Question

Explain how Kant and Mill would differ in their analyses of someone who gives to charity only for the benefit of a tax write-off. (You will want to give a nice comparison and contrast of the two theories as they apply to this specific issue.)

Answer 1

Kant gives four specialized formulations of the categorical imperative that reflect different facets of human rationality.

In a final example, Kant explains why it is wrong to be uncharitable. The maxim of this action might be “I will not help someone in need.” Similar to the last example, a contradiction arises when I willfully assert this maxim while at the same time acknowledging my inherent rational obligation to receive charity when I am in need.

categorical imperative fails as a moral litmus test since contradictions do not arise when universalizing immoral actions. We’ve already seen how Kant can overcome Hegel’s objection. But there is a second part to Mill’s criticism that is potentially fatal to Kant’s theory: universalization is not about rational conflicts, it’s about envisioning good or bad consequences. Suppose I tell you that I’m going to cheat on my taxes, and in response you say “what if everyone did that?” My natural inclination to your question is to envision the disastrous effects this would have on the country, and then hopefully conclude that I should have nothing to do with that. Kant, though, is telling me that I’m looking at the issue of universalization improperly. I should ignore the harmful consequences of universalized tax evasion, and, instead, hunt for a contradiction, either internal or external. But this is a tough task to accomplish. It requires a college course in ethics to understand what it means for universalized maxims to be “contradictory”, and Kant’s examples of exposing contradictions are not obvious. Thus, Kant’s conception of universalization is unnatural, difficult to grasp, and probably impossible to follow in real life situations. Although Kant thinks that universalization merely involves looking for the presence of a contradiction, according to Mill we are actually envisioning the unpleasant effects of a universalized rule.

Kant is in fact trying to rescue the moral principle of universalization from the distorted ways that consequentialists like Mill have been using it. Kant would probably agree that universalized tax evasion would have bad effects on society. That is just a natural side effect of widespread deceit. What Kant is saying, though, is that harmful effects do not make actions immoral. There is something inherently wrong with the actions themselves because they conflict with our rational intuitions about moral duty. We must reject the whole tendency to link morality with consequences. If universalization is only about envisioning consequences, then universalization must be rejected as a moral guideline. But Kant is trying to salvage our common tendency to connect universalization and morality when we ask the question “what if everyone did that?” Yes, Kant’s view of universalization is a bit odd, but it’s better than rejecting the entire conception of universalization because of its faulty connection with consequences. Universalization still can be an important moral litmus test, in spite of its tainted consequentialist history.