Philosophy 361 Ethics Darwall Fall 1997 KANT III I Kant's claim that the goodness of moral character is intrinsic and unqualified doesn’t entail that only actions done from the motive of duty realize this distinctive, unqualified good. Maybe some other motive is intrinsically, unqualifiedly good-- love, for example. Why does Kant say that actions motivated entirely by love lack moral worth? A. Partly, the reason seems to be that Kant apparently thinks that such an agent would really be acting to acquire a pleasure for herself. If this were true, then these cases would really be like those of the shopkeeper. B. Another theme in this case is that the person who acts directly to benefit others, without the motive of duty entering in any way, acts on an inclination. According to Kant, the only motives available to an agent are those provided by momentary inclinations and those that arise through practical reason. But there are surely other possibilities. A person may care deeply about others so that, even without feeling any inclination to help them, or being in the mood, etc., he still wants to help, and again, not out of any thought that he ought to, or that it would be wrong not to. Why should such an action not have moral worth? C. We can attribute the following argument to him at 398. The desire to benefit another person may only be "fortunate enough to hit on something . . .right." There is no necessary connection between what benefits a particular person on a particular occasion, and what it would be right for one to do on that occasion, so if one acts out of the desire to benefit, it will only be fortuitous that one ends up doing the right thing, if one does. But there is no guarantee that the person who acts out of the desire to do what is right will end up doing what is right either. Kant can say this, however: it is no accident that the agent who tries to do his duty directs his conduct toward what is right, by his own lights. Whereas, this is fortuitous if the agent's only motive is the desire to benefit another. II To make this vivid, consider two different subcategories: (a) those where the agent has moral beliefs, but these do not determine his action. (b) those where agents lack any conception of what they morally ought to do. A. In (b) it is hard to see why we should think of the actions as manifesting the distinctive value of moral agents, since it is hard to see these beings as moral agents. B. But in (a), how we can credit the actions with moral worth, since the agent would simply be disregarding her moral convictions? She would have done the same thing, even if she had been convinced it was wrong. III A second theme of Kant's is that if an act of love has moral worth as such, then love must be a motive that is available to any rational agent, or being morally good is not something that rational persons can, as such, aspire to. "[I]f such a man . . . were not exactly fashioned by her [nature] to be a philanthropist, would he not still find in himself a source from which he might draw a worth far higher than any that a good- natured temperament can have? (398) Note the contrast between being fashioned with a given motive by an external source, versus a source of motivation available to autonomous rational agents. Nothing in our conception of a rational moral person suggests that every such agent would have a motive of love, so loving conduct would, as such, be morally good, only if moral goodness were not something to which rational moral persons can, as such, aspire. But Kant thinks we are bound to reject this. When we reflect on our own moral convictions we will come to agree that: (i) any moral obligation derives from a law applying to all rational agents. (ii) any agent subject to morality also has within him the capacity to be good-- not just to do what's right, but also to choose what's right for the right reasons--to have a good will. Kant's picture of the good will, therefore, is of an autonomous moral agent. The features that make a rational agent subject to morality, the capacity for autonomous rational action, will, if excellently developed and exercised themselves realize the unqualified value of the good will. Nothing outside of these is required. IV From these points about the good will and the conditions of an action's having moral worth, Kant turns to the question of what the moral law itself is. While this only assumes center stage in Chapter II, there is an important transition within Chapter I that enables us to see how Kant thinks the Categorical Imperative, derives from what he thinks he has already established about the good will and the moral worth of actions. This transition begins to occur at Ak. 400 in the section titled "Reverence for the law," and it concludes at Ak. 402 with the initial statement of the Categorical Imperative: "I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law." An action has moral worth only if it is done from duty. And a person acts from duty only when what motivates him is not a concern for anything external to the action which it could bring about as a consequence, but rather what Kant calls "reverence" or "respect" for the moral law. "Thus the moral worth of an action does not depend on the result expected from it [which can only be an object of inclination or love, but never of respect]." (401) It depends on the agent's acting out of respect for the law--this alone can an object of his respect, and his respecting it in this way becomes an object of our respect. V But what is this law? And how do we know it? The section titled "The Categorical Imperative" (402) begins with this question and proceeds to the first statement of the Categorical Imperative. So Kant must think that he is giving an answer here. "But what kind of law can this be the thought of which, even without regard to the results expected from it, has to determine the will if this is to be called good absolutely and without qualification? Since I have robbed the will of every inducement that might arise for it as a consequence of obeying any particular law, nothing is left but the conformity of actions to universal law as such, and this alone must serve the will as its principle. That is to say, I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law. Here bare conformity to universal law as such (without having as its base any law prescribing particular actions) is what serves the will as its principle . . ." (402) What is going on here? (a) Again, the will's motive or principle cannot derive from any "expected result" or "consequence" of the action. This is familiar ground. So what does serve as motive? Well, it's got to be respect for the moral law. But the whole question now is, what is that? "But what kind of law . . . " (b) Notice also that Kant apparently rejects the idea that we might have direct access (through reason somehow) to a set of specific moral laws prescribing particular actions. "(without having as its base any law prescribing particular actions)" (c) Rather, the only thing left to determine the will is the very idea of universal law itself. Reason does not supply us with a list of laws. Put another way, it does not supply us with the content of the law, but only with the form of the law. Our will is determined by the idea of law, itself, when we determine ourselves only to act on principles which we could will to be universal law. (d) A person of good will, then, will commit herself to determine her principles of acting by this test (the Categorical Imperative); only so can she realize the uniquely moral good (which is the only unqualified good, and the only good worthy of respect). (e) So, it turns out, a person acts out of respect for the moral law when she determines herself by the Categorical Imperative. Therefore, the Categorical Imperative is the moral law to which any rational person is subject. Therefore, (f) Any rational person must act only on maxims he can will as universal law. III Now this all sounds pretty abstract, but it is an important theme of Kant's ethics that ordinary people really do reason this way. That is, we are disposed to credit as a governing moral idea that we should only act on policies that we would be prepared for others to follow as well: "The ordinary reason of mankind also agrees with this completely in its practical judgments and always has the aforesaid principle before its eyes." The point is not so much that everyone carries around a formulation of the Categorical Imperative in their heads, but rather that we all recognize the relevance of this idea when it is presented to us, and that we implicitly reason with it. For Kant practical reason itself involves this pattern of practical thought.