The Art of Doing Good Without Feeling Good: When Kantian Moral Worth Outshines Human Nature

The question of what determines whether an action is truly good or evil has long been a central concern in moral philosophy, encapsulated by the concept of moral worth. For this essay, I will be utilising only one source. i.e., Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, where he offers a new rigid approach, asserting that moral worth of an action is established not by its result or with any alignment with inclinations, but in the motivation behind the action. Simply put, an action will only have moral worth when it is performed purely out of duty. In this essay, I argue that while Kant’s theory of moral worth is coherent and deserves appreciation in its pursuit in the purity of moral worth, it is unfortunately impractical for real-world application. To argue my thesis, the essay is split up into five sections. To begin, I explore Kant’s foundational ideas on moral worth – namely the concepts of good will and duty – and his dismissal of inclinations. Secondly, I showcase the issues with Kant’s exclusion of emotions, highlighting how such a rigid structure creates problems when we consider morally significant actions motivated by cooperating inclinations. Then, I address the issue of overdetermining moral worth, showing how Kant’s approach unfairly judges actions arising from good character or human nature. Then, I talk about the epistemic difficulties in determining moral motives, specifically addressing problems posed by selfdeception and external judgement. Finally, I conclude by pointing out the need for a more practical and applicable moral framework that would incorporate the complexities of human nature unlike Kant’s framework, which only focuses on retaining respect for moral principles.