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Philip Stratton-Lake’s Kant, Duty and Moral Worth offers us an outline of a moral theory. It is pretty eclectic. There is an element of Kant there – more than an element, in fact. There is a certain amount of Ross. And there is an element of contemporary Aristotelianism, too. My contribution to today’s discussion will concern the way in which these three elements hang together. I start with a brief account of the main themes of the book. Stratton-Lake starts from Kant’s claim that only actions done
from the motive of duty have moral worth. This claim, he thinks, is a
deep truth, but as ordinarily understood it is not even true. We have
become used to thinking of an action that is done from the motive of
duty as one done for the reason that one ought to do it. But the fact
that one ought to do an action is no reason whatever for doing it, any
more than the fact that the act is right is a reason why it is right.
It is the reasons why one ought that are the reasons for doing the action,
and that one ought to do it cannot be among the reasons why one ought.
So if we think of an action done from duty in this way, as one done for
the reason that one ought to do it, we sever the Kantian link between
morality and rationality – between doing the right thing and acting
for the right reasons. We sever that link because an action with moral
worth turns out to be done from duty, but that an action is one’s
duty is no reason to do it. |
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1. Jonathan Dancy’s first point is a request for
clarification. He notes a certain ambiguity in what it is I say needs
explaining. He
notes that sometimes I claim that it is the possibility of a normative
fact -
the moral must – that needs explaining. At other times I claim
it is the possibility of a phenomenological fact – our experience
of the moral must – that needs explaining. I have to admit that
in the book I did switch from the normative to phenomenological in this
way. But
it is really the phenomenological fact that I start from. Like Kant,
I assume that we can learn about the object of this experience, the moral
must itself, by understanding our experience of it and how this experience
is possible. I claim that Kant is best understood as maintaining that
the
Moral Law explains the possibility of this experience. Given the validity
of some form of transcendental idealism, if the moral law explains the
possibility of this experience it also explains the possibility of the
object of this experience. But my primary interest is in explaining the
possibility of the experience of the moral must, the experience of being
bound to do some act in a way that is independent of our desires and
concerns. As I understand him, Kant argues that it is the moral law that
explains
this experience. When we experience some act as necessary in the circumstances
we take ourselves to stand under an absolutely universal law. The strict
universality of this law must, in turn, be traced back to the moral law
itself. What I wanted to emphasise is that this law is not to be taken
as a very abstract ground of duty. It should, rather, be understood as
having a transcendental, not a justificatory role. |
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