Immanuel Kant born in a deeply pietistic Lutheran family in Konigsberg, Germany, lived in that town his entire life and taught at the University of Konigsberg. After his father died, he was compelled to halt his university career and earn his living as a private tutor. In 1755, aided by a friend, he resumed his studies and obtained his doctorate. Thereafter, for 15 years he taught at the university, lecturing first on science and mathematics, but gradually enlarging his field of concentration to cover almost all branches of philosophy.
To explain Kant’s distinction between actions done “in accordance with uty” and actions done “from duty” as presented in his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals; and to describe the implications of this distinction for deliberation and action; and to consider some of the philosophical implications of this distinction. It is necessary to consider the distinctions between permissible, impermissible, forbidden, and necessary actions. First of all, the concepts of impermissible and forbidden actions may be taken as equivalent.
Both concepts may be understood as denoting those actions, which are prohibited by the moral law. That is to say, one is obliged not to perform such ctions; impermissible or forbidden actions are always to be avoided under all circumstances, in spite of one’s inclination either to perform or not to perform such actions. By contrast, permissible actions are simply those, which are not prohibited. Such actions are therefore compatible with the moral law, though the moral law does not necessarily require them.
Only those actions, which are required by the moral law, have moral content or moral significance. For an action to be required by the moral law is for it to be an action that one is obliged to perform. To put the matter differently, morally required actions are those whose performance is necessary, independently of one’s particular purposes or desires. We are now in a position to answer the next question. According to Kant, an action performed in accordance with duty is one, which is mandated by the moral law; it is both a permissible action, and a required action (Ak. 390, 397).
Kant does not think, however, that an action has moral worth merely by fulfilling the requirements of the moral law. For a required action to have moral worth it must also be done for the right eason or motive: An action done from duty has its moral worth, not in the purpose that is to be attained by it, but in the maxim according to which the action is determined.
The moral worth depends, therefore, not on the realization of the object of the action, but merely on the principle of volition according to which, without regard to any objects of the faculty of desire, the action has been done (Ak. 99-400). The right motive for an action is that it be done from duty. To perform an action from duty is to perform it out of respect for the moral law (Ak. 400).
That is to say, to perform an action from duty is to perform the action because of, or for the reason that, the action is morally required. This distinction can be illustrated most clearly by means of one of Kant’s examples. Let us stipulate that it is a moral law that one act beneficently. Let us also consider a person who is naturally disposed, by virtue of a sympathetic constitution, to act beneficently toward others.
Then simply by acting beneficently the individual acts in accordance with duty. But acting from duty is an additional requirement, which may or may ot be satisfied when he or she acts in accordance with duty. To see this, Kant asks us to further suppose that misfortune has deprived this person of his or her natural sympathetic disposition. On this assumption, there are two possible motives, which may then determine the person’s action, the motive of sympathy, or the motive of respect for the moral law.
If an inclination to sympathy is the sole, or at least the determining, motive for the individual’s acting beneficently, since those sympathetic inclinations are assumed to no longer be present, the person would no onger act beneficently. If, however, the (determining) motive or reason for acting beneficently were that such action is morally required, then even in the absence of a beneficent motive, even under the affliction of “deadly sensibility”, the individual would nevertheless act beneficently.
Through the foregoing example, we can clearly see that it is possible for acting in accordance with duty and acting from duty to diverge under certain conditions; thus Kant is justified in distinguishing between them. In addition, we can see that action in accordance with duty may be erformed even in the absence of a distinctively moral intent, and since intent is a crucial to our common conception of moral worth, acting in accordance with duty does not account for all that is important in characterizing morally worthy conduct.
Finally, it is clear from Kant’s example that the motive or reason to act from duty is critical for reliably securing actions which are in accordance with duty. In answer to (b), one implication of the “in-accordance-with/from” distinction for deliberation and action is that in order to insure that ne’s actions have moral worth; one must conscientiously choose to act for the right reasons. In practice this may involve reassessing the reasons on which we act in many areas of our life.
For example, many of us occasionally give donations to charity, which is an example of conduct in accordance with the duty of beneficence. It is also possible in many cases to obtain a tax deduction for such donations. But, in order for our charitable conduct to have moral worth, the possibility of a tax deduction must not be our motive. Therefore, if we take Kant seriously we will be houghtful about our motives for giving charity, as well as our motives for all actions, which are morally required of us.
Another practical consequence of the distinction between “in accordance with duty” and “from duty” is that we can never know for sure whether an action of ours has moral worth, because we can never be entirely certain as to what our determining motive is in a given case (Ak. 407). Finally, in answer to (c), one of the things Kant’s distinction reveals about the nature of morality is that morality is grounded in the actualization of our capacity for rationality. In the first place, only beings with the capacity for rationality are capable of acting morally (or immorally for that matter).
Secondly, it is also true on Kant’s account that morality is fully realized as moral worth only when a demand of rationality is in fact the determining motive of action. For as we have seen, one may act in accordance with duty even if one is motivated by desire. In such a case, although the capacity for rationality is present, it is not actualized. To act from duty, however, it is necessary that one actually act out of respect for the moral law, a purely rational motive.
