3.4 Duty as a point of reference for ethical behaviour

The ethics of duty, developed and founded by Immanuel Kant in the 18th century, is an ethics that is virtually devoid of interests, primal needs and instincts. For him, the point of reference for ethical behaviour is reason. He understood this to mean the ability to transcend the senses and nature. Reason can become effective in the realm of the practical, i.e. in action, and thus guide our actions in an ethical sense. This "practical reason means the ability to choose one's actions independently of sensual determinants (the drives, needs and passions, the sensations of the pleasant and unpleasant); this ability is also called will." What is decisive is that, according to Kant, this will arises from reason, i.e. it is a rational will. A will to act according to ethical laws that human as a rational being imagines for themselves. In this, the rational human being differs from animals, which Kant sees as mere natural beings that follow the laws given to them by nature. "The will means nothing other than the ability and willingness not to extinguish the natural impulses, but to distance oneself from them".

Example

The problem with the golden rule that our sustainability officer faced above with regard to the golden rule is resolved here. This is because the injunction "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is given a point of reference by Kant that abstracts from the inclinations and interests of the individual person. According to Kant, the expert can only want what a rational will wants.

We can now specify the golden rule of everyday language and summarise it as follows: ‘Do not inflict on others what you cannot reasonably want!’ In the language of Kant and his ethics, this formal ethical commandment is expressed as follows: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." This ethical commandment is also known as the categorical imperative. The word maxim means as much as a subjective principle on which my actions are based. Like the general laws of nature, this principle should apply equally at all times and in all places - i.e. always, everywhere and for every person. This sets a very strict framework for ethical behaviour and removes the argumentative basis for any arbitrariness.

Example

Our sustainability officer is therefore ethically obliged to check whether what she should do in her conflict-laden situation is based on a reasonable will. Can she therefore reasonably cover for her colleague if he breaks the rules? Or is it reasonable to expose his misconduct and thus distance herself from her colleague friend, which could possibly be accompanied by feelings of betrayal towards him?

To be more precise: Is it sensible and generalizable to cover up a friendly colleague's breach of the rules with regard to corporate environmental protection, or do we have more of a duty to protect the environment as a principle of action? Perhaps even with a view to the many anonymous people who have a legitimate claim to a natural environment that is as intact as possible.

Duty vs. obligations

An ethic such as Kant's, which develops and prescribes generally binding principles, is also referred to as duty ethics. It does not specify exactly how the duty is to be fulfilled. Nevertheless, an action can only be considered ethically good in the sense of duty ethics if it is in accordance with duty. Any behaviour contrary to duty would be unethical. From this binding nature, an ethic of duty develops a strong normative force.

In the example of the sustainability officer of a mining company, her personal friendship with a colleague who has committed a breach of the rules clashes with more fundamental responsibilities towards the environment. Nevertheless, one could say that other people are also affected by the environmental impact (at least in principle and indirectly). Our sustainability officer's consideration of the ethically required options for action therefore goes beyond her purely personal obligation towards her colleague.

With the question already raised above in Kant's sense of what would be reasonable to do, one can contrast the sustainability officer's friendship with her colleague, which is perceived as an (moral) obligation, with an ethical duty that is linked to reason.

Supplementary digression and example

It becomes problematic when two or more duties collide with each other. As Kant argued and following the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany, human dignity is the highest protected good to which other duties of protection relate. However it is not always easy to weigh up how this protection can be guaranteed, especially in difficult and dynamic situations.

Take, for example, the political discussions in 2020 and 2021, which were dominated by the coronavirus situation. It is true that politicians have a duty to uphold and respect fundamental rights. Nevertheless, restrictions on rights were necessary at times in order to guide the country through this immense crisis. For example, a balance had to be struck between restricting freedoms (travel bans, curfews), economic consequences and health risks. For more details, see Schmid Noerr, also with reference to Kant.

The extent to which some people felt restricted and sometimes felt their dignity was violated is shown by the anti-corona demonstrations and concerns about a general mandatory vaccination.

Not to mention the triage issue faced by doctors, who are obliged to look after people's health, but in some cases had to decide who to save the lives of and who not to save in the face of a shortage of intensive care beds. This meant that patients had to be reified and were inevitably turned into a calculation factor. However, Kant's ethics of duty is based on the fact that the value of a human being as a rational being goes beyond a mere calculation factor, a price: “Whatever has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; on the other hand, whatever is above all price, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity." The fact that a human being is always also an end in itself endows him with dignity. But human dignity must not be offset.