The Limitations of Kant's Perspective

          In chapter eleven Russ Shafer-Landau summarizes, and then points out a fatal flaw of Immanuel Kant’s principle of universalizability. Kant was staunchly opposed to utilitarianism. The primary reason for this seems to be that he disagreed with the idea of consequentialism; rather he believed that the morality of an action was largely dependent on its maxim. A maxim, as Shafer-Landau describes it, is “what you are about to do, and why you are about to do it.” (Shafer-Landau 2010, 157-158) This view is perhaps more forgiving in a sense, because it forgives someone whose well-intentioned act produced harmful results. Also, unlike utilitarianism, Kant’s view saves people from having to consider every possible outcome of every decision they make. Kant’s criteria for whether or not an action is morally correct is that it must be universalizable. Kant outlined an easy test to determine if this is the case. First one has to determine their maxim, and imagine a hypothetical world in which everyone accepts and follows that same maxim. If that action could still be successfully carried out in a world where everyone else has the same goals, then that action is universalizible. (Shafer-Landau 2010, 159)

            The principle of universalizabity works well in matters of environmentalism. For example, consider someone who wanted to buy a Hummer. This would fail to pass Kant’s test of universalizabilty, because not everyone on earth could drive a Hummer, unless of course they built a Hummer that works underwater. Or if someone wanted to pollute the water because it was convenient, that would not be universalizable, since it would likely mean that there would be no clean water left, and everyone would die.

Unfortunately, as Shafer-Landau points out, this methodology only seems to address one specific type of immoral action: the kind that is self-serving, and acts as though the person committing the act was superior to others, or at least not bound by the same moral rules. This is neglecting several other genres of unethical actions, including but not limited to actions that seek to harm specific individuals or groups. (Shafer-Landau 2010, 165) I noticed that Kant’s principle would also not prevent systematic, wordwide immoral actions. For example, the maxim ‘I am going to murder people at random because I want to destroy all human life’ is easily universalizible. If everyone shared that maxim, they would need only to commit suicide, and the goal would be completed. However, random murder is pretty easily recognizable as an unethical act.

            Kant’s view, as Shafer-Landau points out, is narrow and idealistic. It fails to recognize the complexities of people’s motives. This is further shown by the fact that Kant praised integrity as being the most important virtue. (Shafer-Landau 2010, 165) This might be the case, if everyone had similar and universalizible intentions, which is obviously not the case. A white supremacist who staunchly adheres to their racist principles is still a white supremacist; if anything, their integrity in that case would make them worse. Kant seems to have an interesting idea of ethics, but one that is limited by his flawed view of human nature.

Works Cited

                    Landau, Russ. "Chapter 11-The Kantian Perspective-Fairness and Justice." In The Fundamentals of Ethics. Second ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 154-167.