Metaphysic Of Morals By Kant Essay

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Essay 1: Kant In Kant’s “From Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals”, he elaborates on the significance of the goodwill: that doing something out of good will means doing it strictly for the purpose of duty, because it is your duty as a person to do the right thing. To support this statement, one must agree that the the good will is a morally valuable thing. For example, my interpretation of Kant says, “if there is not a good will to correct the influence of these (gifts of fortune) in the mind, then these fortunes can over-take good will and bad occurrences may happen.” Kant believes that when we perform an action, the morality of our actions do not depend on their outcomes. When we perform actions with a good will in mind, they will result in a morally valuable consequence. To ask if it is morally valuable would be to ask the question if good will assists people in making the better decision — whether deciding …show more content…

For example, Kant elaborates on how some cases of actions have no moral worth, but are on a level of other inclinations, such as: the inclination to honour — which deserves praise and encouragement, but not esteem. Kant states that this maxim lacks moral import and value, and that the actions should be done from duty not from inclination. To my interpretation, an action that deserves high honor and praise will also be an action that is morally valuable and sometimes this action may not have been of good will; for instance, If an American special operations sniper kills a high-caliber Taliban leader that has committed several successful terrorist attacks, it is morally valuable and right that the sniper kills him because of the harm and outright disgust of the actions of the terrorist. However, the action of killing is not of good will, according to the definition of “friendly, helpful, or cooperative feelings or