Lindsay asked:

1. Kant's ethics is based on the proposal that the moral law is discovered and articulated by each
person through determining in a given situation what he or she ought to do. If each person is the
source of the moral law, why is the law objective (or intersubjective) and not merely subjective and
meaningful for that person alone?

2. Immanuel Kant offers a revolutionary ethics based upon the autonomy of the good will. What does
Kant mean by 'autonomy'? The fundamental principle of Kant's ethics is the Categorical Imperative.
Explain the meaning of the three formulations of the Categorical Imperative; how they seek to
encourage public thinking; and the impact upon human relationships intended by enjoining that all
persons be treated as ends, never merely as means.

3. State three ways in which persons ought to be considered to be distinct from things according to
Kant, and also according to Kant, what moral duties do we owe ourselves?

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This is obviously an essay question, and so I'm too late, but then I could hardly answer it before you
did you essay, since that would be cheating and un-Kantian.

1. The moral law is objective because it is valid for all rational beings. This is not subjective, nor is it
intersubjective. As subjects we belong to the world of the intellect, governed by laws of reason, as
well as to the natural world of the senses and instincts. The moral law is abstracted from the latter,
and only thus can it be valid for all rational beings, free from personal interests. Since the moral law is
divorced from man's complete being as a subject, it cannot be held to be intersubjective, although it
might be said to be "inter-rational".

2. Autonomy is the freedom of the realm of the intellect from all interests which operates freely from
the realm of nature. The first formulation is that we should be able to will the universal law. The will
here is understood as free from all personal interest. The second formulation is that we should treat
others as ends in themselves, and the third that we should see ourselves as making the moral law.
The moral law, then, is rational and holds for all rational beings, who should be treated as such, but it
also issues from us. We make the moral ourselves and as moral beings (with a free autonomous
rational will) we cannot do otherwise. Kant sees the categorical imperative as the form that can be
drawn from the way in which we really do recognise a moral "ought", and the formula is such that we
cannot get out of it without denying that we are rational in this pure non-prudential sense. It is unlikely
that the categorical imperative has any impact in reality, since not many people read Kant. But it
doesn't need to have an impact on the public, since Kant holds that the CI reflects the ordinary man's
moral attitude in any case.

3. A person is distinct from things in being rational, in his possession of freedom and his awareness
of an active self. We have duties to develop our talents and to generally treat ourselves with the
respect that we also owe to others. This places a general moral ban on cheating.

Rachel Browne