Kant Act With Good Will Essay

Kant believes that in order to behave in accordance with reason, we have to act with good will. According to Kant, to act with good will requires two things: First, that you have to act in accordance with moral law, and second, that you make decision for the sake of the moral law itself. For example, let’s say a bartender is deciding whether or not he should shortchange a customer in order to make a few extra dollars during his shift. Now let’s say that this bartender ultimately decides he’s going to give the customer the correct change — if he makes this decision because he’s afraid he’s going to get busted, then he didn’t make the decision out of good will. But if he made the decision because it’s the right thing to do, and out of respect for the moral law, then the decision was made with good will. But what is this moral law, exactly? Kant says

He points out that in most cases, what we should or shouldn’t do isn’t something that’s a moral choice but something that’s contingent upon desire. For example, if you want to know how to code, you should enroll in a computer science class. If-then statements like that are hypothetical imperatives — things you should do if you want something. Hypothetical imperatives are more to do with foresight than they are morality. So if you don’t want to learn how to code, then don’t enroll in that computer science class. It isn’t a decision that goes against any moral code. Kantian ethics looks at morality in terms of categorical imperatives, not hypothetical ones. Categorical imperatives are ones that you have to abide by, regardless of your desires. They’re moral obligations, created from reason itself. Additionally, he thinks that we can determine the moral law using nothing but our own distinct, human