Primary texts for Kantian ethics

Immanuel Kant, from

Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals
In the version by Jonathan Bennett presented at www.earlymoderntexts.com

My topic is the difference between doing something from duty and doing it for other reasons. In tackling this, I shall set aside without discussion two kinds of case — one for which my question doesn‘t arise, a second for which the question arises but is too easy to answer for the case to be interesting or instructive. Following those two, I shall introduce two further kinds of case·.

1. I shan‘t discuss actions which — even if they are useful in some way or other — are clearly opposed to duty, because with them the question of doing them from duty doesn‘t even arise.

2. I shall also ignore cases where someone does A, which really is in accord with duty, but where what he directly wants isn‘t to perform A but to perform B which somehow leads to or involves A. ·For example: he (B) unbolts the door so as to escape from the fire, and in so doing he (A) enables others to escape also. There is no need to spend time on such cases·, because in them it is easy to tell whether an action that is in accord with duty is done •from duty or rather •for some selfish purpose.

3. It is far harder to detect that difference when the action the person performs - one that is in accord with duty — is what he directly wanted to do, ·rather than being something he did only because it was involved in something else that he directly wanted to do·. Take the example of a shop-keeper who charges the same prices for selling his goods to inexperienced customers as for selling them to anyone else. This is in accord with duty. But there is also a prudential and not- duty-based motive that the shop-keeper might have for this course of conduct: when there is a buyers‘ market, he may sell as cheaply to children as to others so as not to lose customers. Thus the customer is honestly served, but we can‘t infer from this that the shop-keeper has behaved in this way from duty and principles of honesty. His own advantage requires this behaviour, and we can‘t assume that in addition he directly wants something for his customers and out of love for them he charges them all the same price. His conduct of his policy on pricing comes neither from duty nor from directly wanting it, but from a selfish purpose.

   [Kant‘s German really does say first that the shop-keeper isn‘t led by a direct want and then that he is. His point seems to be this:— The shop-keeper does want to treat all his customers equitably; his intention is aimed at precisely that fact about his conduct (unlike the case in (2) where the agent enables other people to escape but isn‘t aiming at that at all). But the shop- keeper‘s intention doesn‘t stop there, so to speak; he wants to treat his customers equitably not because of what he wants for them, but because of how he wants them to behave later in his interests. This involves a kind of indirectness, which doesn‘t assimilate this case to (2) but does distinguish it from a fourth kind of conduct that still isn‘t morally worthy but not because it involves the 'indirectness‘ of (2) or that of (3).]

4. It is a duty to preserve one‘s life, and moreover everyone directly wants to do so. But because of the power of· that want, the often anxious care that most men have for their survival has no intrinsic worth, and the maxim Preserve yourself has no moral content. Men preserve their lives according to duty, but not from duty. But now consider this case:

Adversities and hopeless sorrow have completely taken away this unfortunate man‘s relish for life. But his fate has not made him passively ·despondent or dejected. He is strong in soul, and is exasperated at how things have gone for him, ·and would like actively to do something about it. Specifically·, he wishes for death. But he preserves his life without loving it, not led by any want or fear, but acting from duty.

For this person the maxim Preserve yourself has moral content.

We have a duty to be charitably helpful where we can, and many people are so sympathetically constituted that without any motive of vanity or selfishness they find an inner satisfaction in spreading joy and take delight in the contentment of others if they have made it possible. But I maintain that such behaviour, done in that spirit, has no true moral worth, however amiable it may be and however much it accords with duty. It should be classed with ·actions done from· other wants, such as the desire for honour. With luck, someone‘s desire for honour may lead to conduct that in fact accords with duty and does good to many people; in that case it deserve praise and encouragement; but it doesn‘t deserve high esteem, because the maxim ·on which the person is acting· doesn‘t have the moral content of an action done not because the person likes acting in that way but from duty.

[In this context, ̳want‘ and ̳liking‘ and ̳desire‘ are used to translate Neigung, elsewhere in this version translated as ̳preference‘; other translations mostly use ̳inclination‘.]

Now consider a special case:

This person has been a friend to mankind, but his mind has become clouded by a sorrow of his own that has extinguished all feeling for how others are faring. He still has the power to benefit others in distress, but their need leaves him untouched because he is too preoccupied with his own. But now he tears himself out of his dead insensibility and acts charitably purely from duty, without feeling any want or liking so to behave.

Now, for the first time, his conduct has genuine moral worth. Having been deprived by nature of a warm-hearted temperament, this man could find in himself a source from which to give himself a far higher worth than he could have got through such a temperament. It is just here that the worth of character is brought out, which is morally the incomparably highest of all: he is beneficent not from preference but from duty.