Lesson video

Hi there, my name's Mrs Cooper.

Today we're going to be looking at a type of moral philosophy called Kantian ethics or the categorical theory.

When you're ready find yourself a nice, comfy spot, turn off your mobile phone and get prepared with two pens of different colours and a piece of paper.

Today's lesson we will identify the keywords using Kant's ethics.

explain the history of Kantian Ethics, apply the categorical imperative to some thought experiments and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the theory.

You will need two different coloured pens or pencils and some paper.

The first question I've got for you is, is it wrong to steal from the rich to feed the poor? I would like you to write down just your first ideas on this point.

Note down your answer.

Pause the video, then note down your answer, explaining why you believe this and we will come back to this later.

Now I'm going to introduce you to some of the key words that we're going to look over and use in today's lesson.

If you looked at some of my previous lessons on ethics, you may well have come across these words before and this will be an easier task for you.

So the three words we are going to look at today are intentionalist, absolutist and categorical.

What I would like you to do is pause the video, write down the keywords and match them with the correct definition.

You may wish to do them in a pencil so that any changes you make can be rubbed out easily.

When you're ready resume the video.

Let's check if you got it right then.

An intentionalist or somebody that follows intentionalism, it is something that is deemed as moral based on the intention.

An absolutist is something that is deemed as moral based on the rules.

And categorical means without conditions or exceptions.

Now, all of these words apply to the theory that we are looking at today, the categorical theory.

So we will re-look at these words later on in the lesson.

Make sure that if you didn't quite get it right, that you make any relevant changes.

Okay, let's go through some quick fire questions.

Intentionality is morality based on the outcome? That is false.

Intentionalism is morality based on your intention.

Absolutist ethics is based on strict rules, that is true.

Well done you.

And true or false? Categorical means that something is conditional.

That is true.

So let us look at into a brief history of Immanuel Kant and the categorical theory.

What I'd like you to do is first, just listen through to my explanation of Immanuel Kant.

Then I would like you to pause the video and try and write down five points that I've made.

If you want to, you can pause the video and rewind and you can rewind as many times as you like to get your five.

If you're feeling particularly clever you can write more than five.

So Immanuel Kant was a famous philosopher of the Enlightenment period.

Born in Prussia in the 1700s.

If you've watched one of my previous videos on atheism or humanism, you might know a little bit about the Enlightenment period, but to give you a brief idea, this was a time of what was known as the time of reason when people stopped following religious rules so strictly and started questioning the rightness and wrongness of things in society without needing God to make those decisions.

And, indeed, people started to question the actual existence of God himself and whether or not he could be prove empirically, that is through science and the senses.

As I say, Immanuel Kant was a philosopher of this enlightenment period but he was also brought up in a incredibly religious family, so undoubtedly, part of his categorical theory was influenced through his religious upbringing, despite the fact that he didn't particularly believe in God or religious rules.

He coined the motto of the Enlightenment which was or means dare to know which meant he really believed in trying to find truth and knowledge in all things.

He also said that enlightenment was man's emergence from his self incurred immaturity.

He believed it was really important to always keep questioning things.

He believed that his theory was the easiest to follow.

And, in a sense, it really is.

We're going to unpick it a little bit more in a minute.

One of the key parts of his theory was that it centred around dignity of all human beings, that all humans should be treated as equal.

For this reasons Kant's categorical theory actually now makes up a part of the German constitution.

After the Second World War and the atrocities where many millions of human beings were not treated with dignity or as human beings even, it was deemed as incredibly important that Kant's theory and Kant's ideas were put down as a part of the constitution so that all humans would be treated with the same respect and equality as one another.

Right.

Hopefully, you've managed to get five questions.

Very quickly let's go through my answers.

So number one, he was a famous philosopher of the Enlightenment period, two, he was brought up in a very religious family, three, he famously said that the motto of the Enlightenment was "Dare to know.", four, he believed his theory was easy for everyone to follow and five, his theory makes up part of the German constitution today.

If you got all of those and more even and different ones, give yourself a great big pat on the back.

So now we are going to look at the categorical theory.

So, essentially, the categorical theory goes like this, only do things that would makes sense if everyone acted in that way.

Does that make sense? Let's try and pick it a little bit more.

So only do things that make sense if everyone acted in that way.

Let's try make some more sense of this argument then.

Would it makes sense, logically, if everyone lied? No, it wouldn't.

If everyone lied, the opposite of lying is telling the truth, it makes much more sense if everyone tells the truth because if everyone lied, how can you ever trust anyone? Nobody's ever going to tell you the truth.

If I say, what is one plus one and everyone lied, people would say, five, 10, 11, 12, how are you ever going to learn about anything if everybody lies, it makes total non-sense.

What about stealing then? It wouldn't makes sense if everybody stole from one another, first of all, you'd never have any security, you could never feel like you could ever leave your home, you'd never feel like you could ever do anything, really, because you'd be worried that somebody was going to steal everything from you, plus if you were worried about other people stealing from you, you would then steal from other people, when would you ever have your own possessions? There'd be no point buying things in the first place, it, once again, becomes incredibly nonsensical.

Hopefully you're getting the hang of this now.

So what do you think killing, does it make sense? No, it's the most illogical of them all.

If killing were okay and everybody did it, there would be no people, so that one is definitely a no-no with the categorical theory.

How about cheating on a test then, would that make sense if everyone did it? Of course it wouldn't.

First of all, it could mean that absolutely everybody gets the right marks all of the time and, unfortunately, society just doesn't work in that way.

If you cheated on a test and got great marks which meant that you got into a really good university or school but then couldn't cope with the work when you were there, then, actually, that's not helped you at all.

And also if everyone's supposed to be cheating, who are you cheating off of, everybody else is cheating as well.

And the final one, what about social distancing? We've all had to do it in the last six months or so, Kant would say, actually, yes, social distancing only really works if everybody follows it and that's absolutely true.

That's one that, whether or not you follow the categorical imperative, would make sense, wouldn't it? It doesn't work if you're the only person following social distancing but everybody else in the country are just standing next to each other everywhere they go and coughing over one another and not wearing their face masks.

It doesn't work, the virus would spread to everyone anyway.

It only really makes sense, and really made a difference, if you remember, when we all went into lockdown and we weren't close to one another.

So, hopefully, you can understand some of the logic of the categorical theory.

Now let's have a little check of your ideas.

In a moment I'm going to ask you to select whether the following statements are true or false.

You should write down either true or false.

So categorical means always or unconditionally, true or false? Immanuel Kant was born in Russia, true or false? Categorical means always an unconditionally, which is true.

And Immanuel Kant was born in Russia, that one's false, he was born in a place called Prussia which is a part of Germany but it sounds a bit like Russia.

The theory is about following rules, and the categorical theory is an absolutist theory.

Both of these are true.

And, finally, the categorical, categorical, sorry, means always or unconditionally.

If you remember, we might have done these questions already, this is just to see if you've changed your mind.

That is true.

And Immanuel Kant was born in Russia.

Well done for remembering because he was born in Prussia.

Oh, another quick one.

Oh, just again, categorical means always and unconditionally, which is true and Immanuel Kant was born in Prussia, not Russia.

Okay, so how did you do? Here are my answers, make any alterations in a different coloured pen.

The categorical theory bases what is or isn't moral on whether or not it would make sense for everyone to do it.

This is an absolutist theory because one decision is always right or wrong no matter what the situation, having the right intention is more important than the outcome.

And for an example I've written, a person that follows the categorical theory would not allow Robin Hood to steal from the rich to feed the poor, this would be because if everyone stole from one another then nobody would have anything, or certainly, no one would have the things that they needed in life.

Kant would say that it makes no sense that nobody steals, therefore that would be the absolute rule.

Now, let's try and apply the categorical theory to some practise.

We're going to look at some thought experiments that we looked at in a previous lesson, but don't worry if you haven't done the lesson on utilitarianism because I'm going to talk you through the theories, going to talk you through the thought experiments anyway.

First one is Jim and the Indians.

So Jim is a man that is walking through a park and he sees some soldiers surrounding a group of Indians.

Jim goes to assist the Indians and help them.

Unfortunately, one of the soldiers tells him that the only way that he can save the Indians from being killed is if he, Jim himself, kills one of the Indians.

So Jim could kill one Indian but he would have to, sorry, Jim would save the others but he would have to kill one.

What do you think Kant would do in this situation? Pause the video and write down a brief answer.

What I'd like you to do is pause the video and.

What I'd like you to do is pause the video, copy out the table in front of you and as we go through the different thought experiments, I would like you to complete it.

Under each sub-heading for each thought experiment, I would like you to write a brief summary of that thought experiment.

So, for example, I've just talked to you about Jim and the Indians, so for the first box, you can fill that in already.

You can also fill in the second box of what would Kant do, and you can also fill in what would you and why.

We are going to go through this in a moment, together, but while you're doing this, please pause the video and resume once you have copied out the table and completed the first boxes.

So a thought experiment of Jim and the Indians, what would Kant do? Kant would allow the soldiers to kill all of the Indians, this is because he would follow the absolute rule not to kill.

He would say that, logically, if we're all going to around killing, then no one would remain alive.

So in this situation, while all the Indians would die, Jim would not have killed anyone because he is following that rule.

I wonder what you'd do in that situation? I think I'd find that really difficult, it's a bit of a choiceless choice, in my opinion.

Let's have a look at some different thoughts.

We're now going to look at the train dilemma.

Remember to note down a summary of this argument or this scenario in your table and then fill in what you think Kant would do and what you would do.

So let us listen to it and then pause the video to complete your boxes.

The train dilemma is about the train driver who is driving along the tracks between Port Smith and South Hampton, it's a beautiful, scenic view, if you haven't ever been on that train journey.

The train driver just gets to a fork in the tracks.

So if you imagine, there's one train track that goes this way, there's another train track that goes a different way.

The train driver is going full speed ahead on her track when she notices that four people have been tied to the track on the track that she is supposed to be following.

On the other track, there is one person that has been tried to the tracks.

I have no idea why they're there, perhaps it was some evil genius, or not so genius, or some other villain that you'd find in one of your superhero movies.

Some villain has tied these people to the tracks.

What does the train driver do? She can continue on the track that she's already meant to be going along and the result will be that she's killed these four people or she can pull a lever which means she goes along the other track and just kills one person.

What do you think she does? Or, more importantly, what do you think Kant would do in this situation? Remember to write your answer in the second box and remember to write down what you would do.

The third thought experiment, there is the Nazi at the door.

Imagine you are living in 1930s Germany, there's a knock on the door, it's the Gestapo, the Gestapo are the secret police.

They've noticed that your next door neighbours, who were that lovely Jewish family, have suddenly let, they were planning to come around and arrest them.

You know that this Jewish family are hiding up in your attic.

The Gestapo ask you if you know of their whereabouts, what do you do or more importantly, what would Kant do in this situation? Would he tell the truth to the Nazi at the door? Or would he lie and save the Jewish family that he's hiding? And what would you do? Write your answers in the table and we will go through the answers in a moment.

So what Kant do in this train dilemma? Kant would allow the train to keep going and plough into the group of people because it would be wrong to point the train in the direction that would kill someone and therefore be responsible for their dead.

So, once again, he would follow the rule of do not kill, because it wouldn't make sense if everybody did that, it wouldn't make sense if people always made an action that meant that somebody else was killed.

How about the Nazi at the door? Kant would allow the Nazi to come inside and find the Jews because he would follow the rule that you cannot lie, simply put, as we looked at before, the categorical theory would say it doesn't make sense if everybody lies, so even in this situation, you still cannot tell a lie.

Now please pause the video and complete your task.

Now let's go through the strengths and the weaknesses of this theory together.

So the strengths are it doesn't treat people as a means to an end, it treats people with dignity and that is really important.

The intentions are always good, they're always trying to be morally good.

If everyone followed them however, the world would be a better place, absolutely no question, if everybody followed the rules of the categoric imperative, things would be better.

However, the weaknesses are that it can lead to absolutely awful consequences.

If we look at the example of the Nazi at the door, by not lying to the Nazi, you are allowing a whole Jewish family to probably go to their deaths.

Not everyone follows the categorical imperative and therefore you can go around being wonderful and perfect and not lying and not stealing but other people are doing it.

And it's not practical to stick to rules in everyday life.

Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances, even when you look at court, law courts, even though there're rules that we have in the country, they have something called mitigating circumstances, nothing is ever black and white, is to say that things are always wrong and always right, otherwise every person that killed would have the same maximum sentence in prison, however, it doesn't work like that.

Some people might have killed, it might be manslaughter, it might have been accidental.

And, in fact, in that situation, they don't necessarily go to prison or have such a harsh sentence.

So the practicality of following these rules in everyday life doesn't really follow with the rules that we have for ourselves.

So how did you do? My answer is this, I think that the categorical theory is a bad theory.

I think this for two reasons, firstly, it is not practical in real life because most people don't follow the rules.

The second reason why it is a bad theory is because it can lead to bad consequences for some people.

An example of this would be lying, the categorical theory states that it is wrong to lie because it would not be logical if everyone lied, therefore, I should never lie.

If a Nazi knocked on my door looking for a Jewish family that I'd been hiding, I would have to tell the truth.

The consequence would be that the family would be arrested and probably killed.

Now, if you managed to look at any of my previous videos, I'm also going to compare this with utilitarianism.

In comparison utilitarianism would allow lying if the consequence of the action would have been that the Jewish family was saved.

This is because it would maximise happiness for the greatest number of people, for this reason, I prefer this theory because it bases right and wrong on the individual situation.

I hope you've really enjoyed this lesson.

I really enjoyed doing some thought experiments with you and getting you to think a little bit, possibly out of your comfort zone.

Before you go please remember to complete the quiz just to show how brainy you are and how much you have learnt.

Thanks for watching and, hopefully, see you again soon.

Well, when you're ready, pause the video to complete the tasks.

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