Week 7- Post 1: Immanuel Kant on Freedom

 Source: Justice course on EdX by HarvardX

Lecture 11- Immanuel Kant: What is freedom?

• Kant rejects utilitarianism (greatest happiness for the greatest number is what makes something morally right)
• thinks that the individual person have a certain dignity that commands our respect, the reason that the individual is sacred/bearer of rights does not stem from the idea that we own ourself but because we are rational beings. (beings capable of reason)
• we are also autonomous beings (beings capable of acting/choosing freely)
• we also have the capacity for pain and pleasure
• admits utilitarians are half right. ofc we seek to avoid pain and like pleasure, kant doesnt deny this but he does deny benthams claim of pain and pleasure being our sovereign master; he thinks this is wrong.
• thinks that its our rational capacity that makes us special, makes us something more than just physical creatures.
• we often think about freedom as being able to do what we want: but this isn't Kant's idea of freedom
• To act freely=To act autonomously=To act according to a law I give myself
• when we go after pleasure to avoid pain we arent really acting freely. we're really acting as the followers of those impulses. i didn't choose this hunger or appetite so when I choose to satisfy it I am just acting according to natural necessity
• for example, sprite had a slogan a while ago, "obey your thirst" which goes with what Kant is saying. when ur at the store and choosing between 2 drinks, in a way you arent choosing freely because youre obeying something. (a thirst, desire that you yourself haven't created)
• Opposite of autonomy is Heteronomy
• while autonomy is acting according to a law given by yourself, heteronomy is acting according to desires you did not choose for yourself
• Kant's point is nature is governed by laws
• take the law of cause and effect for example. suppose you drop a ball and it falls to the ground. you wouldnt say its acting freely bc its just acting according to the law of cause and effect or the law of gravity.
• conception of morality:
• to act freely is not to choose the best means to a given end, its to choose the end itself for its own sake
• something humans can do but billiard balls cant
• as long as we act according to inclination/pleasure we act as means to the realization fo ends given outside of us (instruments rather than authors for the purposes we pursue)
• thats the heteronomous determination of the will
• but when we act autonomously we stop being instruments 
• its wrong to use people for the sake of other peoples well being or happiness (the reason kant says utilitariaisnm goes wrong)
• what makes an action morally is not in the consequences or the results that flow from them but what makes an act morally worthy has to do with the motives, with the quality of the will, with the intention (do the right thing for the right reason even if it were to accomplish nothing)
• Morality is duty vs. inclination
• supposed theres a shopkeeper, and an inexperienced customer comes in. the shopkeeper knows that they have the opportunity to give them the wrong change and shortchange them, but then the shopkeeper is like welll if i do that word could get out and i will lsoe my reputation and business, so they decide not to and gives the correct change
• does this action have moral worth?-kant says no, he did the right thing for the wrong reason, out of self interets
• another example, a company the BBB  had a slogan "Honesty is the best policy but it is also the most profitable".
• kant would say that if this is the reason companies deal honestly with its customer the reason lacks moral worth