A re-examination of the contradictions in Kant's examples

Abstract

In a recent edition of Philosophical Studies, Professor Ronald Glass attempts to unravel the mystery of the contradictions that are to be found in Kant's examples of testing a maxim.' The examples in question are those Kant employs to illustrate his distinction between perfect and imperfect duties.2 Glass attempts to represent these examples in a schematic way, and to point out just where the contradictions arise. Though I find his attempt interesting, I do not feel that Glass has succeeded in giving an account of the contradictions in Kant's examples that really shows what Kant took to be contradictory. In what follows, I shall examine the approach Professor Glass takes, show how it goes wrong, and propose what I take to be a more appropriate solution. I shall confine my remarks to the two examples of perfect duties, since I feel that it is here that Glass's analysis does not represent the spirit of Kant's point. The two points on which I want to concentrate are the examples of suicide (taking one's life out of a motive of self-love) and false promising (making a promise while intending not to keep it). These are examples of maxims which are contrary to what Kant calls 'perfect duty'.3 The former is a violation of a perfect duty to myself, and the latter is a violation of a perfect duty to others. Actions which conflict with perfect duty are, "... of such a nature that their maxim cannot even be thought as a universal law of nature without contradiction."4 Let us examine now Professor Glass's analysis of the way a contradiction arises in the case of suicide. Glass writes, "The maxim (shortening my life from a principle of self-love) requires that there be a connection between self-love and taking one's life that gives rise to a policy of, under certain conditions, taking one's life. This might be expressed as, SL= = (C v TL)."5 Kant cannot deem such a maxim morally acceptable because, "... Kant takes it as factually true of self-love that it always involves not taking one's life, (SL v TL)."'6 The contradiction, Glass