One of my favorite philosophy questions is asking, at bottom, why should we be moral? Recently wrote a post on Beck’s interpretation of Kant’s answer, and I can’t resist a short post on how Paton interprets Kant’s answer1.
What do we expect the answer to look like? Kant thinks most of the things you ought to do are conditional - you should eat if you’re hungry. There are lots of things you should do if you want to be health, happy, etc. But to Kant, morality is unconditioned. The clearest sign of morality are those actions done without self-benefit or self-regard. Moral obligations are those things you simply have to do.
Paton asserts that asking ‘why’ is implicitly asking for conditions. But in this case there can be no conditions. By definition, we’re already at the bottom. The question is therefore a contradiction.
If we suppose that we can understand a necessity only by stating its condition, then manifestly we cannot understand an unconditional necessity; to explain it by stating its conditions involves us in direct contradiction… Those who ask why we should do our duty are falling into this contradiction. They are assuming that we should do our duty only if we want something else, such as happiness in this world or the next. They are in shorting asking what is the condition under which we should obey an unconditioned imperative. This is merely to deny that there can be an unconditioned imperative or to show that they do not understand what a categorical imperative is. [p 250]
Despite the protest, Paton does offer an answer of sorts. Paton argues that there is a “self-consciousness” of reason or that reason is to some extent transparent to itself. When we apply reason, we must also be aware of how we’re going about applying reason, and whether our application is reasonable.
In our maxims we are conscious of willing our actions as having a certain character or as conforming to a pattern or a rule; and this consciousness is a self-consciousness of practical reason. [p 262]
Paton cuts the argument short and leaves off with Kant sounding like an intuitionist (eg we have “direct insight” p 263). But I think Paton’s ‘self-consciousness of reason’ harmonizes with Beck’s or Korsgaard’s interpretation.
But then again, I have spent a lot of time thinking about a question that might just be a contradiction.
Paton, H. J.. The Categorical Imperative: A Study in Kant's Moral Philosophy. United Kingdom, University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated, 1971.