Kant 1724 1804 What Gives An Act Moral

Kant 1724 - 1804 What Gives An Act Moral Worth? 1. 2. Consequences: No. Why? Control Persons have intrinsic value, not instrumental value Motives: Yes

What Is The Right Motive? An act has moral worth only it if is done with the right intention or motive: done in accordance with a “good will. ” Good will makes an act good. Good will: good unconditionally

The Shopkeeper What Is Her Motive? 3 Possible Motives 1. Good Business 2. Sympathy

3. It’s The Right Thing To Do (good will)/A Sense of Duty Only when an act is motivated by this concern for morality/moral law, does it have moral worth.

Why Will & Motive?

What Is The Right Thing To Do? • Right Motive + Right Act

Hypothetical/Categorial Imperatives • To understand what is right to do: hypothetical imperative & categorical imperative

Hypothetical Imperative • Not Moral • Contingent: contingent or dependent on what individuals want/desire • Individual: arise from individual goals/plans • Moral Imperatives: not contingent and are universal

Categorical Imperative • Unconditional and universally binding • Basic Moral Principle by which we determine what we ought and ought not to do.

The First Form • “Act only on that maxim that you can will as a universal law. ” • My act must be something that I can will others do (I can accept others doing). • Given I’m a rational being, I can only will what is noncontradictory.

The Second Form • “Always treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of another, never simply as a means but always at the same time as an end. ” 1. How we ought to treat ourselves as well as others. 2. Treat ourselves & others as ends rather than as means.

Universality & Rationality of Morality Moral Law: we’re subject to it & author of it: it flows from our own nature as rational beings “Kingdom of Ends”: community of rational persons Do our actions further or promote such a community?