Duty and Dignity: Kant — Ethics 3 (C1)

ETHICS · LESSON 3

Duty and Dignity: Kant

C1 (B2–C2) · 90 minutes

Where do you stand?

Task Write P, N or D for each act.

P = permissible · N = not permissible · D = it depends

1. Telling a friend you love the gift they chose, when you don't.

2. Lying to a murderer about where your friend is hiding.

3. Breaking a promise to meet a colleague, in order to help a stranger who has fallen in the street.

4. Being friendly to a classmate only because her mother can get you a job.

5. Keeping a promise to a friend who has died, although nobody would ever know if you broke it.

The Duty lens

Lesson 2 asked What will happen? Today's lens asks What rule applies? On this view, some acts are right or wrong in themselves, whatever they lead to. Theories of this family are called deontological, from the Greek deon, "duty". Their most influential champion is Immanuel Kant.

Consequences

Duty

Character

Relationships

What will happen?

What rule applies?

What would a good person do?

Who am I to them?

Lying to save a friend

READING

Acting from duty

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) spent almost his entire life in Königsberg, a Prussian port that is now Kaliningrad. His Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) opens boldly: "Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will." Intelligence, courage and even happiness can serve bad ends. A good will, even if it achieved nothing, would still shine like a jewel "by its

own light".

A good will acts from duty: it does the right thing because it is right. Kant's example is a shopkeeper who never overcharges, not even a child. He acts in accordance with duty, but if his only reason is that honesty is good for business, his honesty has no moral worth. The motive, not the result, decides.

Every action rests on a maxim, the personal rule behind it.

READING · CONTINUED

Acting from duty

Most of our rules are hypothetical imperatives: if you want this goal, do that. They bind only people who want the goal. Morality, Kant argued, cannot depend on what we happen to want. Its command is a categorical imperative, binding every rational being without conditions. His first formulation is a test: "Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

Some maxims, followed by everyone, would defeat themselves. These break a perfect duty, which allows no exceptions. Others could work as universal laws, yet no rational person could will such a world: a rule of never helping anyone, for example. These break an imperfect duty, which leaves room to choose when and how to act.

Test the maxim

Worked example: the false promise

The act

borrowing money with a promise to repay, knowing you never can.

The maxim

"When I need money, I will borrow it and promise to repay, although I know I never can."

Universalised

everyone in need makes promises they know they will not keep.

nobody would believe a promise, so nobody could get money by promising. The maxim defeats itself, so the act breaks a perfect duty.

Result

Test the maxim

Task For each act 1–5, write its maxim: "When [situation], I will [act], in order to [goal]." Imagine everyone acting on it. Write Fails: defeats itself, Fails: nobody could will it, or Passes, with one sentence why. Then mark any act where you think the test gives the wrong answer.

MAXIM

VERDICT

1

Kofi goes straight to the front of a long queue at the post office because he is in a hurry.

2

Elena hands in a false sick note to get a Friday off.

3

Rahul rides the tram without a ticket because inspectors rarely check.

4

Sun-hee, who is comfortably off, decides never to give money, time or help to anyone in need.

5

Mateo goes to the gym at 6 a.m. because it is almost empty then.

READING

Never merely as a means

Kant's second formulation looks at people rather than rules: "So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only." The key word is only, often translated "merely". We use each other as means all the time: a passenger uses a bus driver to get to work, and the driver uses the fare to pay the rent. That is fine, as long as each treats the other as a person with purposes of their own.

The formula rests on dignity. "In the kingdom of ends everything has either value or dignity." Whatever has a price can be replaced by an equivalent; a person

cannot. Rational beings can govern themselves by a moral law they recognise as their own (autonomy), and this, for Kant, is what gives them dignity.

When is someone used merely as a means? Kant says the victim of a false promise "cannot possibly assent" to how he is treated. Onora O'Neill (1985) built an influential reading on this: ask whether the person could consent. Deception and coercion are the clearest failures, since nobody can agree to a scheme hidden from them or forced on them. Note "in thine own person": Kant held that we can also fail to respect humanity in ourselves.

Merely a means?

Task For each case A–H, write M if someone is used merely as a means, or R if everyone is still respected as an end. Add one sentence of reasons using the consent test. Then mark the two cases you found hardest.

A. Priya takes a taxi to the airport in Mumbai, chats with the driver, and pays the fare and a tip.

C. In a vaccine trial in Accra, volunteers are told the risks in full, sign consent forms, are paid for their time and can leave the trial at any point.

B. Tomasz befriends Ana only because her uncle hires interns at a law firm. He plans to drop her once he has the job.

D. At a private clinic, Dr Halvorsen secretly gives some patients an experimental drug instead of the standard one, to collect data for his paper.

Merely a means?

Task For each case A–H, write M if someone is used merely as a means, or R if everyone is still respected as an end. Add one sentence of reasons using the consent test. Then mark the two cases you found hardest.

E. In a clothes shop in Lyon, a salesperson tells Kenji that a jacket looks wonderful on him, though she thinks it doesn't, to make the sale.

G. Lucas works 90-hour weeks for years, skipping sleep and meals, with no aim except to be rich by 40.

F. A games company designs a free phone game for teenagers, with rewards timed to keep them playing as long as possible, because longer sessions sell more advertising.

H. Mei's friends lie to her for two weeks to keep her surprise birthday party a secret.

READING

The murderer at the door

In 1797 the Swiss-born French political writer Benjamin Constant published an essay, On Political Reactions, attacking moral rules held without exceptions. His example: a "German philosopher" holds that it would be a crime to lie to a murderer who asks whether our friend, whom he is pursuing, has taken refuge in our house.

Constant's reply links duties to rights: a duty is what one person owes to match another's right. "To tell the truth then is a duty, but only towards him who has a right to the truth. But no man has a right to a truth that injures others." The murderer has no such right, so lying to him wrongs nobody. Constant did not name the philosopher. Kant took the remark as aimed at him and replied the same year.

The debate: Kant against Constant

Task Groups of 4: two speak for Kant, two for Constant (groups of 3: add a Judge). Everyone first writes P, N or D for: Lying to the murderer is permissible. Round 1 (6 minutes): one-minute openings, then free argument. Round 2 (5 minutes): swap sides and argue the twist. Then write P, N or D again.

Kant's side

Constant's side

Judge (groups of 3 only)

Build the case from "Acting from duty" and "Never merely as a means". What happens to a world of well-meant lies? Is the murderer still a person?

Duties match rights, and the murderer has none to the truth. A rule that hands your friend to a killer cannot be a moral law.

Keep time. After each round, say which side best answered the other side's strongest point, not which side you agree with.

The twist for round 2

You could refuse to answer. But the murderer will take your silence to mean your friend is inside. Does that change anything?

What Kant actually said

Kant's reply, "On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives" (1797), held the strict line: "Truth in utterances that cannot be avoided is the formal duty of a man to everyone, however great the disadvantage that may arise from it to him or any other."

1. A lie wrongs humanity in general, even if it wrongs nobody in particular: it makes all declarations less credible, and so weakens every right founded on contract.

2. Whoever lies answers for the consequences. If your friend has slipped out unseen, your lie may send the murderer straight to him. If you tell the truth, the neighbours might catch the murderer while he searches the house.

3. Truthfulness in all declarations is "a sacred unconditional command of reason".

Scholars add three cautions

The essay is mainly about right (law and justice) rather than personal virtue (Timmermann, 2025). The example is far older than Kant: Augustine discussed it, and Constant never mentioned a door. Christine Korsgaard (1986) argued that Kant's own universal law test may permit the lie, because the murderer relies on deceiving you.

READING

Dignity, rights and rigid rules

Kant's account of dignity is often named as one source of modern human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) says all human beings "are born free and equal in dignity and rights". Germany's Basic Law (1949) begins: "Human dignity shall be inviolable." The idea that a person has a worth that cannot be traded against benefits to others is recognisably Kantian. Claims of direct influence need care, though. The Declaration's drafters came from many religious and secular traditions and left the foundations of dignity unstated. Introducing a 1949 UNESCO volume on human rights, the philosopher Jacques Maritain recalled that people of opposed views could agree on a list of rights only if nobody asked them why.

Critics have long found Kant too rigid: a duty with no exceptions seems to sacrifice the friend to a principle. A second problem is conflicting duties. Kant held that true duties cannot conflict, yet a promise to meet a colleague can clash with helping someone injured on the way. The Scottish philosopher W. D. Ross, in The Right and the Good (1930), kept duty but dropped the absolutes. He listed seven prima facie duties: fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice, beneficence, self-improvement and non-maleficence (not harming others). Each binds unless a stronger one outweighs it, and judgement, not a formula, decides which. Critics reply that Ross offers no method for the weighing.

Duty under pressure

Task Choose three or four questions. Spend most of your time on the one your group disagrees about.

1. Is there anything you would never do, whatever the consequences?

2. Does it matter why someone helps you, as long as they help?

3. Is lying to protect someone a different act from lying to benefit yourself?

4. Can a law protect "human dignity" if nobody agrees what dignity is?

5. Where you live, are some lies expected, even polite?

6. Is Ross's weighing of duties wiser than Kant's fixed rules, or just an invitation to excuses?

Private reflection

Task Choose one prompt and write privately. Nobody will read what you write. Sharing afterwards is optional.

Prompt 1

Think of a rule you keep even when breaking it would be easier, or kinder. Where did the rule come from, and would it pass Kant's test?

Prompt 2 (lighter)

Which act from "Test the maxim" do you see most often around you? Would Kant's test change anyone's mind about it?

Back to where you stood

Task Look again at your letters for acts 2 and 4 on "Where do you stand?". Would you change either of them now?

P = permissible · N = not permissible · D = it depends

2. Lying to a murderer about where your friend is hiding.

4. Being friendly to a classmate only because her mother can get you a job.

Before Lesson 4

This week, notice one rule you kept when breaking it would have been easier, and one rule someone broke for a good reason.

Consequences

Duty

For each, note which lens you judged it by: Consequences ("What will happen?") or Duty ("What rule applies?").

Character

Next lesson: Character: Virtue Ethics. Aristotle swaps "What should I do?" for "What kind of person should I be?"

Relationships

TEACHER'S REFERENCE · SKIP OR DELETE BEFORE CLASS

Answer key (1)

TEST THE MAXIM suggested; Kantians disagree on several of these, and acts 1, 3 and 5 are there to be argued over

1 Maxim: "When I am in a hurry, I will go to the front of a queue, in order to be served sooner." Fails: defeats itself. If everyone in a hurry did it, there would be no queue to jump, and jumping would get nobody served sooner. The maxim only works because most people keep the rule it breaks.

2 Maxim: "When I want a day off, I will hand in a false sick note, in order to be excused." Fails: defeats itself. This is Kant's false promise in modern form: if everyone did it, sick notes would be worthless and nobody would be excused by one.

3 Maxim: "When inspectors rarely check, I will travel without paying, in order to save money." Fails: defeats itself (arguably). If everyone did it, fares would fund nothing and the free ride would vanish, or checks would become constant. Some argue it is better classed as "nobody could will it".

4 Maxim: "Although I could easily help, I will never help anyone in need, in order to keep my resources for myself." Fails: nobody could will it. Kant's own fourth example. A world without help is possible, so there is no self-defeat, but nobody can rationally will it, since everyone may one day need help. It breaks an imperfect duty.

5 Maxim: "I will go to the gym at 6 a.m., in order to train when it is empty." Taken literally, it defeats itself: if everyone did it, the gym would be full at 6 a.m. But the act is plainly innocent. This is a well-known "false positive" for the universal law test, and it shows how much depends on how the maxim is described. Kantians reply that the morally relevant maxim is something like "I will exercise at a time that suits me", which passes.

TEACHER'S REFERENCE · SKIP OR DELETE BEFORE CLASS

Answer key (2)

MERELY A MEANS? suggested; F, G and H are genuinely contested

• A. R. Priya uses the driver to get to the airport, and he uses the fare; both consent, and each pursues their own ends.

• B. M. Ana cannot consent to a friendship whose real purpose is hidden from her. Deception, the clearest failure.

• C. R. The volunteers are used as a means to medical knowledge, but with full information, free consent and the right to withdraw. This is close to the logic of informed consent in research ethics.

• D. M. The patients cannot consent to an experiment they do not know about.

• E. M, on a strict reading: the sale depends on a lie Kenji cannot agree to. Some will call it a harmless social custom; Kant would not.

• F. Contested. M if the design exploits impulses that young players cannot meaningfully consent to; R if players understand the game and freely choose it. Age matters to the consent test.

• G. Contested. Kant's "in thine own person": Lucas arguably treats his own humanity as a mere tool for money. Others say this is his own free choice and nobody else is used.

• H. Contested. A deception, so strictly M; yet Mei would almost certainly welcome it. A good test of whether possible consent and likely approval are the same thing.