Immanuel Kant: Duty and Reason Essay

The action of an individual is said to depend on lots of factors. The value of these actions is weighed based on the different point of views of humans. Immanuel Kant, a philosopher, classifies the moral worth of an action through the use of two concepts; duty and reason. Acting based on duty and reason can be better understand by looking at these cases from Kant’s point of view and by means of thoroughly analyzing the arguments presented to consider an acts moral worth. Considering the case that a husband loves his wife because he loves her such that he has an inclination to be faithful to her, Kant’s view for this example will be that this case has no moral worth. For Kant, the foundation of morality is duty. The factor that causes human to be moral beings is their duty and the factor to be considered in determining the moral of an act is the persons will to follow his duty. (www. ipf. edu, n. d. ) On the other hand, a husband’s act to remain loyal to his wife as a matter of duty, although he finds it decidedly unpleasant will be considered by Kant to have a moral worth. A moral action has a moral worth not because of the effect of the action itself but because of the value that the action done according to duty that was set by the society. (Abbott, 1907) For Kant, the fact that the action is done only for duty alone is in itself makes the action to contain a moral worth. (Herman, 1981) It refers mainly to duty being implemented through the law that makes an action of moral worth. (www. philosophypages. com, n. d. ) The moral worth of both cases can be better understood through differentiating acting in accordance with duty and acting from duty. Acting in accordance with duty has no moral worth since it is just an act that conforms to duty as guided by self-interest. Acting from duty, on the other hand, is an act that is done because the duty is requiring it. It means that actions will only have a moral worth if they are performed from duty while those actions that are taken as caused by self-interest that accords with duty for whatever reason, have no moral worth. In the example of a husband that loves his wife due to two reasons, we can say that the first case, which is loving the wife because the husband has an inclination to love her is considered by Kant to be of no moral worth since the husband does not love his wife from duty. He just loves the wife because it is his self-interest that motivates him to love her. In that way, he loves according to self-interest that just so happen to be in accord with loving from duty. Thus, he is loving his wife in accordance with duty and is thus it has no moral worth. For the second example of loving which is loving his wife because it is his duty as a husband even if he finds it unpleasant, this act has moral worth for Kant because the act is done out of the need to follow duty. The husband loves his wife because it should be his action towards his wife as it is set by the laws and rule of the society. Even if he will not gain self-pleasure from it, he is still doing it because it is his duty as husband to love his wife. Thus, he is acting from duty and his act contains moral worth for Kant. Upon understanding Kant’s philosophy, I can say that he has a good point on why he believed that the moral worth of an act is based on the duty that forces a person to commit such act. The good thing about his account of moral worth is that an act can be considered to have a moral worth if that is done without self-interest but is done only as dictated by duty. His philosophy is good in a sense because it can assess the moral worth of a person in terms of the responsibility that he should carry and not only acting as a result of his own decision in order to gain pleasure from it. However, I disagree with him. I believe that if an act is done whether for the sake of following your duty or the laws implemented by the society as based from their reasoning, an act can still have a moral worth depending also on its effect on the society. For me, I think that what Kant is trying to say is that the moral worth in different cases that we have to make a decision or an act lies on the will to follow the duty itself. It only means that the one of moral worth is the ability to follow duties or the rules and not the act itself. If we are doing something even if we can just derived pleasure or get something out of it, as long as we don’t step on the rights of others and can contribute to our society, our acts can still have moral worth. In line with this, I can say that acting from duty is morally right as well as acting according to duty as long as our interests do not conflict with the violation of the rights of another people. I think that pursuing self-interest that will lead to the good of other people, as in the case of Mother Teresa, is morally worth. The self-interest in that sense does not conflict with the violation of the rights of others, but instead, it leads to the good of the needy. Hence, it still has its moral worth. For example, a lifeguard is saving the lives of drowning people, even if he doesn’t want too and what he is doing is just a burden for him has a moral worth. Also, a lifeguard that is saving the lives of drowning people and expecting in return that he will receive a word of thank you from the people that he saved still has a moral worth. This is because, I think, that no matter what motivates you to do an act as long as it can help others and does not bypass human rights, that act has a moral worth. In the case of a lifeguard, saving people as caused by duty and saving people as caused by an expectation to receive a word of thanks are both morally correct. It is because the fact that the lifeguard has saved a life no matter what is the reason that makes me considered it to have a moral worth. I also believe that morality is subjective depending on a person’s bringing up, culture, experiences and way of thinking. One act can be of moral value to a person but for some, may be the same act has little or no moral worth at all. That is, morality lies on each one of us and that the effect that it can make to ourselves and especially to our society will greatly dictates its moral worth. Different societies may evaluate the same act to have a different moral worth. A way to explain this is by looking at the case of Eskimos. For Eskimos, offering their wives to have sex with a guest is a polite action as a way of entertaining a visitor. In their way, their act has a moral worth because they are acting from duty. However, if a wife from other country will ask his husband that she wants to have sex with their guest as a way of entertaining the guest, the action is resulting from self-interest and not from duty that is dictated by the culture. Thus, it does not have a moral worth. This explains that the value of moral worth is subjective to culture, and to the specific society itself. Thus, in conclusion, I can say that the first case of loving a wife that was mentioned, which is loving as motivated by inclination, has moral worth because he is still doing his responsibility or duty even if he really wants to do it as directed by his emotion. The second case, which is loving because that is dictated by duty, also contains a moral value, although lesser than the first one. For me, it’s moral worth is less than the first because he is not loving his wife whole heartedly but only loving her because he is required by his duty. I think that in general, Kant’s theory is good but is lacking in a certain aspect that greatly affects the action of human, which is emotions. This is because aside from intellectual reasoning, we also have emotions and that these emotions can also dictate us on how we are going to act. Whether we act from duty or we act in accordance with duty as directed by self-interest which is controlled by emotions, our action can both have moral worth. Thus, in summary Kant had contributed a view about the reason for one’s act in terms of the assessment of the action. However, it is limited and there must be other factors to be considered in assessing the moral value of one’s act, in which his theory must contain. Works Cited Abbott, T. K. (1907). Immanuel Kant Duty Is Prior to Happiness. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals. Retrieved November 22, 2007 from http://books. google. com/books? id=Y2oIobRXrWIC&pg=PA92&ots=lqnR0qrkHw&dq= On+the+Va lue+of+Acting+from+the+Motive+of+Duty,&ei=wT9FR63gI4KktAPBgYXbBg&sig=Z8 QYGzRw_L9lc eC8Xkj1_JOZjKA Herman, Barbara, (1981). On the Value of Acting from the Motive of Duty. The Philosophical Review. Volume 90, No. 3 pp 359-382. Retrieved November 22, 2007 from http://links. jstor. org/sici? sici=0031- 8108(198107)90%3A3%3C359%3AOTVOAF%3E2. 0. CO%3B2- B www. ipfw. edu. (n. d. ). Retrieved November 22, 2007 from http://209. 85. 173. 104/search? q=cache:_3cincyqJb0J:www. ipfw. edu/phil/faculty/Esteve z/Kant. ppt+Duty+and+Reason-+immanuel+Kant&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us www. philosophypages. com. (n. d. ). Kant: The Moral Order. Retrieved November 22, 2007 from http://www. philosophypages. com/hy/5i. htm.