7 - Moral feelings in the Metaphysics of Morals

Summary

INTRODUCTION

In his notorious illustrations of morally praiseworthy actions from duty in Section I of the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals Kant says that “action first has its genuine moral worth” only when it is done “without any inclination, simply from duty” (G 4:398) and that “an action from duty is to put aside entirely the influence of inclination” (G 4:400). A page later, however, he also says that because “an action from duty is to put aside entirely the influence of inclination and with it every object of the will … there is left for the will nothing that could determine it except objectively the law and subjectively pure respect for this practical law” (G 400–01), and in his footnote to this passage he equates such respect with a feeling, although not an “obscure” feeling, but one “self-wrought by means of a rational concept and therefore specifically different from all feelings … which can be reduced to inclination or fear” (G 4:401n.) In the Critique of Practical Reason, similarly, although Kant maintains that “What is essential to any moral worth of actions is that the moral law determine the will immediately,” which in turn seems to mean not “by means of a feeling,” this comes within a chapter in which he argues that the feeling of respect is the “incentive” of pure practical reason (KpV 5:71).