Other illustrations which Kant offers enforce the same lesson. He suggests the following:
(1) A man in despair from misfortune considers suicide. "Now he inquires whether the maxim of his action could become a universal law of nature." We see at once that a system of nature by which it should be a law to destroy life by means of the very feeling—self-love—whose nature it is to impel to the maintenance of life, would contradict itself and therefore could not exist.
(2) A man who has a certain talent is tempted from sluggishness and love of amusement not to cultivate it. But if he applies the principle he sees that, while a system of nature might subsist if his motive became a law (so that all people devoted their lives to idleness and amusement), yet he cannot will that such a system should receive absolute realization. As a rational being he necessarily also wills that faculties be developed since they serve for all sorts of possible purposes.
(3) A prosperous man, who sees some one else to be wretched, is tempted to pay no attention to it, alleging that it is no concern of his. Now, if this attitude were made a universal law of nature, the human race might subsist and even get on after a fashion; but it is impossible to will that such a principle should have the validity of a law of nature. Such a will would contradict itself, for many cases would occur in which the one willing would need the love and sympathy of others; he could not then without contradicting himself wish that selfish disregard should become a regular, a fixed uniformity.
The Social End is the Rational End.—These illustrations make it clear that the "contradiction" Kant really depends upon to reveal the wrongness of acts, is the introduction of friction and disorder among the various concrete ends of the individual. He insists especially that the social relations of an act bring out its general purport. A right end is one which can be projected harmoniously into the widest and broadest survey of life which the individual can make. A "system of nature" or of conduct in which love of life should lead to its own destruction certainly contradicts itself. A course of action which should include all the tendencies that make for amusement and sluggishness would be inconsistent with a scheme of life which would take account of other tendencies—such as interest in science, in music, in friendship, in business achievement, which are just as real constituents of the individual, although perhaps not so strongly felt at the moment. A totally callous and cruel mode of procedure certainly "contradicts" a course of life in which every individual is so placed as to be dependent upon the sympathy and upon the help of others. It is the province of reason to call up a sufficiently wide view of the consequences of an intention as to enable us to realize such inconsistencies and contradictions if they exist; to put before us, not through any logical manipulation of the principle of contradiction, but through memory and imagination a particular act, proposal, or suggestion as a portion of a connected whole of life; to make real to us that no man, no act, and no satisfaction of any man, falls or stands to itself, but that it affects and is affected by others. Our conclusion is: the right as the rational good means that which is harmonious with all the capacities and desires of the self, that which expands them into a coöperative whole.
Kant's Introduction of Social Factors.—The further development which Kant gives the formula already quoted (p. 312) goes far to remove the appearance of opposition between the utilitarian social standard and his own abstract rationalism. Kant points out that according to his view the moral or rational will is its own end. Hence every rational person is always an end, never a means:—this, indeed, is what we mean by a person. But every normal human being is a rational person. Consequently another formula for his maxim is: "So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, as an end, never as a means merely." The man who contemplates suicide "uses a person merely as a means to maintaining a tolerable condition of life." He who would make a lying promise to another makes that other one merely a means to his profit, etc. Moreover, since all persons are equally ends in themselves and are to be equally regarded in behavior, we may say the standard of right is the notion of a "Kingdom of Ends"—the idea of "the union of different rational beings in a system by common laws."[161]
These propositions are rather formal, but the moment we put definite meaning into them, they suggest that the good for any man is that in which the welfare of others counts as much as his own. The right is that action which, so far as in it lies, combines into a whole of common interests and purposes the otherwise conflicting aims and interests of different persons. So interpreted, the Kantian formula differs in words, rather than in idea, from Bentham's happiness of all concerned "each counting for one and only one"; from Mill's statement that the "deeply rooted conception which every individual even now has of himself as a social being tends to make him feel it as one of his natural wants, that there should be harmony between his feelings and aims and those of his fellow creatures." In all of these formulæ we find re-statements of our conception that the good is the activities in which all men participate so that the powers of each are called out, put to use, and reënforced.
Consequent Transformation of Theory of Reason.—Now if the common good, in the form of a society of individuals, as a kingdom of ends, is the object with reference to which the ends of desire have to be rationalized, Kant's theory of an a priori and empty Reason is completely made over. In strict logic Kant contradicts himself when he says that we are to generalize the end of desire, so as to see whether it could become a universal law. For according to him no end of desire (since it is private and a form of self-love) can possibly be generalized. He is setting up as a method of enlightenment precisely the very impossibility (impossible, that is, on his own theory that private happiness is the end of desire) which made him first resort to his a priori and transcendental reason. No more complete contradiction can be imagined.
On the other hand, if we neglect the concrete, empirical conditions and consequences of the object of desire, there is no motive whatsoever that may not be generalized. There is no formal contradiction in acting always on a motive of theft, unchastity, or insolence. All that Kant's method can require, in strict logic, is that the individual always, under similar circumstances, act from the same motive. Be willing to be always dishonest, or impure, or proud in your intent; achieve consistency in the badness of your motives, and you will be good! Doubtless no one, not even the worst man, would be willing to be universally consistent in his badness. But this is not in the least a matter of a purely formal, logical inconsistency of the motive with itself;[162] it is due rather to that conflict among diverse desires, and different objects for which one strives, which makes him aware that at some time he should want to act kindly and fairly.
Organization of Desires from the Social Standpoint.—What Kant is really insisting upon at bottom is, then, the demand for such a revision of desire as it casually and unreflectively presents itself as would make the desire a consistent expression of the whole body of the purposes of the self. What he demands is that a desire shall not be accepted as an adequate motive till it has been organized into desire for an end which will be compatible with the whole system of ends involved in the capacities and tendencies of the agent. This is true rationalization. And he further warns us that only when a particular desire has in view a good which is social will it meet this requirement. This brings us to our next problem. Just what is the process by which we judge of the worth of particular proposals, plans, courses of actions, desires? Granted that a generalized good, a socialized happiness, is the point of view at which we must place ourselves to secure the reasonable point of view, how does this point of view become an operative method?