The problem with the cold-hearted benefactor...is not that he has duty as a motive; it is that he has duty as his only motive. 

Karen E. Stohr
Virtue Ethics and Kant's Cold-Hearted Benefactor, 2002

Stohr is expressing the view, held by many, that Kant's ethical theory is inadequate because it fails to recognise the moral value of anything other than duty. She is referring to the passage where "Kant makes it clear that a helping action done from duty will have moral worth, despite the fact that it is performed by someone who lacks a warm temperament and sympathetic feelings. It is not appealing inclinations that confer moral worth on actions, but the agent's commitment to duty..."

Some people interpret Kant as saying an action only has moral worth if it is done from duty and there is a complete absence of any inclinations to perform the action. Most philosophers will point to other passages in Kant which show that he was quite happy for people to have sympathetic feelings and particular inclinations to act. The point, though, is that the action only has moral worth to the extent that the person's maxim was based on duty and nothing else, whether or not they have feelings of sympathy, etc.

There may well be cases where people are morally praiseworthy for acting out of duty even if they have no particular inclination to do the right thing. Indeed, we might normally think it particularly praiseworthy if someone does the right thing even in circumstances where they really don't want to. What troubles Stohr and others is that Kant is excluding the possibility that appropriate feelings can ever add anything to duty. Intuitively, this seems incorrect.

Stohr refers to a story told by Michael Stocker that appears to highlight how there are occasions when duty by itself is not enough...

...suppose you are in a hospital, recovering from a long illness. You are very bored and restless and at loose ends when Smith comes in once again. You are now convinced more than ever that he is a fine fellow and a real friend—taking so much time to cheer you up, traveling all the way across town, and so on. You are so effusive with your praise and thanks that he protests that he always tries to do what he thinks is his duty, what he thinks will be best. You at first think he is engaging in a polite form of self-deprecation, relieving the moral burden. But the more you two speak, the more clear it becomes that he was telling the literal truth: that it is not essentially because of you that he came to see you, not because you are friends, but because he thought it his duty, perhaps as a fellow Christian or Communist or whatever, or simply because he knows of no one more in need of cheering up and no one easier to cheer up.
Surely there is something lacking here—and lacking in moral merit or value... 

Michael Stocker
The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories, 1976

Intuitively, this is very compelling. W. Ashley McMurray sums up the positions by saying, "Whereas Kant believes the cold-hearted benefactor to be a paragon of morality, Stohr argues that his lack of feelings represents a genuine moral deficiency." McMurray agrees that Cold-Hearted Benefactor does indeed lack something but denies it is a moral deficiency.

He says,

[Stohr] fails to make a critical distinction between the good life and the moral life. This distinction is crucial, for what the good life requires goes beyond the scope of morality, and what the moral life demands may exact deep personal sacrifice...
What the cold-hearted benefactor lacks is not a moral good, but an essential human good. Ultimately, he suffers from a human deficiency rather than a moral one. 

W. Ashley McMurray, 2015
Morality, the Good Life, and the Cold-Hearted Benefactor

 

 

 

 

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