The Concept of the Categorical Imperative (review)

222 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY P. 104, item 8: Journal of the History of Ideas, V (1957). Read: Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. V (1967), 55-60. L. M . P ~ University of Delaware The Concept of the Categorical Imperative. By T. C. Williams. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968. Pp. 136) In this short book, T. C. Williams attempts to answer two main questions: "What, in Kant's doctrine, is the 'Categorical Imperative' or 'supreme principle of morality'7'" and "In what sense is thisprinciple to bc regarded as the supreme principleof morality?'" (p. vii)He maintains that there is an important ambiguity in Kant's use of the term "Categorical Imperative" but that, despite this ambiguity and other defects in Kant's exposition, what Kant has to say about the Categorical Imperative is essential to our understanding of moral action. Williams discusses at length, and relies heavily upon, the commentaries of H. J. Paton (The CategoricalImperative)and A. R. C. Duncan (PracticalReason and Morality). His own position is similar to Paton's, but, especially in his finalchapters, hc develops his account of Kant's ethics in a way that makes it a useful contribution to the continuing debate on this subject. Williams agrees with both Paton and Duncan in rejecting what he calls the traditionalinterpretation of the Categorical Imperative. This is the view, which he attributes to Hegel, Schopenhauer, Bradley, Mill, Broad, Ross, and others, that the Categorical Imperative is to be regarded as "offering a precisc standard or criterion against which the moral value of proposed actions might be tested" (p. 37). Granting that the Categorical Imperative is untenable if construed in this way, Williams argues that the traditional interpretation reflectsonly a minor strain in Kant's thinking, not his main position. Williams then examines the interpretations of Paton and Duncan in order to show that the conflictbetween them is more apparent than real.Duncan maintains that Kant's main purpose in writing the Grundlegung was to continue the task of giving a critique of reason and not to provide guidelines for moral living. Thus he interprets the Categorical Imperative as primarily a "descriptive principle"; its basic purpose is to describe the functions of practical reason rather than to prescribe a criterion of moral conduct. Paton argues, in apparent opposition, that the same principle can be both descriptive and prescriptive and that indeed any principle which describes the functions of pure practical reason and thereby states the essence of moral action must at the same time give us a criterion of morally good action. Williams contends that, when certain ambiguities are resolved, Paton and Duncan are seen to be in substantial agreement: both believe that the Categorical Imperative provides no "precise logical criterion" of moral action, and Duncan does not really deny Paton's further claim that the Categorical Imperative was meant to be, and is, a principle which helps us to understand what a moral action is and thereby enables us to adopt the attitudes which lead to a moral life. In the last three chapters of his book Williams sketches his own view. The term "Categorical Imperative," he maintains, has two senses, each of which has, and should have, an important place in Kant's ethical theory. Sometimes the term designates "a principle that is useful as a guide to conduct," but sometimes it refers to "'a statement of the principle employed in the spontaneous activity of practical reason" (p. 98). Discussing the latter first, he contends that Kant's theory starts with a fact of experience, BOOK REVIEWS 223 namely, that in particular moral situations we are often conscious of being morally obligated to do some particular act. This is not to say that we see the validity of the formal principle of morality (Paton's Formula I), but that we become aware of "the manifestation of this principle in the context of particular moral situations" (p. 103). We do not simply feel strongly that we are obligated; we become conscious of particular categorical imperatives "as cognitions." Thus we can know what we ought to do in a particular situation without having to derive our moral judgment from, or justify it by, any formulation of the...