For much of my life, I knew little about Kant except that he was an important philosopher. In my 50s, I audited a university philosophy class that introduced me to his writings. There is a reason I had not studied him earlier. His thinking is complex and his writing is hard to understand. After reading several of his influential books and then reading books about Kant and his philosophy, I began understanding what he was talking about. His ideas are important, and his reputation is well deserved.

My understanding of Kant is perhaps simplistic. Some of his finer points and nuances may have eluded me. But several of his basic ideas stuck with me. I am glad I finally took the time to explore his thinking.

Good will and duty

I learned from Kant the importance of will, particularly good will, and duty in guiding behavior. Will is the mechanism for choosing among courses of action. It is how we guide and control our actions.

Good will, in Kant’s view, is when the will is based on a commitment, or duty, to act following reasoned moral principles, or moral laws, independent of the consequences of our actions. He argues we should, through reason, formulate moral rules and commit to them a priori, or before we need to take action. People of “good will” follow moral principles out of duty. Reason is the basis for our moral rules, or maxims. Emotions and self-interest may align with our rules, but they are not the justification for them.  

Will governed by other mechanisms is common. People frequently act based on emotions or the expected consequences. Self-preservation, desire for happiness, empathy for others, and fear of punishment are examples of common and often good decision-making criteria. We apply these often innately and on instinct. We do not have to think much before acting.

Action driven by duty may be the same as actions motivated by factors such as emotion, but the motivation and justification are very different.

Reasoned imperatives, moral sentiments, and consequences

Kant’s view that emotion and outcomes should not be the basis for moral action often conflicts with other moral philosophies. The utilitarians focus primarily on outcomes. Hume and Smith saw emotion, particularly empathy, as the basis for moral action. This conflict puzzled me for a long time. It sometimes still does.

Reading Kant helped me synthesize these perspectives. While emotion is a powerful motivator, it has serious limitations as a basis for moral behavior. It is too unpredictable and is prone to excess. For example, our empathy is often strong for people we know and weak for those we don’t, leading to misjudgments about who needs our help the most. Decisions based on anger are rarely good ones. Emotional decision-making processes are often fast, leaving little time to gather important information.

Likewise, justifying morals based on consequences has limitations. It requires determining how different options will produce the desired results. That is hard in a complex world. We frequently encounter the law of unintended consequences. It is easy to have self-interest override what is good for society. Also, there is the perennial problem of whether the ends justify the means if our primary criterion is the desired outcome of our actions.

A Kantian reason-based moral imperative is not indifferent to outcomes. The reasoning underlying a specific maxim must anticipate its impact. Kant has several thought experiments that consider the outcome of applying a maxim.  

All of this led me to putting sentiments and consequences in their proper place in making moral decisions. They are not to be ignored. In most cases, they will be aligned. When aligned, they may provide additional motivation for acting. But they should not provide the foundation or justification for acting. That needs to come from well-reasoned moral principles followed primarily out of duty.

A rules-based approach based on Kant’s definition of good will is, in many ways, a simpler and more practical guide for actions. Decision-making is simplified because you have principles you have committed to ahead of time. You avoid getting carried away in the emotions of the moment or lost in a complex calculation of consequences. One can control narrow self-interest to favor a broader perspective.

The ideas about good will and duty led me to think more deeply about how I make choices and my motives. Am I choosing based on the outcome I want or the emotion I feel? Or am I following a moral principle formulated prior to the specific circumstance? Am I applying the best decision-making process for the situation?

I have long felt somewhat uneasy about “good” actions that seemed to be self-serving. It is a low moral bar to clear if we are helping ourselves. My donation to the local nature preserve helps others, but it is partly for my benefit since I birdwatch there. Similarly, I don’t deserve praise for doing something good because I fear the negative consequences if I don’t. Kant’s ideas helped me see my decision-making mechanisms more clearly and recognize their potential flaws.

Committing to follow reasoned moral principles improved the quality of my actions. It gave a better touchstone to test my process for choosing. I still have a will influenced by emotions and sensitive to consequences, but more often I can set those methods aside and apply reasoned moral principles instead.

Moral principles and the categorical imperative

Duty to follow principles only works well if your principles are well reasoned. Flawed actions will result if the moral principles guiding them are poorly conceived. Kant believed reason is essential to developing principles worthy of following. There are limits to reason, and Kant writes about those. But he preferred reason to the alternatives.

What Kant means by reason is not easily understood. There are different types of reason and different applications. It is practical reason that is relevant here. It is reasoning about values and actions rather than reasoning about facts. The reasoned moral rules are to be applied in the real world, not in some abstract speculation. While Aristotle and Kant have very different foundations for practical reasoning, both see their reasoning applied in the world we live in. That idea of practical application gets my attention because that is what I am most concerned about—how to live.  

Kant is famous for his categorical imperative, which is his rule (he called them maxims) to follow all the time and without conditions. “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.” This means that we should only act in ways that we could will everyone to act in the same situation. There are similarities with the Golden Rule. However, with Kant, personal preference should not be a factor in how we treat others; rather our universal maxims should govern behavior.  

He also stated a similar version of this imperative which is to never treat others solely as a means to an end. We should always treat people as an end in themselves. By this he means we should respect their humanity and not treat them in ways they would not knowingly agree to. We use people to achieve ends all the time, and that is not in itself a problem. But we should be sure it is not a one-way street where only we get what we want. We use the grocer to get our food, but we pay the grocer. It is mutually beneficial. 

I found the categorical imperative in its various formulations a good general rule to follow. It is a default moral law that will rarely lead you astray. Kant was strict in its application. However, my experience is that there are rare circumstances where its application is unclear or seems to conflict with other moral principles.

My experience is that Kant’s approach is not the only way to make decisions. It does not preclude self-interested actions. It does not mean we should not consider the desired consequences of our actions. It does provide a high-level test for the correctness of our actions. Even those philosophers who find fault with the categorical imperative respect its rigor and substance. It is a major contribution to moral philosophy.

Kant said that our goal should not be happiness but to be worthy of happiness. Duty to follow moral principles is primary, individual happiness is secondary. When I think about the people I admire for their ethics or virtues, it is often people who act on principle, even if the results were detrimental to them or if there were bad unintended consequences.

Kant’s ideas of good will, duty, and the categorical imperative are as good a foundation for making good moral decisions as I have found. It may be austere and demanding, but it sets a high standard for moral reasoning.