Examining Main Concepts in Immanuel Kant

In his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant explores what constitutes a moral action and what drives such action in a person. He also distinguishes between action that can appear moral and action that is truly moral, depending on what is the basis of such action for a particular individual. The most basic prerequisite for moral action, according to Kant, is the presence of good will. Another important factor separating truly moral action from the one that just appears so is the separation of good will from the pursuit of one's personal interests - in other words, the combination of good will and selfless duty. Such action is moral because it is driven by a categorical imperative, meaning that it is done as an end onto itself rather than a means to other ends. And since good will cannot be created without reason, and the power to reason is available only to humans, a morally acting person must be considered a propagator of good will and thus an end onto himself. A community of people living together and acting morally toward one another is, according to Kant, an ideal achievement representing the kingdom of ends.

People can possess many positive character traits, but all of them can be turned to evil purposes and thus cannot be considered good in themselves: "they can... become extremely bad and harmful if the will, which is to make use of these gifts of nature and which in its special constitution is call character, is not good" (Kant 7). The prerequisite to goodness is, therefore, good will that would drive these actions. Morally, good will is the only thing that is good in itself and as such more valuable than any combination of seemingly good achievements that are undertaken with personal interest - "merely in order to favor some inclination" (Kant 7) - even if the action driven by good will accomplishes less than the one undertaken with a personal inclination in mind.

To produce truly moral action, however, good will must be separated from all personal interests, regardless of how good an action such "inclinations" would produce. People are given reason "to produce a will which is not merely good as a means to some further end, but is good in itself" (Kant 9). Indeed, the truly moral action is the one done purely out of duty and sometimes even against the doer's personal interests. Satisfaction that the doer will derive from truly moral action has nothing to do with senses or emotions, which would detract from the moral worth of such action. Instead, as good will is the creation of reason, so the purest satisfaction is the one of intellectual kind.

This need to act because one "ought" to rather because one "would" out of personal "imperative" is what Kant calls a categorical imperative. The imperative to act in such a manner concerns itself strictly with the action itself, not the result that it would produce: "It is not concerned with the matter of the action and its intended result, but rather with the form of the action and the principle from which it follows; what is essentially good in the action consists in the mental disposition, let the consequences be what they may" (Kant 26). The necessity of action driven by a categorical imperative is absolute - while at the same time being practical - and as such can be considered a command, or law, to be adhered to even - and especially - if no personal interest or eventual satisfaction can be derived from it. Truly moral actions by each individual therefore would be directed by reason and to preserve reason, since every reasonable person is an end to himself. A combination of reasonable people, adhering to moral laws they set for themselves, is what Kant calls kingdom of ends.