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Should Kantians Care about Moral Worth?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Walter E. Schaller
Walter E. Schaller
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Texas Tech University
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Extract

One of the central features of Kant's moral theory is the sharp distinction he draws between the moral Tightness (legality) of actions and their moral worth or goodness (morality). As we know from the first pages of the Groundwork, the rightness of an action is determined by the conformity of the agent's maxim to the categorical imperative; the moral goodness or worth of an action is determined by the agent's motives, by whether the agent acted from the motive of duty or from some other (non-moral) empirical motive. Morally good actions must be morally right, according to Kant, whereas morally right actions are not necessarily morally good.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , Winter 1993 , pp. 25 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1993

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References

Notes

1 References to Kant's writings are to the following translations: Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, translated by Ellington, James W. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983)Google Scholar; Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, translated by Ellington, James W. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981)Google Scholar; Critique of Practical Reason, translated by Beck, Lewis White (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956)Google Scholar; Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, translated by Greene, Theodore M. and Hudson, Hoyt H. (New York: Harper & Row, 1960)Google Scholar. Except for the Religion, all page references (Ak.) are to the Prussian Academy edition of Kants gesammelte Schriften.

2 It is not always easy to determine whether a particular objection is Radical or Moderate. Barbara Herman, for example, in “On the Value of Acting from the Motive of Duty” (Philosophical Review, 90, 3 [July 1981]: 359–82)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, intends to be defending the Moderate Objection (to the effect that the mere presence of non-moral motives does not disqualify an action from being morally good). But her argument depends upon an unacceptable conception of motives which, I have argued (see note 3 below), effectively transforms her argument into a defence of the Radical Objection.

In Sympathy and Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972)Google Scholar Philip Mercer appears to support the Radical Objection when he argues that “there is more than one motive which possesses moral value” (p. 114) and suggests that “to act on [a principle of sympathy] obviates the need for reference to a principle of duty” (p. 115). But Mercer also writes that when acting from sympathy, “it is necessary that the agent himself realize that his action is not in any such conflict [with duty]. Before helping someone out of sympathy for him, it is essential … that the agent should have reflected as to the propriety of the help he intends” (p. 112). Whether such an agent also acts “from duty” depends upon how one conceives of motives (and especially the motive of duty).

Direct comparison between Mercer and Kant on the question of moral worth is complicated by the fact that, unlike Kant, Mercer treats the goodness of a motive as a wholly distinct matter from the rightness of the resulting action. “Thus if one were to say that sympathy as a motive is always good this does not commit one to saying anything about the rightness or wrongness of actions motivated by sympathy” (p. 98). Whereas for Kant the moral goodness of an action is tied to the moral goodness of the motive from which (or the maxim on which) it is performed, for Mercer the “question of the value of sympathy splits into the question of the value of sympathy as a motive and the question of the value of the sympathetic action” (p. 99).

Lawrence Blum articulates a position which seems to be the same as the Radical Objection. In Friendship, Altruism and Morality (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980)Google Scholar, he argues that we should accord “prima facie moral value to any action which is intended to bring about good to another and is motivated by a desire to bring about that good.” We should not, he says, add the further condition “that the agent regard the action as permissible for anyone to perform in the circumstances” (p. 98). Thus, “[i]f, out of kindness or compassion, an agent acts directly for the sake of someone's good without thinking about whether it is morally permissible for anyone in such a situation to do so, his action has full moral value (ceteris paribus). It is diminished in moral value only if the action is in fact not universalizable and the agent could have recognized this” (p. 104).

3 Schaller, Walter, “Kant on Virtue and Moral Worth,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, 25, 4 (Winter 1987): 559–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Beck, Lewis White, “Sir David Ross on Duty and Purpose in Kant,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 16, 1 (1955): p. 104CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Paton, H. J., The Categorical Imperative (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1947), p. 49Google Scholar; “Translator's Preface,” in Kant, I., Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, translated by Paton, H. J. (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 19.Google Scholar

5 At the beginning of the second section of the Groundwork, where Kant freely acknowledges the possibility that no morally good action has ever been performed, his explanation is that experience can never tell us whether “the maxim of an action that may in other respects conform to duty has rested solely on moral grounds” [my emphasis] (Ak., p. 407). In the Metaphysical Principles of Virtue he states that moral “perfection consists subjectively in the purity (puritas moralis) of one's disposition toward duty, when, without any admixture of aims taken from sensibility, the law is its own incentive, and one's actions occur not only in accordance with duty but also from duty” (Ak., p. 446). In the Critique of Practical Reason Kant maintains the same thesis: the concept of duty “demands subjective respect for the law as the sole mode of determining the will through itself…. [M]orality or moral worth, can be conceded only where the action occurs from duty, i.e., merely for the sake of the law” (my emphasis; Ak., p. 81).

6 In the Critique of Practical Reason Kant repeatedly claims that the efficacy of the moral law as an incentive is directly proportional to the purity with which it is adopted as one's motive. Speaking about the categorical imperative, he writes that “no other law precludes all inclinations from having a direct influence on the will” (Ak., p. 80). “The majesty of duty has nothing to do with the enjoyment of life; it has its own law, even its own tribunal, and however much one wishes to mix them together … they nevertheless soon separate of themselves; but, if they do not separate, the moral ingredient has no effect at all” (Ak., pp. 88–89). Kant concludes that “all admixture of incentives which derive from one's own happiness are a hindrance to the influence of the moral law on the human heart” (Ak., p. 156; cf. pp. 25, 81). Also, “the essential point in all determination of the will through the moral law is this: as a free will, and thus not only without co-operating with sensuous impulses but even rejecting all of them and checking all inclinations so far as they could be antagonistic to the law, it is determined merely by the law…. [T]he moral law as a ground of determination of the will, by thwarting our inclinations, must produce a feeling which can be called pain” (my emphasis, Ak., pp. 72–73).

In the Groundwork Kant writes that “the pure thought of duty, and of the moral law generally, unmixed with any extraneous addition of empirical inducements, has by the way of reason alone … an influence on the human heart so much more powerful than all other incentives … ” (Ak., pp. 410–11).

7 Kant, Groundwork, in Ak., p. 390. In the second section Kant warns about relying upon incentives which “can only by accident lead to the good but often also lead to the bad” (Ak., p. 411).

8 Kant, Religion, p. 26.

9 I take this way of expressing Kant's idea from Barbara Herman, “On the Value of Acting from the Motive of Duty.”

10 Kant, Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, in Ak., pp. 448–58.

11 See Stocker, Michael, “The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories,” Journal of Philosophy, 73, 14 (August 1976): 453–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blum, Lawrence, Friendship, Altruism and Morality (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980)Google Scholar. I discuss this argument in “Kant on Virtue and Moral Worth.”

12 In the Groundwork Kant divides duties into perfect and imperfect (as well as into duties to oneself and duties to others). In the Metaphysical Principles of Virtue this distinction is replaced by one between juridical duties (all of which are perfect duties) and duties of virtue, some of which are perfect (narrow), others of which are imperfect or wide duties.

13 Kant, Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, in Ak., pp. 385–86.

14 Schaller, Walter, “Kant's Architectonic of Duty,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 48, 2 (December 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Schaller, “Kant on Virtue and Moral Worth.”

15 In the Metaphysical Principles of Virtue Kant says that the duty of sympathy includes “an indirect duty to cultivate our natural (sensitive) feelings for others” (Ak., p. 457). The duty of gratitude consists in “honoring a person for a benefit rendered us” and includes the “feeling … of respect toward the benefactor” (Ak., p. 454). In each case, it can be argued that these duties are ideally fulfilled only by persons who have the appropriate character traits.

16 The Universal Ethical Command states: “Act in accordance with duty from duty” (Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, in Ak., p. 391).

17 Ibid., pp. 390, 393, 411.

18 Ibid., p. 452.

19 Kant writes: “Beneficence is a duty. Whoever often exercises this and sees his beneficent purpose succeed comes at last really to love him whom he has benefited. When therefore it is said, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,’ this does not mean you should directly (at first) love and through this love (subsequently) benefit him; but rather, ‘Do good to your neighbor’ and this beneficence will produce in you the love of mankind (as a readiness of inclination toward beneficence in general)” (Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, in Ak., p. 402).

The same point is made in the pre-Critical Lectures on Ethics: “But if we do good from duty, it becomes a habit and we ultimately do it from love and inclination…. Thus if I love others from obligation, I acquire in the course of time a taste for it, and my love, originally duty-born, becomes an inclination” (translated by Louis Infield [New York: Harper & Row, 1963], pp. 195, 197).

20 In the Religion, for example, Kant writes that a “man is never certain of having really attained a love for the good, i.e., of having incorporated it into his maxim” unless his heart is “happy in the performance of its duty” (n. 19). See also his Metaphysical Principles of Virtue: “what is done not with pleasure but as mere compulsory service has no inner worth to him who so responds to his duty” (Ak., p. 484). People who lack the virtues and must thus fulfil their duties by acting contrary to their inclinations will not have a “happy heart” or enjoy being morally good.

21 On the other hand, someone might argue as follows: Although it is not my duty to perform this particular beneficent action, still, I have a duty to perform actions of this type, and this particular action provides me with an opportunity to do fulfil that duty. Therefore, I will do it, and I am motivated by duty.

Even if we allow that this argument is correct, it does not undermine my argument for conferring moral worth on such optional actions when they are not motivated by duty. For even if such actions can be motivated by duty in such cases, it does not follow that everyone will perform them from that motive. Unless one wants to take the hard line that no beneficent action is morally good unless motivated by duty, it will be necessary to make allowance for cases in which, although the action could be carried out from duty, the agent is motivated by an empirical virtue.

22 These are two necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, conditions. One might also want to add a cognitive condition, for example, that the agent believes that beneficence is a duty. For a more complete defence of this account of moral worth, see my “Kant on Virtue and Moral Worth” (note 3 above).

23 Barbara Herman, for one, implies that persons are free to choose their motives. But she does nothing more than merely assert the bare possibility that actions could be motivated by duty and not by sympathy. “Nor does [Kant's example] imply that a sympathetic man could not act from the motive of duty when his sympathy was aroused” (Herman, “On the Value of Acting from the Motive of Duty,” p. 378). And: “Nothing in the example forces the reading that it is the mere presence of the inclination that is responsible for the denial of moral worth” (ibid., p. 381).

While Herman is correct concerning the specific implications of Kant's examples, I have argued that Kant did in fact believe that the “mere presence” of an inclination entails that it rather than the motive of duty motivates the action (see notes 3 and 6 above). But even if that is not the case, it does not follow that persons are capable of choosing whether to act from one motive rather than another.

24 Writing about Ross's interpretation of Kant, Lewis White Beck argues: “There seems to be an open contradiction in saying: I have two motives, A and B; each would lead me to do action C; I do perform action C, but I do so purely and simply from motive A alone. How can there be two motives pointing in the same direction, but only one of them actually effective in the determination of the action? And if anyone claimed that he did an action ‘purely’ and ‘simply’ out of a sense of duty but admitted at the same time that he had an inclination to do it, I think Kant would say that this was the merest cant” (“Sir David Ross on Duty and Purpose in Kant,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 16, 1 [1955]: 103Google Scholar).

See also Murphy, Jeffrie, “Kant's Concept of a Right Action,” The Monist, 51, 4 (October 1967): 574–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Kant, Groundwork, in Ak., pp. 406–7; Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, in Ak., p. 447.

26 In the Metaphysical Principles of Virtue Kant writes: “In [the evil person's] utmost depravity he can at most bring himself to the point where he no longer heeds [the moral law], but he cannot avoid hearing its voice” (Ak., p. 438).

27 Kant discusses frailty of the will in the Religion, pp. 24–25.

28 Kant, Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, in Ak., p. 402.

29 Kant, Groundwork, in Ak., p. 398.

30 Kant, Religion, pp. 22–23.

31 Williams, Bernard, “Morality and the Emotions,” in Morality and Moral Reasoning, edited by Casey, John (London: Methuen, 1971), p. 23.Google Scholar

32 See note 29.

33 Kant, Religion, p. 19.

34 According to Paton, “My maxim, as it were, generalizes my action, including my motive” (The Categorical Imperative, p. 60). And in “Kant's Concept of a Right Action” (p. 578), Jeffrie Murphy finds in Kant two kinds of maxims, one of which includes the agent's motive.

35 Atwell, John, Ends and Principles in Kant's Moral Thought (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chap. 3. Atwell also identifies a third kind of maxim, a dispositional maxim, which I shall discuss below.

36 My understanding of the content of (actional) maxims is drawn from Onora Nell (now O'Neill, ), Acting on Principle (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975)Google Scholar, chap. 3.

37 Kant, Groundwork, in Ak., p. 400.

38 In the Metaphysical Principles of Virtue Kant clearly states that while virtue is “one and the same” (i.e., there is only one virtuous disposition in the sense of a good will, and only one “obligation of virtue”), there are many virtues (Ak., pp. 383, 395, 406, 447). Commentators who say that Kant recognized only the single virtue of conscientiousness are therefore mistaken.

39 I discuss the relation of the moral worth of actions to the good will of persons in “The Relation of Moral Worth to the Good Will in Kant's Ethics” in the Journal of Philosophical Research, 17 (Summer 1992): 351–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40 In the Religion Kant says that the good will (here called a disposition) consists in having made the moral law itself one's highest-order maxim (p. 31).