universe in his book
De Revolutionibus is Orbium Coelestium.
This was a major event in history of ideas
because it heralded a radical paradigm shift
in the way humans considered their place the
universe. Akin to Copernicus, Kant developed
revolutionary insights concerning the human
mind and the conditions for the possibility of
knowledge In this chapter, the primary text of kant, Groundwork towards a Metaphysics
of Morals, shows his contributions in moral philosophy. By itself, this text is also
revolutionary, insofar as Kant's ambition in the text is radical. He intends to develop
what he calls the "supreme principle of morality." It is supposedly supreme because by
basing it on the faculty of reason, it becomes ding for all creatures that have that faculty.
("Faculty" re means inherent mental capacity.) This way, the ting force of obligation is
no longer relative but universal. It no longer depends on what a person's historical,
cultural, or religious circumstances are. For as long as that person has the faculty of
reason, the moral law of binding. Hence, Kant has become a ke thinker in moral
reflection.

Thus, we do not only have the capacity to imagine and construct mental images,
but we also have the ability to act on-to enact and make real-those mental images. This
ability to enact our thoughts is the basis for the rational will. The rational will refers to the
faculty to intervene in the world, to act in a manner that is consistent with our reason. As
far as we know, animals only act according to impulses, based on their natural instincts.
Thus, animals "act with immediacy (from Latin:i+medius, orno middle") with nothing that
intervenes between the impulse and the action. They do not and cannot deliberate on
their actions. In fact, we may say that animals do not "at." They only "react" to their
external surroundings and internal impulses. In contrast, we humans have reason,
which intervenes between impulse and act. We have the ability to top and think about
what we are doing to evaluate our actions according to principle Simply stated, we are
not only reacting to our surroundings and internal impulses, but are also conceiving of
ways to act according to certain rational principles,

Right now, for example, you may feel lethargic. Your head feels heavy and your
eyes are droopy. The corresponding impulse is to close your eyes and then fall asleep.
However, your rational will demand something else. Perhaps, you have to finish reading
this chapter for a quiz tomorrow. That quiz is part of the big picture, that is, your
formation as a student to earn a degree and do productive work. So you struggle to stay
awake; you stand briefly to stretch your legs. You may have already taken some coffee.
Right now, as you struggle to stay awake and understand the words on this page your
rational will is victorious over your bodily impulses as long as you stay awake. This
demonstrates the triumph of your rational will over your base impulse to just go to sleep.
This triumph clarifies the meaning of rational will, the capacity of a person to be the
cause of her actions based on reasons and not merely to mindlessly react to the
environment and base impulses. In philosophical discussions about human freedom,
this capacity is called agency, which is the ability of a person to act based on her
intentions and mental states.

Let us go back to Reggie. The moment he discovered that Trent had left his
suitcase in the taxi cab, Reggie reacted according to his rational will-to return the
suitcase. He determined that it was his duty to return it inasmuch as his rational will had
conceived such a duty.

Hence, to act according to a duty is a specifically human experience. Animals, if

it is true that they do not possess the faculty of rational will, cannot conceive of having
duties. This is the starting point of deontology. We may claim that as long as we have
rationality, there will always be the tension between our base impulses and our rational
will.

AUTONOMY
 Kant claims that the property of the rational will is autonomy (Ak 4:440), which is
the opposite of heteronomy. These three Greek words are instructive: autos, het os, and
nomos, which mean "self," "other," and "law," respectively. Hence, when we combine
autos and nomos, we get autonomy: heteros and nomos to heteronomy. Crudely stated,
autonomy means self-law (or self-legislating) and heteronomy means other law.
Consider the trivial example of brushing one's teeth, which is not yet a moral dilemma
but is sufficient to explain the difference between autonomy and heteronomy. When you
were a child, did you like to brush your teeth? As far as we can tell, children do not like
to brush their teeth, but parents know that children should, to maintain oral hygiene. So
parents try to find ways to get their small children to brush their teeth before going to
bed, using a variety of incentives or threats of undesirable consequences. "Hey, Ryan,'
a mother tells her boy, go and brush your teeth now or else your teeth will rot!"*Come
on now, Liza, a father tells his daughter, "If you brush your teeth in five minutes, I will let
you play your computer game tonight." In the case of Ryan and Liza, are they
autonomous? Certainly not. as their parents are the ones that legislate the principle that
children should brush their teeth before they go to bed and impose such a principle by
using threats or incentives.

Now think about Ryan and Liza twenty years later when they are in their mid-
twenties. Suppose they brush their teeth every night before they go to bed, and they do
so without the prodding of their parents. At a certain point, perhaps when they were
growing up as teenagers, they both reflected on the whole business of brushing one's
teeth. Both concluded that they (1) agree with the principle behind it (oral hygiene) and
thus, (2) every night they impose it upon themselves to brush their teeth before going to
bed. Number 1 refers to the act of legislating a principle, while number 2 refers to the
enacting of the principle. Thus, it also refers to the willing of the adopted principle into
reality. Are they autonomous? Yes, certainly, Kant describes this as follows:

The will is thus not only subject to the law, but it is also subject to the law in such
a way that it gives the law to itself (self-legislating), and primarily just in this way that the
will can be considered the author of the law under which it is subject. (Ak 4:431) This
description of autonomy is unusual. When we think of someone being "subject to the
law," we usually think of an imposing authority figure that uses his power to control the
subject into complying with his will. Imagine a policeman who apprehends a suspected
criminal by forcing him on the ground and putting handcuffs on his wrists. Incidentally,
"subject" comes from the Latin words sub (under) and jacere (to throw). When
combined, the two words refer to that which is thrown or brought under something. The
will must comply with the law, which is the authority figure.

Surprisingly though, the will must give the law to itself. Therefore, the will is, at
the same time, the authority figure giving the law to itself. How can the rational will be
subordinate to that which is simultaneously its own authority figure? Isn't that
contradictory to be subject to the law and yet also be the authority figure for itself? Thus,
Kant describes autonomy as the will that is subject to a principle or law.
 This apparent contradiction is entirely possible to exist, but only for self-reflexive
human beings that have rational will. Remember Ryan and Liza, and the principle of
brushing their teeth. On one hand, heteronomy is the simple legislation and imposition
of a law by an external authority (a person must brush her teeth before going to bed).
Their parents are the authority figures, and the law is imposed externally by rewards or
punishments. On the other hand, autonomy belongs to the grown-up and already
rational Ryan and Liza, who have adopted such a law about brushing their teeth. They
regularly impose such a law on themselves out of the enactment of the will to follow the
law.

The distinguishing point here is the locus of the authorship of the law. In any
given scenario where a person complies with the law, we ask where the author is,
whether it is external or internal. If the author of the law is external, the will is subjected
to an external authority, thus heteronomous will. In contrast, if the author was the will
itself, imposing the law unto itself, then we describe the will as autonomous. For the 25-
year-old versions of Ryan and Liza who brush their teeth before going to bed without
any prompting from their parents, their adoption of the childhood law about
toothbrushing makes the locus of the authorship internal. Thus, they are autonomous.

However, trivial actions such as brushing one's teeth can hardly be considered
moral." Real moral issues often involve actions like stealing, lying, and murder, in that
they have a certain gravity, insofar as those actions directly harm or benefit the well-
being of persons. Reggie's case, seen in this light is clearly a moral issue.

Let us remember that alternative scenario that we imagined earlier: What if

Reggie did not return the suitcase, destroyed the lock, then took and sold its valuable
contents? Is this not an act of rational will? Can we not claim that Reggie's rational will
determines for itself how it enacts its duty in this alternative scenario? Is Reggie not,
after all, acting as an autonomous agent? Reggie could have easily come upon the
odious principle that he should benefit from Trent's loss because people who lose their
things are careless, and thus do not deserve to keep those things. Therefore, Reggie
may have concluded, "I am entitled to benefit from this lost suitcase. I am the author of
this principle .I am acting autonomously." He may conclude this since no external
authority is legislating laws for him by using rewards or punishments. However, this kind
of reasoning is mistaken from a Kantian understanding as we will show below.

What do you think of Reggie's principle that he should benefit from other people's
loss because they are careless, and thus do not deserve to keep those things? Is it still
autonomous agency when a person enacts any apparently self-legislated principle? We
may argue that the locus of the authorship of the law was certainly internal, when he
tells himself, "I am entitled to benefit from this lost suitcase, based on how we have
described the difference between autonomy and heteronomy-self and other. Is that what
autonomy properly means? Certainly not.

Kant claims that there is a difference between rational will and animal impulse. Take a
dose look at how he describes the distinction in this passage:
 The choice that can be determined by pure reason is called free choice. That
which is determinable only by inclination sensible impulse, stimulus) would be animal
choice (arbitrium brutum) Human chaice, in contrast, is a choice that may indeed be
affected but not determined by impulses, and is therefore in itself (without an acquired
skill of reason) not pure, but can nevertheless be determined to do actions from pure
will (Ak 6:213).

Thus, there is a difference between what determines a choice or decision,

whether it is caused by sensible impulse or by pure reason. On one hand, sensible
impulses are usually bodily and emotional. Bodily instincts and desires, such as the
urge to eat, drink, sleep, or have sexual intercourse, comprise the set of human
compulsions for survival and the propagation of the species. Emotions and sentiments
also make up what Kant considers sensible impulses Practical examples are the
jealousy from seeing your girlfriend or boyfriend make eyes at someone and the rage
from being pushed foully by your opponent in a basketball game. As we previously
claimed, when we discussed the difference between animals and humans, there is
immediacy to sensible impulses. There is hardly anything that comes between the
stimulus and the reaction. Kant calls this set of actions that are caused by sensible
impulse animal choice or arbitrium brutum.

On the other hand, there is a choice or action that is determined by pure reason.
Kant calls this kind of action free choice, and one may argue that human freedom
resides in this capacity of reason to intervene, to "mediate' within arbitrium brutum.
Previously, rationality was described as the mental capacity to construct ideas and
thoughts that are beyond one's immediate surroundings. This mental capacity is what
makes the intervention possible between stimulus and reaction. With the faculty of
reason, a person can break the immediacy of stimulus and reaction by stopping to
deliberate and assess possible alternative actions. The above-described jealous partner
and raging basketball player, if they had enough self- possession, could refrain from
reacting mindlessly to the triggering stimuli and instead construct a rational response.
For instance, you may open up with your partner to talk about trust and setting
boundaries, or you may tell the guarding opponent to take it easy and play the game
well. In both cases, you orient your actions toward an overall aim that you aspire for
trust and sportsmanship, respectively. These aims are mental constructions of the
faculty of reason. These examples do not imply that people are not affected by sensible
impulses. The jealous feelings and anger are present, but they do not immediately and
automatically cause the actions. Based on the quote above (Ak 6:213), Kant describes
that human choice can be affected but is not determined by sensible impulses.

What does it mean for a human to be affected but is not determined by sensible
impulse? It implies that we are indeed basically animals, but we cannot be reduced to
mere animality. This is where the correlative conjunction "not only, but also is useful.
When we claim, "The human person is not only an animal, but is also rational, we admit
to two possible causes of our actions: sensible impulses and the faculty of reason.
Human freedom resides in that distinction.
 Let us return once again to Reggie and the alternative scenario when he tells
himself, amentitled to benefit from this lost suitcase"Is Reggie acting autonomously
supposing he did not return the suitcase and instead sold its contents for his own
benefit? We asked this at the beginning of this section: Is it always autonomous agency
when a person enacts any apparently self-legislated principle? Certainly not. The
difference between human choice and animal choice is crucial to giving a correct
answer here. Autonomy is a property of the will only during instances when the action is
determined by pure reason. When the action is determined by sensible impulses,
despite the source of those impulses being nevertheless internal, it is considered
heteronomous. Why heteronomous? Because a sensible impulse is "external" to one's
self-legislating faculty of reason. Kant confirms this point when he states that the action
caused by sensible impulses results always only in the heteronomy of the will because it
is what he calls a foreign impulse" (Ak 4:444), insofar as the will does not give itself the
law.

Therefore, Reggie is not acting autonomously, supposing he was to take and

benefit from the contents of the suitcase. Why would we consider his will as being
heteronomous? Because a sensible impulse would be the cause of such an action,
whether it is greed or the excitement of obtaining easy money without working for it, or
the shame that arises from being unable to provide for his family. In any of those
causes, a sensible impulse is akin to a "foreign impulse" that has the same immediacy
of an external authority figure that imposes its will on Reggie.

We can thus make the conclusion that heteronomy of the will occurs when any
foreign impulse, whether it is external (as in other persons or institutions that impose
their will on the agent) or sensible (as in bodily instincts or base emotions) is what
compels a person to act. In contrast, autonomy is the property of the will in those
instances when pure reason is the cause of the action.

But what consists in an action that is done by an autonomous will insofar as the cause
of the action is pure reason? What does it mean to act according to pure reason?

UNIVERSABILITY

To figure out how the faculty of reason can be the cause of an autonomous
action, we need to learn a method or a specific procedure that will demonstrate
autonomy of the will. But before explaining this procedure, it will be helpful to first make
a distinction about kinds of moral theories, namely, substantive and formal moral
theories.
 A substantive moral theory immediately promulgates the specific actions that
comprise that theory. As such, it identifies the particular duties in a straightforward
manner that the adherents of the theory must follow. The set of Ten Commandments of
the judeo- Christian tradition is an unambiguous example of a substantive moral theory.
The specific laws are articulated mostly in the form of a straightforward moral command:
"Honor your father and mother," "You shall not kill, and so forth.

In contrast, a formal moral theory does not supply the rules or commands
straightaway, it does not tell you what you may or may not do. Instead, a formal moral
theory provides us the "form" or "framework of the moral theory. To provide the form of
a moral theory is to supply a procedure and the criteria for determining, on one's own,
the rules and moral commands. Metaphorically, we can think of a cookbook as akin to a
formal moral theory In using a cookbook, we are given instructions on how to cook
certain dishes, but we are not given the actual food themselves, which would be
"substantive in following a recipe for sinigang, for example, we may add a slight
variation to the ingredients and sequence of steps. But if we want the dish to remain
sinigang and not transform it into some other kind of viand like pochero, we need to
follow the steps that are relevant to making sinigang. To be exact, a formal moral theory
will not give us a list of rules or commands. Instead, it will give us a set of instructions
on how to make a list of duties or moral commands.

Kant endorses this formal kind of moral theory. The Grundlegung zur
Metaphysik der Sitten, which he wrote in 1785, embodies a formal moral theory in what
he calls the categorical imperative, which provides a procedural way of identifying the
rightness or wrongness of an action. Kant articulates the categorical imperative this
way: Act only according to such a maxim, by which you can at once will that it become a
universal law. (Ak 4:421)

There are four key elements in this formulation of the categorical imperative,
namely, action, maxim, will, and universal law. Kant states that we must formulate an
action as a maxim, which he defines as a "subjective principle of action" (Ak 4:422). In
this context, a maxim consists of a "rule" that we live by in our day-to-day lives, but it
does not have the status of a law or a moral command that binds us to act in a certain
way. Rather, maxims depict the patterns of our behavior. Thus, maxims are akin to the
"standard operating procedures" (SOPs) in our lives. We act according to a variety of
maxims, even if we are not aware of them. Actually, we become aware of our maxims
when we talk about ourselves, when we reveal our habits and the reasons behind them.
For example, we tell our friends what we ordinarily do in certain specific situations:
When the weekend comes, I usually go to the beach with my family to relax. When the
exam week begins, I go to mass so that I will be blessed with good luck. Whenever I
meet my crush, I wear my hair in a braid so that he will notice me. These are usually
personal policies that may or may not be unique to us, but we act according to these
maxims nonetheless. This is why Kant calls a maxim a subjective principle of action. We
have many maxims in our daily lives, and we live according to them.
 In the formulation of the categorical imperative, Kant calls our attention to the
kind of maxims that we live by. He claims that we ought to act according to the maxim
"by which you can at once will that it become a universal law. What does it mean to will
a maxim that can become a universal law? It means that the maxim must be
universalizable, which is what it means to will that it become a universal law." This
means nothing other than imagining a world in which the maxim, or personal rule, that I
live by were adopted by everyone as their own maxim. In this formulation, Kant is telling
us to conceive of the maxim as if it obligated everyone to comply. This mental act of
imagining a universalized maxim does not mean we picture a world in which everyone
actually followed the maxim. Instead, we merely imagine the maxim as a law that
everyone ought to follow. The proper way to imagine the universalized maxim is not by
asking, "What if everyone did that maxim?" but by asking, "What if everyone were
obligated to follow that maxim?" Here is a clear example.

In Groundwork towards a Metaphysics of Morals, Kant takes up the issue of

making false promises (Ak 4:422). He narrates the predicament of a man who needs
money, but has no immediate access to obtain it except by borrowing it from a friend.
This man knows that he will not be able pay the money back, but if he says he cannot
return the money, then no money will be lent to him. Hence, the predicament is simply
about him borrowing money, while knowing that he cannot pay it back. This is a specific
act under the general category of acts called false promising. Kant says that the man
would like to make such a promise, but he stops and asks himself if what he is about to
do is right or wrong: Is it really wrong to borrow money without intending to pay it back?
If we were to formulate this act as a maxim, it would go this way: "When I am in need of
money, I shall borrow it even when I know I cannot pay it back."

Remember that Kant states that we should act according to a maxim by which
we can at once will that it become a universal law. What does it mean to universalize
the maxim about borrowing money without intending to return it? It is simple. Imagine a
hypothetical world in which each person, whenever she is in need of money, is
obligated to borrow from another even when she knows she cannot pay it back. We do
not imagine that people actually borrowed money without intending to return it. Instead,
we think of them as obligated to do so. Now, there are two possibilities in this
hypothetical world where people are obligated to borrow money without intending to pay
the maxim can either make sense or not make sense as a universal law. By "making
sense, we refer to the logical plausibility of the universalized maxim. The opposite of
logical plausibility is self-contradiction or logical impossibility.

Let us assess that hypothetical world. If borrowing money without intending to

pay were everyone's obligation to comply with, what would happen to the status of the
universalized maxim? The purpose of borrowing money would be defeated because no
one will lend money. In a world where it is an obligation to borrow money without paying
back, all lenders would know that they will not be paid and they will refuse to lend
money. The institution of money-borrowing would lose its meaning if everyone was
obligated to borrow money without intending to pay it back. As a universalized maxim, it
would self- destruct because it becomes impossible. This is how Kant assesses it:
 Here I see straightaway that it could never be valid as a universal law of nature
and be consistent with itself, but must necessarily contradict itself. For the universality of
a law that each person, when he believes himself to be in need, could promise whatever
he pleases with the intent not to keep it, would make the promise and the purpose that
he may have impossible, since no one would believe what was promised him but would
laugh at all such expressions as futile pretense (Ak 4:422).

In the passage above, Kant distinguishes between being consistent with itself"
and "contradict itself" Look at the maxim again: "When I am in need of money, I shall
borrow it even when I know I cannot pay it back. The meaning of the act "to borrow"
implies taking and using something with the intent to return it. In the maxim, the claim is
to borrow'even when I know I cannot pay it back," which contradicts the very meaning of
"to borrow." The contradiction is evident to borrow (implies returning) but the intention is
not to return. Of course, in the real world, many people borrow money without intending
to pay, but it is the logical plausibility of the universalized maxim that is at stake. Here,
we reveal the contradiction that occurs when we scrutinize the maxim because, after all,
one contradicts oneself when one borrows money (implies intent to return) without
intending to pay it back. It makes no sense. This is why Kant claims that the
universalized maxim "could never be valid as a universal law of nature and be
consistent with itself, but must necessarily contradict itself" Thus, we can conclude that
the act of borrowing money without intending to pay is rationally impermissible. Here,
we discover two ways by which Kant rejects maxims. The universalized maxim
becomes either (1) self-contradictory or (2) the act and its purpose become impossible.

What is the result of all these? We reveal the rational permissibility of actions
insofar as they cannot be rejected as universalizable maxims. In contrast, those
universalized maxims that are rejected are shown to be impermissible, that is, they are
irrational and thus, in Kant's mind, immoral. But what does rational permissibility mean?
Simply put, it refers to the intrinsic quality of an action that it is objectively and
necessarily rational. Using the universalizability test, we can reveal the objective
necessity of an action as rational Observe, for example, the quality of the arithmetical
claim, "1 + 1 = 2" It is objectively necessary because the quality of the claim is
universally and logically valid, and we understand this to be always true as rational
beings. Observe the difference between the quality of objectively necessary claims with
contingent claims, such as claims about the world like "The sky is blue," the truth of
which depends on the actual situation in the world. Therefore, we have demonstrated
that borrowing money without intending to pay, as a kind of false promise, is objectively
and necessarily wrong, insofar as it encounters a self-contradiction and logical
impossibility when it is universalized as a maxim.
 SUMMARY

At this juncture, it has become clear how Kant's categorical imperative is a

formal, not substantive, moral philosophy. We have shown how an action can be tested
and via this test, it can also be distinguished whether such an action is permissible or
not. Instead of being given a list of substantive moral commands, we now have a sort of
tool, like a measuring instrument, that tells us whether an action is morally permissible
or not. Hence, we have the capacity to make our own list of moral commands. Instead
of receiving them from others, we use our own rational faculty to produce our own list of
moral duties.

Returning to Reggie and the suitcase that was left in his cab, he can now test on
his own the moral permissibility of the formulated maxim: "When a suitcase that does
not belong to me is left in my cab, I shall take its contents and sell them for my own
benefit: He can now assess this maxim by imagining it as everyone's obligation. Does
the universalized maxim encounter a self-contradiction, or does it remain self-
consistent? Certainly, the meaning of ownership, when a suitcase belongs to someone,
is to have the right to possess, use, and dispose of the thing as one pleases. So what
happens when a person is obligated to take possession of an object that does not
belong to her? The universalized maxim of Reggie becomes contradictory, for the
meaning of ownership is contradicted. How is it that everyone is obligated to take a
suitcase and sell its contents, despite the fact that they do not have the right to possess,
use, and dispose of that suitcase?

Now, imagine applying this procedure to other scenarios in which a person

encounters moral problems, such as lying, cheating in an exam, murder, and adultery,
among others. You may also test positive actions, such as paying for something that
you are buying, returning something you borrowed, or submitting a school project on
time. Can the maxims in the specific actions under those moral issues be universalized
without encountering self- contradiction? It is for each one of us to test on our own, not
for kant or any other authority figure to determine for us. On your own, try identifying an
action that is considered lying or cheating in an exam, formulate the maxim, then test
that maxim for universalizability. Is there a contradiction that is revealed in the
universalized maxim?

In summary, this procedure is properly used when one wishes to determine the
moral permissibility of an action. Indeed, we are often already told which actions are
right or wrong, but this knowledge is usually based on what authority figures say. Our
parents, priests, school rules and regulations, and government ordinances already
prescribe clearly determined moral commands. So what is the categorical imperative
for, if we already know whether or not an action is right?

The categorical imperative is precisely for the rational will that is autonomous
Recall that autonomy implies a self-legislating will. The test for universalizability makes
possible that self-legislation, for the result of the categorical imperative, is nothing other
than the capacity to distinguish between permissible and impermissible moral acts. Any
rational will can then begin the work of producing a list of duties, what a rational and
autonomous will believes to be right and wrong actions.

In conclusion, what can deontology contribute to our lives, specifically to our

moral reflection? The answer lies in one concept: enlightenment morality. This kind of
morality is opposed to paternalism, which evokes the metaphor of father (from the Latin
pater). A father is a benevolent authority figure who takes care and provides safety and
sustenance for his children. In this metaphor, the father has the power to make
decisions for and enforce obedience on the children, as long as the children are
dependent and may not know yet what is best for them. Thus, the father makes
decisions on behalf of and in the interest of the children. It is his duty to raise and
nurture them for their own good. The children are expected to comply and obey
because they are still unfit to make good decisions on their own. Children, when let on
their own, would likely follow base impulses because they lack the necessary
experience and rational will to survive and flourish in this world. But what happens when
children grow and become mature adults? When they move on to develop their minds
and live their own lives? Certainly, paternalism has to give way to a more mature
rational will when the children are no longer children, when they mature, and can begin
to navigate the complex world.

This is therefore the place of deontology in the spirit of enlightenment morality.

Deontology is based on the "light" of one's own reason when maturity and rational
capacity take hold of a person's decision-making. Reason is depicted as having its own
light in contrast to our long experience of "paternalism" in human history, in which we
find dictatorship and authority figure that claim to be benevolent, but have proven to be
oppressive and exploitative of those who do not have political power. With deontology,
particularly the method of universalizability, we can validate and adopt those rules and
laws that are right and reject those that are irrational, thus impermissible because they
are self-contradictory. This is then the practical value of deontology in our moral
reflection: we are encouraged to have courage to think on our own, to use our rational
will against external authorities as well as internal base impulses that tend to undermine
our autonomy and self-determination.

SUGGESTED READINGS
Allison, Henry. Kant's Theory of Freedom. New York: Cambridge University Press,
1990.
Ross, William David. Kant's Ethical Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954.

Sullivan, Roger. Immanuel Kant's Moral Theory. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1989. Wood, Allen. Kant's Ethical Thought. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1999.

Wood, Allen. Kantian Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
NOTES
1. Enrico Belga, "Honest Baguio City Taxi Driver Gets Scholarship: Reggie Cabututan
Reaps the Rewards of Honesty." Rappler.com, 24 January 2017, Accessed 10 August
2017. http://www.rappler.com/move-ph/159310- honest-taxi-driver-scholarship-baguio. 1
2. ibid.
3. All citations of Immanuel Kant's original writings follow the standard Akademie
Ausgabe edition, which indicates the volume and page number of the work (e.g., "Ak
4:431" means volume 4, page 431). These works are available online in the original
German language: https://korpora.zim.uni- duisburg-essen.de/Kant/verzeichnisse-
gesamt.html. Accessed 10 August 2017.