The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics — Kant — John Shaqi
The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics
Kant · en
To hate vice in men is neither duty nor against duty, but a mere
feeling of horror of vice, the will having no influence on the feeling
nor the feeling on the will. Beneficence is a duty. He who often
practises this, and sees his beneficent purpose succeed, comes at last
really to love him whom he has benefited. When, therefore, it is said:
"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," this does not mean,
"Thou shalt first of all love, and by means of this love (in the
next place) do him good"; but: "Do good to thy neighbour, and this
beneficence will produce in thee the love of men (as a settled habit
of inclination to beneficence)."
The love of complacency (amor complacentiae,) would therefore
alone be direct. This is a pleasure immediately connected with the
idea of the existence of an object, and to have a duty to this, that
is, to be necessitated to find pleasure in a thing, is a
contradiction.
{INTRODUCTION ^paragraph 155}
D. OF RESPECT
Respect (reverentia) is likewise something merely subjective; a
feeling of a peculiar kind not a judgement about an object which it
would be a duty to effect or to advance. For if considered as duty
it could only be conceived as such by means of the respect which we
have for it. To have a duty to this, therefore, would be as much as to
say to be bound in duty to have a duty. When, therefore, it is said:
"Man has a duty of self-esteem," this is improperly stated, and we
ought rather to say: "The law within him inevitably forces from him
respect for his own being, and this feeling (which is of a peculiar
kind) is a basis of certain duties, that is, of certain actions
which may be consistent with his duty to himself." But we cannot say
that he has a duty of respect for himself; for he must have respect
for the law within himself, in order to be able to conceive duty at
all.
XIII. General Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals in the
{INTRODUCTION ^paragraph 160}
treatment of Pure Ethics
First. A duty can have only a single ground of obligation; and if
two or more proof of it are adduced, this is a certain mark that
either no valid proof has yet been given, or that there are several
distinct duties which have been regarded as one.