SCSU Spring 2010 1/25/10 – 5/22/10 Professor Pettigrew
PHI 200 02 W Problems in Philosophy 11:10am – 12:00am EN B210 EN D212, x26778
Office Hours: M 3:30-5, T 1-3 R 1-3:30
And by appointment

PHI 200 02W Problems in Philosophy

Reading guide for Kant’s Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals.

Note: The following passages will be useful for discussing and understanding Kant’s theory. In addition, the passages will be important for the preparation and completion of the written assignment in Phase II of our class.

1.             “Is it not of the utmost necessity to construct a pure moral philosophy which is completely freed from everything which can only be empirical…” (FMM, 5).
2.             “A metaphysics of morals is therefore indispensable … because morals themselves remains subject to all kinds of corruption as long as the guide and supreme norm for their correct estimation is lacking” (FMM, 6).
3.             “The present foundations, however, are nothing more than the search for and establishment of the supreme principle of morality” (FMM, 8).
4.             “Duty is the necessity of an action from respect for the law” (FMM, 16).
5.             “Thus the moral worth of an action does not lie in the effect which is expected from it or in any principle of action which has to borrow its motive from this expected effect” (FMM, 17).
6.             “That is, I ought never act in such a way that I could not also will that my maxim should be a universal law” (FMM, 18).
7.             “It is in fact absolutely impossible by experience to discern with complete certainty a single case in which the maxim of an action, however much it may conform to duty, rested solely on moral grounds and on the conception of one’s duty… “ (FMM 23).
8.             “There is, therefore, only one categorical imperative. It is: Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” (FMM 38).
9.             “The will is thought of as a faculty of determining itself to action in accordance with the conception of certain laws.  Such a faculty can only be found in rational beings” (FMM 44).
10.             “But suppose there is something the existence of which in itself had absolute worth, something which as an end in itself, could be a ground of determinate laws. In it, and only in it could lie the ground of a possible categorical imperative…” (FMM, 45).
11.             “ Now, I say, man, and, in general, every rational being, exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will. In all his actions, whether they are directed to himself or other rational beings, he must always be regarded at the same time as an end” (FMM, 45).
12.             “The practical imperative, therefore, is the following: Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never simply as a means” (FMM, 46).
13.             “This principle of humanity and of every rational creature as an end in itself is the supreme limiting condition on freedom of the actions of each man” (FMM, 47).