Kantian Morality: Duty, Goodwill, and the Categorical Imperative

Immanuel Kant's Ethics of Duty: Dual Character and Moral Law

The Dual Nature of Man: Empirical vs. Intelligible

Man possesses a dual character: empirical and intelligible. Regarding the former, man is a body, like so many others in the universe, subject to the natural regularities related to any other body. We say that man is an empirical determination because he is a body and because he desires what the body wants. Theoretical reason can explain the causes and effects of nature.

Empirical inclinations in the case of man can be detected, evaluated, enabled, and selected, but they can never be canceled. There is not only a causality of nature (a coincidence of course), but also a causality of freedom. We only understand what we are if we consider what is in function of what we believe should be, applied through practical reason.

Freedom and Goodwill

Freedom is the property of a being that, besides being an object, can act in a rational, universal, and moral way. Someone may ask you to justify such an action, since it has been decided; it would not make sense for someone to hold me responsible for the coloring of my eyes or my height. It is good we act with goodwill. Here, Kant distinguishes between a holy will and an empirically determined will.

Duty as the Basis of Kantian Morality

The basis of Kantian morality is no longer happiness, but duty. Happiness is not the ultimate focus of morality, but rather the consistency of our actions with duty. From this perspective, we analyze what duty means and what features define a moral action.

Key Features of Kant's Morality of Duty:

1. Independence from Empirical Knowledge: The morality of duty, as expressed by Kant, is independent of empirical, scientific, or metaphysical knowledge. This is therefore a morality based on the obligation of conscience of each individual.

2. Formal Procedure vs. Materialist Conception: We speak of a formal morality (Procedure) versus the materialist conception of morality. This tells us precisely how the process works by which we can determine if a rule is considered moral or not.

Morality is not the doctrine that tells us how to be happy, but how we make ourselves worthy of happiness. Let us do our duty and then consider if the act we performed holds faith in the possibility that the sovereign good is given to man—that is what is worthwhile.

The Categorical Imperative

The moral value of action lies not, therefore, in some end or purpose to be achieved, but ultimately in the motive: duty. An action done from duty has its moral value. The existence of a duty to act morally is expressed in an imperative that is not and cannot be hypothetical, but is categorical. This mandate is unconditional, always valid, and under no circumstances can it be derogated, even when one has an awareness of its violation.