The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics — Kant — John Shaqi
The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics
Kant · en
(a) Physical Welfare. Benevolent wishes may be unlimited, for they
do not imply doing anything. But the case is more difficult with
benevolent action, especially when this is to be done, not from
friendly inclination (love) to others, but from duty, at the expense
of the sacrifice and mortification of many of our appetites. That this
beneficence is a duty results from this: that since our self-love
cannot be separated from the need to be loved by others (to obtain
help from them in case of necessity), we therefore make ourselves an
end for others; and this maxim can never be obligatory except by
having the specific character of a universal law, and consequently
by means of a will that we should also make others our ends. Hence the
happiness of others is an end that is also a duty.
I am only bound then to sacrifice to others a part of my welfare
without hope of recompense: because it is my duty, and it is
impossible to assign definite limits how far that may go. Much depends
on what would be the true want of each according to his own
feelings, and it must be left to each to determine this for himself.
For that one should sacrifice his own happiness, his true wants, in
order to promote that of others, would be a self-contradictory maxim
if made a universal law. This duty, therefore, is only
indeterminate; it has a certain latitude within which one may do
more or less without our being able to assign its limits definitely.
The law holds only for the maxims, not for definite actions.
(b) Moral well-being of others (salus moralis) also belongs to
the happiness of others, which it is our duty to promote, but only a
negative duty. The pain that a man feels from remorse of conscience,
although its origin is moral, is yet in its operation physical, like
grief, fear, and every other diseased condition. To take care that
he should not be deservedly smitten by this inward reproach is not
indeed my duty but his business; nevertheless, it is my duty to do
nothing which by the nature of man might seduce him to that for
which his conscience may hereafter torment him, that is, it is my duty
not to give him occasion of stumbling. But there are no definite
limits within which this care for the moral satisfaction of others
must be kept; therefore it involves only an indeterminate obligation.
IX. What is a Duty of Virtue?
{INTRODUCTION ^paragraph 85}