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“The moral worth depends, therefore, not on the realization of the object of the action, but merely on the principle of volition according to which, without regard to any objects of the faculty of desire, the action has been done” (Solomon 275).
In this quotation, Kant sets out the criterion to judge an action. The object of the action is not intended for the satisfaction of any desire, but for the purpose of the action, that is, whether it is intentionally good or not. That is what the moral worth of the action resides in.
According to Kant, duty refers to conformity to the moral law in one’s actions according to Kant. The moral law is consisted of rules that have been developed based on the rationality, the unique quality that distinguishes human beings from other animals. Such rules have no connection with the intention or desire of the person in action. Duty is the criterion to judge whether a will is good or not. If a will comes from personal desire or inclination rather than duty, the will cannot be regarded as a “good will” in the Kantian sense. For example, if a person gives food to a homeless person so that the latter would not suffer from hunger, the former can be said to have a good will. The former offers the food out of his duty to help those in need.
Duty conforms to moral rules. It is rational and motivates a person to generate good wills. Being rational and conformation to morality are the two characteristics of duty. Other acts we think we should do are different from the “duties” defined by Kant from the following aspects. Firstly, the acts we think we should do may not necessarily be rational. For example, someone may take irrational actions due to the lack of sufficient information or being overwhelmed by strong emotions, such as anger, regret, guilty. People under such conditions may think they are taking the right actions, instead of being controlled by rationality. Secondly, the things we think we should do may be incurred from the particular circumstances or our identity. They do not necessarily conform to morality. A person in a market exchange may lie to the other person so that the former can benefit from the lie. This is a will driven by one’s own desire or intention, contradictory to the moral rules.
“Acting for the sake of duty” means that a person takes particular actions because he is driven by the sense of duty alone, not by anything else, such as personal intentions or desires. This is the criterion Kant draws out to judge whether a will is good or not. Conformation to duty/moral rules is the supreme standard of behavior. That is why Kant uses “for the sake of” instead of “in accordance with.” “Acting in accordance with duty” refers to actions that have been conducted based on the demand or the content of a particular kind of duty that may come into being due to particular circumstances or the identity of a particular person. For instance, a soldier is required by an order to defend the enemies. The soldier carries out his duty because of his identity. His taking the defense is an execution of an order from his superiors.
Answers to Discussion Questions 7 #
“A rational being must always regard himself as legislator in a kingdom of ends rendered possible by freedom of the will, whether as member or as sovereign. The position of the latter can be maintained not merely through the maxims of his will but only if he is a completely independent being without needs and with unlimited power adequate to his will” (Solomon 303).
Kant regards rationality as the basis of the “kingdom of ends” (Solomon 303). The rational person is both the “lawmaker” and the “observer” his own laws as well as those whose rational capacity is the same as the person. In this way, the person can gain freedom.
Rationality is important to the Kantian morality while freedom is the prerequisite to developing rationality. To understand the importance of freedom as a presupposition of morality, one has to make clear that the notion of “freedom” defined by Kant is different from what we understand the notion today. By “freedom,” Kant means the capability to “generate the maxim or principle from which that action was performed” (“PHILOSOPHY - The Good Life: Kant [HD]”). The capacity is developed based on both the internal and external conditions. As for the external conditions, it is necessary that a person lives in a secure environment so that he does not have to live in fears of hunger or death threat and develops normal rationality. As for the internal conditions, one should have the capability to generate the appropriate principles that justify his actions to fit into certain morality, which is free of personal desire or habitual cultivation. The external and internal conditions guarantee that a person has the freedom to develop the rationality which can serve as a presupposition of morality.
The development of good habits and “character” means that we are not acting freely if viewed based on the criterion set by Kant. The Aristotelian good habits and “character” are connected to the excellent state of the faculties which are obtained through exercises in this direction (Solomon 116). When doing something right and good becomes a habitual action, the action does involve little rationality in it. One of the features of the Kantian freedom is the capability to use rationality to develop the right principle or maxim to guide the behavior. Without rationality, without freedom.
The Kantian freedom does not mean a limitless one. Instead, there is a certain restriction on the freedom defined by Kant. Kant’s freedom means one’s actions obeying the principles or maxims made by the person himself, known as “autonomy of the will” (Solomon 311). This notion may be misinterpreted as actions at will. However, it is not the case. Kant does not mean an absolute freedom. Instead, the Kantian freedom is one obeying the moral laws, i.e. the principle of rationality, whether the rationality has been developed from one’s own reasoning or from somebody else who has the same capacity to develop his own autonomy of the will.
Answers to Study Question 8 #
“The second proposition is this: An action done from duty has its moral worth, not in the purpose that is to be attained by it, but in the maxim according to which the action is determined” (Solomon 275).
In the second proposition of his argument in Groundwork, Kant puts forward a criterion to judge whether an action is morally worthy, which does not reside on the purposeful achievement of the action, but on the principle that action has been following.
According to Kant, the need to help others involves the duties to others, which is derived from the necessity to get support and cooperation from other people if need be. An individual cannot survive alone without the help from other people. The needs constitute the non-rational part of our existence and make us prone to desires and inclinations. However, the desires are specific and non-universal, which makes it impossible for us to be satisfied whenever and wherever we want. To make our needs satisfied, we need to make our desires universal to the extent that it forms the duties of other rational beings to help those in need so that the one who offers help is also the one who can receive help from others. Helping other people promotes us to see other people as an ends instead of a means as they would treat us the same way. That is why we should help other people.
Duty is the motivating factor if our actions have moral worth. On the one hand, the moral worth of an action is judged by the criterion that whether the action has been conducted based on a good will while the criterion to judge a good will is whether the will has been derived from duty. On the other hand, duty is the constraining power that can prevent humans from making wrong choices and guide the people to take the actions which conforms to the right principles, i.e. the moral law (“PHILOSOPHY: Immanuel Kant”). No other human desires, like personal interest, the pursuit of happiness, have such constraining power. For example, it is morally right to save a person’s life. If the saving has been driven by the desire to gain self-interest, the person in danger will not be saved if another person sees no self-interest in saving the former. Moral worth, when linked with other human desires, is unstable and flawed. Therefore, duty should be the motivation behind the moral worth of a person’s action.
Sympathy, as a kind of human emotions, is not accountable to evaluate the “moral worth of an action and should not be the motivation to attain moral worth. Sympathy is no different from other motives such happiness and self-interest on this account according to Kant who regards a good will as the only judgmental criterion. Kant believes that everything other than duty reflects the desires or inclinations of humans which are changeable and temporary. Duty is, on the contrary, stable and permanent and can guide us to take the right actions in critical times. Kant’s theory puts duty that is in conformity with the moral law in the first and foremost position with no other components involved such as sympathy.
Answers to Study Question 10 #
“A rational beings to the kingdom of ends as a member when he legislates in it universal laws while also being himself subject to these laws. He belongs to it as sovereign, when as legislator he is himself subject to the will of no other” (Solomon 303).
In “the kingdom of ends,” a member qualifies himself to be a citizen of the kingdom as both the rational lawmaker and observer of the universal laws. The obedience of the laws is out of the person’s own will, not by other external forces. Kant stresses the autonomy of a person through rationality.
“The kingdom of ends” is a hypothetically existing community which has been originated from Kant’s categorical imperative. All the “subjects” of the kingdom of ends are rational. They would think and act according to their rationality, the moral law, and their duties. The rational citizens are both the lawmakers and the observers of the laws they make. However, the laws are not any random laws. The laws have to be applicable to all the citizens without incurring any contradiction, and therefore, they have to accord with the categorical imperative. Another important feature of the kingdom of ends is that all the citizens of this kingdom are treated as ends instead of means. That is, all the people in the kingdom of ends are treated with respect and dignity. The well-being of these people are the goals, and they should be treated as means to realize other people’s goals.
“The kingdom of ends” is the ultimate goal of Kant’s ethics and thus, the concept plays a central role. Kant proposes that a good will is the only criterion to judge people’s action, that people should carry out their duty to the moral law, and that humans should subject to the power of rationality. The good will, the moral law, and rationality, the essential elements of Kant’s ethics, have one goal in common: the treatment of humans as the ends rather than the means of action. In the kingdom of ends, every rational being abides by the moral law and obeys the categorical imperative. It is the ideal state constructed in theory by Kant for the attainment of happiness.
“The kingdom of ends” can be regarded as an embodiment of the religious heaven. “Summum bonum” means “the highest good” (Solomon 270). In light of the Kantian ethics, it refers to one should carry out his duties according to the moral laws. In the religious version, “summum bonum” means the accordance of one’s action to the moral law so that one can achieve fulfillment as well as virtue and happiness by God who judges peoples’ souls by their morality. Such goals are only attainable in the kingdom where people act by the moral laws and rationality, making and observing the laws they make without causing contradictions in the application of the laws while God who is greater than humans is responsible for making the judgment. The kingdom of ends creates an ideal place where the accordance of actions to the moral law is summum bonum.