Ethical formalism
(Kantian) Despite the historical over-shadowing of Kant’s ethical position by the influence of The Critique of Pure Reason upon the philosophy of the past century and a half, Kant’s own (declared) major interest, almost from the very beginning, was in moral philosophy. Even the Critique of Pure Reason itself was written only in order to clear the ground for dealing adequately with the field of ethics in the Grundlegung zur Metapkysik der Sttten (1785), in the Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft (1788), and in the Metaphysik der Sitten (1797). By the end of the seventeen-sixties Kant was ready to discard every prior ethical theory, from the earlv Greeks to Baumgarten, Rousseau, and the British moralists, finding, all of them, despite the wide divergencies among them, equally dogmatic and unacceptable. Each of the older theories he found covertly to rely upon some dogmatic criterion or other, be it a substantive “principle,” an intuition, or an equally substantive “sense.” Every such ethical theory fails to deal with ethical issues as genuinely problematic, since it is amenable to some “demonstrative” preconceived criterion.
In harmony with Kant’s major concern in his other Critiques, — namely the establishment of lawfulness in each respective sphere (of scientific knowledge, of moral action, and of artistic and religious hopefulness) — Kant’s primary aim in ethics is the unification or synthesis of the field of action. Since, however, action is ever changing and since eternally new and creative possibilities of action are constantly coming into view, Kant saw that lawfulness in the ethical sphere could not be of either a static or predetermined nature.
As against the faulty ethical procedures of the past and of his own day, therefore, Kant very early conceived and developed the more critical concept of “form,” — not in the sense of a “mould” into which content is to be poured (a notion which has falselv been taken over by Kant-students from his theoretical philosophy into his ethics), but — as a method of rational (not ratiocinative, but inductive) reflection; a method undetermined by, although not irrespective of, empirical data or considerations. This methodologically formal conception constitutes Kant’s major distinctive contribution to ethical theory. It is a process of rational reflection, creative construction, and transition, and as such is held by him to be the only method capable if coping with the exigencies of the facts of hunnn experience and with the needs of moral obligation. By this method of creative construction the reflective (inductive) reason is able to create, as each new need for a next reflectively chosen step arises, a new object of “pure” — that is to say, empirically undetermined — “practical reason.” This makes possible the transition from a present no longer adequate ethical conception or attitude to an untried and as yet “indemonstrable” object. No other method can guarantee the individual and social conditions of progress without which the notion of morality loses all assignable meaning. The newly constructed object of “pure practical reason” is assumed, in the event, to provide a type of life and conduct which, just because it is of my own construction, will be likely to be accompanied by the feeling of self-sufficiency which is the basic pre-requisite of any worthy human happiness. It is this theory which constitutes Kant’s ethical formalism. See also Autonomy, Categorical Imperative, Duty, End(s), Freedom, Happiness, Law, Moral, Practical Imperative, Will. — P. A.S.