Kant's shopkeeper who gives correct change only because honesty is good for business acts:

In accordance with duty but not from duty

From a categorical imperative of prudence

In accordance with duty but not from duty

From duty and with full moral worth

Sidgwick's "dualism of practical reason" refers to:

The apparent rationality of both egoism and universal benevolence, with no guarantee that they coincide

The distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives

The apparent rationality of both egoism and universal benevolence, with no guarantee that they coincide

The difference between higher and lower pleasures

The opposition between act and rule utilitarianism

Assertion (A): Ayer holds that "stealing money is wrong" is neither true nor false. Reason (R): For Ayer, the sentence expresses the speaker's moral disapproval rather than stating a fact. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Assertion (A): Bentham distinguished higher and lower pleasures by their quality. Reason (R): Bentham's felicific calculus measures pleasures along dimensions such as intensity, duration and extent. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Western Ethics II: Kant, Utilitarianism, Theories of Punishment and the Cognitivism Debate

This chapter completes Unit 4 with its four remaining bullets. Kant's moral theory: the good will, duty, maxims, the categorical imperative, persons as ends and the postulates of morality. Utilitarianism: the principle of utility, the problem of sanction and the justification of morality, the kinds of utilitarianism, and the theories of Bentham, J. S. Mill and Sidgwick. The theories of punishment. And the metaethical contrast between cognitivism and non-cognitivism, with emotivism, prescriptivism and descriptivism. The syllabus writes "Mean and ends" in its Kant item; the formula is about means and ends, and the chapter uses that wording. NET Law's jurisprudence unit also treats punishment, as penal policy; here the theories are examined as moral justifications.

1. Kant: good will, duty, maxims and the categorical imperative

The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) opens: "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." Talents, fortune and even happiness can be bad if the will that uses them is bad; the good will is good in itself, "like a jewel", even if it achieves nothing. A will is good when it acts from duty, that is, out of respect for the moral law, not merely in accordance with duty. Kant's shopkeeper who gives correct change because honesty is good for business acts in accordance with duty but not from it, so his act has no moral worth.

A maxim is the subjective principle on which an agent acts ("when I need money I will borrow it and promise to repay, though I know I cannot"). Imperatives are hypothetical when they command an action as a means to something one wants (technical rules of skill and pragmatic counsels of prudence) and categorical when they command unconditionally. Morality is categorical, and there is one categorical imperative expressed in several formulas.

The formulas of the categorical imperative
Formula	Statement
Universal law	"Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law"
Law of nature	"Act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature"
Humanity (means and ends)	"So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means"
Autonomy	The will of every rational being as a will that gives universal law
Kingdom of ends	Act as a lawgiving member of a merely possible kingdom of ends

Four examples test the formulas: the false promise and suicide from self-love violate perfect duties (their maxims cannot even be thought as universal laws without contradiction); neglecting one's talents and refusing to help others violate imperfect duties (their maxims can be thought universally but cannot be willed).
Postulates of morality (Critique of Practical Reason, 1788): freedom (since "ought implies can", a being bound by the moral law must be free), the immortality of the soul (since perfect conformity to the law, holiness, needs endless progress) and the existence of God (since the highest good, virtue crowned with proportionate happiness, needs a cause that can bring them together). These are not known theoretically but are necessary presuppositions of practical reason.

⚠️ "Never merely as a means"

The humanity formula does not forbid using people as means; we use the baker as a means to bread. It forbids treating anyone merely as a means, in a way they could not possibly consent to, as deception and coercion do. Options that drop the word "merely" misstate Kant.

2. Utilitarianism: Bentham, Mill and Sidgwick

Jeremy Bentham's Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) begins: "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure." The principle of utility approves or disapproves of every action according to its tendency to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question. Pleasures differ only in quantity, measured by the felicific (hedonic) calculus along seven dimensions: intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity (nearness), fecundity, purity and extent. Bentham names four sanctions, sources of pleasure and pain that bind people to act: physical, political, moral (popular) and religious.

J. S. Mill's Utilitarianism (1861) states the greatest happiness principle: actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse. He adds qualitative differences among pleasures: those who know both prefer the higher pleasures of intellect and feeling, so "it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied". His "proof" of the principle argues that the only evidence that anything is desirable is that people actually desire it; each person desires his own happiness, so the general happiness is a good to the aggregate of all persons. Critics, above all Moore, charged the argument with equivocating on "desirable" (able to be desired and worth desiring) and with a fallacy of composition. On sanction, Mill adds to the external sanctions an internal one, conscience: the feeling of pain attendant on violating duty.

Henry Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics (1874) compares three methods: egoistic hedonism, intuitionism and utilitarianism (universalistic hedonism). He argues that common-sense morality, examined closely, points toward utilitarianism, whose axioms (of justice, prudence and rational benevolence) are self-evident; the good of any one individual is of no more importance, "from the point of view of the universe", than the good of any other. But he could not show that egoism is irrational, and ended with the "dualism of practical reason": both one's own good and the general good seem rationally required, and nothing guarantees they coincide.

Kinds of utilitarianism
Division	Contrast
By what is evaluated	Act utilitarianism (each act by its consequences) against rule utilitarianism (acts by rules whose general observance maximises utility)
By what counts as good	Hedonistic (pleasure: Bentham, Mill, Sidgwick); ideal (plural goods such as knowledge, beauty, friendship: Moore, Rashdall); preference (satisfaction of preferences: Hare, Singer)
By quality	Gross or quantitative (Bentham) against refined or qualitative (Mill)
By whose happiness	Egoistic hedonism against universalistic hedonism

3. Theories of punishment

Punishment is the deliberate infliction of suffering or deprivation by an authority on an offender for an offence, and it needs moral justification because it does to people what would otherwise be wrong. The theories divide by whether they look backward, to the offence, or forward, to the good punishment produces.

The main theories
Theory	Justification	Associated with, and the chief objection
Retributive	Backward-looking: the guilty deserve punishment proportionate to their offence	Kant (punishment honours the offender as a rational agent; the law of retribution, ius talionis) and Hegel (punishment annuls the wrong and is the criminal's right); objection: it can look like institutionalised revenge
Deterrent	Forward-looking: punishment prevents future crime by the offender (special) and others (general)	Bentham: all punishment is itself an evil, justified only if it prevents greater evil; objection: it could justify punishing the innocent if that deterred
Reformative	Forward-looking: punishment should reform the offender and restore him to society	Treats crime as akin to a disease; echoed in Gandhi's "hate the sin, not the sinner"; objection: it may justify indefinite treatment and ignore desert
Preventive	Forward-looking: disabling the offender from repeating the offence (imprisonment, capital punishment)	Objection: it punishes for what a person might do, not for what he did

🎯 Mixed theories

H. L. A. Hart and John Rawls ("Two Concepts of Rules", 1955) proposed that different questions get different answers: the general justifying aim of the institution of punishment is forward-looking (crime reduction), while the distribution of punishment in particular cases is constrained by retributive principles (only the guilty, and only in proportion). This blocks the objection that deterrence could justify punishing the innocent.

4. Ethical cognitivism and non-cognitivism

Cognitivism holds that moral judgements express beliefs and are true or false; realist intuitionism and ethical naturalism are cognitivist. Non-cognitivism holds that they do not state facts at all but express attitudes or issue prescriptions, so they are neither true nor false in the ordinary way. Behind the debate lie Hume's point that no "ought" follows from an "is" alone and Moore's charge of a naturalistic fallacy.

Emotivism, prescriptivism and descriptivism
Theory	Thinkers and works	Thesis
Emotivism (non-cognitivist)	A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (1936), chapter 6; C. L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language (1944)	"Stealing money is wrong" adds nothing factual to "stealing money"; it expresses the speaker's disapproval, as if said in a peculiar tone of horror (the "boo-hurrah" theory). Stevenson adds that moral terms have emotive meaning and also aim to influence attitudes, and that moral disagreement is disagreement in attitude, not in belief
Prescriptivism (non-cognitivist)	R. M. Hare, The Language of Morals (1952), Freedom and Reason (1963)	Moral judgements are prescriptions, like imperatives, that guide action; what distinguishes them is that they are universalisable: to call an act right commits me to prescribing it for anyone in relevantly similar circumstances, myself included. Unlike emotivism, this lets moral reasoning be rational
Descriptivism (cognitivist)	Philippa Foot, "Moral Arguments" (1958) and "Moral Beliefs" (1958–59); G. J. Warnock; P. T. Geach	Moral terms have descriptive content fixed by facts about human good and harm; one cannot call just anything "rude" or "a virtue" at will. Moral judgements can therefore be true or false, against the emotivist and prescriptivist separation of fact and value

⚠️ Emotivism is not subjectivism

Subjectivism says "x is wrong" reports a feeling, so it is true if the speaker has the feeling. Emotivism says it expresses the feeling, like "boo!", and so is neither true nor false. That difference is why emotivism escapes the objection from disagreement that sinks simple subjectivism.

Key takeaways

Kant: only a good will is good without limitation; acting from duty, not merely in accordance with it; hypothetical against categorical imperatives; formulas of universal law, law of nature, humanity (never merely as a means), autonomy and the kingdom of ends.
Kant's postulates of practical reason: freedom, immortality, God; perfect duties (false promise, suicide) against imperfect duties (talents, beneficence).
Bentham: two sovereign masters, seven-dimension calculus, four sanctions; Mill: higher and lower pleasures, the "proof", conscience as internal sanction; Sidgwick: three methods, axioms by intuition, the dualism of practical reason.
Punishment: retributive (Kant, Hegel), deterrent (Bentham), reformative and preventive; mixed theories (Hart, Rawls) separate the aim of the institution from the distribution of punishment.
Cognitivism (moral judgements are truth-apt) against non-cognitivism; emotivism (Ayer, Stevenson), prescriptivism with universalisability (Hare), descriptivism (Foot, Warnock, Geach).

Practice questions (10)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

Who wrote "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure"?
1. J. S. Mill
2. Henry Sidgwick
3. Jeremy Bentham
4. Epicurus
Show answer
Answer: C — Jeremy Bentham
This is the opening sentence of Bentham's Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789). Mill's Utilitarianism states the greatest happiness principle, and Sidgwick wrote The Methods of Ethics.
Which of the following is NOT one of Kant's postulates of practical reason?
1. The unity of apperception
2. Freedom
3. The immortality of the soul
4. The existence of God
Show answer
Answer: A — The unity of apperception
The three postulates are freedom, immortality and God. The transcendental unity of apperception belongs to the first Critique's theory of knowledge.
The view that moral judgements are universalisable prescriptions is held by:
1. G. E. Moore
2. C. L. Stevenson
3. Philippa Foot
4. R. M. Hare
Show answer
Answer: D — R. M. Hare
Hare's prescriptivism (The Language of Morals, Freedom and Reason) makes moral judgements prescriptive and universalisable. Stevenson is an emotivist, Foot a descriptivist and Moore a non-naturalist intuitionist.
Kant's shopkeeper who gives correct change only because honesty is good for business acts:
1. From a categorical imperative of prudence
2. In accordance with duty but not from duty
3. From duty and with full moral worth
4. Against duty
Show answer
Answer: B — In accordance with duty but not from duty
His act conforms to duty, but his motive is self-interest, so it lacks moral worth. Prudence gives hypothetical, not categorical, imperatives.
Sidgwick's "dualism of practical reason" refers to:
1. The distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives
2. The apparent rationality of both egoism and universal benevolence, with no guarantee that they coincide
3. The difference between higher and lower pleasures
4. The opposition between act and rule utilitarianism
Show answer
Answer: B — The apparent rationality of both egoism and universal benevolence, with no guarantee that they coincide
At the end of The Methods of Ethics Sidgwick finds both prudence (one's own good) and benevolence (the general good) rationally compelling and cannot reconcile them. The imperatives are Kant's, higher pleasures Mill's, and the act-rule division came later.
Assertion (A): Ayer holds that "stealing money is wrong" is neither true nor false. Reason (R): For Ayer, the sentence expresses the speaker's moral disapproval rather than stating a fact. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: A — Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
Both are true and R explains A. In Language, Truth and Logic the ethical word adds no factual content; the sentence expresses a feeling, and since it states nothing it cannot be true or false.
Assertion (A): Bentham distinguished higher and lower pleasures by their quality. Reason (R): Bentham's felicific calculus measures pleasures along dimensions such as intensity, duration and extent. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: D — A is false, but R is true
A is false: the distinction of quality is Mill's; for Bentham pleasures differ only in quantity (his Rationale of Reward says that, prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with poetry). R is true: his calculus has seven quantitative dimensions.
Which of the following are among Bentham's four sanctions? Select all that apply.
1. Religious
2. Physical
3. Conscience (internal)
4. Political
Show answer
Answer: A — Religious; B — Physical; D — Political
Bentham's four are physical, political, moral (popular) and religious. The internal sanction of conscience is Mill's addition in Utilitarianism, chapter 3.
Which of the following theories of punishment are forward-looking? Select all that apply.
1. Reformative
2. Retributive
3. Preventive
4. Deterrent
Show answer
Answer: A — Reformative; C — Preventive; D — Deterrent
Deterrent, reformative and preventive theories justify punishment by its future effects. The retributive theory looks backward, to the offence and the offender's desert.
How many dimensions of pleasure does Bentham's felicific calculus use? Type the number.
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: 7
Seven: intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity and extent (Introduction, chapter 4). The first four apply to a single pleasure considered by itself; fecundity and purity concern its consequences; extent is the number of persons affected.