Critique of Practical Reason - Doctrine of Method

Doctrine of Method

In the first Critique, the Doctrine of Method plans out the scientific study of the principles of pure theoretical reason. Here, however, the Doctrine of Method will instead be a discussion of how the principles of practical reason can be brought to bear on real life. In other words, the Doctrine of Method in the second Critique is fundamentally concerned with moral education: the question of how we can make people live and act morally.

Kant has shown that truly moral behavior requires more than just the outward show of good behavior; it also requires the right inner motivations. The cynic or utilitarian might be doubtful as to whether it is truly possible for human beings to act out of an "obligation to duty." In his view, even if we could produce a simulacrum of a moral society, it would all be an enormous theater of hypocrisy, since everyone would inwardly, privately continue to pursue his or her own advantage. Moreover, this outward show of morality would not be stable, but dependent on its continuing to be to the advantage of each individual. Fortunately, Kant believes, such doubts are misguided.

Almost any time there is a social gathering of some sort, the conversation will include gossip and argumentation which entails moral judgments and evaluations about the rightness or wrongness of the actions of others. Even people who normally do not enjoy intricate arguments tend to reason acutely and with great attention to detail when they are caught about in the justification or condemnation of their next-door neighbors behavior.

Moral education should exploit this natural human tendency for moral evaluation by presenting the students with historical examples of good and evil actions. Through debating and discussion the worth of these examples on a case-by-case basis, the students will be given the opportunity to experience for themselves the admiration we feel for moral goodness and the disapproval that we feel for moral evil.

However, it is necessary to select the right sorts of examples in order to demonstrate genuine moral goodness. And here, Kant says, we are liable to error in two ways. The first type of error consists in trying to attract students into being moral by providing them examples in which morality and self-love coincide. The second type of error consists in trying to emotionally arouse the students about morality by providing examples of extraordinary moral heroism, above what morality normally requires. The examples we choose should stress simple dutifulness.

The first of these methods, argues Kant, is destined to fail because students will not come to understand the unconditional nature of duty. The examples will also not be very inspiring. When we see extraordinary self-sacrifice in the name of following a principle we are inspired and moved. But when we see someone following a principle with hardly any sacrifice or cost to himself, we are not equally impressed.

The second method will also fail because it appeals to the emotions rather than to reason. It is only reason that can produce long-lasting change in a person's character. This method also leads students to associate morality with the impossible theatrics of melodrama, and therefore to disdain the everyday obligations they should be fulfilling as boring and useless.

Kant ends the second Critique on a hopeful note about the future of ethics. The wonders of both the physical and the ethical worlds are not far for us to find: to feel awe, we should only look upward to the stars or inward to the moral law which we carry around within us. The study of the physical world was dormant for centuries and wrapped in superstition before the physical sciences actually came into existence. We are allowed to hope that soon the moral sciences will replace superstition with knowledge about ethics.