Wednesday, April 1, 2015
KANT
Kant believes that actions have moral worth when motivated by duty, not inclination. To illustrate this point, he offers examples where subjects have no inclination to adhere to duty. (11-12) As a theoretical condition, absence of inclination ensures actions of moral value. At The Press, Francesca claimed that people always act self interestedly, and indeed complete absence of inclination can never be proven. Her point does not address the existence of universal law or obligations to observe it. It questions whether it is possible to perform an action that has moral worth. I believe it is. Consider a martyr, burned alive for religious observance. Consider the searing, overwhelming pain. Does he endure for the satisfaction of following his obligations? No, he is bound regardless of consequence. Anyone disagree with Kant's claims?
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So I do think that Kant's notion of true moral worth is interesting, as it makes a clear distinction between truly moral people and those who act for individual benefit. Kant gives examples of people who could act from duty and receive no pleasure or happiness from their beneficence. However, I do think this would make only a very small amount of people have true moral worth. Many people act beneficently because they both feel it is duty and feel pleasure from acting beneficently. As Nico explains, this sort of act would not be one of true moral worth. I am curious about the possible benefits that can come from actions. For Nico's example, perhaps the martyr goes to heaven or receives eternal salvation for his martyrdom. Does this mean the act no longer has true moral worth? Or only if the martyr dies hoping for heaven? If the martyr died thinking that nothing positive would come about from his death, but then something does - is the act still moral? And then I would ask, why would the martyr die if he thought his death was meaningless?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you are giving Kant enough credit? Does he deny that actions that you enjoy performing have moral worth, or does he deny that actions that you only perform because you happen to perform them have moral worth? If you are motivated sufficiently to act from duty, but also happen to experience pleasure from helping a person, is that a problem for moral worth?
DeleteI agree with much of Fiona's comment--- Kant's standard of morality is quite high. Though I think people may act in a way that does not advance a type of defined self-interest or choose to act as a group. As your martyr example shows, people often choose to follow a certain cause or general a group that may diminish the value in an individual's life on each. However, even acts like sacrificing your life on earth does not mean that you are giving up your self-worth or advancing your own interest; in fact, most choose to do so because of the rewards they seek to obtain in the afterlife and the pride they will feel (before and they believe post-humanously as well).
ReplyDeleteI agree for the most part with the way you guys are characterizing Kant's requirements for moral worth, but I think the group of people who are morally worthy is actually slightly broader than you're giving him credit for. For instance, in Fiona's example, the end result of the martyr's actions in no way affect whether his action was morally worthy or not. If he didn't die out of duty, but something really positive comes out of his death, it still doesn't make his actions morally worthy according to Kant. But as far as someone's actions aligning with both inclination and duty, I don't think it automatically discounts actions' moral worth if they happen to align with someone's inclinations if the actions were also performed out of duty. What matters for Kant is the motivation behind actions. If someone was motivated out of duty, and their actions happened to also align with their inclinations, that doesn't automatically make their actions not morally worthy. I think it's just difficult to really know if someone's actions are out of duty, if that person's inclinations would also lead them to the same actions. But theoretically, I think that inclinations and duty could exist side by side.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lanie. Whether someone is inclined to an action or whether the action brings pleasure is irrelevant. The reason behind action is what matters. The problems is that this is hard to determine.
DeleteI agree with Lanie as well. I think Kant wants to illustrate that merely doing what you want to do, whether it's save the world or go to a movie, does not have any moral worth unless we look at the intentions behind the action and can determine why the person wants to do something. If someone wants to save a cat from a tree so they can be recognized as a hero, then even if the action resulted in a positive outcome, it has no moral merit. Whereas, if the person goes out of her way to save the cat out of concern for the cat's well-being, this is considered moral. This is the kind of action Kant thinks is possible to universalize. If everyone only saved others for notoriety as hero, then the term hero would become a fallacy and everyone would be incapable of acting in this way. In many situations, as aforementioned, it's difficult to isolate why we do something from whether we want to do something and I think that is why he uses the examples that he does.
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