Some more recent work

On the Possibility of Experiencing Conflicts Between Perfect Duties and a Proposed Method of Resolution
Chris Howard
Brandeis University
14 December 2009
Perfect duties are often construed as negative duties – they prohibit the performance of specific actions without regard for the particular contexts in which they might be committed. Such duties afford us no flexibility in deciding how to go about fulfilling them; they demand our compliance unconditionally. On Kant’s view, to violate a perfect duty is to imply a contradiction in conception and thus, to demonstrate an inconsistency or incoherence in one’s rational will. To be clear, a contradiction in conception is one that involves the inconceivability of a world in which a particular maxim has been universalized. If in testing the permissibility of a given maxim against the formula of universal law one finds that a world in which her maxim is universalized cannot be conceived of, her maxim will be understood to imply a contradiction in conception. To illustrate, consider an agent who is interested in universalizing the following maxim: “One should make false promises whenever it suits her to do so.” Upon testing her maxim against the formula of universal law, the agent would find that she is unable to conceive of a world in which her maxim is universalized – more precisely, she would realize that the universalization of her maxim would imply a logical contradiction. Kant holds that violations of perfect duties necessarily entail such a contradiction and, as such, are never permissible.
In this paper, I set out to answer the following question: If an agent is faced with two perfect duties, whereby the performance of one necessarily entails the violation of the other, what is it that she ought to do? However, before I broach this question directly, it will be necessary to argue for the credibility of a particular stipulation that is essential to my argument – namely, that it is possible to experience conflicts between perfect duties. After it has been established that we can experience such conflicts, I will introduce the method of resolution that I have in mind and demonstrate how it is derived from some particularly prominent concepts in Kant’s practical philosophy. Next, I will apply my proposed method of resolution to a hypothetical case of conflict in order to demonstrate its effectiveness. Finally, I will introduce and reply to two objections that could potentially be leveled against my proposal in an effort to allay any residual worries that the reader might have.
Before I proceed, however, I should make the following caveat: within the context of this paper, the term ‘conflict’ should be understood as exclusively referring to conflicts between perfect duties and not to conflicts of other kinds, i.e. those between imperfect and perfect duties, or those between two imperfect duties. Kant would not regard conflicts between perfect and imperfect duties as conflicts at all as, for him, the performance of perfect duties necessarily take precedence over the performance of an imperfect ones. Similarly, though less certainly, I think that Kant would find the notion of conflicting imperfect duties to be incoherent and, as such, such conflicts will not be addressed in what follows.

I.
To be precise, the situation that I am interested in discussing is one in which an individual is faced with two perfect duties and realizes that acting in accordance with one of her duties will preclude her from acting in accordance with the other. Such a situation seems characteristic of what one would typically call a conflict. However, there are some who think that duties can never conflict with one another in this way. Presumably, one of these persons is Kant himself, who claims, “a conflict of duties and obligations is inconceivable” W.A. Hart claims that Kant is justified in making this assertion as it is a “consequence of his view that the moral law is the expression of reason in its practical employment. It is as an expression of pure practical reason that the moral law cannot contradict or be inconsistent with itself.” However, Hart stipulates, the consistency of the moral law in its application is not a given. Rather, “It is something that as rational beings we are committed to looking for in the moral law – something in the absence of which we can never rest content that we have adequately determined it.” Consistency, then, is something that we have to work for by cultivating our moral character as rational agents in the world. If we accept this account, we should not interpret Kant as suggesting that it is impossible to experience moral inconsistency. On the contrary, it seems that Kant’s view is that consistency is a work in progress and thus, that it is possible for us, in our pursuit of complete moral consistency, to experience conflicts between perfect duties.
There is, however, another Kantian idea that perhaps precludes the possibility of experiencing conflicts between perfect duties. In Part II of The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant writes, “[man] must judge that he can do what the [moral] law tells him unconditionally that he ought to do.” This idea is generally referred to as the ‘ought-implies-can principle’. Whether this principle actually does preclude the possibility of experiencing conflicts between perfect duties is, however, up for debate. Hart argues that the ‘ought-implies-can principle (henceforth OIC principle) has the following implication:
A moral agent cannot think of himself as having incompatible duties, because he would have to think of himself as at one and the same time able to carry them out (because they are duties) and not able to carry them out (because they are incompatible.
To illustrate, consider an agent, X, who recognizes that she has a duty to φ and thus, that she ought to φ. At the same time, X recognizes that she has a duty to ϕ, and thus, that she ought to ϕ. However, X realizes that given her current circumstances, φ-ing will necessarily preclude her from ϕ-ing and vice-versa. Based on his interpretation of the OIC principle, Hart argues that X cannot resolve that she ought to both φ and ϕ. Simply, it would be unreasonable for her to believe that she ought to both φ and ϕ given that, as a result of her present circumstances, she cannot do so. Thus Hart concludes that X cannot claim, at least with any degree of veracity, that she faces a genuine conflict between duties. Rather, it must be that the agent is unsure about what her duty actually is; the agent “swithers between two different views about what [her] duty is.” Rather than believing that she ought to φ and ϕ, X is unsure whether she ought to φ or ϕ. In order to make a decision, Hart believes that X must reflect on her grounds for thinking that she ought to φ and that she ought to ϕ, and that this “at least opens up the possibility that [she] may come to see the argument in favor of [her] doing [φ] as less weighty or conclusive than the argument in favor of [her] doing [ϕ] (or vice versa).” For Hart, there is never an occasion on which an agent is warranted in feeling that she is obligated to both φ and ϕ if the two courses of action that φ-ing and ϕ-ing entail are incompatible.
Hart’s view relies on the application of the OIC principle in conjunction with what Bernard Williams calls ‘the agglomeration principle.’ Williams defines this principle as follows: “‘I ought to do a’ and ‘I ought to do b’ together imply ‘I ought to do a and b.’” Including this principle, and the OIC principle, in a formal representation of X’s supposed dilemma makes it clear that a conflict between duties cannot exist:
(1) X ought to φ
(2) X ought to ϕ
(3) X cannot both φ and ϕ.
(4) X ought to both φ and ϕ (by way of the agglomeration principle)
(5) It is not the case that X ought to both φ and ϕ (by way of ‘ought implies can’ used contrapositively).
Prima facie, then, it seems that if we accept both the OIC principle and the agglomeration principle, we must consequently concede that one could never face a legitimate moral conflict. However, it is important to notice that the application of these principles to premises 1-3 has led us to a contradiction: it cannot be the case that X ought to both φ and ϕ, and also that she not-ought to both φ and ϕ. As such, it seems appropriate to ask whether we really ought to accept these principles as being true. In what follows, I reproduce Williams’ argument for why we ought to reject the agglomeration principle and also, his method of interpreting ‘ought-implies can’ such that the principle need not be discarded in order to preserve the possibility of experiencing moral conflicts.
Williams argues that, in addition to implying an obvious contradiction, the contrapositive use of the OIC principle in conjunction with the agglomeration principle in cases like the one formally represented above does not yield a realistic depiction of a moral agent who perceives herself to be in conflict.
For no agent, conscious of the situation of conflict, in fact thinks that he ought to do both of the things. What he thinks is that he ought to do each of them; and this is properly paralleled at the level of ‘can’ by the fact that while he cannot do both of things, it is true of each of the things, taken separately, that he can do it.
Given that it is the agglomeration principle, as Williams says, that leads us from ‘each’ to ‘both,’ he isolates part of the problem as being the application of this principle to evaluative cases in general. Williams argues that it is not clear that the agglomeration principle holds for all evaluative cases and therefore, that it should perhaps be rejected. Consider, for example, the case of a woman interested in marrying two different men. It can reasonably be said that the woman wants to marry each man (she wants to marry a and she wants to marry b). However, would it be similarly reasonable to say that the woman wants to marry both men (she wants to marry both a and b)? Cases of polygamy aside, it seems not. Thus, it seems that the agglomeration principle does not hold in all evaluative cases. It might be argued, as Williams anticipates, that evaluative cases involving ought-statements are distinctly subject to the agglomeration principle. Williams replies to this potential objection by asserting that the burden of proof would be on any party interested in advancing such a claim, as it is difficult to conceive of how ought-statements would necessarily, and perhaps uniquely, possess agglomerative properties. The caveat should be made at this point that Williams does not view this objection as a “knock-down disproof of the agglomeration principle.” Instead, he wants “to claim only that it is not a self-evident datum of the logic of ought, and that if a more realistic picture of moral thought emerges from abandoning it, we should have no qualms in abandoning it.” A refutation of the agglomeration principle’s applicability, especially in regard to ought-statements, would put us one step closer to achieving a more realistic picture of moral thought; specifically, it would put us one step closer to acknowledging the possibility of experiencing moral conflict.
However, it is not yet clear to what degree the OIC principle, taken on its own, will preclude the possibility of encountering moral conflicts. While it is true that the OIC principle disproves the notion that one ought to both φ and ϕ if she cannot both φ and ϕ, this conclusion is fairly uninteresting; “the statement [the OIC principle] disproves is one that I am not disposed to make in its own right, and which does not follow from those that I am disposed to make.” An agent in conflict is very much aware that she does not have an obligation to both φ and ϕ, as she realizes that she cannot effectively carry out both courses of action. However, this does not prevent her from feeling that she ought to φ and that she ought to ϕ; in other words, this does not prevent her from feeling legitimately conflicted about which course of action she ought to pursue.
It is true that if φ-ing and ϕ-ing were taken separately, the agent could perform each of her corresponding duties satisfactorily. This, of course, is the problem: given her current circumstances she cannot take φ-ing and ϕ-ing separately; she is faced with the immediate choice of either φ-ing or ϕ-ing. So, in order to determine whether the OIC principle in and of itself prevents us from acknowledging the possibility of experiencing moral conflict, we need to test the principle’s effects on each course of action when taken together. Consider the following:
(1) If X does φ, then she will not be able to ϕ
(2) If X does ϕ, then she will not be able to φ
(3) If X will not be able to φ, then it will not the case that she ought to φ (OIC)
(4) If X will not be able to ϕ, then it will not be the case that she ought to ϕ (OIC)
(5) If X does φ, then it will not be the case that she ought to ϕ (1,3 Hypothetical Syllogism)
(6) If X does ϕ, then it will not be the case that she ought to φ (2,4 Hypothetical Syllogism)
It appears that the above argument implies the following: that if X were to either φ or ϕ, she would be, as Williams puts it, “off the moral hook with respect to the other.” In addition to the fact that this interpretation of the above argument yields conclusions that do not accurately reflect our experience of moral conflict, it has other troubling implications as well. For example, it seems to suggest that an agent could act from inclination in lieu of obligation and that it would be perfectly acceptable for her to do so (if it were the case that acting on one of her inclinations would preclude her from performing one of her obligations). While some might contend that it is acceptable for an agent to pursue one of her inclinations instead of performing one of her obligations when she cannot do both, it is clear that we would not want to generally accept this contention. Consider the following example: A man is on his way to get an ice cream cone of a particular flavor that he has been craving for weeks. He is walking briskly; in fact, he is almost running, as the store that offers this particular flavor is scheduled to close in fifteen minutes. En route, he encounters a small child drowning in a nearby lake. The man immediately recognizes that if he were to stop and help the child, he would be unable to make it to the ice cream shop before it closes – that is, he realizes that the act of saving the child is incompatible with his acquisition of the ice cream that he desires. According to our current interpretation of the above argument, if the man were to continue pursuing his ice cream, it would not be the case that he ought to have saved the child given that he could not have done so in light of his chosen course of action. While it might be argued that this particular case is uncharitable to the idea of pursuing one’s inclinations over one’s obligations, it is at least true that Kant would never endorse the prioritization of inclinations over obligations in any case.
So, is there a plausible interpretation of the OIC principle that does not entail the apparently problematic issues mentioned above? Is there a legitimate interpretation that respects the integrity of the principle and yet is not at odds with our experience of moral conflicts? Williams suggests that there is. If we regard (5) as saying something to the effect of “If X does φ, then it will not be correct to say that she ought to ϕ,” we acknowledge the reality of the situation – that is, we acknowledge that given X’s choice to φ, the option of ϕ-ing is no longer available to her – and yet we do not admit that she did not have an obligation to ϕ prior to making her choice to φ.
If I [φ], it will then not be correct to say that I ought (then) to [ϕ]. And this is correct, since [ϕ] will then not be a course of action open to me. It does not follow from this that I cannot correctly say then that I ought to have done [ϕ]; nor yet that I was wrong in thinking earlier that [ϕ] was something I ought to do.
What is important to notice here is that Williams’ interpretation, in addition to painting a “a more realistic picture of moral thought,” provides us with a perfectly plausible understanding of the OIC principle that does not stand in direct opposition to Kant’s relevant theoretical commitments.
It will be helpful at this point to reiterate what has been argued thus far. The question that was initially posed was the following: is it possible for us to experience conflicts between perfect duties? Via an examination of Williams’ arguments ¬contra Hart, it has been shown that we can plausibly answer this question in the affirmative. In fact, there are good reasons to think that Kant himself would endorse this conclusion. Remember, Kant readily acknowledges our susceptibility to moral inconsistency so long as we are physically instantiated creatures with a sensible nature. Additionally, the interpretation of the OIC principle offered above is generally consistent with Kant’s view and does not preclude the possibility of encountering conflicts between perfect duties. Given these considerations, the remainder of this paper will operate under the assumption that experiencing conflicts between perfect duties is possible. So then, is there an effective method of resolution that we might employ if faced with such a conflict?
II.
In his pamphlet entitled, Des réactions politiques, Benjamin Constant criticized Kant for his uncompromising stance on lying. For Kant, telling the truth is a perfect duty, under no circumstances would one be warranted in telling a lie. Constant argued that such a strict prohibition of dishonest acts, without regard for the specific contexts in which they might be committed, was counter-intuitive and would inevitably lead to unacceptable consequences. To illustrate his point, he employed the now famous ‘murderer example’. Roughly, the example is as follows: A man arrives on your doorstep and claims that a murderer is pursuing him. He asks if he can hide in your house, and you willingly oblige. Moments later, another man appears at your doorstep looking for the man for whom you have just provided shelter. He asks, “Are you hiding someone in your house?” According to Kant, you are obligated to answer the murderer’s question truthfully in virtue of your perfect duty not to lie.
I think Constant is right to think that there is something disquieting about this conclusion. After all, it does seem counter-intuitive that one ought to tell the truth if it means, either directly or indirectly, that another will lose his life. Regardless, for Kant, the situation is unfortunate but nonetheless straightforward, lying is never permissible. Kant writes in his reply to Constant, “Truthfulness in statements that one cannot avoid is a human being’s duty to everyone, however great the disadvantage to him or to another that may result from it…” In what follows, I reframe Constant’s example such that the situation it presents becomes less straightforward. In doing so, I demonstrate how an agent may come to face a conflict between perfect duties.
What is one really doing when she offers shelter to a potential murder victim? Is she making the offer with an air of indifference and allowing the man to enter her home without making any further commitment to his safety? While it is conceivable that one might be so apathetic in her relations with others, I doubt it would often be the case – at least in contexts like the one described above. More plausibly, I suggest that by offering him shelter, one makes an implicit promise to the man to protect him from imminent threat; specifically, from the murderer who is currently pursuing him. And, insofar as one has made this promise, she is now obligated to protect the man to whom she has offered shelter. Now when the murderer asks her if she is hiding someone in her house, she will be faced with a moral conflict: in virtue of her perfect duty to not to lie, she ought to tell the murderer the truth; in virtue of her perfect duty to not make false promises, she ought to protect the potential victim by lying. So, then, which course of action ought she actually pursue? My suggestion is the following: if faced with an apparent conflict between perfect duties, one ought to act in accordance with the duty that, when carried out, will impinge least upon the humanity of the involved parties. Before discussing a hypothetical application of this method to the aforementioned case of conflict, it will be necessary, in order to validate the above proposal, to show how it is derived from some of the fundamental aspects of Kant’s moral doctrine – specifically, from his second formulation of the categorical imperative and, more generally, from his basic notion of what it means to have humanity in our persons.
Kant introduces the second formulation of the categorical imperative as follows: “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.” The second clause of this formulation, “whether in your own person or in the person of any other,” seems to suggest that humanity does not constitute the totality of our person, but rather, that it is only a constitutive element of our person. As Thomas Hill notes in his article, “Humanity as an End in Itself,” “A review of Kant’s repeated use of ‘humanity in a person’ in his Metaphysics of Morals and elsewhere strongly suggests that … Kant thought of humanity as a characteristic, or set of characteristics, of persons.” So, what role does this characteristic of persons play? And why does Kant insist that we treat it “always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means?”
Hill claims that we can reasonably construe Kant’s notion of humanity as “including only those powers necessarily associated with rationality and ‘the power to set ends’.” Thus, the humanity in our person is associated with the following: (1) our capacity to act on principles or maxims and thus our ability to act for reasons, (2) our capacity to act in accordance with rational principles or hypothetical imperatives insofar as they do not conflict with what Hill refers to as, “more stringent rational principles,” (3) our capacity to set any end whatsoever and thus, to express our nature as free rational beings, (4) our capacity to accept unconditional principles of conduct “independently of fear of punishment and promise of reward” in virtue of our rational nature , and (5) our ability to reason abstractly and to understand the world in which we are physically instantiated. These capacities, taken together, define Kant’s notion of humanity as it exists in our person – that is, these capacities constitute the role that humanity plays as a characteristic of persons. Still, one might ask why Kant thinks that we ought to treat the humanity in our person and in the persons of others always as an end.
At first, it might seem odd to speak of humanity as an end. As Hill remarks, the notion of treating humanity as an end “is especially puzzling because ‘humanity,’ as a set of rational capacities and dispositions, is not the sort of thing which is an end, or goal, in the ordinary sense.” There is, however, enough evidence in the second section of the Groundwork to yield us a reasonable understanding of what Kant means when he refers to humanity as an end or, more precisely, when he refers to it as an end in itself. In particular, Kant’s discussion of humanity as an ‘objective end’ in this section serves to clarify his notion of humanity as an end in itself. Objective ends, says Kant, are ends that are “valid for all rational beings” and, as such, whether we ought to promote them is not contingent upon our subjective desires and/or wants qua individuals; they imply principles that apply to all rational beings and are therefore to be regarded as ends in themselves. In contrast, subjective ends are ends that are relative to persons based on their various wants and/or desires; they imply principles that are only contingently applicable to persons based on their subjective interests. Humanity, then, is to be understood as an objective end; an end shared by all rational beings and thus, one that implies universally applicable principles. Additionally, and rather importantly, Kant contends that the promotion of objective ends must take precedence over the pursuit of ends that correspond exclusively to our subjective interests. Therefore, insofar as humanity is an objective end, we must subordinate all of our subjective ends to it – that is, we must privilege our humanity over the pursuit of our subjective ends. Hill illustrates this point nicely when he writes, “when a person’s humanity gives one a reason for doing or refraining from something, whatever this may be, that reason takes precedence over other reasons.” Kant also makes this point explicitly clear in the following excerpt from the Groundwork, “rational beings are called persons (as opposed to things) because their nature already marks them out as an end itself, that is, as something that may not be used merely as a means, and hence so far limits all choice (and is an object of respect).” Thus, it is clear what Kant means when he refers to humanity as an end in itself – simply, he means that humanity is an objective and necessary end for all rational beings.
In light of his construal of humanity qua an objective end, Kant attributes a special kind of dignity to humanity. In his discussion of the kingdom of ends in the second section of the Groundwork, Kant writes: “everything has either a price or a dignity. What has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; what on the other hand is raised above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity.” While subjective ends are to be regarded as having a price, objective ends are to be regarded as having a dignity – that is, they are to be regarded as having an incomparable inner worth.
What is related to general human inclinations and needs has a market price; that which, even without presupposing a need, conforms with a certain taste, that is, with a delight in the mere purposeless play of our mental powers, has a fancy price; but that which constitutes the condition under which alone something can be an end in itself has not merely a relative worth, that is, a price, but an inner worth, that is, dignity.
Thus, I contend that if one is faced with what she perceives to be a conflict between perfect duties, she ought to draw upon the implicit considerations that underlie the second formulation of the categorical imperative such that her ultimate course of action reflects her recognition of humanity’s incomparable worth. More specifically, I contend that one who is faced with such a conflict ought to evaluate the degree to which acting in accordance with each duty, taken separately, would impinge upon the humanity of the relevantly affected parties. The available course of action that, upon reflection, she recognizes as the one that stands to impinge least upon the humanity of the involved parties will be the favorable one. It seems that there are few other considerations, if any, which would be more relevant for an agent to take into account if faced with having to violate one of two perfect duties. In other words, it is not clear what would be more relevant for an agent to consider other than the degree to which each course of action open to her, if carried out, would most effectively preserve the humanity of the involved parties.
It might be suggested here that equally reasonable methods of resolution could potentially be derived from considerations underlying the first and third formulations of the categorical imperative. I must admit that I am dubious of this prospect. It is perhaps clearer why considerations involving the first formulation would be not be useful to us in our effort to develop an appropriate method of resolution. Simply, it is our respect for the content yielded by the first formulation that puts us in conflict in the first place; it is the first formulation that most explicitly demands our unconditional compliance with the imperatives that we derive from it. However, I admit that considerations involving the third formulation might seem more promising. Kant introduces this formulation as follows: “Every rational being must act as if he were by his maxims at all times a lawgiving member of the universal kingdom of ends.” Perhaps, then, we should negotiate conflicts between perfect duties by considering what we ought to do qua constituents of the kingdom of ends. I think, however, that this will ultimately lead to similar complications to those associated with consulting the first formulation. If we take the kingdom of ends to represent a community of rational beings acting in accordance with the first formulation of the categorical imperative, it is unclear how our consideration of how an individual member of this community would act in cases of conflict would somehow be more useful than simply consulting the first formulation. And, since we have already determined that such consultation would likely be fruitless, we must conclude that the third formulation would be a similarly unlikely source of aid in cases of conflict.
At this point, I would like to return to the re-framed version of Constant’s murderer case in order to demonstrate how my proposed method of resolution could be applied to this particular instance of conflict. First, suppose that one decided to be truthful with the murderer. Based on the aforementioned assumption that one could be certain that being truthful with the murder would lead to the death of the murderer’s intended victim, let us evaluate the degree to which the victim’s humanity would resultantly be impinged upon. It is obvious that if the victim were to be killed he would no longer possess the capacities that constitute his humanity at all. If one decided to act in accordance with her perfect duty not to lie, and thus informed the murderer that the man he seeks is hiding somewhere in the house, the humanity of one of the relevant parties – specifically, the humanity of the victim – would be extinguished. In contrast, let us evaluate the degree to which the murderer’s humanity would be impinged upon if one decided to lie to him in an effort to protect the potential victim. That is, if one decided to act in accordance with her perfect duty not to make false promises in lieu of her perfect duty not to lie. However, before we do, I should address a foreseeable concern. It might be suggested that if one has opted to become a murderer, he has explicitly renounced his own humanity and thus should no longer be treated as if there is humanity in his person. If this were the case, then lying to the murderer would be an acceptable course of action, as it would be no injustice to treat him “merely as a means.” However, this is not the case and, as such, the problem remains. Hill writes:
Humanity, so conceived, is attributed by Kant to even the most foolish and depraved persons. Although he sometimes writes as if certain acts amount to “throwing away” one’s humanity, he repeatedly implies that a person’s humanity remains, and so must be respected, even though he defiles, abases, violates, dishonors, or rejects it.
Now, the question was: to what degree would the capacities associated with the murderer’s humanity be impinged upon if one were to lie to him in according with her perfect duty to honor promises? In comparison to the degree to which the capacities associated with the victim’s humanity would be impinged upon if the alternative course were pursued, it seems that the murderer’s relevant capacities would suffer very little. While it is true that lying to the murderer will, at least to some degree, degrade the humanity in his person, it will certainly not extinguish it. Thus, if one were to employ the method of resolution that I have suggested, she would likely conclude that she ought to act in accordance with her perfect duty not to make false promises. She would judge the degree to which the humanity of the relevantly affected parties would be impinged upon if she opted to perform one course of action and compare it to the degree to which the humanity of the involved parties would be impinged upon if she opted to perform the other. She would then resolve, as a result of these considerations, that she ought to renege on her duty not to lie in favor of honoring her duty not to make false promises.
Remember, this does not mean that the conflicted agent did not recognize her duty not to lie. After lying to the murder, she would likely feel that she had committed a moral wrong. And she ought to feel this way given that she has; she has failed to fulfill one of her perfect duties. My claim is simply that the method that I have proposed serves to identify the lesser of two evils – that is, the method serves to provide reasonable guidance for a morally conflicted agent at a legitimate impasse. Let me be explicitly clear: I have not proposed a method for justifying the neglect of one’s duties, rather, I have proposed a method for making difficult decisions in situations characterized by the fact that one is, so to speak, ‘damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t’.
It might be suggested at this point that while this method of resolution seems applicable to conflicts between perfect duties of the specific kind that have been discussed thus far, it might not be similarly applicable to other kinds of conflicts between perfect duties. As such I will now address two other kinds that might arise and examine the proposed method’s relative degree of effectiveness in regard to them. The two alternative kinds I will discuss are (1) what I call trivial conflicts and (2) what I call tragic conflicts. Trivial conflicts are those in which an agent is faced with two conflicting perfect duties and realizes that her performance of either duty will result in a similar and relatively insignificant degree of impingement upon the humanity of the affected party. In other words, the degree to which either party’s humanity would be impinged upon as a result of the enactment of the agent’s decided course of action would be virtually equal and, for all intents and purposes, insignificant. In such cases, I contend that the conflicted agent ought to at least keep the method of resolution that I have proposed in mind. Admittedly, the application of this method to trivial conflicts will not provide the morally conflicted agent with a definitive answer to her dilemma; however, I maintain that it would be worthwhile for the agent to at least consider, in the course of her deliberations, the degree to which either party’s humanity would be impinged upon as a result of her decision.
In regard to tragic conflicts, I am forced to make a more significant concession. Tragic conflicts are to be understood as those in which an agent realizes that regardless of which duty she decides to perform, the relevantly affected party’s humanity will be extinguished. Thus, the degree to which either party’s humanity would be impinged upon as a result of the agent’s decision would not only be equal (no matter what she decides), but also, ultimately significant. It is unclear to me how an agent’s decision could be anything but arbitrary in such situations and, as such, I admit that my method may not be applicable in cases of this kind.
III.
Thus far, I have (1) demonstrated that it is possible to experience conflicts between perfect duties and (2) suggested a method for resolving such conflicts. In what follows, I will present and defend against two potential objections that might be leveled against the latter and perhaps more controversial part of my proposal; namely, my method for resolving conflicts between perfect duties.
First, it might be objected that my proposed method of resolution entails a kind of quantification that Kant would find impermissible. Specifically, it might be argued that Kant would reject the notion that one could justify performing one dutiful course of action in lieu of another on the grounds that the chosen course of action impinged least upon the humanity of the relevantly affected parties. But why is it supposed that Kant would reject this notion? Consider this excerpt from Hill:
The definition of price is that “something else can be put in its place as an equivalent,” and dignity, by contrast, “admits of no equivalent.” Strictly construed, this must mean that what has dignity cannot morally or reasonably be exchanged for anything of greater value, whether the value is dignity or price.
If we take Hill’s interpretation seriously, we must acknowledge that humanity, construed as one of those things to which Kant attributes a dignity, is not subject to any kind of comparative quantification. To illustrate, Hill contends that Kant would not endorse the saving of two lives rather than one if the justification for doing so consisted in the fact that the group of two was somehow thought to have “more dignity” between them. He goes on to say, “One cannot, then, trade off the dignity of humanity in one person in order to honor a greater dignity in two, ten, or a thousand persons.” While Hill’s interpretation of Kant on this matter is not definitive, it remains worthwhile to discuss whether his interpretation confounds my proposal.
Simply, I think that it does not. While it is true that dignity, qua an abstract noumenal concept, cannot be quantified , this does not imply that the dignity associated with the humanity in persons is similarly unquantifiable. Rather, I think that humanity, construed as an aspect of physically instantiated persons with a sensible nature, is subject to quantification at least in the modest sense that is required by my proposed method of resolution. If it is true that (1) we experience our own humanity and the humanity in others via the capacities to which this aspect of our persons gives rise and (2) that we exercise these capacities in the phenomenal world, it seems reasonable to suggest that we could engage in the quantification of these capacities from a strictly phenomenal perspective – that is, strictly from our perspective qua phenomenal beings.
I think, then, that Hill’s interpretation of Kant on this particular issue is based on a conflation of two distinct senses of dignity – namely, dignity construed as a noumenal concept and dignity construed as an attribute of beings in the phenomenal world with humanity in their persons. If we accept this account, and therefore acknowledge that those things that have a dignity in the phenomenal world are in fact subject to quantification, at least to the extent that there can be reasonable trade offs amongst those things, we will see that my proposed method of conflict resolution does not stand in direct opposition to Kant’s relevant theoretical commitments and also, that Hill’s interpretation is not comprehensive.
Second, it might be argued that, in practice, my method entails consequentialist considerations that do stand in direct opposition to Kant’s relevant theoretical commitments. To illustrate the worry, it might be said that insofar as the method requires a conflicted agent to consider what she expects to be the consequences of each course of action open to her (to what degree each course of action open to her will impinge upon the humanity of the relevantly affected parties) and prescribes to her the course of action that will produce the best consequences (the course of action that impinges least upon the humanity of the relevantly affected parties), the method has consequentialist undertones with which Kant would take issue.
However, it is important to remember the nature of the actions that the agent is deciding between; she is deciding between two courses of action, each of which entail the performance of a perfect duty and, as such, each of which she recognizes as being obligatory. That the agent considers herself to be in conflict in the first place is indicative of her equal motivation to perform each course of action in virtue of the claims, qua perfect duties, that they make on her. Thus, her initial motivation to pursue either course of action is not associated with her consideration of the consequences that she expects either course to yield. Rather, it stems from her recognition that she has a duty to perform each course of action, taken separately. The problem is, of course, that she cannot fulfill both of her duties given her current circumstances. It is in light of this – that is, in light of the fact that she is faced with an apparently genuine conflict – that I suggest that it would not be inappropriate for her to appeal to considerations of the expected consequences that she associates with each course of action. As a result of these considerations, she will be able to make a reasonable decision about which duty she ought to perform given that she cannot perform both. So, while it is true that the agent does consider what she expects to be the consequences of both courses of action open to her, her resultant understanding of the expected consequences does not play the primary role in motivating her to action. What motivates her, first and foremost, is her recognition that each course of action open to her is associated with one of her perfect duties. Thus, her consideration of expected consequences is de facto a secondary concern for her, one that is necessitated by the seemingly intractable dilemma with which she is faced.
As a final note, it should be emphasized that I am not suggesting that a consideration of possible consequences is necessary, or even useful, in all moral cases. Rather, I am claiming that such considerations are worthwhile exclusively in cases of moral conflict – specifically, in cases akin to those that have been the primary focus of this paper.

Works Cited
Hart, W. A. “Nussbaum, Kant and Conflicts Between Duties.” Philosophy: The Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy 73.286 (1998): 609-18. Print.
Hill, Thomas E. “Humanity as an End in Itself.” Ethics 91.1 (1980): 84-99. Print.
Kant, Immanuel. “Groundwork of The Metaphysics of Morals.” The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy. Ed. Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. 37-108. Print.
Kant, Immanuel. “On a supposed right to lie from philanthropy.” Ed. Mary J. Gregor. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. 605-15. Print.
Kant, Immanuel. The Metaphysics of Morals. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy. Ed. Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. 353-603. Print.
Kerstein, Samuel J. Kant’s Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality. New York: Cambridge UP, 2002. Print.
Williams, Bernard. “Ethical consistency.” Problems of the Self. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1973.
166-86. Print.

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