Introduction
I call Kantian universalism the family of Kant-inspired philosophical
views according to which universal, normative action principles can be
derived from a supreme principle of morality that is grounded in
practical reason: the Categorical Imperative (CI). Proponents of Kantian
ethics have paid relatively little attention to the question of whether
– and if so, to what extent – the theory is sufficiently
context-sensitive to leave room for morally permissible, different
cultural ways of life. This is somewhat surprising, given the amount of
literature that depicts Kant’s ethics as one that is parochial,
Eurocentric or in some other capacity incapable of addressing the moral
concerns or perspectives of certain (marginalized) groups of people
(e.g. Velleman 2015; Allen 2013; Benhabib 1992; Mills 2018).
One of the few Kantian ethicists who has positively engaged with
Kant’s ethics in the context of cultural pluralism is Katrin Flikschuh.
In her 2017 book What is Orientation in Global Thinking? and
her 2018 article “Kant’s Contextualism”, she expresses her scepticism
about the potential of Kantian universalism to be sufficiently sensitive
to different ways of cultural life. According to Flikschuh, “[c]urrent
normative Kantianism”, by which she means Kantian universalism on my
conception of it, “largely simply tracks the shifting normative concerns
of liberal global theorizing” (Flikschuh 2017, 40). That is, according
to Flikschuh, Kantian universalism is at fault of taking certain
“liberal” values such as moral individualism, freedom and equality
between persons as universally valid from the outset, because of which
it lacks the flexibility and openness for different ways of thought and
life that a global normative theory requires if it is to be
“action-guiding”. Instead, Flikschuh proposes an interpretation of
Kant’s ethics that she takes to be “more context-sensitive” (Flikschuh
2017, 36). She refers to her interpretation as Kantian contextualism
(Flikschuh 2018, 557). Like Kantian universalism, Kantian contextualism
sees the CI as the universally valid principle (or form) of
moral willing and moral judgment, but unlike Kantian universalism, it
denies that universal, categorical action principles can be derived from
it (Flikschuh 2017, 45). According to Kantian contextualism, the
particular way in which the CI binds us “from where we stand”
does not allow us to infer that others are similarly bound “from where
they stand” (Flikschuh 2017, 68).
Instead, it maintains that the CI can give rise to “contextually
different substantive principles”, including principles that would be
incompatible with those that the CI would give rise to for different
persons in different cultural contexts (Flikschuh 2018, 557).
In this paper, I take issue with Flikschuh’s suggestion that
“substantive” moral universalism in Kantian ethics would render it
insufficiently sensitive to cultural context (Flikschuh 2017, 45). I
will argue, pace Flikschuh, that Kantian universalism leaves
ample room for pluralism with regard to cultural ways of life on the
basis that (1) principles of imperfect duty can only be acted
upon against the background of contextual circumstances, requiring
practical judgment from contextually situated agents, and (2) the object
of perfect duties – actions – cannot be strictly separate from
maxims, and hence from the concrete contextual circumstances in which an
action is willed. This conclusion can be maintained without having to
forfeit the idea that the CI puts categorical, universal constraints on
action. If this argument works, Kantian universalism does not come with
a commitment to a context-insensitive moral parochialism. However, as
will become clear, Kantian universalism does categorically prohibit
certain “illiberal” cultural practices that Flikschuh thinks should be
allowed in certain contexts. However, I will argue that this should be
considered a virtue rather than a shortcoming of Kantian
universalism.
The paper is structured as follows. In section 1, I present a
reconstruction of Flikschuh’s Kantian contextualism. In section 2, I
discuss several problems for Kantian contextualism’s potential as a
coherent and substantial moral theory. In section 3, I suggest that
Kantian universalism, unlike Flikschuh’s Kantian contextualism, is
capable of drawing a clear moral line that may not be crossed by
rational beings whilst also preserving an ample amount of contextual
flexibility.
1. What is Kantian
Contextualism?
According to Flikschuh, many philosophers in the global justice
debate (“global theorists”) tend to “conflate global reasoning with
globalizing particular, domestically favoured moral and political
principles” (Flikschuh 2017, ix-x). By this Flikschuh means that rather
than seriously engaging with substantively different, foreign points of
view on moral issues, global theorists, including those who subscribe to
what Flikschuh calls “current normative Kantianism”, have a tendency to
take certain “commonsense” principles for granted (Flikschuh 2017, 3;
40). These include a strong commitment to moral individualism and the
freedom and equality of persons (Flikschuh 2017, 2). The idea of such
principles being “commonsense”, says Flikschuh, testifies to an implicit
presumption that the “liberal way of thought and life” is in a sense
furthest advanced in the moral span of time, which gives rise to the
concern that global theorists are not taking other, “illiberal” ways of
thought and life as seriously as they should (especially when people
with other forms of thought and life are the subject of their
theorizing).
The overarching aim of Flikschuh’s project is to provide a Kantian
basis for the idea that foreign, “illiberal” moralities need not be
rationally wanting in terms of moral justification, because of which
global theorists ought to engage with these moralities on equal terms.
On Flikschuh’s view, we can recognize that there is a rational basis for
a morality that is substantially different from our own without
believing that there is reason for us to abide by that
morality. All that is required is an understanding that the morality in
question could have provided us with action-guiding principles
had we been in the proverbial shoes of those for whom it does
make sense to regard it as action-guiding (Flikschuh 2017, 118). As
Flikschuh puts it: “we can come to recognize foreign practices as
valuable for those whose practices they are insofar as we can come to
see them as values which we might have had” (Flikschuh 2017,
118).
Flikschuh is optimistic about our capacity for such recognition. Her
optimism stems from her agreement with Kant’s contention that as
self-reflexive, rational beings, we can become aware of the finitude of
our cognitive capacities (Flikschuh 2017, 126-127). More precisely, we
can become aware of the fact that human beings, in addition to a
universally shared “human standpoint”, need a particular “local
standpoint” to orient themselves in the world (Flikschuh 2017, 104-106).
As for the human standpoint, Flikschuh joins Kant in maintaining that
human beings equally represent the world to themselves through the
categories of the understanding (e.g., quantity, quality relation,
modality, etc. (KrV, B129-B169)). What she adds to this picture is the
idea that “differently situated human persons will respond to their
particular contexts by developing context-specific concepts and
practices” (Flikschuh 2017, 104). This is what Flikschuh means by the
local standpoint. “Apart from the categories of the understanding”,
Flikschuh says, “there is […] nothing fixed or antecedently determined
about [the] process of empirical concept formation” (Flikschuh 2017,
33). Substantively differently situated people orient themselves by
different conceptual frameworks, leading to different ways of life.
People from cultures that do not have the practice (let alone the
concept) of promising or contracting, for instance, will not make sense
of their actions through these concepts (cf. Flikschuh 2018, 570-572). Nor is there any “a priori
necessity” about human beings forming the concept of a state, because of
which people are not necessitated to structure political life on the
basis of such an idea (Flikschuh 2017, 33).
Flikschuh maintains that when we come to understand that, globally,
there is great variety among local perspectives, we can come to
understand that people with substantively different local perspectives
could justifiably adopt action principles that we cannot from our own
local perspective (Flikschuh 2017, 104-105). For instance, a Western
European person could come to understand that a village elder of the
Kenyan Kikuyu clan, as a result of her being part of a certain locally
realized way of life, may have reason to practice female genital cutting
(e.g., because of a deeply held belief that this is how girls are
initiated into womanhood), whereas the Kikuyu elder may come to
understand that the Western European person, being part of a locally
realized way of life with a long tradition of “Enlightenment thinking”,
may be justified in regarding this practice as a violation of bodily
integrity. Hence, not only can there be deep faultless moral
disagreements, but human beings are at the same time capable of
realizing that such disagreement is not indicative of the superiority of
their own moral beliefs (Flikschuh 2017, 125).
A natural question that arises at this point is how Flikschuh’s
endorsement of faultless moral disagreement can be squared with Kant’s
moral philosophy. This is where Flikschuh’s “contextualist”
interpretation of Kant’s ethics comes in.
According to Flikschuh’s Kantian contextualism, the CI is meant to
give us the universal form of moral judgment. However, this does
not mean that the CI can tell us which substantive moral
principles are valid for or true of all people at all times (Flikschuh
2018, 573). To the contrary, Kantian contextualism contends that the
universal form of moral judgment only shows that maxims are
(im)permissible for the person who makes the judgment:
[C]urrent readings of Kant’s categorical imperative […] typically
seek to derive generally valid principles of action from a categorical
imperative test that asks each individual agent to reflect on the moral
purity of her maxim. However, an agent’s judgement of her
proposed maxim as one that any agent can follow does not warrant the
inference that therefore the maxim is valid for everyone. To the
contrary, its universal form merely shows that it is a morally
permissible maxim for her. (Flikschuh 2017, 45)
Flikschuh puts this point even more strongly in her 2018 article
“Kant’s Contextualism”: “[t]he point of the universalizability test is
not to generate universally valid principles of action but to judge the
moral purity of one’s maxim” (Flikschuh 2018, 562).
What can be concluded from this is that according to Flikschuh, even
though a moral judgment is a sincerely held conclusion from the
first-person perspective that a proposed maxim could (or could not) be a
valid action principle for everyone, the purpose of the CI test is not
to arrive at the truth about whether this is actually so.
Rather, its purpose is to find out whether you would sincerely
judge that it is so (Flikschuh 2018, 572-573). When a sincere
judgment has been reached on this question, the agent has done “all that
Kantian morality can reasonably demand of her” (Flikschuh 2018, 569).
That is, if an agent chooses to investigate the “purity of her maxim”,
she can do no more than deliberate on whether she would sincerely judge
that her maxim can be willed as a law. If the answer is yes, her maxim
is pure. This, however, does not allow for the inference that the maxim
actually could be willed as a law by everyone. It merely shows
that the maxim is morally permissible for the person who sincerely
arrives at this conclusion. “So long as the agent sincerely judges her
maxim to be universalizable” Flikschuh maintains, “substantive
divergence from others’ formally identical […] judgements is
morally irrelevant” (Flikschuh 2018, 570).
The main difference between Kantian universalism and Kantian
contextualism, it seems, is that according to Kantian universalism, the
soundness of moral judgment is conditional on the
actual universalizability of one’s proposed maxim, whereas on
the Kantian contextualist account the soundness of moral judgment
depends on nothing but a sincerely held belief that the maxim is
universalizable. According to Flikschuh, the relevant kind of
universalism in Kant’s ethics is a universalism in the form of
moral judgment rather than a universalism in substantive principles
(Flikschuh 2017, 118-122). In what follows, I will refer to Kantian
contextualism’s conception of moral universalism as subjective
universalism.
Kantian contextualism’s subjective universalism says that our moral
judgments, in our judgment, take the shape of imperatives that
anyone could follow. Even so, we can become reflexively aware of the
fact that the content of our moral judgments is heavily influenced by
the beliefs and value schemes that we have inherited from the (cultural)
context in which we are brought up. In the same way, we can come to
recognize that it is possible for others who are situated very
differently to arrive at substantively different moral judgments (in the
shape of categorical imperatives) from their point of view due
to their contextual situatedness (Flikschuh 2017, 118).
Flikschuh uses the practice of polygamy as an example to illustrate this
point:
Initially, when you stepped off the plane, you thought that polygamy
is where you draw the line. It’s just wrong, you thought. But now you
find yourself having second thoughts […] [Y]ou come to see that it
works, that it has advantages and disadvantages – for males and females
alike – that it, too, is part of the normalcy around here. You begin to
think that had you not been brought up on a diet of notions of romantic
love, but were instead a member of complex clan and extended family
relations with rather different patterns of emotional investment and
loyalty, polygamy might strike you as a sensible way of going about what
truly matters in family life. (Flikschuh 2017, 119-120).
On Flikschuh’s account, the same mode of reasoning extends to the
practice of female genital cutting. Provided that we sufficiently grasp
the contextual background and local perspective of pro-female genital
cutting members of the Kenyan Kikuyu clan, for example, we should come
to understand how it is possible for members of this community to
rationally endorse the practice of female genital cutting (Flikschuh
2017, 125).
Flikschuh maintains that it is only when we thoroughly put ourselves
in the shoes of foreigners with substantively different moralities that
we acquire the conceptual means to orient ourselves in the global
justice debate in a way that goes beyond our own moral framework, which
we come to regard as one contingent set of moral values among others.
This is so even if a particular moral framework (e.g. “liberalism”)
remains the only viable reason-giving option for us (Flikschuh
2017, 119-120).
What emerges is a highly innovative take on Kantian ethics that
differs in important respects from “standard” universalist
interpretations. Like Kantian universalism, Kantian contextualism takes
the CI to be the supreme principle of morality. According to both, the
CI demands that you act only on “universalizable” maxims. However, where
Kantian universalism takes this to imply that human beings are only
permitted to act on maxims that any rational agent could at the
same time will as laws, Kantian contextualism adheres to a subjective
universalism that insists that the CI test is only meant to test the
“purity” of the maxims of the one doing the testing.
2. The Problems with
Kantian Contextualism
According to Flikschuh, “those who look for a universalism in moral
substance overlook the universalism in the form of willing in Kant’s
ethics” (Flikschuh 2018, 573). In contrast to this, I will argue that we
should be looking for a universalism in moral substance in
Kant’s ethics, in the sense that it derives norms from a supreme moral
principle that cannot give rise to contradictory categorical imperatives
to different persons. In the next section, I will turn to how Kantian
universalism provides a more promising (albeit more stringent) moral
framework for accommodating cultural pluralism than Kantian
contextualism.
2.1. The Purpose of the CI-Test
Insofar as Kantian contextualism is meant as an
interpretation of Kant’s ethics, it rests on a contentious
interpretation of the CI test and the purpose of moral judgment. Let us
begin with Flikschuh’s contention that the CI test is only meant to test
the “purity” of our own maxims (Flikschuh 2018, 562).
A pure maxim, on Flikschuh’s account, is a maxim of a good will
(Flikschuh 2018, 562). It is true that Kant exclusively considers a good
will to have moral worth (AA 4:393), but it does not follow that the CI
test must therefore be designed to reach a judgment on the
purity of our maxims. According to Kant, human beings are not
transparent to themselves, and we are often inclined to flatter
ourselves with a more positive self- image than is actually warranted.
We can never truly know, irrespective of how deeply we examine
ourselves, whether our maxim is adopted from duty or self-interest:
[N]o certain example can be cited of the disposition to act from pure
duty; that, though much may be done in conformity with what
duty commands, still it is always doubtful whether it is really
done from duty and therefore has moral worth. (AA 4:407)
While Kant is clearly pessimistic about our insight into the “purity”
of our maxims, he is rather optimistic that we can arrive at
moral insights by applying the CI test. Hence, it would be peculiar if
these moral insights were to pertain to the purity of our maxims. For
his optimism, we only need to look at the examples that Kant discusses
in the second section of the Groundwork, where the hypothetical
men in question ask themselves whether it would not be contrary to duty
to commit suicide when tired of life, make a lying promise when in need
of money, make no attempt to cultivate their talents when in comfortable
circumstances, or never assist others in need (AA 4:421-4:423). In all
these cases, “it is seen at once” that these maxims can never also be
willed (or even conceived, in the first two examples) as universal laws
because this leads to a contradiction in the will (AA
4:424).
By stating that the best we can hope for on Kant’s account is that we
judge and act from purity of will, Flikschuh obscures Kant’s contention
that when we test whether maxims can at the same time be willed as
universal laws, we should arrive at conclusions that we must accept on
pain of rational self-contradiction. Her conception of the CI test as a
purity test for maxims seems to replace Kant’s “contradiction criterion”
with a “sincerity criterion”. That is, where for Kant the CI is meant to
provide rational insight into the categorical (im) permissibility of a
proposed maxim by showing that a contradiction in the will does or does
not necessarily arise upon putting the maxim to the CI-test, in
Kantian contextualism this role is fulfilled by a criterion which
evaluates the “purity” of a maxim on the basis of whether, “upon genuine
deliberation”, we would sincerely judge that the maxim could be willed
as a law.
In sum, pace Flikschuh’s interpretation, on Kant’s account
it actually lies within our ability to find out whether maxims can at
the same time be willed as universal laws. The CI test is a
meta-principle by which we arrive at such moral insights. It is not
designed to test whether our proposed maxims are “pure”.
2.2. Kantian
Contextualism is Too Undemanding
Recall that according to Kantian contextualism, we can come to
recognize foreign practices as potentially reason-giving, and
hence potentially morally justifiable, if we can imagine
ourselves regarding these practices as reason-giving. In what
follows, I will refer to this idea as the recognition
principle. This criterion, I will argue, is much too undemanding
for a substantial moral theory.
Suppose I can imagine myself judging that I have good reason to rob
banks. One does not need to be a Kantian to see that it would be a
stretch to hold that my capacity to empathetically put myself in the
shoes of a bank robber renders bank robbing morally permissible, or
potentially morally permissible, from certain perspectives. Yet if we
are to follow the recognition principle, it seems that this is exactly
the conclusion we should arrive at. After all, on Kantian
contextualism’s account, we can also come to understand that a person
could have legitimate reasons to perform female genital cutting
precisely by virtue of our capacity to imagine ourselves, from that
person’s local standpoint, sincerely judging that they have reason to
perform female genital cutting.
This is a problem, especially because it is sometimes quite easy to
empathetically put ourselves in the shoes of “bad guys”. The best movie
villains are those who empathetically resonate with us on some level.
Suppose that I can perfectly imagine myself sincerely believing that
banks are little more than the cornerstones of the capitalistic
oppression of the working class. It seems that on the basis of this
sincerely held belief, there are quite a few Robin Hood-like routes
available to me (assuming I care about the working class) to arrive at
the sincere judgment that it is permissible, or perhaps even a duty, for
all rational beings to rob banks and distribute the wealth among the
working class. Sure, I may be capable of recognizing that there are
others for whom it is rational to care about the bank’s continued
existence; it just so turns out that from my finite
perspective, there is a categorical reason for any rational being to do
everything in their power to free the working class from capitalistic
oppression, which happens to include robbing (or destroying) banks.
Although Kantian contextualism aspires to justify belief in a supreme
principle of morality that has “reasoned authority” in our moral
deliberations (Flikschuh 2018, 558), its conception of the CI seems to
be largely grounded not in reason but in our capacity for empathetic
imagination. Even though our own moral judgments are supposed to be
sincerely held categorical assertions regarding whether our maxims can
possibly serve as action principles for everyone (Flikschuh 2018, 562),
any maxim that satisfies the recognition principle should at
the same time in principle be deemed justifiable, provided we
can come to understand that we ourselves could have been in a
position to sincerely judge that maxim to be universalizable. Kantian
contextualism offers no method to prevent this from extending to maxims
that Kant regards (or should regard) as contrary to duty.
2.3. Kantian
Contextualism is Theoretically Incoherent
There is, however, a further problem for Kantian contextualism in
addition to its being overly permissive, namely that the combination of
its insistence on the CI as the universal form of moral judgment and its
commitment to the recognition principle renders Kantian contextualism
theoretically incoherent.
Suppose we are concerned about the moral permissibility (or “purity”)
of a maxim we are considering adopting. As good Kantian contextualists,
our method of evaluation is to ask ourselves whether “in [our] judgment
[our] proposed maxim is serviceable as a possible principle of
action for everyone” (Flikschuh 2018, 562).
Only if we sincerely judge that the maxim is universalizable in this way
is the maxim morally permissible for us, and hence pure. However, being
Kantian contextualists, we are at the same time committed to the idea
that when we arrive at a sincere judgment concerning our maxim’s
(un-)universalizability, this only means that the maxim is morally
(im)permissible for us (subjective universalism) due to our
recognition of the fact that the CI test could have the
opposite result for differently situated agents (recognition
principle).
Now, what is it that the Kantian contextualist sincerely
believes upon arriving at the sincere judgment that her proposed
maxim is (un)universalizable? Put differently, what does the judgment “M
is (un-)universalizable” mean when uttered by someone who is
committed to the idea that the method by which she establishes this
conclusion is unfit for establishing the actual
universalizability of maxims? While it eludes me how Flikschuh’s Kantian
contextualist would respond to this question, it does seem clear to me
that it cannot be a judgment that is meant to be taken in earnest. If
Kantian contextualism maintains (as it does) both that maxims
are permissible for us only if we would sincerely judge them to be
universalizable and that the method by which we arrive at our
moral judgments cannot establish the actual universalizability
of maxims, it should be impossible for a consistent Kantian
contextualist to ever sincerely believe their moral judgments.
In short: Kantian contextualism implores us to evaluate the “purity”
of our maxims on the basis of their supposed universalizability (CI)
whilst simultaneously imploring us to keep in mind that these maxims
need not be “truly” universalizable (recognition principle). This is
theoretically incoherent.
2.4. Disorientation
in The Global Justice Debate
Perhaps the issues discussed thus far will turn out to be trivial if
Kantian contextualism can still succeed in what it set out to do: to
provide us with an inclusive Kantian theoretical method for normatively
orienting ourselves in the global justice debate. Suppose that Flikschuh
is right in that “our own liberal principles” are in principle
just as justifiable as certain contradictory “illiberal” moral
principles. And let us further suppose that she is right in that we
should take substantively different, “illiberal” moralities as seriously
as our own in the global justice debate (Flikschuh 2017, 119-120). How
would this provide us with the necessary tools for practical orientation
in the global justice debate? Granted, it gives us more perspectives to
consider than before, back when we supposedly only had our own domestic
liberal moral concepts and commitments to go by and we implicitly
mistook thinking about global justice for translating domestic moral
principles to different contexts. But how does Kantian contextualism,
unlike our liberal biases, provide us with a compass with which
to orient our thinking about global justice?
There are good reasons to doubt that Kantian contextualism can give
us such a compass. Here is why. As is clear by now, Kantian
contextualism says that practices and action principles that qualify as
violations of the CI for us can still be in conformity with the
CI from the perspective of substantively differently situated persons.
However, Kantian contextualism does not say that certain
practices and action principles must necessarily be judged as
morally (im)permissible by those who are situated in a particular
context. The most it can do is hope for intracommunal overlap in moral
judgments and beliefs. Communities, however, usually consist of people
with (sometimes substantively) different beliefs. It is obviously not
the case that everyone always agrees with or even morally condones the
status quo of their locally realized way of life. As has often
been the case in history, some members of a community may wish for the
continuation of female genital cutting, whilst other members may
fervently object to this practice. Kantian contextualism would seem to
lack the theoretical means to provide a “reason-based” solution to
local, ethical disputes such as this.
The problem for Kantian contextualism, with regard to its potential
as a compass in the global justice debate, lies in its insistence that
“there is nothing over and above the act of judgement” that can tell
agents whether their actions and action principles are morally justified
(Flikschuh 2018, 573; Flikschuh 2017, 45). Provided the empathetic
imagination of the “global theorist” stretches so far as to make it
possible for her to understand both how somebody within a
particular context could sincerely arrive at the judgment that women
should not have voting rights and how somebody from the same
community could sincerely arrive at the opposite judgment, it seems that
Kantian contextualism provides the “global theorist” with no basis
whatsoever for orienting herself in moral matters within particular
contexts, leaving her morally rudderless. This is a problem for
Flikschuh because it entails that Kantian contextualism, contrary to her
aspirations, does nothing to prevent “global theorists” from becoming
disorientated when deliberating about the ethical demands of global
justice.
3. The
Context-Sensitivity of Kantian Universalism
But does Kantian universalism fare any better? If it is to succeed
where Kantian contextualism fails without falling prey to the
problems Flikschuh thinks it faces, Kantian universalism must be able to
put universal moral constraints on action in a way that does not turn
the theory into a context-insensitive parochialism. In this section, I
aim to demonstrate that it has the means to do so. More precisely, I
will argue that Kantian universalism allows for an ample amount of
(contextual) latitude in the enactment of duty whilst retaining the idea
that the CI prescribes categorical, universal principles for action.
Therefore, there is no practical need to get rid of the universalism in
Kantian ethics in order to ensure that it can accommodate the idea that
different (cultural) contexts may affect what the CI practically
requires of agents.
3.1. Imperfect Duty
First of all, it must be emphasized that it is maxims,
rather than actions, that are of primary moral importance in Kant’s
ethics. Rather than telling us which actions we ought to perform at all
times (as Kant’s ethics is sometimes presented), it says that we ought
to solely act on maxims that accord with the moral law (AA
6:389; 6:392). This bodes well for Kantian universalism’s potential as a
context-sensitive moral theory, as maxims can be acted upon in many
different ways. In fact, there is a prevalent category of duty –
imperfect duty – “that leaves a latitude (latitudo)
for free choice in following […] the law” (AA 6:390). This category of
duty derives its name from the fact that, unlike with perfect duty,
reason cannot prescribe what specific actions or omissions are required
in order to satisfy the duty. Where perfect duties prescribe laws for
actions, imperfect duties prescribe laws for maxims
only (AA 6:391-6:392; O’Neill 1975, 118-119). They require the adoption
of two general ends, namely one’s own perfection and the
happiness of others (AA 6:385). It is up to the agent’s capacity of
judgment to determine what these ends practically require of them (cf.
Bacin 2016, 259). I contend that it is only against the background of
concrete, contextual circumstances that it is possible for an agent to
reach a (sufficiently informed) judgment on how she should discharge her
imperfect duties.
First of all, it is possible for an agent to reach a judgment about
how she should concretely go about applying principles of
imperfect duty only when it is clear to her which (empirical) options
are available to her. For this, it seems that the agent must know
several things about herself and her (social) environment. For one
thing, this includes some knowledge of her own abilities. This seems
clear enough with the duty to perfect oneself, as the agent needs a
realistic idea of what she is (or could be) good at in order to reach an
informed judgment as to which of her useful talents she ought to
cultivate (cf. Timmermann 2005, 249). However, knowledge of one’s own
abilities is also needed to reach a judgment on how to promote the
happiness of others.
Imagine a scenario in which you and I physically encounter a person
who is hurt and in dire need of help. The person is within our reach,
and there seems to be no one else around. Both of us have individually
adopted a general principle of promoting the happiness of others.
However, you are a medical professional, whereas I am not. Given our
knowledge about our abilities, it would be rational to judge that the
same principle requires different actions of us individually. I may
enact this principle to the best of my abilities by calling for an
ambulance, whereas you may do so by providing the victim with medical
aid
Secondly, in order for an agent to have an epistemic basis for
deciding on a policy to enact his imperfect duties, he must
take certain considerations about his (social) environment into account.
For instance, if an agent is determined to spend his life in an
environment where people do not have cars, it can hardly be said that
his endeavours to become a car mechanic can reasonably qualify as part
of his policy to develop his useful talents (cf. AA 6:392). After all,
there is no use for this profession within this particular context.
Obviously, things would be different if the aspiring car mechanic had no
plans to live in such a place.
The same goes for the duty to promote the happiness of others, as
social factors such as culture can greatly affect what may or may not be
done to achieve this. To mention one example, in many Western cultures
it is not considered distasteful to place elderly family members in
nursing homes when they are no longer able to take care of themselves,
whereas this practice would be considered outrageous in many Asian,
African and Middle-Eastern societies, where children are often expected
to take care of their parents until the end of their lives. Since
cultural conceptions and norms can impact which actions generally serve
to make people happy (in the broadest sense), it can be
context/culture-dependent whether an act (such as having one’s elderly
family members placed in a nursing home) could reasonably be conceived
as promoting the happiness of others.
Thus, it can be seen that on a “standard”, universalistic reading of
Kant’s ethics, the same moral principle may favour the performance of
different actions in different (cultural) contexts. Hence, Kantian
universalism can require different actions and omissions from us when we
find ourselves among people with customs, beliefs and traditions that
are different from those we are used to. Kantian universalism is
context-sensitive by design.
3.2. Perfect Duty
Unlike Kantian contextualism, Kantian universalism is not
context-sensitive in the sense that different contexts can give rise to
different categorical imperatives. It allows for contextual latitude
only with regard to how moral duties can, may and ought to be acted
upon.
While Kantian universalism prioritizes maxims, it also forbids
certain actions, namely those that can only be willed
on the basis of non-universalizable maxims (cf. Kleingeld 2024,
172-173). According to Kant, these include lying, theft, suicide,
(self-)mutilation and murder (AA 4:421-423; 6:422-423). Kant maintains
that it is a perfect duty to refrain from engaging in these actions.
What has been insufficiently appreciated in the Kant literature (and
arguably by Kant himself) is that even though contextual considerations
never trump the requirements of perfect duty, whether certain actions
qualify as a violation of perfect duty is context-dependent. This is
exemplified by a consideration that Flikschuh is right to point out,
namely the fact that differently situated people may have different
conceptual frameworks, because of which there may be certain action
types that are available to “them” but not to “us” (Flikschuh 2017,
105).
An example may serve to make this clear. In a discussion on the
normativity of culture-specific action types (or “doables”), David
Velleman mentions a speech act in Russia that is called vranyo,
which is said to be a particular form of intentionally telling
falsehoods to others that does not exist in “Western” countries
(Velleman 2015, 65-68). In an article in the Moscow Times,
vranyo is described as occurring “when a person knows he is
lying and expects the other person to understand that” (Murray 2012).
The practice is thus, interestingly, understood as a form of “lying”
without its purpose being the deception of others. It is said that
Russian people can sense instances of vranyo, which upon
recognition commonly does not lead to an attitude of disapproval on the
part of the listener. Should vranyo be considered a form of
lying, on Kant’s account?
As mentioned above, Kant deems it a perfect duty to abstain from
lying (AA 4:402-403; 4:422). In one of his famous “casuistical
questions” in the Metaphysics of Morals, however, Kant asks:
“Can an untruth from mere politeness (e.g., the ‘your obedient servant’
at the end of a letter) be considered a lie? No one is deceived by it”
(AA 6:431). Or consider a situation in which “[a]n author asks one of
his readers, ‘How do you like my work?’” (Ibid.) – a question
that, according to Kant, one is likely to ask only if one expects a
positive answer. As usual, Kant gives no direct response to these
questions. However, on several occasions Kant does make it clear
(plausibly, I believe) that the intention of deceiving one’s
interlocutor or oneself is a necessary component of lying (AA 6:430;
4:422). Therefore, if intentionally telling someone something that one
believes to be false is not meant to deceive that person (for example,
in circumstances where there is a social expectation that one will not
be telling the truth), it would be incorrect to consider this a case of
lying on Kant’s account.
Since vranyo is supposedly initiated from the social
expectation that others will understand that no attempt is being made to
convince them of falsehoods, the practice cannot be described as one
that is aimed at the deception of others. Since the aim of deception is
inherent to Kant’s conception of lying, vranyo should not
qualify as such. In fact, as far as the matter of permissible
untruth-telling is concerned, there can be circumstances in which
vranyo is not morally different from casually using sarcasm or
irony, where we are also not in the business of deceiving our
interlocutor (even though our interlocutor may still believe
she is deceived if she fails to pick up on the sarcasm/irony).
I mention this particular example to underscore the point that even
though practices may appear to be violations of perfect duty to
someone who is unfamiliar with the practice, this need not be the case.
While people who are unfamiliar with the practice of vranyo (or
sarcasm/irony, for that matter) may, on the face of it, be tempted to
write it off as lying (especially when, unbeknownst to them, they are
confronted with the practice themselves), they would be mistaken due to
a failure to sufficiently understand what is going on.
Does this conclusion imply that in Kantian universalism it is
possible for one of two outwardly identical actions to qualify
as a violation of perfect duty and the other not? I believe that it
does. The reason for this, I propose, is that actions are not strictly
separable from maxims, in Kant’s ethics. By this I mean that what an
action is cannot be determined by outward behaviour alone (i.e.
what Kant calls the “matter” of the action (AA 4:416)). Instead, this is
primarily determined by an action’s underlying maxim (cf. AA 4:416;
O’Neill 1975, 94-110; Herman 1990, 33; 49). If the question whether an
action is a certain type of action depends on its underlying
maxim, then the object of perfect duties – actions – also
cannot be strictly separate from maxims. This is exemplified by the fact
that while it is a perfect duty to abstain from lying, it is not a
perfect duty to abstain from vranyo-ing. Even though both
actions can be outwardly identical, only one can possibly be
willed, within practical reason, as a means to morally permissible
ends. Christine Korsgaard describes a
similar case in The Sources of Normativity when she compares
the maxim “I will refuse to return your weapon, because I want it for
myself” to the maxim “I will refuse to return your weapon, because you
have gone mad and may hurt someone” (Korsgaard 1996, 108). As with the
lying/vranyo case, it seems plausible to say that Korsgaard’s
example depicts yet another scenario with two fundamentally different
actions, despite their being outwardly identical. If one were to act on
the first maxim, one’s action would qualify as theft – and
hence be prohibited as a matter of perfect duty – whereas if one were to
act on the second maxim, one’s action would qualify as a form of
beneficent protection.
3.3.
Does The Context-Sensitivity of Perfect Duty Lead to Normative
Indeterminacy?
A worry that may arise at this point is that the context-sensitivity
of perfect duties in Kantian universalism, much like Kantian
contextualism, comes at the cost of normative indeterminacy. If perfect
duties are supposed to prescribe laws for actions but actions cannot be
separated from their underlying principles, there may be cause for
concern about perfect duties being incapable of drawing a clear moral
line for rational agents after all. Suppose, for instance, that Kant is
right in that is a perfect duty to abstain from mutilation. What should
Kantian universalism say about female genital cutting rituals, given
that proponents of such practices usually do not conceive of
these as a form of mutilation but rather, for instance, as a culturally
significant initiation from childhood to womanhood? Does it have the
means to say that female genital cutting categorically qualifies as an
act of mutilation, regardless of the fact that proponents do not
think of such acts as mutilation?
Let me start with a caveat. For my current purposes, I do not aim to
provide irrefutable evidence that a perfect duty against mutilation
would render female genital cutting rituals categorically impermissible.
Instead, I aim to illuminate how, in Kantian universalism, such a claim
can be intelligible despite the fact that there is no universal
agreement on whether female genital cutting qualifies as mutilation.
This is all that needs to be established for the idea that the
context-sensitivity of perfect duties does not impede on Kantian
universalism’s capacity to set categorical, universal constraints on
action. Furthermore, it must be stressed that female genital cutting
comes in multiple shapes and forms. The World Health Organization
divides different types of female genital cutting into numerical
categories based on the relative severity of the procedure and the
(possible) physical complications. As mentioned in the
previous section, Flikschuh argues that there is a Kantian route towards
a justification of female genital cutting as practiced by the Kenyan
Kikuyu clan (Flikschuh 2017, 125). Several sources confirm that the
Kikuyu female genital cutting ritual falls under either the so-called
“type II” or the “type III” category, which means that the procedure
could range from a removal of the clitoral glans and the inner folds of
the vulva to infibulation (cf. Boddy 2007, 235; 243; 359; Thomas 2000,
132). To remain conceptually aligned with Flikschuh, the reader can
assume that when I refer to female genital cutting in this paper, I am
referring to the type II and type III variants.
A temptation that should be avoided is to search for an “ideal”
definition of mutilation and to proceed by arguing that proponents of
female genital cutting rituals simply fail to understand that, according
to this ideal definition, female genital cutting falls under its
umbrella. For one thing, it is not clear that morally loaded concepts
such as “mutilation” can be wholly defined in “pure” terms, uninfluenced
by societal attitudes and linguistic customs (cf. Sticker 2018,
181-185). For another, what is important in the example borrowed from
Korsgaard has nothing to do with whether the “theft maxim” is based on
the best possible definition of stealing (or property, for that matter).
Nor is it important whether the difference between vranyo and
lying is explained in terms of the best possible definition of lying.
What is important in these examples is what Kant’s conception
of lying and stealing denotes and why it is a perfect duty to
abstain from these actions.
Now in some cases, an agent’s maxim may already explicitly contain an
action description that would be contrary to duty on Kant’s account,
such as “I will lie/steal/murder when … to …”.
In such cases, the maxim is not going to pass the CI test regardless of
the circumstances and the end for which the agent adopts the maxim. However, it is clearly not the case
that immoral maxims need to contain an action description that
explicitly refers to an immoral action. It is clearly possible for a
maxim to qualify as a “lying maxim”, for instance, without having
“lying” as its action description, for example when my maxim is “I will
tell falsehoods when I am in need of money to get money” (AA 4:422).
Again, what is important here is not that the maxim corresponds to a
universally agreed upon definition of lying but that it corresponds to
an action type that is ruled out by the CI: communicating ideas that one
believes to be false with the intention of deceiving oneself or others.
What matters is that this action type is available to the agent, not
whether he or she has a (similar) concept of it.
As with “lying maxims”, it should be equally possible to adopt
“mutilation maxims” without “mutilation” actually being the maxim’s
action description. However, to understand what a “mutilation maxim”
would be on Kant’s account, we first need to know what Kant means by
mutilation.
When discussing perfect duties to the self in the Doctrine of
Virtue, Kant explains what he means by mutilating oneself.
According to Kant, this can either be done “materially” or “formally”.
Material self- mutilation would involve maiming oneself,
understood as “depriving oneself of certain integral, organic
parts” (AA 6:421). Importantly, one cannot be said to
deprive oneself of integral, organic parts when one has these
removed due to their being “dead or diseased”, thereby endangering one’s
life (AA 6:423). However, if one were to have oneself castrated in order
to pursue a career as a singer, this would qualify as a form of
maiming oneself (AA 6:423).
Kant describes formal self-mutilation as “depriving
oneself (permanently or temporarily) of one’s capacity for the
natural (and so indirectly for the moral) use of one’s powers”
(AA 6:421). If I choose to blind, deafen or cripple myself, this would
qualify as formal self-mutilation on Kant’s account. The reason why Kant
thinks that such actions indirectly deprive me of the capacity to use my
moral powers is because I need my “natural powers” to act, and thus to
act from duty. To preserve myself as a moral being, I must preserve
myself as an animal being.
In a paper from 2009, Michael Cholbi asserts that Kant has a
symmetrical understanding of moral duty:
Kant views our duties as subject to a kind of symmetry, according to
which if an agent is morally required to treat herself in a particular
fashion, then all other things being equal, she is morally required to
treat similarly situated others in the same fashion. (Cholbi 2009,
20).
For my current purposes, I take this claim for granted. What this
entails, with regard to the perfect duty against self-mutilation, is
that a perfect duty against mutilating myself at the same time spells
out a perfect duty against mutilating others. This can only be true if
Kant’s idea of what it means to mutilate others fundamentally means the
same thing as what it means to mutilate myself (either materially,
formally or both).
Now that it is clear what the Kantian perfect duty against mutilation
denotes, we can determine whether female genital cutting is a
violation of this duty. The answer is that female genital cutting
morally qualifies as both material and formal mutilation. It is
material mutilation because the act deprives a girl of her
organic parts. The removal/destruction of organic parts qualifies as a
form of deprivation because the act is not done with the
intention of preserving the girl’s health. If this were so, the act
would not qualify as female genital cutting but as (surgical) amputation
(cf. AA 6:423). Female genital cutting qualifies as formal
mutilation because it comes with a high risk of depriving or diminishing
a girl’s capacity for sexual pleasure
and her capacity to give birth without (sometimes severe)
complications.
If it is true that female genital cutting inherently
qualifies as what Kant means by an act of mutilation, and if it is true
that it is a perfect duty to abstain from what he means by mutilation,
this means that there cannot possibly be any circumstances in which
female genital cutting could be willed for permissible ends.
The main takeaway is as follows. The idea that actions cannot be
separated from maxims in Kantian universalism does not make it
impossible for Kantian universalism to prescribe perfect duties that are
uniform in content. I have used the perfect duty against mutilation as a
leading example. The discussion on female genital cutting illustrates
that it is possible to will an act of mutilation without taking
oneself to will an act of mutilation. To will an act of mutilation,
on Kant’s account, is to will the removal or destruction of organic
parts or natural powers as a means to non-medical ends. Since the maxim
that underlies an action can be a “mutilation maxim” even if the agent
does not conceive of that action as a form of mutilation, an agent’s
action can qualify as mutilation, and thus as a violation of a perfect
duty, whether or not the agent takes themselves to be willing an act of
mutilation.
In this section, I hope to have made a plausible case for the idea
that Kantian universalism is a context- sensitive moral theory that is
also capable of prescribing substantive, universal action-principles.
With Kantian universalism, it takes a contextually situated rational
agent to judge how imperfect duties ought to be discharged.
Reason alone does not prescribe what actions and omissions (nor how many
of them) are required of the agent with regard to such duties, but only
which ends the agent ought to adopt (AA 6:392). At the same
time, Kantian universalism allows for the possibility that outwardly
identical actions can qualify as different action types, because of
which the question whether an action qualifies as a violation of
perfect duty can be context-dependent. This conclusion can be
sustained without forfeiting the idea that the CI sets categorical,
universal constraints on action.
4. Conclusion
Kantian universalism is more potent as a context-sensitive moral
theory than Kantian contextualism. The task with regard to evaluating
the moral permissibility of less familiar cultural practices is not, as
Kantian contextualism would have it, to find out whether we are capable
of imagining ourselves sincerely endorsing these practices under
particular circumstances. Instead, the task for Kantians is to first get
sufficiently clear on the underlying context, conception and purpose of
the practices in question before evaluating whether they are in
conformity with duty. I think that this is exactly what it should mean
for Kantian universalism to take “foreign ways of life” seriously.
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