"Knowing yourself is the beginning of wisdom". Aristotle

Jimmy Savile and the case against Kant

Last week I argued that we need to rediscover Kant and a strong deontology in order to prevent further cases like the Savile abuse.  In this reply, Charlotte Vardy argues that Kant would not necessarily have argued for intervention by a bystander witnessing abuse.  Here's why.

While it is true that Kantian Ethics might have suggested that some of those involved in the Jimmy Savile case should put principle ahead of pragmatic concerns, there is an element in Kant's thinking which might have contributed to the apparent cover-up. 
 
Kant argued that a negative duty trumps a positive one; in other words, one's duty not to do an evil thing is stronger than one's duty to, for example, help somebody else.  Further, he argued that people should follow laws, even when they believe them to be unjust, because there is a greater chance that an individual could be wrong than that the whole community is wrong.  This led Kant to submit to the Prussian Censor and refrain from writing on Religious topics after the fuss caused by "Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone" (1793) – he genuinely believed that there was more chance that he was wrong than that the Prussian establishment was and was willing to gamble his professional integrity and reputation on that belief. 
 
In the Savile case it is easy to imagine the position that many people must have found themselves in. (Click below to continue) 

They had strong suspicions of wrongdoing and had to decide whether to report it or just to keep quiet; there was always the possibiliy of error and people had to decide to speak up and voice suspicions in the knowledge that they could well be wrong and would in that case have accused a reputed saint.  A Kantian might see this as a choice between possibly doing positive harm and offending the values of their whole community and possibly helping potential future victims (there is no way that any report would undo abuse that had already taken place after all).  Without positive proof it is, perhaps, understandable as to why many people chose to keep quiet – though that does not necessarily justify them in doing so. 
 
Furthermore, in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) Kant discussed the dilemma somebody might face in being asked for information by an apparently mad murderer, intent on killing.  He suggested that even this situation would not justify telling a lie, i.e doing a definitely wrong thing to prevent somebody else possibly doing another wrong thing.  For Kant the only defense against making errors in judgement is to only do things which can be universally justified and never to use one's judgement as the grounds for a decision.  In the Savile case people would have to decide whether their own judgement of the situation would justify speaking against an accepted truth and inevitably doing damage in the process; on Kant's reasoning it may well not have. 
 
Kantian Ethics as well as Utilitarianism struggles to guide people in moral situations such as the Savile case.  Both systems rely on the decision-makers operating with limited knowledge, having clashing duties and finding it difficult to predict outcomes with any accuracy.   In the most basic terms, the theories are good until real people and real-life situations get involved.  Nevertheless, this does not make the systems invalid.  Ethical systems provoke people into doing some serious thinking about the real situations they face; systems which offer simplistic solutions are in this way less effective than those which present us with complexities.  Both Kantian Ethics and Utilitarianism, when considered in some depth, do just that, they encourage and enable us to take responsibility and act consciously. 

Charlotte Vardy lectures with Peter Vardy on the candlelight conferences.  Click here for further details.
 

Cartoon copyright Rebecca Dyer www.beingandtim.com