9.2 Duty and The Good Will

Kant began his ethical theory by arguing that the only virtue that can be an unqualified good is a good will. No other virtue qualifies as the starting point for ethics because every other virtue—e.g.: honesty, compassion, courage, moderation—other thing, can be used to achieve immoral ends. For example, the virtue of loyalty is not good if one is loyal to an evil person. The good will is singularly unique in that it is always good and maintains its moral value regardless of it achieves its moral intentions. Kant regarded the good will as the foremost moral principle that requires us to freely chooses to use other virtues for genuinely moral ends.

For Kant, a good will has a broader conception than a will that acts simply from duty. It might be one’s duty to take out the trash, obey speed limits, or stand watch at an outpost in enemy territory. Such tasks might be obligatory but, if done begrudgingly, are not what Kant means by doing one’s duty.

Here Kant makes an important distinction between acting in accordance with duty and acting for the sake of duty, from the good will.

Acting in Accordance with Duty and Acting for the Sake of Duty

When we act in Accordance with Duty, we are often acting to fulfill obligations put on us by others, e.g. the obligation to pay taxes, the obligation to honor thy father and thy mother, the obligation to care for our children. Whereas these obligations are important, they are not what Kant means by acting for the Sake of Duty. These obligations are often done begrudgingly, to comply with the expectations of others. Even if we choose to see the good in these things, that good comes as a consequence of performing such duties, and thus is not fit for ethical consideration.

When we act for the Sake of Duty, on the other hand, we are acting from our own inner imperative, from our desire to do the right thing regardless of consequences. We act regardless of what others expect. We act without consideration for rewards. We act because we must. For Kant this means that acting for the sake of duty is the only way that an action can have moral worth. We will see below what we must do for our actions to be carried out for the sake of duty. However, before we do this, we need to be clear on this point about moral worth.

Imagine that you are walking with a friend. You pass someone begging on the street. Your friend starts to weep, fumbles in his wallet and gives the beggar some money and tells you that he feels such an empathy with the poor man that he just has to help him.

For Kant, your friend’s action has no moral worth because what is moving him to give money is empathy rather than duty. He is acting as society expects him to act, in accordance with duty, and for the consequence of bettering the life of the beggar and making himself feel better. Although Kant does think your friend should be applauded as such an action is something that is of value although it wouldn’t be correct to call it a moral action.

To make this point clearer, Kant asks us to consider someone who has no sympathy for the suffering of others and no inclination to help them. But despite this:

… he nevertheless tears himself from his deadly insensibility and performs the action without any inclination at all, but solely from duty then for the first time his action has genuine moral worth. (Groundwork, Ch. 2)

In contrast to our friend, this person is acting for the sake of duty because he knows that to give to the poor is the right thing to do regardless of how one feels about it or what society says, and hence their action is moral. We must be careful though. Kant is not telling us to become emotionally barren robots! He is not saying that before we can act morally, we need to get rid of sympathy, empathy, desires, love, and inclinations. This would make Kant’s moral philosophy an absurd non-starter.

Let us see why Kant is not saying this. Consider an action such as giving to others. We should ask whether an action of giving to others would have been performed even if the agent lacked the desire to do so. If the answer is “yes” then the act has moral worth. The question for Kant is not whether an agent has desires but what moved the agent to act. If they acted because of those desires, they acted in accordance with duty and their action had no moral worth. If they acted for the sake of duty, and just happened to have those desires, then their action has moral worth.

Kant’s conception of duty does not necessarily require that people perform their duties grudgingly. Although duty often constrains people and prompts them to act against their inclinations, it still comes from an agent’s volition: they desire to keep the moral law from respect of the moral law. Thus, when an agent performs an action from duty it is because their moral incentives are chosen over and above any opposing inclinations, consequences or expectations of others. Kant wished to move beyond the conception of morality as externally imposed duties, and present an ethics of autonomy, when rational agents freely recognize the claims reason makes upon them.

The Good Will as Good Without Qualification

But this raises the question. If it is not our desires that move us to do what is right (even our strong desires), then what does? In our example, why is it that we keep our promise despite the strong desire to gossip? Kant’s answer is “the good will.”  For Kant, the good will is something in us that desires to do what is right regardless of the effects or consequences:

A Good Will is good not because of what it effects, or accomplishes, not because of its fitness to attain some intended end, but good just by its willing, i.e. in itself; and, considered by itself, it is to be esteemed beyond compare much higher than anything that could ever be brought about by it in favor of some inclinations, and indeed, if you will, the sum of all inclinations. Even if by some particular disfavor of fate, or by the scanty endowment of a stepmotherly nature, this Will should entirely lack the capacity to carry through its purpose; if despite its greatest striving it should still accomplish nothing, and only the Good Will were to remain (not of course, as a mere wish, but as the summoning of all means that are within our control); then, like a jewel, it would still shine by itself, as something that has full worth in itself”. (Groundwork)

It is also good without qualification. In his Foundations for a Metaphysics of Morals (1785) he claimed:

Nothing in the world—indeed nothing even beyond the world—can possibly be conceived which could be called good without qualification except a Good Will

By this Kant means that a good will is always good and does not require anything else to be good. It is, to use terminology from our chapter on the Utilitarians, an intrinsic good, good in and of itself. He believed that a good will is one that acts in accordance with the moral law and out of respect for that law, rather than out of natural inclinations.

Kant also believed that other good things are “qualified” goods, meaning they are only instrumentally good. For example, if you volunteer with a charity because you believe you have an obligation to help, but also because you enjoy it, Kant might say that you deserve some moral credit for your action, but not as much as if you were primarily motivated by duty.

The good will, unlike anything else, is good unconditionally and in all situations, and what makes a good will “good” is the willing alone, not other attitudes, consequences, or characteristics of the agent.

Consider Mahatma Gandhi’s (1869–1948) non-violent protest for Indian independence. He stood peacefully whilst the British police beat him. Here is a case where there must have been an overwhelming desire to fight back. But he did not. In this type of action, Kant would claim that we “see” the good will “shining like a jewel.”  Seeing such resilience in the face of such awful violence, we are humbled and can recognize, what Kant calls, its moral worth.

Obviously, not all actions are as significant as Gandhi’s. However, Kant thinks that any acts like this, which are performed despite conflicting desires, are due to the good will. Considering such actions means we can recognize that the good will exists.