Richard Henson attempts to take the sting out of this view of Kant on moral worth by arguing (i) that attending to the phenomenon of the overdetermination of actions leads one to see that Kant might have had two distinct views of moral worth, only one of which requires the absence of cooperating inclinations, and (ii) that when Kant insists that there is moral worth only when an action is done from the motive of duty alone, he need not also (...) hold that such a state of affairs is morally better, all things considered, than one where supporting inclination is present. Henson's proposals seem to me both serious and plausible. I do not think that either of his models, in the end, can take on the role Kant assigns to moral worth in the argument of the Groundwork. But seeing the ways Henson's account diverges from Kant's makes clearer what Kant intended in his discussion of those actions he credits with moral worth. [...] An action has moral worth if it is required by duty and has as its primary motive the motive of duty. The motive of duty need not reflect the only interest the agent has in the action (or its effect); it must, however, be the interest that determines the agent's acting as he did. (shrink)

My purpose is to account for some oddities in what Kant did and did not say about "moral worth," and for another in what commentators tell us about his intent. The stone with which I hope to dispatch these several birds is-as one would expect a philosopher's stone to be-a distinction. I distinguish between two things Kant might have had in mind under the heading of moral worth. They come readily to mind when one both takes account of what he (...) actually said about it and notices a fact which he did not seem to notice: namely, that dutiful action- action which, whatever its motive, fulfills a duty-can be over- determined, and determined in particular by both respect for duty and some consortium of inclinations and prudenc. (shrink)

What kind of political systems should there be? In this paper I examine two competing principles of institutional design — an instrumental view, which maintains that one should design institutions so as to realize the most plausible conception of justice, and a democratic view, which maintains that one should design institutions so as to enable persons to participate in the decisions that impact their lives. I argue for a mixed view that combines these two principles. In the second stage of (...) the argument, I draw on this principle of institutional design to argue for the need for suprastate institutions. These are required to protect persons’ core basic rights and, over and above that, they are needed to provide fair and legitimate procedures for choosing which rules should govern the global economy and environment. The third stage of the argument develops this account by elaborating on what features global institutions must possess for them to perform these two distinct kinds of roles. (shrink)