Let us examine the brilliant philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who can open our eyes to important ideas surrounding morality, ethics, and the relationship between our motives and our actions.
Consider a scenario of two people, we can call them Tom and Jerry. They both see a child who is struggling to stay afloat in a pool, and are inclined to help him. In the first instance, Tom is ecstatic to save the day, sincerely feeling pleasure in helping other people. In the second scenario, Jerry’s reaction is quite different. He is aggravated by the inconvenience and wants to not help the kid, but remembers that it is the morally right thing to do. “Fine,” he says to himself, murmuring as he swims over to save the child.
In his major work Religion Within the Limits of Mere Reason, Kant distinguishes between two kinds of moral people. First there is a bene moratus, or a person who acts morally, who in our example would be Tom. Then there is a moraliter bonus, or a morally good person, who in this case would be Jerry.
There is a vital distinction between the two. A bene moratus, like Tom, only acts morally on behalf of various motives such as honor or enjoying giving people compassion. But a moraliter bonus, such as Jerry, has only the moral law itself as a reason to behave morally.
So, what? What is the problem if one acts morally because he likes it, and the other does so for its own sake? Isn’t the outcome the same at the end of the day? The problem that Kant has is the possibility that it might not be.
Kant would maintain that whatever motive might have influenced Tom, in this case “pleasure,” could just as well have pushed him to act immorally. “If other motives are necessary to determine the will to lawful actions than the law itself,” Kant asserts, “it is merely accidental that these agree with the law: for they could just as well incite transgression.” So, a bene moratus like Tom “is nevertheless evil when he does nothing but good actions.”
Kant clarifies that, strictly speaking, “evil” does not mean evil as a motive in itself, which he describes as “devilish,” but rather “perversity of heart, which now, for the sake of consequences, is also an evil heart.”
On the other hand, Jerry, who was evidently reluctant, acted morally because it is intrinsically the right thing to do. This certainly brings him closer to the kind of moral person Kant approves of.
Kant believes that human beings have the free will to change our maxims (principles that govern our behavior) so that we can become good people and reject this evil inclination, these ulterior motives. Man “makes himself good or evil,” he argues. It is possible even for a “naturally bad person” to redeem himself, Kant claims, “for the decline from good to bad (if you consider that this springs from freedom) is no more comprehensible than the resurrection from evil to good.”
We must accept a pure maxim, he continues, which could serve as “the supreme basis of all our maxims.” It cannot be “connected with other motives, or even subordinated to these,” but rather should serve as a sufficient motive on its own. For Kant, such a maxim is the “categorical imperative,” which he expounds upon in an earlier work, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals.
He describes the categorical imperative as determining “an action as necessary of itself without reference to another end.” It does not worry about the means or consequences of an action. What only matters is the intent. “Let the consequences be what it may,” he wrote, insofar as the roots of such an action are moral.
In its original formulation, Kant’s categorical imperative is to “act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” So, if the justification for your action cannot be applied on a universal level, it is immoral.
At least to a certain extent, Kant’s philosophy of morals takes into account the problem of free will. For example, it may seem morally unfair that one person, who is born into difficult economic circumstances, is more drawn to considering stealing or deceiving in order to get by than someone who is better off financially. But, under Kant’s philosophy, this is not the case at all — both are subject to the same moral scrutiny.
No matter how good someone might act, insofar as he uses bad maxims instead of behaving morally for its own sake he is just as immoral as the next person. To only do good because we like it is in Kant’s view evil, for it stems from an evil maxim.
Regardless of our backgrounds, personalities, or desires, and our actions good or bad, Kant believes we all need to improve ourselves and change our maxims to be moral ones under the categorical imperative. This is the brilliance of Kant’s moral philosophy, bringing a consistent sense of responsibility to everybody. Ultimately we are all held to account, whether we are like Tom or Jerry.