KANT ISSUES- Duty Is Not All We Value

Question 1

What’s is the criticism of duty being not all we value

Answer 1

Our intuition tells us to value emotions like love and friendship more than duty

Question 2

What is an example that highlights this

Answer 2

Parent A enjoys reading to their daughter and spending time with her.
Parent B doesn’t enjoy these things but does it out of duty to do the right thing.
Common intuition would suggest parent A is the better parent as they enjoy doing things with their daughter
Kant would say that Parent B is the better parent as they are doing it out of duty not out of desire
This seems counter-intuitive as we want to place moral value on parent As motive and more generally on the motives of people that want to help others

Question 3

Explain Kants view on the parents example and those who help others because they want to

Answer 3

While the actions are in accordance with duty as they are not done for the sake of duty they are not moral valuable.
This goes against the intuition that emotions have moral dimension such as love or guilt.
Do we not regard the possession of such emotions itself as having moral value?

Question 4

What is the example of the friend in hospital and what is Kants response

Answer 4

Imagine a close friend is ill in hospital. You pay them a visit because you genuinely care about them and want to make sure they’re ok. Surely, this is a good thing – it’s a sign of a good person that they’re motivated by concern for their friends, for example. But according to Kant, this motivation (concern for your friend) has no moral value.

However, if you didn’t actually care about your friend but begrudgingly went to visit purely out of duty, this would have moral value according to Kant.

Question 5

Why might people object to Kants approach

Answer 5

Encourages a cold and calculated by demanding we put aside our feeling for the suffering of others.
Kants defence- not against people wanting to do the right actions but is clear that acting on,from desire, not duty, has no moral worth

Question 6

What do some doubt

Answer 6

That we can set aside the interests, concerns and desires that make us individuals and think of ourselves as purely rational autonomous beings engaged in universal law- making

Question 7

What does Bernard Williams argue

Answer 7

The impartial position that Kant wishes us to adopt may be possible for factual considerations but not for practical moral deliberations e.g. if I ask “ I wonder whether strontium is a metal?”
It is possible to remove the personal “I” from this question and seek an answer that is independent of my own perspective on the world

Question 8

Explain Bernard’s “unity of interest”

Answer 8

This is because deliberation about facts is not essentially personal, but here is an attempt to reach an impersonal position (where we al, agree that these are essentially facts)

Question 9

What does Bernard think about practical deliberation

Answer 9

Personal
Makes a difference on who is asking the question (e.g. the madman’s mother, his intended victim, the victims life Insurer) asking whether you should lie.
We cannot and shouldn’t strive for the same impersonal position as in the factual case
With moral cases there is no longer a ‘unity of interest’ and a different person might seek a different answer

Question 10

What’s Kants response to the criticism

Answer 10

Kant doesn’t necessarily say that love or desire to do good is bad but it’s shouldn’t be the thing that motivates us.
Could be argued he has a point about emotions as overly focusing on the emotions may lead to moral inconsistencies