some definiions/ideas on morailty and 'good'

From the book "the Moral Law" by H J Paton. which is a review of Kant's philosophical writings.

"Under human conditions, where we have to struggle against unruly impulses and desires, a good will is manifested in acting for the sake of duty."

it goes on to say "hence if we are to understand human goodness we must examine the concept of duty."
which it does, and i'll get back to that later.

A human action is morally good, not because it is done from immediate inclination – still less because it is done for self-interest – but because it is done for the sake of duty.

The goodness shown in helping others is all the more conspicuous if a man does this for the sake of duty when he is fully occupied with his own troubles and when he is not impelled to do so by his natural inclinations.

A man is morally good, not at seeking to satisfy his own desires or to attain his own hapiness (though he may do both these things), but seeking to obey a law valid for all men and to follow an objective standard not determined by his own desires

this law appears to us as a law we ought to obey for its own sake.

we have to "accept or reject [moral laws] according as they can or cannot be willed as universal laws, that is, as laws that are valid for all men, and not just as special privileges of our own.

what we are discussing is not in fact what men do, but what they ought to do.

What we have to show is that there is a moral law valid for all rational beings as such and for all men in virtue of their rationality—a law which rational beings as such ought to follow if they are tempted to do otherwise. This [law] could never be established by any experience of actual human behaviour.

Moral principles are confused with principles of self-interest, and this has the effect of weakening the claims of morality in a misguided effort to strengthen them.

This is a method i see of many books promoting things like 'kindness' by saying things like 'people who are kind live longer' appealing to self interest to promote selfless acts seems a bit oxymoronic to me.
It is for this reason that i previously stated that i cannot use shouldn't use self-serving motives to try and promote moral behaviour. (although this may be a way of getting more people to behave in that way, and may have a similar result (ie more people might feel the results of such actions) it would only serve to re-inforce self-centered motives).

this i think helps sum up what i've been trying to communicate thus far, a 'good' principle might be considered as:

a principle on which a rational agent should necessarily act if reason had full control over passion. So far as an agent acts on [principles such as these], his will and his actions may be described as in some sense 'good'.

Kant always assumes that a principle on which a fully rational agent as such would necessarily act is also one that an imperfectly rational agent ought to act if he is tempted to do otherwise.

i like this emphasis on rational, and fully rational. perhaps, in order to be as good as we can be, we have to also be as rational as we can be.

So act in a way that your will can regard itself at the same time as making universal law through its maxim.

ie. try to act in such a way that the way you act could be considered as adhering to a universal moral law.


I really like this next idea because it re-inforced what i was saying about the pursuit of 'good' being, in itself, good even if we, as humans, never fully achieve that goal.

We ought to pursue this ideal whether or not we can expect to secure its results, and this disinterested pursuit of the moral ideal is at once the source of man's dignity and the standard by which he must be judged.

also, for clarification the author previously described dignity in the following manner:

A thing has price if any substitute or equivalent can be found for it. It has dignity or worthiness if it admits of no equivalent.
Morality or virtue—and humanity so far as it is capable of morality—alone has dignity.