PHIL2505: First Part Of The GroundWork For The Metaphysics of Morals
PREFACE:
- aim...Supreme Principle of Morality
Key features of autonomy:
1) A rational agent is self-governing/self-legislating. We impose the standards of moral judgement on ourselves.
2) Rational agents are ends in themselves. Each agent alone can make their decisions concerning right and wrong action.
The Influence of the EMOTIONSThe emotions themselves cannot be justification for action.
THE GOOD WILL
Underlying common moral understanfin is
Good-Will.
-> begins by asserting the only unlimited good is the Good-Will (393)....must also assume that agents have the capacity to be free.
=> to "prove" this (the good will thing): compare with other possible candidates -> inherently desirable traits.
* concludes that is the will is not good the traits may be bent to evil.
- Without good-will the aspiration of happiness may corrupt us.
~> we can't think of the good-will as being like any other virtue, some fixed quality of human nature. In fact to consider it as such is naive and harmful.
-> then you either have it or you dont (this thought is obviously wrong...for KANT everyone must have the ability to have good-will as a std for all rational agents.)
=> KANT believes everyone has good-will underlying in order that autonomy can trump any self-interested (hurtful) desires.
DUTY: (397-401)
Acting in ACCORDANCE: is where we look to find an expression of the good will.
Acting in CONFORMITY: doing the right thing because it seems right, has ulterior motives. eg self-interest.
TWO (2) KINDS OF MOTIVATION
1)
Indirect Inclination There is no immediate inclination to act from duty but only because they are impelled to do so through another inclination.
EG Shopkeeper.
2)
Direct Inclination Someone does what is right not from duty but because someone is so constituded that they are beneficiant to others simply because they find "an inner satisfaction in spreading joy around them". (398)
-> no genuine moral worth
-> this is like acting from duty in the sense that it aims to help other, but the ground is an inclination, so it is not acting from duty. What KANT is trying to distinguish is the idea that we act from duty when we are self constraining.
MORAL WORTH AND MAXIMS
First Proposition:
action hs moral worth when done from duty. (393-398) no ulteriors
Second Proposition:
"an action performed from duty has its moral worth not in the purpose/end to be attained by it, but in the
maxim in accordance with which it is decided upon," and this does not require that it be achieved, only that the action be driven by "the principle of volition in accordance with which the actoin is done without regard for any object of the faculty of desire." (399-400)
Moral Worth; "nowhere else than in the principle of the will without regard for the ends that can be bought about bu such an action." (400)
Third Proposition:
Duty is the necessity of an action from 'respect' for the law.
The ground on which the action is based is solely from the respec of the objective and subjective attributes of the law.
RESPECT FOR THE LAW
The law is a command because it has two (2) features...
1) Objectivity - is all that could motivate us once we set aside our inclination.
2) Subjective Feeling - from the subjective side this objectivity instils respect. Because of its objectivity we recognise its necessity. We are motivated to act because we 'feel' its
necessity.
"duty is the necessity to act out of respect for the law"(400)
In recognition of the objectivity of the law it implies a necessity of action; thus the subjective feeling gives us a respect for the law in which we act from
=> recognition of our value of good will.
* Respect from the correct determination of the good will.
* refer to footnote on pg. 401
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