Business Ethics - Book Review - Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant. 1) Biography of Immanuel Kant 2) Kant’s Concept on Morality 3) Chapter 1 – Goodwill 4) Chapter 1 – The Notion of Duty and Maxim 5) Chapter 2 - Transition from popular Moral Philosophy to the Metaphysic of Morals 6) Chapter 3 - Transition from the Metaphysics of Morals to the critique of pure practical reason

1. Business Ethics
Book Review
Presented By
15-I-131 Mr. Mufaddal Nullwala
Metaphysics as a Guide to
Morals

2. By Immanuel Kant
Metaphysics as a Guide to
Morals
DotheRightThings,BecauseItisRight

3. Topics of our Presentation
1 Biography of Immanuel Kant
Kant’s Concept on Morality
2 Chapter 1 – Goodwill
Chapter 1 – The Notion of Duty and Maxim
3 Chapter 2 - Transition from popular Moral
Philosophy to the Metaphysic of Morals
4 Chapter 3 - Transition from the Metaphysics of
Morals to the critique of pure practical reason

4. About Immanuel Kant
• Immanuel Kant was born on April 22,
1724, in Russia.
• In 1740 Kant entered the University of
Konigsberg.
• He published science papers, including
"General Natural History and Theory of the
Heavens" in 1755.

5. • He spent 15 years as a metaphysics
lecturer. In 1781, he published the first
part of Critique of Pure Reason.
• He died on February 12, 1804, in
Konigsberg, Russia.
About Immanuel Kant

6. Kant’s Concepts
Morality
The Notion
of Duty
Good Will
Nature of
Imperatives

7. Good Will
• Only thing that is good without qualification.
• “It is impossible to think of anything at all in
the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could
be considered good without limitation except a
good will.”

8. What a Good Will Is
• Doing the right thing because it is right.
• Action for the sake of duty vs. Action in
accord with duty.
• Three Motives for action
❑ Action from Duty
❑ Action from immediate feeling
❑ Action from calculating self-interest

9. What a Good Will Isn’t
❑ Virtues, Courage, For Instance?
• - No. Courage isn’t good if you are courageous to
rob a bank.
❑ Intelligence?
• - No. Intelligence makes criminals more dangerous,
not less.
❑ Health?
• - No. Health was certainly bad in Hitler.
❑ Happiness?
• - No. Happiness & pleasure are bad when
experienced by wicked people.
❑ Good Will?
• - Yes. A good will in the sense of a person acting
from respect for the moral law, is good
unconditionally.

10. The Notion of Duty
What do you mean by ’duty’?
1. The only good thing in the world is
‘Good Will’.
1. Duty is like a rule about what has to be
done in a particular situation without
thinking emotionally .

11. The Notion of Duty
• “Deontology” means “The study of Duties.”
• Three reasons to act :
• Acting from the duty - You feel that it’s your responsibility to
take a certain action.
• Act against duty - Do something wrong
• Act in accordance of the duty but not for the duty - Doing
good for wrong reasons.
• The only reason that gives an action moral worth is action
from duty.

12. The Notion of Duty - Example
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan - I am pondering on a street
and I see that someone littering on the road. I would
do either of the following:
1. Ask him to pick up the garbage and throw it into
the dustbin.
2. Ignore him.
3. Notify the officials.

13. Maxim
• " A maxim is a subjective principle of action, a personal policy.”
• It is the reason that explains what we do
• The general formula of a maxim is this: "I choose to ____in order to _____."
• A maxim states what I do and what my purpose is in doing what I do.

14. Chapter 2
• Transition from popular Moral
Philosophy to the Metaphysic
of Morals

15. The Imperatives in Section 2
• All moral conceptions have their origin
completely a priori in reason
• Practical Faculty of Reason - Everything in
nature works according to laws.
• Hypothetical Categories of Imperatives:
➢ Hypothetical - Rules of Skill
➢Hypothetical – Counsels of Prudence
• Categorical Imperatives

16. Chapter 3
Transition from the
Metaphysics of Morals to
the critique of pure
practical reason

17. Freedom
• Conceptof Freedomexplainsthe Autonomy of Will- Free Will must be a Will that
gives itself autonomy
• Idea of Freedom – A Willof allrationalbeings
• “A free Will and a Will under moral laws are one and the same”.
• He stands firm in his belief that moral law is what guides a will that is free
from empirical desires (derived desires).
• A rational agent (clear preferences) may ‘will’ to act a certain way, but
because they are rational beings free from sensual temptations, their ‘will’ is
what imperfectly irrational people ‘ought’ to act. Therefore, a rational agent’s
‘will’ becomes a universal law in which people guided by empirical
experiences (information received) should abide.
• A rational agent is only autonomous when one can make judgments not by
external “impulsion (strong urge),” but by “pure practical reason.”

18. Ideas of Morality
• In passage 407, page 19 : Kant proposes that if one were to look at
past experiences, one cannot be certain that his or her rationalization
for performing an action that conforms with duty could rest solely on
moral grounds.
• Kant distinguishes between key notions such as a priori ("hardwired"
into our brains) and a posteriori (extrapolated from our
experiences), and hypothetical imperative vs. categorical
imperative, in order to argue whether the actions of rational beings
are actually moral or if they are only moral because of one’s hidden
inclinations.
• Page 29 : “ For when moral value is being considered, the concern is
not with the actions, which are seen, but rather with their inner
principles, which are not seen.” – ie : He is suggesting that a
person's true motives behind the action are more important in
determining if the action holds true moral value or not.

19. Ideas of Morality - Continue
• W hen moral worth is in question it is not a matter of visible actions
but of their invisible inner principles.
• We are supposed to have pure (as opposed to self-interested)
motivation for moral actions

20. Limits of Philosophy
• All humans attribute to themselves Freedom of Will.
• We are supposed to have pure (as opposed to self-interested)
motivation for moral actions.
• Every happening is in accordance to Laws of Nature.
• System of Nature is confirmed by experience – means, connected
knowledge of the objects of sense rests on General Laws.
• The basic principles of moral thinking that occur to us independent of
any particular situation or experience, and he offers some criticism of
philosophers who have advanced different bases for morality.

21. Criticism of Kantianism
• Men are not to be judged on the basis of principles alone. They
are answerable to the consequences as well.
• A lot of evil can be done in the name of moral principles.
• A lie may be good if it saves the life of someone. – Similarly a
Truth is good if it brings Justice and Morality to Society.
• It is difficult to be conceived in a platonic (Abstract and pure of
Feelings) world and implemented in a society without bothering
about the result.
• People may act in conformity with duty out of some interest or
compulsion other than duty. Eg: , a grocer has a duty to offer a
fair price to all customers, yet grocers abide by this duty not
solely out of a sense of duty, but rather because the competition
of other grocers compels them to offer the lowest possible price.

22. Overstatement
• Philosophy may be divided into three fields:
• Physics (the study of the physical world),
• Ethics (the study of morals), and
• Logic (the study of logical principles).
• These fields may involve either "empirical" study of our experiences, or
"pure" analysis of concepts.
• "Metaphysics" is the study of pure concepts as they relate to moral or
physical experience.
• The goal of the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals is to develop a
clearer understanding of moral principles, so that people may better avert
distractions.

23. Conclusion
• The goal of the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals is to
establish the "supreme principle of morality."
• Kant intends to follow this work with a more thorough treatment
of moral philosophy.