Kant's Good Will

• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a highly influential German philosopher.
• The text introduces two key elements of Kant's moral philosophy from "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals".

The Good Will

• The "good will" is the only thing with unconditional value.
• The good will holds value in its own right, in every circumstance.
• A good will is the steady commitment to do our duty for its own sake.
• Actions only possess moral worth if they are prompted by a good will.
• Talents of mind like understanding and judgement are good and desirable but can be harmful if the will is not good.
• Gifts of fortune like power, riches and honour can produce arrogance unless a good will corrects them and brings actions into conformity with universal ends.
• Qualities like moderation, self-control, and calm reflection are good for all sorts of purposes but can be extremely evil without a good will.
• A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes, but only because of its volition; it is good in itself.
• The usefulness of a good will does not determine its worth.
• Duty contains the concept of a good will.

The Categorical Imperative

• The "categorical imperative" is Kant's term for a requirement of reason that applies to everyone, regardless of personal desires.
• Moral requirements are categorical imperatives, stating what we must do.
• Moral action, according to Kant, is essentially rational action.
• People have a compelling reason to obey morality, even when it frustrates desires.
• Actions are morally acceptable only when the principles that inspire them can be acted on consistently by everyone.
• Humanity should always be treated as an end in itself, never as a mere means.
• Kant offers illustrations to help understand and apply these abstract formulations.

Tests for Morally Acceptable Action

• Kant sets out two tests for morally acceptable action.
• Actions should be based on principles that everyone can consistently act upon.
• Treat humanity as an end in itself.
• A good will is not good because of what it accomplishes, but because of its volition, valued higher than inclinations.
• Actions contrary to duty are not considered, as the question of whether they might have been done from duty never arises.
• Actions that conform to duty, but are done from another inclination, make it easy to distinguish whether an action is done from duty or from a self-seeking purpose.

Duty and Moral Worth

• Preserving one's life is a duty, and people often take care of it, but this has no inner worth.
• If someone wishes for death and preserves their life without loving it, then the maxim has moral content.
• Being beneficent is a duty, and some find inner satisfaction in spreading joy, but it has no true moral worth.
• If a philanthropist is overclouded by their own grief and still acts from duty, then the action has genuine moral worth.
• Moral worth does not lie in the expected effect or in any principle that needs to borrow its motive from the expected effect.
• Nothing other than representation of the law can constitute the preeminent good that is called moral.
• The representation of the law determines the will, even without regard for the expected effect, to be a good will.

Universal Law

• The will should serve as its principle mere conformity to universal law.
• One ought never to act except in such a way that one could also will that their maxim should become a universal law.
• Common human reason agrees with this and always has this principle before its eyes.
• The question: may I, when hard pressed, make a promise with the intention not to keep it.
• Reflecting on whether a maxim should hold as a universal law makes obvious that lying as universal law would destroy the concept of promising itself.
• One does not need penetrating acuteness to see what has to be done in order that one's volition is morally good.

Hypothetical vs. Categorical Imperatives

• Imperatives command either hypothetically or categorically.
• Hypothetical imperatives represent the practical necessity of a possible action as a means to achieving something else.
• Categorical Imperatives represents an action as objectively necessary of itself, without reference to another end.
• If an action would be good merely as a means to something else the imperative is hypothetical.
• The imperative is categorical if the action is represented as in itself good.
• The categorical imperative has to do not with the matter of the action and what is to result from it, but with the form and the principle from which the action itself follows.

Single Categorical Imperative

• Only a a single categorical imperative exists: act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.
• The universal imperative of duty can also go as follows: act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature.
• Duties can classify into duties to ourselves, to other beings, and perfect and imperfect duties.
• "Perfect duty" refers to one with no exception regarding inclination
• A nature whose law it would be to destroy life itself by means of the same feeling whose destination is to impel toward the furtherance of life would contradict itself and would therefore not subsist as nature.
• Another finds himself urged by need to borrow money.
• If the person decides to do so the principle of self-love is perhaps quite consistent with the persons whole future warfare but the person needs to question if it right.
• A third possesses a talent that allows him to become useful for many purposes.

Absolute Worth

• Humans must be regarded an end.
• Inclinations do not have absolute worth.
• In the end the worth of rational beings does not rest on our will but in nature.
• If there is to be a supreme practicial principle then the human will the categorical imperative.
• Ground of principle: rational nature exists as an end in itself.
• The practical imperative is: so act that you ise humanity as an end, never merely as means.
• A person takes their own life merely used as a means to maintain a tolerable condition to the end of life.

Explore Kant's concept of the 'good will' as presented in 'Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals'. Understand its significance as the only thing with unconditional value, and how it influences the moral worth of actions. Contrast the good will with talents, gifts, and qualities.