Introduction to Ethics

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The ethics of Immanuel Kant is the most ambitious of Deontological approaches. While other forms of Deontology might place some importance on the goodness of outcomes (by supplementing it with other moral concerns and/or contraints), Kant maintains that the goodness of outcomes has no moral worth whatsoever. Kant argues that the focus of morality should come from the good will and acting for the sake of duty. Exploring these ideas is the subject of this module.

We will be guided by four learning outcomes in our exploration. At the end of this module, you will be able to…

Describe Kant’s understanding of the will and maxims, along with how they are connected;
Reflect on whether the things you pursue in your life are merely conditional goods;
Create your own examples to illustrate why acting from inclination in mere conformity with duty may have no moral worth; and
Summarize Kant’s argument that the good will acts from respect for the moral law.

Read This:

First Section: Transition from common to philosophical moral rational cognition

Are There Absolute Moral Rules?

Context

In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) attempts to provide a foundation for morality that is completely divorced from the consequences of our actions. Instead, Kant argues that the moral worth of an action comes solely from the agent’s intention in carrying out that action.

Kant uses the idea of a “maxim” (which has the form of “Do A for the sake of P”) to formalize the idea of a person’s intention in acting as they do. In particular, Kant holds that the morally right maxims are those that involve acting from a sense of duty, and acting so is embodied by the “good will”.

In this reading, Kant’s strategy is to use our commonsense intuitions about duty to discover why acting from acting in mere conformity with duty is not enough. “Acting in mere conformity with duty” means that you are doing your duty, you are doing the right action. But Kant argues that it is not enough to simply do your duty; you must also do it for the right reasons.

Now the right reason to do your duty, according to Kant, is to do it because it simply is your duty. Kant calls this acting from duty. “Acting from duty” means that you are acting for the sake of duty or acting from a sense of duty. Again, the point is you are doing the action because it is your duty. According to Kant, acting from duty gives the action its moral worth, and nothing else.

I will not lie: Kant is not an easy author to read. Struggling through his writing is a right of passage for students of philosophy. Even so, the material from James Rachels and Stuart Rachels should help clarify some of Kant’s main points!

Reading Questions

As you read, keep these questions in mind:

Immanuel Kant opens up the first section by arguing that the only thing that is good without limitation is the good will. He lists several things commonly taken to be good (like reason, courage, and happiness) and argues that they are all only good with limitation. What exactly does Kant mean by all this and what is his point?
Kant also maintains that the good will is not good because of the effects it accomplishes. Why is that? What then makes it good?

After that, Kant tries to show how acting from duty (as opposed to merely acting in conformity with duty) has moral value. He does this by presenting a series of examples:

A.	Setting fair prices (1785/2012, p. 13),
B.	Preserving your own life (1785/2012, p. 13), and
C.	Being beneficent (1785/2012, pp. 13–14).

Kant believes we have a duty to do each of these things, yet these examples are supposed to show a difference between acting from duty as opposed to merely conforming with it. What do these examples reveal about acting from duty? (This claim about duty ends up being Kant’s unstated first proposition concerning duty and its connection to the good will.)

Kant’s “second proposition” (1785/2012, p. 15) claims that the moral worth of an action comes from the maxim on which it is done. What is a maxim? Why does this give an action its moral value?
Kant’s “third proposition” (1785/2012, p. 16) states that actions done for the sake of duty show respect for the moral law. What does this mean? (Kant’s footnote on page 17 may help.)
Putting these three propositions together, Kant believes he has isolated what makes the good will good: it is the will to adhere to the principle that “I ought to never proceed except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law” (1785/2012, p. 17). Use Kant’s example of the false promise (1785/2012, p. 18) to explain what this means, and how it involves a form of reasoning that is not prudential.

Although I strongly suggest that you write out brief answers to these questions, you do not have to turn in written responses. You do, however, need to be prepared to answer questions like these on module quizzes and the unit exams.

References

Kant, I. (2012). First Section: Transition from common to philosophical moral rational cognition. In M. Gregor & J. Timmermann (Trans. & Eds.), Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals (Revised ed., pp. 9–20). Cambridge University Press. (Original work from 1785)

Rachels, J., & Rachels, S. (2018). Are there absolute moral rules? In The elements of moral philosophy (9th ed., pp. 133–144). McGraw-Hill.