Kant's Transcendental Analytic and Deontological Ethics

Transcendental Analytic: Understanding and Categories

The Transcendental Analytic study deals with pure concepts, or a priori structures, that organize the understanding. The task of understanding is to synthesize; that is, to reunify the representations obtained through sensitivity. Kant distinguishes pure concepts—those with no empirical content—from empirical concepts, which arise from sensory experience.

The Nature of Categories

Pure concepts are called categories, which are a priori forms of understanding that allow us to think about sensible intuitions. There are two primary conditions regarding categories:

1. Categories are the condition of possibility that makes sensible intuitions thinkable.
2. Categories can only be applied to sensible intuitions; any other use of the categories is illegitimate.

Phenomenon vs. Noumenon

The final result of sensing a reality and thinking through the categories of understanding is the phenomenon. Physics is possible as a science because its judgments are based on the categories of understanding and chance, applied to sensible intuitions that give rise to synthetic a priori judgments. However, categories such as causality cannot be applied to non-phenomenal realities.

Kant opposes the phenomenon to the noumenon, or the "thing-in-itself." The noumenon is what remains when deleting the categories of understanding and the intuitions of space and time from the phenomenon. The noumenon is incognoscible (unknowable); it represents the world outside the subject.

Kantian Ethics: The Concept of Duty

The moral value underlying actions is found in the concept of duty. This is a deontological approach, which differs from teleological (finalist) ethics, such as Aristotle's, where the moral worth of an action depends on an end identified with happiness. Laws are categorical: one acts for the sake of duty. Moral value lies in the intention or will, and the way the action is performed. It is a formal ethics.

The Good Will

Kant notes at the beginning of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals that the only thing that can really be considered good without restrictions is the good will or good intention. To determine whether an act is good, one must not look at its consequences, but at the intention behind it.

The Three Types of Actions in Relation to Duty

There are three types of actions in relation to duty:

• Actions contrary to duty: These can be legal or illegal, but they are always immoral.
• Actions under duty: These are performed out of interest. They are usually legal but have no intrinsic moral value.
• Actions for the sake of duty: This involves doing something solely because it is your duty, without expecting anything in exchange. This is the only type of action that possesses true moral value.

It is the intention of the action which determines the will's respect for the law. Work is done out of respect for duty.