Within Reason

It’s been a while since we’ve had a proper Kant post on the blog here, so let’s get to it. One of the least understood parts of Kant’s *Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals* is the third formulation of the Categorical Imperative, usually known as the “Kingdom of Ends” formulation. This isn’t helped by the fact that Kant doesn’t give one simple bite-sized statement of it where one would think it would be in the Groundwork. But it is there in 4:439 and it states that we should “…act in accordance with the maxims of a member giving universal laws for a merely possible kingdom of ends”. So what kind of guidance is this formulation supposed to give us?

Let’s start with what in the world a “kingdom of ends” is supposed to be, and then move on to what Kant is *not* saying. First, one could be forgiven for hearing a resemblance to the idea of a “kingdom of God”. I’m not a Biblical scholar, so I don’t know the details of what a kingdom of God might consist in, but it’s safe to say (I think) that it is supposed to be something closer to the idea of “paradise” than what we are living in now. In fact, what comes to most people’s minds when Kant mentions the “kingdom of ends” is paradise on earth, or utopia, an “ideal society”.

What Kant says he means by a “kingdom”, though, is a “systematic union of various rational beings [people, for our purposes] through common laws”. We have something like that now. A kingdom of ends, however, is a systematic union in which all the people’s ends (goals, purposes) are in systematic connection. I find it’s much more understandable when Kant describes it as a kingdom in which people’s ends harmonize with each other (4:436). The subject of these posts is to lay out what kind of utopia that would be, if it would be utopian at all.

The third formulation can lead some to think Kant is some variety of consequentialist, utilitarian, or perfectionist. But it is pretty important to see that Kant is not saying that, by our actions, we should try to bring about a kingdom of ends. That’s not how morality works. We don’t act rightly because our actions lead to some better state of affairs for humanity, but because our actions come from the motive of duty. People who who try to bring about paradise may not be infringing on morality, but wanting to bring about paradise (or even taking steps to bring it about!) is not a suitable foundation for morality.

What Kant is trying to say is that we should only act on maxims (principles) that it would be possible for everyone else in the kingdom to act on as well. Thus we get a kind of social dimension to the first formulation of the Categorical Imperative (“act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will to be a universal law of nature”). And what such a social existence will amount to will be what the second formulation suggests (treating everyone as ends in themselves). The only way all of our ends will harmonize is if we only act in ways that permit others to pursue their legitimate ends as well. This is a rough way to get at what Kant calls the “equivalence” of the three formulations. And, of course, it much more clearly rules out things like stealing, lying, killing, and so on than the first formulation does. It’s nice when the foundations of morality can feel somewhat intuitive.

So is this going to be a paradise? What would such a kingdom look like? What do people do with their lives in such a kingdom? I’ll lay out some thoughts on this in part 2.