Impossible Ideals and the ‘Ought Implies Can’ Principle
Lucas Thorpe – BogaziciUniversity
Kant believes that ‘ought implies can’. And in this paper I will examine how this principle applies both to what we should do and to what we should be. I will be particularly concerned with how this principle fits together with Kant’s belief that we have a duty to instantiate certain ideals, which are in some sense impossible for us to instantiate. Individually we have a duty to be morally perfect (which Kant often refers to as the duty to “be holy”). Collectively we have a duty to instantiate the ideal of a world of republics living together in perpetual peace. Now, given human nature, Kant believes that both of these ideals are in actual fact impossible for being like us to achieve. So how, if at all, are we to apply the ‘ought implies can’ principles to ideals? One argument would be that such a principle should only be applied to actions and not to ideals, and I believe that this partially captures Kant’s attitude, for the ought implies can principle does seem to be a principle that is primarily meant to be applied to individual actions rather than to, say, one’s whole character. For example, in the case of particular actions: although is conceivable that someone could teleport themselves to Tehran the fact that it is physically impossible for someone to do so means that they cannot have a duty to do so. However, even in the case of actions I will argue that there are good reasons to limit the application of the ought implies can principle. And I will argue that a Kantian should distinguish between what we actually ought to do, which is governed by the ought implies can principle, and what we ideally ought to do, which is governed by a weaker principle: what I ideally ought to do is limited not by can do, but what I could have been able to do. When it comes to ideals, however, things are not so obvious. Kant, for example, believes that we have a duty to be the sort of person who always does the right thing and does it gladly. This is an ideal. Now, given human nature, for example the fact that we are beings with needs that sometimes conflict with what we recognize to be the right thing to do, it is impossible for us to fully realize this ideal, this does not, however imply that we cannot have a duty to instantiate it.
So how are we to apply the ‘ought implies can’ principle to ideals? Merely logical possibility is not enough for something to serve as an ideal, the idea of an intuitive intellect plays an important role in Kant’s theoretical philosophy. This is the idea of an intellect that knows the world as it is in itself, that has a type of knowledge that is not perspective or limited. It is the idea of a God’s eye perspective on the universe. Kant believes that there is no contradiction involved in this idea. We do not, and cannot, however, have a duty to instantiate this ideal. The reason for this is that although the idea is not self contradictory we have no positive conception of what it would be like for beings like us to instantiate such an ideal. As such it cannot function as a yardstick, for we can have no way of knowing whether we are approaching this idea or not. Conceivability alone, however, is not enough. There are ideas that are conceivable that cannot function as ideals for beings like us. For example, we can conceive of a bat or an electron, but it is difficult to make sense of someone who tells us that their ideal is to be a bat or an electron; I really don’t know what it is like to want to be a bat or an electron. Kant thinks, however, that we ought to be morally perfect (what Kant calls having a holy will) and to institute perpetual peace. What is the difference between the ideas of an intuitive intellect and the ideas of a bat or an electron, which cannot function as practical ideals, and the ideas of moral perfection and perpetual peace which can?[1] One claim is that for an idea to function as an ideal we must have a conception of what it would be like for flesh and blood human beings to instantiate the ideal. Although it need not be actually possible to achieve this. The reason for this is that we can only use an idea as a yardstick to measure our actions if we have a conception of what is would be like for beings like us to instantiate the idea.
Before examining four specific ideals, let me say a few words about ideals in general.
In Kantian terminology an ‘ideal’ is the idea of an individual, and the moral ideal is a pure ideal. In his ethics lectures Kant explains that,
[T]o expound morality in its full purity is to set forth an Ideal of practical reason. Such ideas are not chimeras, for they constitute the guideline to which we must constantly approach. . . We have to possess a yardstick by which to estimate our moral worth, and know the degree to which we are faulty and deficient. . . An ideal is the representation of a single thing, in which we depict such an idea to ourself in concreto. All ideals are fictions. We attempt, in concreto, to envisage a being that is congruent with the idea. In the ideal we turn the ideas into a model, and may go astray in clinging to an ideal, since it can often be defective. . . The ideal is a prototypon of morality.” (29:604-5)[2]
Now Kant believes that our moral and political ideals must not accommodate themselves to human weakness. Thus he argues in his ethics lectures that “[t]he moral law . . . must not be lenient and accommodate itself to human weakness; for it contains the norm of moral perfection. . . [S]ince ethics also propounds rules, which are meant to be the guidelines for our actions, they must not be adjusted to human capacity, but have to show what is morally necessary.” (Ethik Collins, 27:301)[3]
Now, it may look like Kant is setting himself up for Hegel’s criticism of those whose will is indeterminate and who will absolute abstraction or universality. Hegel argues that such people ultimately will nothing (determinate) and so their actions can only be destructive. Thus Hegel explains,
This is the freedom of the void . . it becomes in the realm of both politics and religion the fanaticism of destruction, demolishing the whole existing social order. . It may well believe that it wills some positive condition, for instance the condition of universal equality . . . but it does not in fact will the positive actuality of this condition, for this at once gives rise to some sort of order, a particularization both of institutions and of individuals; but it is precisely through the annihilation of particularity and of objective determination that the self consciousness of this negative freedom arises.[4]
Hegel’s criticism here is that to will a completely abstract ideal is equivalent to willing nothing. I think that Hegel’s point is valid, for if we have no conception of how our ideal relates to the here and now, what Kant would call the phenomenal world, to will it would amount to willing nothing. Hegel’s argument, however, does not apply to Kant. For Kant insists that our ideals, even if they are in a sense impossible to realize, must be concrete.
Thus in his essay Theory and Practice, he explains that “[I]t would not be a duty to pursue a certain effect of our will, if this effect were not also possible in our experience (whether it be thought of as completed or as always approaching completion), and this is the only kind of theory that is at issue in the present essay” (8:277) I think that this captures Kant’s conception of how the ought implies can principle applies to ideals. We have to have some conception of how our ideals relate to our here and now existence, and so they must be capable of having some sort of empirical content. But in order to function as ideals they do not need to be actually realizable, they merely need to be approachable. We need to be able to judge whether we are approaching them or becoming further away.
Intuitively, willing something impossible does not seem to be necessarily destructive, futile or irrational. For, example, as Nicholas Rescher has argued, “it can make good rational sense for someone to adopt an unattainable goal, pursuing an objective whose non-realization is a foregone conclusion”[5] For example, “perhaps only by striving for a perfect performance is the performer (a violin soloist, say, or a figure skater) able to do as well as he can (flawed though that performance will inevitably be)”.[6] There is a rational for this, based upon considerations to do with the nature of human motivation, nicely illustrated by Machiavelli in The Prince. Machiavelli explains that, “the prudent man . . . should proceed like those prudent archers who aware of the strength of their bow when the target they are aiming at seems too distant, set their sights much higher than the designated target.” (The Prince, trans. Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa, Oxford University Press, 1984, p.20). This motivational claim can be used to support a counterargument to the Hegelian though that willing moral or political perfection can only be destructive. The violinist aiming at the perfect performance wills something determinate even if impossible.
Kant himself is also motivated by such beliefs about human motivation believing that there is a clear motivational difference between choosing to be perfect and choosing to be as perfect as one can be. Of course, the most we can hope for is to be as perfect as we can be, but Kant, Rescher, and surprisingly Machiavelli, would seem to agree that we can only become as perfect as we can be by willing our own perfection. The thought is that given human motivation if we will to be as perfect as we can we will end up being less perfect than we could. If we merely aim to play as well as we can, it is likely that we will play less well than we could have. It seems plausible, then, to think that living up to our potentials involves what I will call “overshooting”; we need to aim higher than we are able to reach in order to reach as high as we can.
I will now discuss and compare four Kantian ideals:
(1)The ideals of being a holy will
(2)The ideal Perpetual Peace
(3)The Ideal Solution to Moral Dilemmas.
(4)The ideal of a final finished science.
(1) Being a ‘holy will’
Kant is an ethical idealist in the sense that he believes that to be moral involves striving to instantiate a moral ideal. This ideal is an ideal of moral perfection. Sometimes he names this ideal the ‘idea of humanity’ at other times ‘holiness’. Thus Kant claims in the Critique of Practical Reason that, “It now follows of itself that in the order of ends human beings (and with him every rational being) is an end in itself, that is, can never be used merely as a means by anyone (not even by God) without being at the same time himself and end, and that humanity in our person must, accordingly, be holy to ourselves: for he is the subject of the moral law and so of that which is holy in itself, on account of which and in agreement with which alone can anything be called holy” (5:132) and it is quite clear that he identifies this ‘idea of humanity’ with some sort of ‘moral perfection’. In his lectures from the early 1790s he argues that, “humanity itself, if we wished to personify it, actually lacks any inclination to evil, but the more a man compares himself therewith, the more he finds out how far away he is from it” (Ethik Vigilantius, 27:609). Now the idea of a being that lacks any inclination to evil is what Kant, elsewhere calls a holy being. And one feature of a ‘holy’ human being is that they would always do their duty gladly[7] – but this is not possible for beings like us who are subject to needs.
Now Kant clearly and consistently distinguishes between the ideas of holiness and virtue. To be virtuous is to strive for perfection, to gradually improve oneself so that one gradually approaches the ideal. Morally, it is the most that a flesh an blood human being can hope to be. But this does not mean that virtue itself is Kant’s moral ideal, for one who takes virtue as their ideal will not be virtuous.
Indeed, the moral law cannot command us to: be virtuous! For, as Kant argues in the Metaphysics of Morals, “virtue itself, or possession of it, is not a duty (for then we would have to be put under obligation to duties)” (6:405). Instead, Kant believes that to be virtuous is to strive towards holiness and that another formulation of the categorical imperative is: be holy! I believe that this is Kant's considered position. He makes it clear that this is his position in the ethics lectures he delivered at the time he was working on the Groundwork. In these lectures he proclaims that, “The ideal of the gospels has the greatest moral purity. The ancients had no greater moral perfection than that which could come from the nature of man, but since this was very defective, their moral laws were also defective. . . The principles of morality are [in Christianity] presented in their holiness, and now the command [i.e. Imperative] is: You are to be holy!” (Ethik Collins, 27:252 – my emphasis) Here Kant makes it clear that it is his belief that it is our duty to be holy. For example, in the Metaphysics of Morals he claims that,
Virtue so shines as an ideal that it seems, by human standards, to eclipse holiness itself, which is never tempted to break the law. Nevertheless, this is an illusion arising from the fact that, having no way to measure the degree of a strength except by the magnitude of the obstacles it could overcome. . . we are lead to mistake the subjective conditions by which we assess the magnitude for the objective conditions of the magnitude itself. (6:397)
Similar passages are not hard to find.
However, he also believes that the most that any (biological) human being can do is to strive towards perfection but he is also committed to the principle that ought implies can, and this leaves him with a problem. Morality demands that we should be holy/perfect, but it is impossible for us to ever be perfect. So it might seem that we should not strive for perfection but merely strive to strive for perfection, that is, that our moral ideal should be virtue not holiness. Kant struggled with this problem thought his mature period. He found a solution in the late 1780s or early 1790s with the idea that we can think about a person’s (intelligible) moral disposition and their (phenomenal) actions as analogous to the relation between a mathematical function and a series. If we do this, we can think of holiness is the limit of virtue. So just as the series ½ + ¼ + 1/8 converges on 1 and so the series as a whole is in some sense equal to one, so the series of acts that constitute the life of a virtuous being who is striving to be perfect/holy is converging on perfection and so that in some sense virtue is equivalent to holiness, although there will be no moment in the life of a virtuous individual when they actually are perfect. Thus Kant explains that, “because of the disposition from which it derives and which transcends the senses, we can think of the infinite progression of the good towards conformity to the law as being judged by him who scrutinizes the heart (through his pure intellectual intuition) to be a perfected whole even with respect to the deed (the life conduct).” And he explains in a footnote that the disposition “takes the place of the totality of the series of approximation carried on in infinitum.” (Religion 6:67)[8]
(2) Perpetual Peace
Kant believes that perpetual peace is, in a sense, Impossible to achieve. Thus in the Metaphysics of Morals he argues that,
perpetual peace, the ultimate goal of the whole right of nations, is indeed an unachievable idea. Still the practical principles directed towards perpetual peace, of entering into such alliances of states, which serve for continual approximation to it are not unachievable. Instead, since continual approximation to it is a task based on duty and therefore on the right of human beings and of states, this can certainly be achieved.” (Metaphysics of Morals 6.350)
Not only are there reasons to believe that perpetual peace is not achievable in practice but there are also reasons to believe that perpetual peace is inconceivable. The reason for this is Kant’s understanding of how ‘always’ judgments work. Thus in an unpublished fragment Kant argues that:
"It is possible in each throw of the dice that I roll a six, and just as possible as every other result; but it is not possible for me always roll a six because that would require a ground of necessity" (# 7170 19:263, p.461).
Now, in his footnote to the translation Guyer writes that "Kant's present argument is fallacious: that it is not necessary to roll a six, does not mean that it is impossible to do so" (p.609). I think that Guyer is missing Kant’s point here. Kant is worried about with what is involved in something always being the case, and his worry is analogous about what involved in something, such as peace, being perpetual. In both cases he thinks that this cannot be understood in terms of some sort of ground mechanism that guarantees the outcome. Kant’s distinction between something being the case each time and it always being the case, could be defended on various grounds.
(1) Standard probability theory tells us that the probability of always rolling a six is zero and perhaps Kant has something like this in mind and assumes that for an event (or sequence of events) to have probability zero implies that it is impossible.[9] This might be one reason to claim that it is possible to throw a 6 on each throw, but not possible to always throw a 6.There are a number of problems with such an interpretation. One is that it is unclear if Kant had a fully worked our theory of probability. Secondly, it is standard today to distinguish a probability of zero from impossibility. Something can have a probability of zero, but be possible. For example, and I owe this example to Berna Kilinc, if we have to randomly choose a point on the continuum between 0 and 1, according to standard probability theory the probably of choosing the point we choose will be zero, but this does not entail that choosing such a point is impossible.[10]