University of Kansas, Fall 2003
Philosophy 672: History of Ethics
Ben Eggleston—eggleston@ku.edu

Test—Kant

Please answer 100 points’ worth of the following questions during this class period. Don’t answer every question; if you do, I’ll ignore your answer to the last 10-point one. In answering these questions don’t use books, notes, or other people.

1. (20 points:) Kant aims, in the Groundwork, to articulate and establish a synthetic principle that is knowable a priori. First, what does it mean for a principle to be synthetic rather than analytic (5 points)? Second, why does Kant want to establish a principle that is synthetic rather than analytic (5 points)? Third, what does is mean for a principle to be knowable a priori rather than a posteriori (5 points)? Fourth, why does Kant insist that whatever is established be established a priori rather than a posteriori (5 points)?
2. (10 points:) Why, according to Kant, is it the case that only a good will is unqualifiedly or unconditionally good? (Why aren’t things like intelligence and happiness also unconditionally good?)
3. (10 points:) What is meant by saying that imperatives, as Kant conceives of them, are (1) appropriate only for “imperfectly rational” wills and (2) objectively valid? (To answer the second part of this question you’ll need to say how imperatives, as Kant conceives of them, are different from imperatives, as (e.g.) a grammarian would conceive of them.)
4. (10 points:) What is the reasoning by which the first formulation of the categorical imperative supposedly disallows making a false promise?
5. (20 points:) What are the two kinds of contradiction that Kant says can arise in connection with the categorical imperative, and what do these two different kinds of contradiction have to do with the two different kinds of duties that Kant mentions?
6. (10 points:) How might the categorical imperative be made to seem, by clever formulations of agents’ maxims, to be more permissive than Kant presumably intended?
7. (10 points:) How might the categorical imperative be made to seem, by consideration of suitably chosen examples, to be unreasonably strict?
8. (20 points:) What would Kant say if someone said the following? “Kant’s theory is flawed because I was thinking about performing a certain action, and when I tested it against one formulation of the categorical imperative, it came out o.k., but when I tested it against another formulation, it was prohibited."