9 - The Distinction between Right and Ethics in Kant's Philosophy

Summary

The analysis of the relation between morality and right requires that one makes precise the meaning of these terms that sometimes carry a narrow, sometimes a wide sense. When distinguishing laws of nature from laws of freedom, the moral term in Kant acquires a wide sense: the latter are called moral laws. Kant affirms that, while they are “directed merely to external actions and their conformity to law they are called juridical laws; but if they also require that they (the laws) themselves be the determining grounds of actions, they are ethical laws, and then one says that conformity with juridical laws is the legality of an action and conformity with ethical laws is its morality” (Doctrine of Right, 6:214). Morality in its wide sense comprehends the doctrine of morals, encompassing right as well as ethics. Thus, one cannot take as correlatives the pairs moral/right and morality/legality. An interpretation identifying them would lead to a separation between right and ethics without pointing out the common elements. Regarding ethics, Kant designated that it meant the doctrine of morals, and afterwards designated only a part of it the doctrine of virtue (Doctrine of Virtue, 6:379).

As division of the doctrine of morals, right opposes itself to ethics (doctrine of virtue) and not to morality, which is wider than this; what may cause some confusion is calling morality the agreement of actions with ethical laws.