Intro to Ethics - The Good Will and the Categorical Imperative (Kant)

Why does Kant say nothing is good without limitation except a good will? Why aren’t talents, power, or even happiness good without limitation? 

• Talents (like wit and judgement), qualities of temperament (like courage), and gifts of fortune (like power and riches) can all be used for evil if the will behind them is bad  

• Even happiness can make people bold and arrogant unless a good will corrects it. A good will is the only thing that is good no matter how it’s used. 

What is the connection between a good will and being worthy of happiness? 

• Kant says a good will is the condition for being worthy of happiness.  

• An impartial rational spectator can’t take delight in seeing someone with no good will enjoy constant prosperity. So, without a good will, something is missing that makes happiness deserved. 

Why would a good will “shine like a jewel” even if it achieved nothing? 

A good will is good because of its volition (what it chooses), not because of what it achieves. Even if it achieved nothing, it would still have full worth in itself. Success of failure can’t add or take away from its worth. 

Kinds of action and duty - What is the difference between an act contrary to duty, and act in accordance with duty, and an act done from duty? 

• An act contrary to duty breaks what duty requires 

• An act in accordance with duty does what duty requires but for another reason, like self-interest or inclination 

• An act from duty is done because it is your duty, out of respect for the moral law

Kinds of action and duty - Give an example of an act that accords with duty but is done from inclination or self-interest? 

A shopkeeper who doesn’t overcharge customers because honesty is good for business is acting in accordance with duty from self-interest. Someone who helps others only because they enjoy it is acting from inclination. Both acts match duty, but neither is done from duty. 

Kinds of action and duty - Which acts have moral worth? Why doesn’t moral worth like in act’s effects? 

Only acts done from duty have moral worth. Worth doesn’t lie in effects, because the same effects could come from other causes, and the effects aren’t what make a will good. The worth is in the principle the person acts on, not in the result. 

What is a maxim? State the universal law formulation of the categorical imperative. 

• A maxim is the personal rule or principle you act on 

• The universal law formulation says: “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law” 

What are the steps of the universalizability test? Apply it to false promising. Why does the institution of promising a collapse? 

• The steps are: (1) state you maxim, (2) imagine everyone acting on it, (3) ask whether that world can be conceived without contradiction, and (4) ask whether you could consistently will that world 

• For false promising, the maxim is to make a promise you don’t intend to keep when you need money  

• If everyone did this, no one would believe promises, so promising itself would collapse and the maxim would defeat itself  

What is the difference between a hypothetical and a categorical imperative? Give an example of each.   

• A hypothetical imperative says what to do as a means to some end you want, ex. “if you want to pass the exam, study” 

• A categorical imperative says an action is necessary in itself, with no reference to any other end, ex. “don’t make false promises” 

How does Kant handle the suicide case and the case of neglecting one’s talents? What is the difference between a maxim that cannot be conceived as universal law and one that cannot be willed? 

• In the suicide case, the maxim (to end your life from self-love when life looks bad) contradicts itself. A nature whose law was to destroy life through the same feeling that drives us to preserve it couldn’t hold it together.  

• In the talents case, a world of idle people can be conceived, but you can’t will it, because as a rational being you necessarily will that your capacities be developed.  

• So, some maxims fail by contradiction (can’t be conceived), and others fail because you can’t consistently want that world (can’t be willed) 

What does it mean to say that rational beings are ends in themselves? How do the two formulations relate? 

• Rational beings have absolute worth, unlike objects of inclination, which only have conditional worth. This means we must treat humanity, in ourselves and others, always as an end and never merely as a means.  

• This formulation gives the same results as the universizability test in Kant’s examples (suicide, false promises, neglecting talents, and helping others), so they are two ways of expressing the same principle