Good and Evil, According to Kant

In Chapter II [of the Analytic of the] Critique of Practical Reason, Kant argues against employing concepts of "good" and "evil," as impossible prior to rules/laws determining the will. He argues that the only objects of pure practical reason are the good and the evil. He attempts to distinguish good from well-being, and evil from ill-being which plays an important role in his elaboration on the concept of objects of pure practical reason. He lays out the possibility of two accounts in defining an object.

Kant states there are two possible accounts for an object of practical reason. Kant designates the only possible account (for moral experience) is that objects of pure practical reason exist independent of physical capacity to perform action, and their moral possibility solely depends on whether or not it is a law that is determining the will - not the object itself. This is only possible, according to Kant, in the case of the moral law - which pure practical reason alone determines the will. If this is true, then it follows that there is essentially only two objects of pure practical reason: the good and the evil (186). If, the opposite path is chosen and objects of physical possibility determine the will - then the will would be determined according to that which brings pleasure and pain (154); the former represents the determination of the will according to that which we understand "through the faculty of desire, and the latter through the faculty of aversion." However, this could not be the case. It would be impossible to determine what brings pleasure and pain without relying on experience, which in turn is dependent upon sense impressions. This of course is heteronomy and not morality. He continues:

Well-being or ill being always signifies only a reference to our state of agreeableness or disagreeableness, of gratification or pain, and if we desire or avoid an object on this account we do so only insofar as it is referred to our sensibility and to the feeling of pleasure or displeasure it causes (188).

This makes perfectly legitimate sense only in the sensible world, where practical reason may be determined on grounds in pursuit of our own happiness. But, and Kant feels we accept this, we're not merely sensible creatures like animals, but also have a higher faculty of reason. Hence, objects determining the will (an object being the action made real through the will of the human being capable of making it real) have only to do with well-being and ill-being, not the good or the evil (190). In the latter case, the good becomes solely the agreeable, and likewise the evil only becomes the disagreeable. Thus, nothing is good in itself nor absolutely. Instead, the determining grounds of good simply rest in our pathological feeling towards the object (190). Kant also points that this would be unjustified on account that the good would posit itself before determining the goodness of actions. This would make any type of pure practical law impossible and thus cannot be the case for morality. Instead, the moral law is determined first as a guide for maxims in the determination of objects of the pure practical reason (191). This is the only for which an a priori practical law could exist, and anything could be said to be good absolutely. Good and evil, as objects of pure practical reason, are then judged as the objects made real through the will bringing its maxims into accordance with the moral law - and having nothing to do with pathological feelings of pleasure/displeasure (192).

Thus what is morally good is that which (through the willing of a maxim) is in accordance to the moral law. This moral law (a priori pure practical law determining the will) is also formal, meaning it has no content but only universal form, and from this we can conclude that goodness is prescribed to actions willed by the rational agent that conform to the law; and that evil refers to those actions where content (empirical) is given prior to form and the will makes exceptions for itself. The will that conforms all its maxims to the moral law is the only thing that can be good absolutely (universally, and objectively).

This has a very practical relevance in its distinction. First and foremost, it does away with any divine conception of the good or evil. Actions are good insofar as they are willed in accordance to the categorical imperative (and all that it entails). Likewise, evil then is committed in actions where exceptions are made in the willing of a maxim that puts content before universal form. This is relevant in a number of reasons. First, our actions are good in and of themselves when they are made real according to how we willed them. The consequence of these actions is thus irrelevant. If I act on a maxim out of anything other than pure practical reason determining my will, it is not good in the moral sense. It may be praiseworthy, admirable, or any other pathological feeling we may want to attach to it. Likewise, evil is given no hierarchy, and no actions are more evil than others. The process for which my actions are deceitful (tell a lie) is no different than when I brutally murder or rape someone. This may seem contrary to conventional ideas of morality, but it makes perfect sense from the Kantian perspective and is thus internally sound (within this framework). Another relevant distinction can be made in that doing things out of love, concern for others, or out of promotion for the greatest good for the greatest amount of people again may be praiseworthy and honorable, but still not moral. Following the moral law implies the goodness comes from the following of a rule imposed upon the will (as its own author). Likewise, the goodness depends then on acting on one's duty, not any other sensible motivation. And thus, this can only be the case with a law from pure practical reason (192).

However, there is a contrast that needs to be addressed in depth. In the opening passage of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant clearly states, "it is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will" (49). Here, Kant seems to have in mind an object of the good - which in turn the categorical imperative (moral law, pure practical reason) seeks to aim. This seems contradictory though to the account made in Chapter II of the Analytic, which clearly states that no such object can be the determining ground, but rather, that the good can only be derived from the moral law determining the will. The quality of goodness here is being described to the good-will. Attached to the concept of the good will then is what can be described as the condition of worthiness to be happy; however, this seems in itself a moral claim derived not from grounds of adherence to a particular rule of the pure practical understanding - but quite contrary, prior to it. In this account the good will seems to be the only good (absolutely), and the moral law has at its basis this end. In the Analytic, Kant holds that the good-will is one that conforms all its maxims to the moral law. Even more problematic, Kant states (on page 52 of the Groundwork) that human reason serves a greater purpose than the pursuit of happiness, since this task would be far better suited for instinct anyways. Rather, practical reason has a greater, higher purpose towards achieving what Kant believes is the highest good (albeit, not complete good), "the true vocation of reason must be to produce a will that is good, not perhaps as a means to other purposes, but good in itself, for which reason was absolutely necessary" (52).

In the Groundwork the reader is presented with a concept of the good in itself attached to the good-will, which reason alone aims to achieve. This raises a number of problems as well - how has Kant (according to his own argument in the Analytic of the Critique of Practical Reason) justified himself in positing the good-will as "good in itself" without an a priori law of pure practical reason preceding this object? This presents another account of the moral law as being necessary for pure practical reason in the attainment of the highest good (a good will), as opposed to the good will being the highest good that results from a will whose maxims conform to the moral law. The latter places an object as the determining ground for pure practical reason and the moral law its means; whereas the latter simply posits a rule determining the will and the highest good derived from this law. This distinction forces one to ask why Kant feels the good-will is good in itself when he later argues that no such thing can be considered good unless the action is in accordance to the moral law.

However inconsistent the differences between the Groundwork and the second Critique may be (at least in regards to the good), Kant argues for a radically different concept of objects of the pure practical will. The results may not seem compatible with our conventional ideas of good and evil; however, one's feelings towards them say little of their truthfulness. The position taken in the Critique is more consistent within the framework of Kantian moral philosophy though, since it does not attempt to extend any judgment of what is good that contradicts its own claims (such as seen in the Groundwork). This problem could have been mitigated had Kant simply not even mentioned that reason's vocation is the production of a good will.

Sources: Critique of Practical Reason; Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals - Immanual Kant.