This chapter contains sections titled: I II III IV V VI Bibliography.

This paper addresses the issue of making sense of Kant’s notion of moral worth. Kant’s identification in GMM1 I of the good will as the unconditional good leads to understanding the moral worth of human agency in ways which, some critics claim, is at odds with our moral intuitions. By first focusing upon how Kant singles out action out of duty as characteristic of the good will, we shall show that a covert assumption about (...) our nature potentially weakens the force of Kant’s argument. This paper claims that this assumption is not needed, and proposes an interpretation of Kant’s notion of moral worth that dispenses with it. In so doing, the interpretative strategy draws upon Kant’s solution to the Third Antinomy, and therefore on Transcendental Idealism. An analysis of the moral worth of the action of a benevolent agent who heeds the requirements of duty will show how inclinations contribute to morally worthy action, while the action’s moral worth lies in its being motivated by duty. A further analysis of the issue of moral worth in the light of recent scholarship introduces a distinction between the moral worth of the action and of the agent. This provides the material to address an important standard criticism of Kantian ethics. The paper concludes by suggesting that the proposed interpretation is required to make proper sense of Kant’s indirect duty to develop compassionate inclinations. (shrink)

Kant famously made a distinction between actions from duty and actions in conformity with duty claiming that only the former are morally worthy. Kant’s argument in support of this thesis is taken to rest on the claim that only the motive of duty leads non-accidentally or reliably to moral actions. However, many critics of Kant have claimed that other motives such as sympathy and benevolence can also lead to moral actions reliably, and that Kant’s thesis is false. In (...) addition, many readers of Kant find the claim that we should deny moral worth to a dutiful action performed from friendly inclination highly counterintuitive. Moreover, Kantian commentators disagree about the status of actions in conformity with duty, some claim that these can be taken as equally morally worthy as those performed from duty, while others argue that they are not even permissible. -/- It has also been claimed that Kant’s theory of moral worth should be related to the theory of the Gesinnung developed in the Religion. Thus, some authors claim that, in order for an action to possess moral worth, the agent has to be unconditionally committed to morality, that is, the agent must possess a virtuous character or good fundamental maxim (i.e. a good Gesinnung). However, according to Kant’s radical evil thesis (that is, the thesis that man is evil by nature ), the default position for man is to possess an evil Gesinnung, i.e. a Gesinnung which is only conditionally committed to morality insofar as morality does not demand a great sacrifice of our own happiness. So, an unwelcome consequence of this line of interpretation is that in Kantian ethics morally worthy actions become very rare indeed. -/- The paper is divided in two parts. The first part aims to clarify why Kant thought that only actions from duty are morally worthy, replying to some common objections against Kant’s view. I argue that Kant’s non-accidental condition should not be understood in terms of reliability because such interpretation is incompatible with Kant’s theory of motivation and rational agency. I propose an alternative interpretation which supports Kant’ s claim that only the motive of duty leads nonaccidently to dutiful actions, and thus only actions from duty possess moral worth. I end by showing that although actions in conformity with duty are worthless from the moral point of view, they are not (in many cases) impermissible. The first part concludes that the criterion for the permissibility of actions is different to the criterion for the ascription of moral worth. Thus, rightness, which pertains to actions performed on maxims that can be willed as universal laws, and moral worth, which pertains to actions performed from a sense of duty, should be understood as two different levels of moral assessment. -/- The second part of the paper examines Kant’s conception of virtue with the aim of showing that although only agents with a virtuous character (good Gesinnung) will reliably act from duty, a person with an evil character (evil Gesinnung) could on frequent occasions act from duty. I argue that we should not deny moral worth to actions performed from duty even when the agent has an evil Gesinnung. Goodness of Gesinnung is not a necessary condition of the action of an agent possessing moral worth; reliability of motivation is necessary for the ascription of virtue but not for the ascription of moral worth. It follows that virtue, which refers to the agent’s character or fundamental maxim (i.e. the agent’s Gesinnung), and moral worth are also two different levels of moral assessment. The paper concludes that three levels of moral assessment can be distinguished in Kant’s ethical system: (i) rightness, (ii) moral worth and (iii) moral virtue. Moral virtue is the highest level of moral perfection for a human being. Striving towards virtue requires constant progress and effort and ultimately a ‘revolution of the heart.’ The important point is that even when we are still striving to achieve virtue (i.e. an unconditional commitment to morality), we can ascribe moral worth to actions performed by a genuine sense of duty. It turns out that, contrary to many influential interpretations, Kantian ethics is not merely concerned with the rightness or wrongness of particular actions nor is Kantian ethics primarily an ethic of virtue. Instead, Kant’s ethical system is complex and allows for different levels of moral assessment in which both an action-centred and agent-centred perspective can be integrated. (shrink)

This paper defends an account of moral worth. Moral worth is a status that some, but not all, morally right actions have. Unlike with merely right actions, when an agent performs a morally worthy action, she is necessarily creditworthy for doing the right thing. First, I argue that two dominant views of moral worth have been unable to fully capture this necessary connection. On one view, an action is morally worthy if and only if (...) its agent is motivated by the features of the action that make it right. On the other, an action is morally worthy if and only if its agent is motivated by the action’s rightness itself. Neither of these views captures the connection between moral worth and creditworthiness, because each view leaves room for cases of accidentally doing the right thing. Next, I develop a new account, which I call the Guise of Moral Reasons Account. On my account, morally worthy actions are right actions that are motivated by moral reasons as such. This account rules out cases of accidentally doing the right thing, thus capturing the necessary connection between moral worth and creditworthiness for doing the right thing. (shrink)

Julia Markovits has recently argued for what she calls the ‘Coincident Reasons Thesis’: the thesis that one’s action is morally worthy if and only if one’s motivating reasons for acting mirror, in content and strength, the reasons that explain why the action ought, morally, to be performed. This thesis assumes that the structure of motivating reasons is sufficiently similar to the structure of normative reasons that the required coincidence in content and strength is a genuine possibility. But because motivating reasons (...) have only one dimension of strength, while normative reasons have both justifying and requiring strength, one’s motivating reasons can no more coincide with the normative reasons of relevance to one’s action than a line can coincide with a square, or a square with a cube. It is possible to amend the Coincident Reasons Thesis so that it concerns only one dimension of normative strength: for example, requiring strength. But such an amended thesis yields implausible verdicts. In particular it requires us either to deny the existence of supererogatory action, or—still less plausibly—to hold that such action has less moral worth than does doing the morally required minimum. (shrink)

To have moral worth an action not only needs to conform to the correct normative theory ; it also needs to be motivated in the right way. I argue that morally worthy actions are motivated by the rightness of the action; they are motivated by an agent's concern for doing what's right and her knowledge that her action is morally right. Call this the Rightness Condition. On the Rightness Condition moral motivation involves both a conative and a (...) cognitive element—in particular, it involves moral knowledge. I argue that the Rightness Condition is both necessary and sufficient for moral worth. I also argue that the Rightness Condition gives us an attractive account of actions performed under imperfect epistemic circumstances: by agents who rely on moral testimony or by those who, like Huckleberry Finn, have false moral convictions. (shrink)

It’s one thing to do the right thing. It’s another to be creditable for doing the right thing. Being creditable for doing the right thing requires that one does the right thing out of a morally laudable motive and that there is a non-accidental fit between those two elements. This paper argues that the two main views of morally creditable action – the Right Making Features View and the Rightness Itself View – fail to capture that non-accidentality constraint: the first (...) because it morally credits agents who make heavy-duty moral mistakes; the second because it fails to generalise and is too conservative – a point which this paper gives renewed defence. The paper then goes on to defend and develop an alternative according to which moral worth is mediated by the agent’s knowing how to respond to the reasons of the type which make acting in that way right. It’s argued that this view avoids the problems for the alternatives, and it’s shown that in order for the view to avoid collapsing into a problematic form of Reliabilism we’ll have to think of states of knowing how as essentially successful in character. (shrink)

This essay concerns two forms of moral non-naturalism according to which general moral principles or laws enter into the grounding explanations of particular moral facts. According to bridge-law non-naturalism, the laws are themselves partial grounds of the moral facts; whereas according to grounding-law non-naturalism, the laws explain the grounding connections that obtain between particular natural facts and particular moral facts. I pose and develop an objection to BLNN concerning moral worth: as compared to (...) GLNN, BLNN has trouble accommodating the common intuition that actions performed out of motivation for rightness de dicto are, at least in paradigm cases, deficient in their moral worth as compared to those performed out of motivation for rightness de re. After presenting the moral worth objection to BLNN, I respond to a possible defense of the view and explain why GLNN is not itself imperiled by an analogous objection. I finally argue that in light of the moral worth objection, a purported analogy between the law and morality fails to give us any reason to prefer BLNN to GLNN. I conclude that non-naturalists who accept the existence of general and explanatory moral principles should adopt GLNN rather than BLNN. (shrink)

Some right acts have what philosophers call moral worth. A right act has moral worth if and only if its agent deserves credit for having acted rightly in this instance. And I argue that an agent deserves credit for having acted rightly if and only if her act issues from an appropriate set of concerns, where the appropriateness of these concerns is a function what her ultimate moral concerns should be. Two important upshots of the (...) resulting account of moral worth are that (1) an act can have moral worth even if it doesn’t manifest a concern for doing what’s right and that (2) an act can lack moral worth even if it is performed for the right reasons. (shrink)

The chapter deals with the two most distinctive elements of the Introduction of the Naturrecht Feyerabend, namely the notions of an end in itself and autonomy. I shall argue that both are to be interpreted with regard to the aim of explaining the ground of right. In this light, I suggest that the notion of an end in itself counters a voluntarist conception like Achenwall’s with a claim whose necessity has a twofold ground: First, the representation of an unconditional (...) worth emerges as a structural element of the practical use of reason. Second, that representation concerns the necessary self-understanding of moral subjects. Finally, I argue that the other distinctive element, the occurrence of the notion of autonomy, is best understood as an application of that idea to a specific issue, which Kant addresses by showing that freedom is a self-regulating domain. (shrink)

It is plausible that we have moral reasons to become better at conforming to our moral reasons. However, it is not always clear what means to greater moral conformity we should adopt. John Harris has recently argued that we have reason to adopt traditional, deliberative means in preference to means that alter our affective or conative states directly—that is, without engaging our deliberative faculties. One of Harris’ concerns about direct means is that they would produce only a (...) superficial kind of moral improvement. Though they might increase our moral conformity, there is some deeper kind of moral improvement that they would fail to produce, or would produce to a lesser degree than more traditional means. I consider whether this concern might be justified by appeal to the concept of moral worth. I assess three attempts to show that, even where they were equally effective at increasing one’s moral conformity, direct interventions would be less conducive to moral worth than typical deliberative alternatives. Each of these attempts is inspired by Kant’s views on moral worth. Each, I argue, fails. (shrink)

I argue that a right action has moral worth if and only if it is done for the right reasons - that is, for its right-making features. The reasons the agent acts on have to be identical to the reasons for which the action is right. I argue that Kantians are wrong in thinking that a right action has moral worth iff it is done because the agent thinks it is right, giving examples of morally worthy (...) actions that are done by agents who think they are wrong (Huckleberry Finn) and right actions done "because they are right" that have no moral worth. I also discuss degrees of moral worth as well as blameworthiness. (shrink)

According to Arpaly and to Markovits, actions have moral worth iff they are done for the reasons that make them right. Can this view have implications for normative ethics? I argue that it has such implications, as you can start from truths about the moral worth of actions to truths about the reasons that make them right. What makes actions right is the question of normative ethics. I argue from the moral worth view to (...) a pluralistic view of ethics - not Kantianism or utilitarianism but an account according to which there are at least two important moral factors, one of which is wellbeing. Part of this argument involves objecting to Kant's view of the moral worth of actions performed out of altruism and not universalizability. I also specify various implications for the relationship between the true normative theory and common sense morality. (shrink)

Morally supererogatory actions are traditionally conceived of as actions that are nonobligatory but distinctively morally worthy. Here I challenge the assumption that supererogatory actions are distinctively praiseworthy and offer an alternative definition of moral supererogation. This alternative definition complements, and is complemented by, a novel account of moral praiseworthiness, which I call the Two-Step view. My Two-Step view of moral worth, which I develop in some detail, accounts for currently underappreciated features of moral praiseworthiness.

One of the factors that contributes to an agent’s praiseworthiness and blameworthiness — his or her moral worth — is effort. On the one hand, agents who act effortlessly seem to have high moral worth. On the other hand, agents who act effortfully seem to have high moral worth as well. I explore and explain this pair of intuitions and the contour of our views about associated cases.

Someone acts in a morally worthy way when they deserve credit for doing the morally right thing. But when and why do agents deserve credit for the success involved in doing the right thing? It is tempting to seek an answer to that question by drawing an analogy with creditworthy success in other domains of human agency, especially in sports, arts, and crafts. Accordingly, some authors have recently argued that, just like creditworthy success in, say, chess, playing the piano, or (...) archery, creditworthy moral success is a matter of getting things right by way of manifesting a relevant skill. My main aim in this paper is to bring out an important structural difference between moral creditworthiness and creditworthiness in sports, arts, and craft, undermining attempts to use examples of the latter as a model for understanding the former. As an alternative, I propose an account of morally creditworthy action, according to which such action is a matter of manifesting virtue, not skill—a claim that's based on an important, but underappreciated, difference between the sorts of excellences constituting virtues and skills. The paper thus contributes to a more nuanced picture of normative achievements across different domains of human agency, highlighting largely overlooked structural dissimilarities among them. (shrink)

Book synopsis: Simon May presents a fresh and wide-ranging critique of Nietzsche's famous attack on traditional morality, and of his controversial ethics of 'life-enhancement'. He reveals Nietzsche as both revolutionary and conservative–as one who repudiates traditional 'moral' conceptions of God, guilt, asceticism, pity, and truthfulness, and yet retains a demanding ethics of discipline, conscience, 'self-creation', generosity, and honesty. In particular, May shows how Nietzsche rejects truthfulness as an unconditional value and yet celebrates it as one of his own (...) highest values, whose worth is determined by who is pursuing it, for what end, and when in their lives. May is strongly critical of various aspects of Nietzsche's thought–his self-defeating conception of justice, his assumption that 'life-enhancement' necessarily demands world-affirmation, his ambition to de-deify the world, and the impossible and undesirable autonomy of the Übermensch. But Nietzsche is shown to offer modernity key elements of a coherent ethic, and to provide moral philosophy with important tools for reassessing some of its most cherished values and concepts. May's book will be illuminating not just for scholars and students of Nietzsche, in philosophy, literature, and history of ideas, but for anyone interested in current debates about ethics and modernity. (shrink)

ABSTRACTKantian conceptions of moral worth are thought to enjoy an advantage over their rivals in virtue of accommodating two plausible intuitions—that the praiseworthiness of an action is never ac...

This paper explores the question of what makes an action morally worthy. I start with a popular theory of moral worth which roughly states that a right action is morally praiseworthy if and only if it is performed in response to the reasons which make the action right. While I think the account provides promising foundations for determining praiseworthiness, I argue that the view lacks the resources to adequately satisfy important desiderata associated with theories of moral (...) class='Hi'>worth. Firstly, the view does not adequately capture the degree to which an action has moral worth, and secondly, the view does not identify if right actions produced from overdetermined motives have moral worth. However, all is not lost; I also argue that the account can satisfy the desiderata when it attends to the agent’s counterfactual motives in addition to their actual motives. By considering counterfactual motives, we can measure the robustness of the actual praiseworthy motive, and attending to motivational robustness allows the new proposal to fully satisfy the two desiderata. At the end of this paper, I respond to some criticisms typically brought against a counterfactual view of moral worth. (shrink)

Kelly Sorensen defends a model of the relationship between effort and moral worth in which the effort exerted in performing a morally desirable action contributes positively to the action’s moral worth, but the effort required to perform the action detracts from its moral worth. I argue that Sorensen’s model, though on the right track, is mistaken in three ways. First, it fails to capture the relevance of counterfactual effort to moral worth. Second, (...) it wrongly implies that exerting unnecessary effort confers moral worth on an action. Third, it fails to adequately distinguish between cases in which effort is required because of defects of moral character and those in which effort is required because of barriers external to moral character, such as social pressures or non-moral cognitive deficits. I suggest three amendments to Sorensen’s model that correct these three defects. (shrink)

Sometimes, agents do the right thing for the right reason. What’s the normative significance of this phenomenon? According to proponents of the special status view, when an agent acts for the right reason, her actions enjoy a special normative status, namely, worthiness. Proponents of this view claim that self-effacing forms of consequentialism cannot say this plausible thing, and, worse, are blocked from having a perspicuous view of matters by the self-effacing nature of their consequentialism. In this paper, I argue that (...) this claim is based on an illicit assumption. I show that whatever version of the special status view proponents of that view prefer, self-effacing consequentialists can adopt a version of it. Moreover, I show that proponents of extant versions of the special status view have reason to prefer the specific version of that view I articulate on behalf of self-effacing consequentialists. (shrink)

Samuel Kerstein argues that an asymmetry between moral worth and maxims prevents Kant from accepting a category of acts that are impermissible, but have moral worth. Kerstein contends that an act performed from the motive of duty should be considered as a candidate for moral worth, even if the action's maxim turns out to be impermissible, since moral worth depends on the correct moral motivation of an act, rather than on the (...) moral lightness of an act. I argue that Kant cannot consistently maintain that there are morally forbidden, though good, acts since one of the conditions of acting from the moral law should be that one has a true belief about what the moral law requires. My project, then, rejects the possibility of morally impermissible, worthy acts for Kant, and qualifies the conditions for moral worth Kerstein gives with an epistemological constraint on moral worth. (shrink)

Ford, Norman The moral worth and dignity of the unborn child varies according to peoples' fundamental religious and personal beliefs on what constitutes a human person. The antithetical views on the moral value of the unborn child are due to different philosophies, which admits the existence and meaningfulness of nonmaterial reality and the other that practically denies both.

_Kant, Duty and Moral Worth _is a fascinating and original examination of Kant's account of moral worth. The complex debate at the heart of Kant's philosophy is over whether Kant said moral actions have worth only if they are carried out from duty, or whether actions carried out from mixed motives can be good. Philip Stratton-Lake offers a unique account of acting from duty, which utilizes the distinction between primary and secondary motives. He maintains (...) that the moral law should not be understood as a normative moral reason but as playing a transcendental role. Thus a Kantian account of moral worth is one where the virtuous agent may be responsive to concrete particular considerations, whilst preserving an essential role for universal moral principles. _Kant, Duty and Moral Worth _is a lucid examination of Kant's moral thought that will appeal to Kant scholars and anyone interested in moral theory. (shrink)

What minimal role—if any—must consciousness of morally significant information play in an account of moral worth? According to one popular view, a right action is morally worthy only if the agent is conscious (in some sense) of the facts that make it right. I argue against this consciousness condition and close cousins of it. As I show, consciousness of such facts requires much more sophistication than writers typically suggest—this condition would bar from moral worth most ordinary, (...) intuitively morally worthy agents. Moreover, I show that the attraction to this flavor of consciousness condition rests on mistaken assumptions about what is required for a right act to be non-accidentally right and attributable to the agent. Drawing some lessons from the discussion, I defend a Value-Secured Reliability Theory of Moral Worth and show how a minimal yet indispensable role for consciousness falls out from it. On this independently plausible theory, an action can be morally worthy even when the agent is unaware of the right-making features of her action. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Two Views of Morality Two Possible Moral Worlds The Reality of the Issue Needs, Moral Requirements, and Moral Worth: the Basic Logic.

This exploration of the virtue of accurate self-appraisal in great people as seen by some philosophers argues that a justified belief in one's fundamental superiority need not entail arrogant or egotistical behaviour towards others, but can harmonize with marked tendencies to respectfulness, generosity and understanding, although not with moral permissiveness. Even if accurate self-appraisal means thinking oneself basically better, this virtue can be consistent with social dispositions that contemporary egalitarians admire. ;The proposal to interpret humility as accurate knowledge of (...) one's merits comes from current writers who reject any merit in humility's more traditional associations of self-effacement. The new humility, they claim, can apply to those preeminent in any field, who keep their exceptional merits in perspective in spite of recognizing them. This self-restraint is attributed to an underlying assumption that all persons have equal worth or rights. The thesis disputes the adequacy of this account by noting that moral virtues themselves can be regarded as merits of unrivalled importance and that, with regard to their distribution, people are basically unequal. Consequently, humility in highly moral people might be better seen as a kind of accurate self-estimate that balances an assumption of human equality with an equally crucial awareness that one's moral character and concomitant judgments are basically superior. The assumption of equality is claimed to be fully compatible with the belief in personal superiority and not the sine qua non of moral decency in social relations. ;Aristotle's megalopsuchos, or "great soul," and Spinoza's good person, while not egalitarians, know themselves morally preeminent, yet both possess many still admirable beliefs and traits. The same applies to one interpretation of Nietzsche's noble soul. These thinkers suggest the compatibility of self-preference with respectfulness towards all--sometimes especially towards the weakest--people. Kant's egalitarian view downplays any notion of personal superiority, but not convincingly. Aquinas suggests a tension between humility and moral competence in worldly dealings, but only because he tries to uphold the Aristotelian great soul while not jettisoning the recurrent Christian motif of self-denigration. (shrink)

Thomas Hill, a leading figure in the recent development of Kantian moral philosophy, presents a set of essays exploring the implications of basic Kantian ideas for practical issues. The first part of the book provides background in central themes in Kant's ethics; the second part discusses questions regarding human welfare; the third focuses on moral worth -- the nature and grounds of moral assessment of persons as deserving esteem or blame. Hill shows moral, political, and (...) social philosophers just how valuable moral theory can be in addressing practical matters. (shrink)

Moral internalism and moral externalism compete over the best explanation of the link between judgment and relevant motivation but, it is argued, they differ at best only verbally. The internalist rational-conceptual nature of the link’ as accounted by M. Smith in The Moral Problem is contrasted to the externalist, also rational, link that requires in addition support from the agent’s psychological-dispositional profile; the internalist link, however, is found to depend crucially on a, similarly to the externalist, psychologically (...) ‘loaded’ profile. It is also argued that the differentiation of the two competing explanations is insufficient partly because they both fail to consider crucial quantitative parameters of the judgment-motivation link. Such parameters become very important particularly in the light of Smith’s claim that this link is grounded on the observable “striking fact” where changes in the set of one’s moral beliefs systematically bring about changes in one’s moral behavior. Examples of algorithms measuring moral coherence and moral worth are provided to serve as evidence for what it comes down to, vis-à-vis the alleged fact, only a verbal dispute between the two camps. Finally, the ‘misfiring’ of these explanations is understood in connection to the irreducibility of concepts such as ‘moral worth’, and/or, ‘moral sensitivity’. (shrink)

People do good or bad things, and get or do not get good or bad credit for their actions, depending (in part) on knowledge of their actions. I attempt to unfold some of the interconnections between these matters, and between them and the achievement of moral worth. The main conclusion is that the heights of moral worth seem to appear in the oddest places.

The reasons view holds that morally worthy actions are right actions motivated by the reasons that make them right. Opponents object that such actions are only accidentally right, and it is widely held that morally worthy actions cannot be accidentally right. My aim here is to defend the reasons view from this objection by considering conditional reasons. Once these reasons are in view, actions motivated by the reasons that make them right will no longer appear accidentally right. Keywords: Moral (...) worth; Moral reasons; Conditional reasons. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Joanne Wood LORDJIM AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF KANTIAN AUTONOMY Autonomy IS the fundamental principle of Kantian ethics. This is so because his moral system is based on the crucial idea that nothing in the world can be called "good without qualification except a good will."1 Thus a good will is good in and of itself, without regard to any possible end. For such a will, morality is categorical, (...) for only with such an imperative can moral laws be said to be laws ofcomplete freedom, and willed without regard to any other interest. Thus autonomy is a necessary condition for a good will, because any heteronomous worth a will could achieve would by definition be conditional, and would therefore violate Kant's notion of the unconditional worth of a good will. However, it is precisely this notion of the absolute worth a good will merits on its own that would seem to bear looking into: there is something intuitively wrong with Kant's assertion that 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," it would still "sparkle like a jewel in its own right, as something that had its full worth in itselP (p. 10). The idea implied in this passage, that a good will could exist somehow apart from the world and any effects achieved therein, is problematic to say the least. How could such a will be known? The metaphor ofa "sparklingjewel" is striking, but flawed: ajewel exists in the world, for all eyes to see if they know where to look, whereas a good will exists in the hearts of men. It is for this reason thatJoseph Conrad's LordJim is a fitting supplement to understanding the implications of a Kantian view of morality, for the central concern of the novel is the moral ambiguity that results from our common obscurity ofvision into ourselves and those around us. Given this 57 58Philosophy and Literature ambiguity, which Kant recognizes when he says, "even the strictest examination can never lead us entirely behind the secret incentives, for, when moral worth is in question, it is not a matter of actions which one sees but ofdieir inner principles which one does not see" (p. 23). It seems then irresponsible still to maintain that the worth ofa good will is independent of the way of the world. Since it is evident that if results or other empirical factors are invalid tojudge intentions, then the only judge capable of assessing in advance what maxim is being acted upon is the moral agent; morality becomes a matter of strictly individual conscience or reason. The moral agent thus becomes romanticized, a lone figure needing no other guidance than that which his or her own reason can provide in order to lead a truly good life. LordJim challenges just such a conception of individualist or self-sufficient morality. Due to the essential ambiguity ofwhatjim himselfis, the novel is an extremely difficult one to read. This is further complicated by the fact that, after the first four chapters, the reader is never given an impersonal view ofJim, but instead Marlow's painstaking efforts to fit together the puzzle ofJim's character: "I don't pretend I understood him. The views he let me have of himself were like those glimpses through the shifting rents in a thick fog— bits of vivid and vanishing detail, giving no connected idea of the general aspect of a country... they were no good for purposes of orientation."2 Given this cloud of uncertainty, Jim remains an enigma from beginning to end. The reader is treated to various judgments ofhim during this time from a wide range of viewpoints which Marlow perhaps pursues in an effort to shed some light on the subject, but which nonetheless leave us in darkness because they all omit one factor or another. There is no Authority in this book. The facts ofJim's case are relatively straightforward: it is the interpretation of what lies behind them, ofJim's "inner principles," which is extraordinarily complex. Jim is working as first mate on... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 564-565 [Access article in PDF] Samuel J. Kerstein. Kant's Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 226. Cloth, $60.00. Summed up in a sentence, this book is both a critical examination of Kant's claim to have derived a supreme moral principle and a limited defense of Kant's project that appears to (...) depart significantly from Kant's own approach. Methodologically, a large portion of this book is devoted to analyzing various key concepts and claims about the nature of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason and testing them against "everyday" moral intuitions via numerous examples and counterexamples.Kerstein begins by distinguishing between the tasks of deduction and derivation of a supreme moral principle, whereby a deduction is understood as an argument for the existence of a supreme moral principle, and a derivation simply assumes this conditionally and goes on to argue that a particular principle and no other can claim the title. Kerstein waives the discussion of whether Kant succeeds in giving a deduction and hence satisfactorily refutes moral skepticism. His focus in the book is on the derivation proposed primarily in Groundwork I and II that if there is a supreme moral principle, then it must be that law expressed in his formulations of the Categorical Imperative (hereafter "CI"). Kerstein addresses Bruce Aune's "traditional" reading of Kant's derivation, wherein the argument utterly fails because Kant allegedly infers a relatively substantive command ("Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will to be universal law") from a purely formal, higher order, and hence relatively empty one ("Conform your actions to universal law"). He then devotes a chapter each to two recent, influential defenses of Kant's derivation that seek his argument outside the Groundwork. Kerstein addresses Henry Allison's attempt to rescue the derivation via an account of agency rooted in Kant's notion of transcendental freedom, elaborated in the second Critique. Kerstein rejects Allison's reconstruction on the grounds that it remains too abstract to generate the degree of specificity arrived at in Kant's Groundwork universalization formulation. Chapter Three examines Christine Korsgaard's alternative reconstruction of Kant's argument that focuses on the formulation of humanity ("Act so as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of any other, always as an end and never as a means only"). He rejects her interpretation because, again, the move from the abstract command to conform to universal law to the substantive formulation about humanity as a universally recognizable unconditional good fails. From the former, more abstract claim, he argues, it does not follow that there is a universally recognizable unconditional good, let alone that this good is humanity in itself (and not, say, utility [happiness], or even some intrinsic value unrelated to humanity, both of which Kant rejects as candidates for the unconditionally good).In his own reconstruction, Kerstein dissolves the criticism of the traditional reading of Kant's Groundwork derivation of the formula of universal law by simply denying that Kant [End Page 564] argues directly from the more generic principle to the specific versions of the CI (91ff). Instead he suggests that Kant's argument is less direct, made by way of laying out a set of criteria that any supreme principle must meet, and showing how the CI meets them while no other candidates can. In the second half of the book he takes a painstaking and critical look at a total of eight criteria, each of which Kant holds to be necessary and together are jointly sufficient for establishing the CI as "the supreme norm for the evaluation of the moral permissability and requiredness of an action, but not of its moral value" (165). This statement includes Kerstein's most controversial and interesting reconstructive claim, namely his denial that moral worth attaches only to actions done in accordance with duty as determined by the test... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 564-565 [Access article in PDF] Samuel J. Kerstein. Kant's Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 226. Cloth, $60.00. Summed up in a sentence, this book is both a critical examination of Kant's claim to have derived a supreme moral principle and a limited defense of Kant's project that appears to (...) depart significantly from Kant's own approach. Methodologically, a large portion of this book is devoted to analyzing various key concepts and claims about the nature of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason and testing them against "everyday" moral intuitions via numerous examples and counterexamples.Kerstein begins by distinguishing between the tasks of deduction and derivation of a supreme moral principle, whereby a deduction is understood as an argument for the existence of a supreme moral principle, and a derivation simply assumes this conditionally and goes on to argue that a particular principle and no other can claim the title. Kerstein waives the discussion of whether Kant succeeds in giving a deduction and hence satisfactorily refutes moral skepticism. His focus in the book is on the derivation proposed primarily in Groundwork I and II that if there is a supreme moral principle, then it must be that law expressed in his formulations of the Categorical Imperative (hereafter "CI"). Kerstein addresses Bruce Aune's "traditional" reading of Kant's derivation, wherein the argument utterly fails because Kant allegedly infers a relatively substantive command ("Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will to be universal law") from a purely formal, higher order, and hence relatively empty one ("Conform your actions to universal law"). He then devotes a chapter each to two recent, influential defenses of Kant's derivation that seek his argument outside the Groundwork. Kerstein addresses Henry Allison's attempt to rescue the derivation via an account of agency rooted in Kant's notion of transcendental freedom, elaborated in the second Critique. Kerstein rejects Allison's reconstruction on the grounds that it remains too abstract to generate the degree of specificity arrived at in Kant's Groundwork universalization formulation. Chapter Three examines Christine Korsgaard's alternative reconstruction of Kant's argument that focuses on the formulation of humanity ("Act so as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of any other, always as an end and never as a means only"). He rejects her interpretation because, again, the move from the abstract command to conform to universal law to the substantive formulation about humanity as a universally recognizable unconditional good fails. From the former, more abstract claim, he argues, it does not follow that there is a universally recognizable unconditional good, let alone that this good is humanity in itself (and not, say, utility [happiness], or even some intrinsic value unrelated to humanity, both of which Kant rejects as candidates for the unconditionally good).In his own reconstruction, Kerstein dissolves the criticism of the traditional reading of Kant's Groundwork derivation of the formula of universal law by simply denying that Kant [End Page 564] argues directly from the more generic principle to the specific versions of the CI (91ff). Instead he suggests that Kant's argument is less direct, made by way of laying out a set of criteria that any supreme principle must meet, and showing how the CI meets them while no other candidates can. In the second half of the book he takes a painstaking and critical look at a total of eight criteria, each of which Kant holds to be necessary and together are jointly sufficient for establishing the CI as "the supreme norm for the evaluation of the moral permissability and requiredness of an action, but not of its moral value" (165). This statement includes Kerstein's most controversial and interesting reconstructive claim, namely his denial that moral worth attaches only to actions done in accordance with duty as determined by the test... (shrink)

An act that accords with duty has moral worth if and only if the agent’s reason for performing it is the same as what would have motivated a perfectly virtuous agent to perform it. On one of the two leading accounts of moral worth, an act that accords with duty has moral worth if and only if the agent’s reason for performing it is the fact that it’s obligatory. On the other, an act that (...) accords with duty has moral worth if and only if the agent’s reason for performing it is the fact that it has that feature of obligatory acts that makes them obligatory. I argue that both views are incorrect, providing counterexamples to each. I then argue that, on the correct account, an act can have moral worth only if its agent is motivated out of a fundamental concern for the things that ultimately matter. (shrink)

According to some, when you do the right thing, your moral beliefs make no difference to your act’s moral worth. Huckleberry Finn believes he is doing something wrong in helping Jim escape slavery. Yet his act reflects well on him. Some conclude that acting rightly reflects just as well on you whether you believe you are doing something right, wrong, supererogatory, or neutral. I argue against this. Doing the right thing with certain moral beliefs can diminish (...) the moral worth of doing it. In such cases, you do the right thing in the wrong spirit. (shrink)

International regulations governing medical research, healthcare and medical practice, are, obviously, meant to be guidelines and not detailed procedural rules of thumb that can be applied unreflectively without any danger of doing moral wrong. Moreover, such regulations are meant to apply internationally, and no set of straight‐jacketed rules of thumb can conceivably apply to all societies and communities of the world, extremely diverse and differently situated as they are. The mark of a good international guideline or regulation, in my (...) view, is that it should provide a clear principle of action that applies equally to all global communities and societies without seeking to foist the particular or momentary moral dilemmas, quandaries, obsessions and preoccupations of some on all.In this paper, I propose to argue that, because moral obligations are obligations only from the point of view of a particular moral agent, we should avoid making the peculiar problems of any particular moral agent the obsessive concern of all moral agents, and that we need, in particular, to make appropriate distinctions between the ethics of developed world research in the developing world, collaborative or cooperative research between the developed and developing worlds, developed world research in the developed world and developing world research in the developing world. A consequence of looking at things this way is that, while it should be clear that there are ethical concerns, imperatives and obligations at all levels, different standards may and, in fact, cannot but be applied in different contexts at different levels, without resorting to the use of double standards, which can never be morally justified. Finally, I venture to propose a formula for a solemn pledge of moral integrity and noble intent, from the perspective of the agent, that is to say, the investigator, sponsor and funder of any research, to complement and balance the widely accepted informed consent requirement, from the perspective of the patient, the subject of any biomedical research. (shrink)

Thomas Hill, a leading figure in the recent development of Kantian moral philosophy, presents a set of essays exploring the implications of basic Kantian ideas for practical issues. The first part of the book provides background in central themes in Kant's ethics; the second part discusses questions regarding human welfare; the third focuses on moral worth-the nature and grounds of moral assessment of persons as deserving esteem or blame. Hill shows moral, political, and social philosophers (...) just how valuable moral theory can be in addressing practical matters. (shrink)

International regulations governing medical research, healthcare and medical practice, are, obviously, meant to be guidelines and not detailed procedural rules of thumb that can be applied unreflectively without any danger of doing moral wrong. Moreover, such regulations are meant to apply internationally, and no set of straight‐jacketed rules of thumb can conceivably apply to all societies and communities of the world, extremely diverse and differently situated as they are. The mark of a good international guideline or regulation, in my (...) view, is that it should provide a clear principle of action that applies equally to all global communities and societies without seeking to foist the particular or momentary moral dilemmas, quandaries, obsessions and preoccupations of some on all. In this paper, I propose to argue that, because moral obligations are obligations only from the point of view of a particular moral agent, we should avoid making the peculiar problems of any particular moral agent(s) the obsessive concern of all moral agents, and that we need, in particular, to make appropriate distinctions between the ethics of developed world research in the developing world, collaborative or cooperative research between the developed and developing worlds, developed world research in the developed world and developing world research in the developing world. A consequence of looking at things this way is that, while it should be clear that there are ethical concerns, imperatives and obligations at all levels, different standards may and, in fact, cannot but be applied in different contexts at different levels, without resorting to the use of double standards, which can never be morally justified. Finally, I venture to propose a formula for a solemn pledge of moral integrity and noble intent, from the perspective of the agent, that is to say, the investigator, sponsor and funder of any research, to complement and balance the widely accepted informed consent requirement, from the perspective of the patient, the subject of any biomedical research. (shrink)

Originally published during the early part of the twentieth century, the Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature were designed to provide concise introductions to a broad range of topics. They were written by experts for the general reader and combined a comprehensive approach to knowledge with an emphasis on accessibility. The Moral Life by W. R. Sorley was first published in 1911 and reissued as this third edition in 1920. The volume presents an account of the nature of goodness (...) in humanity, taking the perspective that morality is a spirit manifested in life rather than a body of rules. (shrink)

Jiren (畸人), literally translated as irregular (Ji) person (ren), is a critical concept in the classical Daoist text the Zhuangzi (5th–3rd century BC.).1 The concept refers to individuals with atypical body shapes. Some of them lack body parts of the standard human body, like a leg or toes. Some others have an atypical anatomy, like having a chin stuck down their navel; and some of them are, by social standards of the time, considered to be extremely ugly.1 These individuals are (...) described as incredibly virtuous. The description of Jiren individuals as virtuous does not simply aim to show there may be hidden virtues that social conventions blur. The point is not to show that we should also care for those with atypical bodies who have a hidden virtue. Rather, the point is to show that all human beings have an unconditional intrinsic value and moral worth. So, Jiren prescribes that an atypical body shape does not reflect inferiority. The variation of body anatomies should be understood as how the world is, not a value hierarchy. The concept of Jiren encourages, therefore, to consider one’s own and others’ value beyond their physical appearance. What’s more, Jiren encourages individuals to resist social pressures to fit a standard and to search inward for who they really are and accept it. This ethical groundwork set by the Jiren aims at freeing people from existing physical and mental boundaries to their well-being and helping them rethink …. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Refugees, as forced migrants, have suffered displacement under conditions not of their own choosing. In 2000 there were thought to be 22 million refugees of whom 6 million were HIV positive. While the New Zealand government has accepted a number of HIV positive refugees from sub‐Saharan Africa, this hospitality is under threat due to negative public and political opinion. Epidemic conditions raise the social stakes attached to sexual exchanges, contagion becomes a major figure in social relationships and social production, (...) and the fears of the contagious nature of those ‘just off the plane’ connect refugees to an equally deep‐seated fear of racial miscegenation. Jacques Derrida’s notion of unconditional hospitality is a dream of a democracy which would have a cosmopolitan form. This means that one cannot decide in advance which refugees one might choose to resettle. This paper will use Derrida’s notion of unconditional hospitality to emphasise the fragility of HIV positive refugees’ position, caught between becoming newly made New Zealand subjects while at the same time having that subjecthood threatened. For Derrida, both ethics and politics demand both an action and a need for a thoughtful response (a questioning without limit). (shrink)

In this paper I wish to discuss two types of moral judgment, the ascription of moral value and of moral worth. Such judgments attribute evaluative properties to persons. There can be little doubt that such judgments are frequently passed and that, though many people find them distasteful, they are indispensable to the effective operation of a morality. To take seriously the slogan ‘Judge not lest ye be judged’ is to treat morality as a private, personal matter, (...) which is solely a person’s own concern. But so taken, the slogan invites indiscriminate mutual condonation of, and so connivance at, immorality. I therefore ignore possible objections to such judgments on the grounds of their supposed illegitimacy. (shrink)

won a shopping spree on her birthday, but the 99-year-old Californian wanted nothing for herself. Instead, she used the opportunity to make well-stuffed holiday stockings for children in need, which she plans to distribute through her church. “I’m going to cry, I’m so happy,” she said last week as she filled her cart with toys and candy, along with essentials like toothbrushes and socks, at a 99-cent store in Beverly Hills. “I feel bad that I can’t do it for every (...) [poor child],” Goldstein said. “But it makes me feel very good that I am able to do what I can.”. (shrink)