Kant: Moral Incentives

In Chapter III of the Analytic of the Critique of Practical Reason Kant discusses moral incentives. He provides the reader with an account of incentives on sensible beings that he describes as a moral feeling. This complicated feeling is unlike any other, for it is practically effected rather than pathological. He constructs this incentive in a unique and imaginative way whose result is an a priori feeling which provides rational beings with f dual feeling composed of both humiliation (pain) and respect. How this is so, its relation to a priori practical reason, and why Kant felt it necessary to include this argument in the Critique will be examined further within this essay.

By incentives, Kant is referring to the subjective determining grounds of the will. From this, he works his way around a number of problems that could be potentially leveled against such claims (as they relate to his conception of morality). Right off, Kant explains incentives and for whom they may be attributed to. By their nature in two respective worlds, only rational beings can be said to have incentives. The perfect being/holy will cannot be said to have incentives because it is not subject to inclination and its actions are willed always and necessarily in accordance with the moral law. Thus, incentives are subject to beings who encompass a sensible and intelligible existence (198).

In the first paragraph of the chapter, Kant makes clear that no feeling or incentive other than the moral law itself can be said to determine the will. We can take two things from this: the moral law must provide its own incentive and that we as rational beings (both in the noumenal and phenomenal) experience subjective determination of our wills (198). Thus, in terms of rational beings, the moral law provides not only the objective determination of the will, but also the subjective determination (our incentive) to act morally. How the moral law provides its own incentive is unknowable; however, Kant believes that this can be explained through the effects it has on us when we experience morality.

The incentive (subjective determination of our wills) for Kant rests in a feeling we have when we experience the moral law determining our wills (autonomy). When this happens, we realize the restrictions placed on our inclinations (as determining grounds for our will). Thus, insofar as we are sensible beings, the moral law "thwarts" our inclinations and self-love from determining our will. This humiliation incorporates a sense of pain in the following means. First, the restriction of self-love and the imposition on our self-conceit means we're simply not getting what we sensibly want.

Furthermore, what takes place is an internal humiliation that designates these inclinations and the pathological feelings we have for them as inferior to something else, namely the moral law. What is most remarkable about this account is that it holds that human beings have within them the ability to recognize their own worth independent of their inclinations or sensible desires. This internal humbling effect is not merely the sole incentive; it has a corresponding positive effect on our being as well.

If the moral law humiliates us by thwarting our inclinations in the sensible world, since it is objective (in every sense), it must have an effect on ourselves as intelligible beings in the noumenal world as well. Contrary to the humbling effect on our sensible nature, the moral law produces an internal feeling of respect. He clarifies this feeling of respect from other pathological feelings, namely awe, inspiration, admiration, and love. He establishes that the feeling of respect is one that can only be said to apply to rational beings, and is also a feeling produced when one recognizes his own inner worth through his autonomous determination of his will (through the moral law).

Thus, respect equals the esteem one feels for himself as an autonomous being when he acts morally (202). The humiliation of our sensible desires, and the arousal of respect for our inner worth as intelligible beings, restricts the determination of the will to the grounds of pure practical reason. Kant explains this is so by providing an account of how such an a priori feeling could be possible. The respect felt for oneself when acting morally is thus the same as the respect for the moral law. The two cannot be separated, and one cannot feel such respect if the subjective grounds for determining the will are found on pathological or sensible grounds (this would be heteronomy, for which no respect could be accorded) (200).

The way in which the moral law infringes upon our feelings is a priori. When the moral law restricts our self-love and self-conceit, then we experience a feeling of humiliation. This comparison between the objective moral law and our subjective inclinations humiliates the latter, but arouses respect for the former. Kant must account then for how this could be - since feelings are pathological and sensible, whereas the moral law is wholly noumenal. Inclinations are dependent upon pathological feelings, and it follows that there through the thwarting of these inclinations, it is necessary that the moral law must have some influence over our feelings (200).

That is how Kant believes it's possible to show the a priori causality of the moral feeling. The feeling of respect in turn is derived from the moral law itself - and only on grounds through the use of pure practical reason. Hence, the moral feeling is practically effected, rather than pathologically. Only the effects insofar as they are feelings (in general) can be said to be subjective grounds for determination of the will, whose possibility is linked back to pure practical reason (201).

The connection between the a priori practical reason and this moral feeling is a peculiar one. As demonstrated above the feelings of humiliation and respect have in their origins the moral law, which alone can be attributed to their cause. The feeling of humiliation (having our incentives thwarted) is entirely pathological, since it relates only to the sensible. However, what's more important is the feeling of respect. The respect as practical effect takes place in the noumenal, as intelligible beings.

The cause is thus a priori, but this respect for the esteem of the autonomous agent is equivalent for respect for the moral law. And as such, working concert with the humiliation experienced in the sensible, produces an effect on pathological feelings as well (though Kant regards this as indirect) (204). The combination, which in turn is the moral feeling, acts on the pathological and is thus subjective grounds for morality. To further elaborate on this relationship between the a priori pure practical reason and what is actually going on within the sensible (so as not to be confused with heteronomy), Kant says the following:

Thus, the moral law, since it is a formal determining ground of action through practical pure reason and since it is also a material but only objective determining ground of the objects of action under the name of good and evil, is also a subjective determining ground - that is, an incentive - to this action inasmuch as it has influence on the sensibility of the subject (201).

The moral feeling is free from the charge of heteronomy on the following grounds. First, as an incentive, the moral feeling is itself not the determining grounds, for that role can only be satisfied by the moral law itself (which must provide its own incentive). The moral feeling is the effect, not the cause, of moral actions. Hence, someone who acts out of the feeling alone would be acting on heteronomy. This would provide pathological incentives as the sole determining factor on an individual will.

This would be none other than self-love, and not morality. While the feeling of humiliation of having one's own inclinations thwarted may be sensible, its contrary, the arousal of respect, having its origins in the intellectual is nonetheless. To experience the moral feeling, one must be acting in accordance to the spirit of the moral law; otherwise, the effects which take place on account of its objective determination of the will would not occur to begin with. This follows from the already mentioned notion that the moral law is its own objective (and subjective) determining grounds for the will.

The moral law is henceforth the only objective and subjective determining ground of the will. The incentive of the moral law is the component of pure practical reason as it relates to our being both noumenal/phenomenal beings; which presupposes feelings and a finitude in existence. The moral feeling is thus said only to be caused by pure practical reason, but cannot serve as grounds for acting morally - which would be heteronomy. Rather, as explained above, is derived from our willing maxims solely on grounds of duty in the spirit of the moral law - and not out of any other sensible, pathological motivation.

This argument was a necessary inclusion for the Critique of Practical Reason because it provides some insight into a possible bridge between our noumenal and phenomenal being. The moral feeling, as caused by our pure practical reason, is an effect upon our pathological selves, and can quite conceivably be made analogous to our feelings of conscience. The feeling itself represents the only way in which we could possibly experience duty (which in turn is how the moral law appears to us, as an imperative).

Thus, Kant has provided his readers with some insight into how our own experience of morality may in fact coincide with his two-world view. The chapter on this incentive provides beautiful insight into human moral experience - the feeling of humiliation upon which one's inclinations are struck down and the internal respect gained felt towards the autonomous being willing in accordance to the moral law describes what Kant would like to believe happens within all of us.

This section of the text validates the two-world theory through phenomenological accounts of human moral experience; and represents a very different argument than previously seen throughout the text. Source:
Critique of Practical Reason, Immanuel Kant.