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Virtue and Happiness: Kant and Three Critics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
'Contentment with our existence, ‘Kant observes, ‘is not, as it were, an inborn possession or a bliss, … it is rather a problem imposed upon us by our finite nature as a being of needs.’ Happiness is an inescapable problem for man; is it, however, the central problem of morality? Kant thinks not. The central problem of morality is the tension between two sets of demands, between two goods- virtue and happiness.
Happiness, according to Kant, is the fulfillment of all of one's wants. It is ‘a rational being's consciousness of the agreeableness of life which without interruption accompanies his whole existence.'
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References
1 Kant, Immanuel Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Beck, Lewis White (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), p. 24,Google Scholar (Prussian Academy Edition, Vol. 5, p. 25).
2 Ibid., p. 20, (P.A.E., p. 22)
3 Sullivan, Roger J. “The Kantian Critique of Aristotle's Moral Philosophy: An Appraisal,” Review of Metaphysics, 38 (1974), p. 34.Google Scholar
4 Veatch, Henry B. “The Rational Justification of Moral Principles: Can There Be Such a Thing?,” Review of Metaphysics, 39 (1975), p. 226.Google Scholar
5 Foot, Philippa “Moral Beliefs,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 59 (1958-59), p. 100.Google Scholar
6 Sullivan, “Aristotle's Moral Philosophy,” pp. 34-35.
7 Ibid., p. 37.
8 Ibid., p. 34.
9 Ibid., p. 38.
10 Ibid., p. 43.
11 Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Paton, H.J. as The Moral Law: Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, (London: Hutchinson, 1956), p. 65,Google Scholar (P.A.E., Vol. 4, p. 397).
12 This is not to suggest that the individual who wants to do his duty is somehow immoral. The issue is whether respect for the law is conditional upon wanting to obey the law or whether wanting to obey the law is conditional upon respect for it.
13 Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, p. 33, (P.A.E., pp. 32–33).Google Scholar
14 Kant, Groundwork, p. 61, (P.A.E., p. 393).Google Scholar
15 Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, p. 33, (P.A.E., pp. 32–33).Google Scholar
16 Ibid., p. 87, (P.A.E., p. 84)
17 Sullivan, “Aristotle's Moral Philosophy,” p. 35.
18 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Ross, W. D. in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. McKeon, R. (New York: Random House, 1941), p. 948,Google Scholar Bk. I, Ch. 10, 1100b20-35.
19 Plato, Crito, trans. Tredennick, Hugh in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed. Hamilton, E. and Cairns, H. (New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1961), pp. 31–33,Google Scholar 46d-48d.
20 It may be argued that this statement would not be true in the case of the hedonist. Presumably the hedonist would choose death over immorality if he believed that the consequences of choosing immorality would be more painful than death. However the hedonist believes that morality is about pleasure and pain, and therefore, he could not be confronted with the problem of choosing between immorality and death. Morality, for the hedonist is not a matter of objective principle but rather the evaluation of subjective pleasure. The hedonist may say that his problem is between death and a breach of social convention but not between death and immorality.
21 Silber, John “The Copernican Revolution in Ethics: The Good Reexamined,” Kant-Studien, 57, (1960), p. 283.Google Scholar
22 Veatch, “The Rational Justification of Moral Principles,” pp. 222-223.
23 Ibid., p. 235.
24 Ibid., p. 235fn.
25 Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, pp. 61-62, (P.A.E., pp. 59-60).
26 Kant, Groundwork, p. 108, (P.A.E., p. 440).
27 Veatch, “The Rational Justification of Moral Principles,” p. 238.
28 Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, p. 66, (P.A.E., pp. 63-64).
29 Foot, “Moral Beliefs,” p. 100.
30 Ibid., p. 103.
31 Ibid., p. 104.
32 Kant, Groundwork, p. 114, (P.A.E., p. 446).
33 Ibid., p. 108, (P.A.E., p. 440).
34 Ibid., p. 73, (P.A.E., p. 405).