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Show Chapter V. A Refutation of Anscombe's Thesis 194 decision-making methods in the way these writers assume. One may, for example, adopt a consequentialist value theory that defines the good as welfare for all sentient beings, and the right as those actions that promote this; but not decide what action to perform on the basis of whether its actual consequences are in fact likely maximally to effect this goal. Instead one may use this initial characterization of the good and the right to develop a list of types of action that, under specified circumstances, would ideally constitute maximizing the welfare of all sentient beings (such as: when driving in the country drive slowly and observe wild animal crossing signs; when in city parks, feed the pigeons; when making more than four times a subsistencelevel salary per year, distribute at least an eighth to relief funds; etc.), and perform these actions when the circumstances obtain, irrespective of their actual expected outcomes. Thus the consequentialist value-theoretic conception of the good would be linked to a practical deontological account of right action. The result would be a theory of moral action that attempts noncausally to realize a conception of the good by acting in the way the constituents of this conception itself seem to require, rather than in the way its causal achievement seems to require. Kant's normative theory can be understood to have such a form. Although his conception of the highest good includes happiness, defined as a pleasant feeling, the supreme condition of the highest good and its most important component is virtue, i.e. the worthiness to be happy.9 But the concept of virtue is then explained to be that of a will - the good will - all of whose maxims conform to the moral law (2C, Ac. 32-33), i.e. all of whose resolutions to action could serve as universal laws.10 Kant then maintains that to require that an agent's maxim, or resolution to act, be capable of serving as a universal law is the same as to require that the maxim be such as could serve as law in a kingdom of ends, i.e. of rational beings: these are just two different formulations of one and the same categorical imperative, the supreme principle of morality (G, Ac. 434, 436). Thus the highest good includes a will whose maxims, or resolutions to act, could effectively operate as law in a community of beings, each of whose will conforms to the same conditions. Now the concept of a good will, all of whose maxims satisfy this requirement can only be an ideal toward which human beings strive (2C, Ac. 32). And indeed Kant claims that we can only seek the highest good in the Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck (New York, N.Y.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956), Ac. 110. Henceforth all Academy Edition references to this work are parenthecized in the text, preceded by "2C." For purposes of this chapter I confine myself to what Kant says, leaving aside the question of why, and whether he ought to have said it. I take up these matters in greater detail elsewhere. 10 Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton (New York, N.Y.: Harper Torchbooks, 1964), Ac. 402. Henceforth all Academy Edition references to this work are parenthecized in the text, preceded by "G." 9 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
