10 - Kant's impartial virtues of love

Summary

LOVE AS A MORAL FORCE

Kant's ethics has traditionally been perceived as violently opposed to virtue ethics, although much contemporary virtue ethics has argued that this opposition has been overdrawn and rests on oversimplifications of both virtue ethics and Kant. A major reason for this perception forms the basis of this chapter. Kant's ethics is supposedly unable to accommodate love as central to ethics, by contrast with virtue ethics, because of Kant's commitment to the impartiality of ethics. As a result of this commitment and his supposed neglect of love, he is, apparently, unable to accommodate the important partial dimensions of ethics.

I believe this reason constitutes a misconception. It is due to a failure to recognize the importance of Kant's second “great moral force,” love. In addition, it is due to a failure to recognize that the two moral forces, love and respect, have impartial and partial dimensions. To say that love has an impartial dimension for Kant is just to say that the expression of an “impartial” duty of virtue of love (such as forgiveness) cannot be withheld on partialistic grounds, such as that the person is disliked by one, is unrelated to one, is unattractive, or lacking in merit. What exactly is required by the duty will depend on context.

To regard love as having impartial, and indeed universal and unconditional aspects, which underlie the duties of beneficence and forgiveness, presents special difficulties.