- Jabik Veenbaas, De Essentie van Kant (ISVW Uitgevers, 2022), 60.
- Ibid, 58.
- Hans Lottenbach and Sergio Tenenbaum, "Hegel’s Critique of Kant in the Philosophy of Right" in Kant-Studien 86, no. 2 (1995): 212. This was a really great resource for this essay. :)
- Georg W.F. Hegel, Grondlijnen van de Rechtsfilosofie (Boom, 2014), 144.
- Ibid.
- A lie is only a lie if it is not a true statement, but if everyone lies there are no more true statements, so a lie could no longer be countered anywhere.
- Thus, murder only creates a contradiction if the preservation of life is previously established as a desirable principle. The categorical imperative cannot, therefore, reject murder on its own merits, a point Hegel himself also makes.Georg W.F. Hegel, Grondlijnen van de Rechtsfilosofie (Boom, 2014), 144.
- Hans Lottenbach and Sergio Tenenbaum, "Hegel’s Critique of Kant in the Philosophy of Right" in Kant-Studien 86, no. 2 (1995): 222.
- Ibid, 217.Hegel's point here must be contextualized within the fact that he sees the good as the absolute and concrete freedom of the will, the final goal of world history.
#10 Hegel and the Categorical Imperative
Hegel and the Categorical Imperative
Critique of Kants moral theory in Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts.
It is sometimes argued that German idealism begins with Kant and ends with Hegel. Although Hegel directly responds to Kant in his work, he differs significantly in his ethical theory, as outlined in Kant's second Critique. This difference can be seen, among other places, in the Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (The Fundamentals of the Philosophy of Right).
Hegel criticizes Kant's grounding of morality in a "hollow" duty. According to Kant's categorical imperative, we must act according to a maxim that is supposedly capable of becoming a universal law. [1] A maxim is a specific principle that has no goal other than the good itself, and the categorical imperative is a way to make this action toward the good entirely reasonable. Whether an action should become a law has little to do with how much we would like it morally—after all, the purpose of Kant's introduction of the categorical imperative is the absolute foundation of ethics, [2] and basing its operation on moral desirability would either have to proceed from another moral principle or become circular reasoning. The categorical imperative is therefore based on reason itself: a maxim can become a universal law provided this does not create a logical contradiction within the will. [3] Stealing is impossible, because it presupposes ownership – you always want to steal something from someone else, who must therefore first possess it – but stealing immediately undermines the concept of ownership, because things can apparently be taken away just like that.
Hegel directly criticizes the Kantian form of duty ethics. [4] According to him, the categorical imperative tests whether a maxim produces a contradiction within the act of willing by examining whether it conflicts with a particular principle, and this therefore implicitly does presuppose a prior principle. [5] For example, stealing conflicts with the principle of ownership, and lying conflicts with the principle of true statements. [6] This makes free action within a concrete situation completely impossible, because the principle is no longer uncaused, but rather depends on a previously stated principle; [7] Kant's categorical imperative is therefore no longer an absolute ground for moral action, because free will no longer identifies solely with itself. [8] The categorical imperative cannot be applied in a concrete situation but is merely a formal duty, because free will in the Kantian sense is made impossible — it is impossible not to start from a principle within a specific practical situation with which the categorical imperative could conflict, and therefore the will will not be absolute. Merely testing for contradiction may be universal, but it is utterly empty precisely because universality is seen as so abstractly lacking concrete ethical views. The fact that Kantian will cannot act entirely uncaused is, according to Hegel, not a flaw in human nature, but in Kant's conception of free will: for Hegel, undetermined will is not a will that acts by setting aside every natural inclination, but by internalizing every inclination that seems to come from outside, whereby universal free will coincides only with itself. [9]
Hegel's critique can thus be summarized as follows: in attempting to give morality an absolute foundation, Kant becomes so abstract and tries to ignore so much human inclination that the categorical imperative remains as an empty, formal duty, making it unusable to judge concrete situations.
It seems to me that Hegel indeed points out an underlying problem in Kant's moral theory: in formulating the categorical imperative, Kant seems to wrongly assume that ethical judgment should, or even could, occur without the influence of previously assumed principles. This makes the categorical imperative a universal, yet merely formal, duty, applicable in only a few real-world situations. To make the categorical imperative possible, unreason must be presupposed as something completely separate from reason, or merely the absence of reason, so that we can adopt a fully reasonable position, and Kant thinks we are capable of this as rational agents. For Hegel, however, reason and unreason seem to achieve a synthesis in the subject, which, in my opinion, is much closer to the practical reality of ethical action. He therefore correctly identifies that Kant presupposes that we can adopt a position in our thinking about a moral action that is impossible.
In my view, Hegel's criticism is therefore justified, because he correctly establishes that Kant's duty ethics proceeds from a cognitive perspective that is completely unrealistic when we are required to perform a moral act. This is primarily due to Hegel's more nuanced analysis of the subject as a rational agent.
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