Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Sources
- 1 Death
- 2 The Absurd
- 3 Moral Luck
- 4 Sexual Perversion
- 5 War and Massacre
- 6 Ruthlessness in Public Life
- 7 The Policy of Preference
- 8 Equality
- 9 The Fragmentation of Value
- 10 Ethics without Biology
- 11 Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness
- 12 What is it like to be a bat?
- 13 Panpsychism
- 14 Subjective and Objective
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Sources
- 1 Death
- 2 The Absurd
- 3 Moral Luck
- 4 Sexual Perversion
- 5 War and Massacre
- 6 Ruthlessness in Public Life
- 7 The Policy of Preference
- 8 Equality
- 9 The Fragmentation of Value
- 10 Ethics without Biology
- 11 Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness
- 12 What is it like to be a bat?
- 13 Panpsychism
- 14 Subjective and Objective
- Index
Summary
Kant believed that good or bad luck should influence neither our moral judgment of a person and his actions, nor his moral assessment of himself.
The good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes or because of its adequacy to achieve some proposed end; it is good only because of its willing, i.e., it is good of itself. And, regarded for itself, it is to be esteemed incomparably higher than anything which could be brought about by it in favor of any inclination or even of the sum total of all inclinations. Even if it should happen that, by a particularly unfortunate fate or by the niggardly provision of a stepmotherly nature, this will should be wholly lacking in power to accomplish its purpose, and if even the greatest effort should not avail it to achieve anything of its end, and if there remained only the good will (not as a mere wish but as the summoning of all the means in our power), it would sparkle like a jewel in its own right, as something that had its full worth in itself. Usefulness or fruitlessness can neither diminish nor augment this worth.
He would presumably have said the same about a bad will: whether it accomplishes its evil purposes is morally irrelevant. And a course of action that would be condemned if it had a bad outcome cannot be vindicated if by luck it turns out well.
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- Information
- Mortal Questions , pp. 24 - 38Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012
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