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Sample Explication Paper on Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysic
of Morals, Section I, 4:394
Instructions: Explicate Kant's argument in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics
of Morals, Sections I, 4:394.
In this paper, I will explicate
Kant’s arguments in Section 1: Transition from Common Rational Moral
Cognition to Philosophical Moral Cognition of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics
of Morals. Kant attempts to show that the good will is the only
thing that is good without limitation. In the first two paragraphs,
Kant lists characteristics which are not good without limitation, implying
that the good will is the only thing good without limitation. In
the third paragraph, Kant explains further what good without limitations
means and what makes the good will good without limitation. In addition
to this main conclusion, Kant also claims that the good will is necessary
to make all good things good. I will show that Kant’s arguments
are both valid, with the addition of the implicit premises explained in
the paper.
In the first sentence of this passage,
Kant concludes that the good will is the only thing that is good without
limitation. Kant goes on to argue for this claim by showing examples
of qualities, such as talents of the mind, that are not good without limitation.
Kant also means to suggest that all good things, except the good will
itself, are not good without limitation, thereby proving the conclusion
that the only thing good without limitation is the good will.
After stating the conclusion, Kant
explicitly states the first three premises:
(1) Talents of the mind can be extremely evil and harmful if they
stem from a will that is not good.
(2) Qualities of temperament can be extremely evil and harmful if
they stem from a will that is not good.
(3) Gifts of fortune can be extremely evil and harmful if they stem
from a will that is not good.
Here, in the first three premises,
Kant is appealing to our intuitions. Kant takes these things to
be part of our “common rational moral cognition,” and will
move from these intuitions towards the philosophical explanation.
Kant is trying to eliminate all of these characteristics as candidates
for the category “good without limitation.” If he can
validly show that no good thing, except the good will, is good without
limitation, then he will have proven the conclusion that the only good
thing that is good without limitation is the good will. To eliminate
these characteristics as possible qualities that are good without limitation,
we must supply:
(6) Talents of the mind, qualities of temperament, and gifts
of fortune require the presence of something else to be good.
(7) Things that require the presence of something else to
be good are not good without limitation.
The above two premises are intuitive
and reasonable. In reading the first paragraph, we find that (6)
is obvious—Kant explicitly says that these qualities may be great
and wished-for, but only if the will behind them is good. From this,
we can take that these qualities need something else to make them good.
Also, Kant states the conclusion right away, and so we know that he is
trying to show that the good will is the only thing good without limitation.
So, by listing these goods, he is trying to show that they are good with
limitation. From these two premises, we can conclude:
(8) Therefore, talents of the mind, qualities of temperament,
and gifts of fortune are not good without limitation. (from 6, 7)
This is the first step in Kant’s strategy. In the first paragraph,
he aims to show that talents of the mind, qualities of temperament, and
gifts of fortune are, while good when they stem from a good will, only
good in a limited way. Once he shows us that these good things are
limited goods, he moves on to a new set of qualities in the second paragraph.
In the second paragraph, Kant explains
that “Some qualities are even conducive to this good will itself
and can make its work much easier, but still have despite this no inner
unconditional worth.” We see that Kant is employing the same
strategy he used in the previous paragraph: he will try to list characteristics
that are sometimes thought of as good without limitation, and then go
on to show that these characteristics are, in fact, not good without limitation.
Kant lists “moderation in affects
and passions, self-control, and sober reflection” as three characteristics
which are good for many aims, seem to constitute even the inner worth
of a person and were, apparently, praised by the ancients. But then
he states that even these qualities are not good without limitation.
As before, to make validly the argument that these characteristics are
not good without limitation, we must supply:
(12) For moderation in affects and passions, self-control,
and sober reflection to be evil and harmful, it is sufficient that the
will behind them is not good. (P)
(13) Moderation in affects and passions, self-control, and
sober reflection are not good without the presence of something else to
make them good. (from 12)
And, again, we can conclude from these two implicit premises:
(14) Therefore, moderation in affects and passion, self-control,
and sober reflection are not good without limitation. (from 13, 7)
Now that Kant has given us examples of things that are not good without
limitation, he must show us explicitly, first, that the good will is good
without limitation, and second, that the good will is the only thing that
is good without limitation.
In the third paragraph, Kant argues
that the good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes,
but that it is good in itself. In arguing that the good will is
not good because of usefulness, Kant hopes to show more clearly what “good
without limitation” entails. Kant is pushing the point that
the good will does not depend on anything else for its goodness.
In order to move from the premise that the good will is either good because
of what it effects or accomplishes or because of its willing to the conclusion
that the good will is good without limitation, we must first show that
the good will is good in itself. To show that the good will is good
in itself, we assume the following chain of argumentation:
(19) It is not the case that the good will is good because
of its effects.
(20) The good will is good because of its willing. (from 18,
19)
From (20), we can conclude the following:
(21) A good will is good in itself. (from 20)
Now that we have established that a good will is good in itself, we can
use this to prove that a good will is good without limitation. All
we need to do is add the following implicit premise:
(22) The good will does not need the presence of anything
else to be good. (from 21)
From this premise, and the conclusion prior to premise (25) which states
what the good will is good in itself, we can conclude:
(23) Therefore, a good will is good without limitation. (from
21, 7)
Kant now needs to show that the good
will is the only thing good without limitation. Nowhere does Kant
explicitly state that the good will is the only thing good without limitation,
and so, to make valid this conclusion, we must draw on multiple premises
that show all other things besides the good will are limited goods.
Premises (8) and (14) exclude all the attributes that Kant mentions from
the category of “good without limitation.” Drawing on
this, we can supply the following implicit premise that will show deductively
that the good will is the only thing good without limitation:
(16) Talents of mind, qualities of temperament, gifts of fortune,
moderation in affects and passions, self-control, sober reflection, and
the good will are the only good things. (P)
From (16), (8), and (14), we can exclude every quality in (16) from the
category of “good without limitation,” except for the good
will, showing that the good will must be the only thing good without limitation.
We have now made a valid argument
in favor of Kant’s conclusion that a good will is the only thing
that is good without limitation. However, while Kant’s main
conclusion has been validly shown, there is another claim that Kant makes
in this passage which remains to be discussed.
In addition to concluding that the
good will is the only thing that is good without limitation, Kant also
concludes that a good will is necessary to make all good things good.
This is an argument that has no bearing on the proof of Kant’s main
conclusion, but that is significant in and of itself. In the first
paragraph, we are given the first glimpse of Kant’s argument that
a good will is necessary to make all good things good. Kant states,
near the end of the first paragraph, that “…[these qualities]
make for courage and thereby often arrogance, where there is not a good
will to correct their influence on the mind, and thereby on the entire
principle of action….” In making this assertion, Kant
implies that the good will is responsible for making these qualities good.
If we draw on premises (1), (2),
and (3), we can validly conclude:
(4) For talents of mind, qualities of temperament, and gifts of
fortune to be evil and harmful, it is sufficient that the will behind
them is not good. (from 1, 2, 3)
And from (4), we can logically conclude:
(5) Therefore, the good will is necessary to make talents
of the mind, qualities of temperament, and gifts of fortune good. (from
1, 2, 3)
Now that we have shown (5), we must
show that the other qualities Kant mentions in the second paragraph also
require the good will to be good. We first show that these other
qualities are not good without limitation. Then, we supply the premise:
(15) A good will is necessary to make moderation in affects
and passions, self-control, and sober reflection good.
Now that we have listed all of the
common categories of characteristics which people normally consider good,
we need to get to the conclusion that the good will is necessary to make
all good things good. To come to this conclusion, we need only to
supply the following premise:
(16) Talents of mind, qualities of temperament, gifts of fortune,
moderation in affects and passions, self-control, sober reflection, and
good will are the only good things. (P)
If the above characteristics are the only good things, and all of them
require the good will to make them good, we can validly conclude:
(17) Therefore, a good will is necessary to make all good
things good. (from 5, 15, 16)
So, we have shown that Kant has made the argument that the good will is
necessary to make all good things good, in addition to his argument that
the good will is only thing that is good without limitation.
I have explicated Kant’s argument
regarding good will presented in Section 1 of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics
of Morals. I have shown that Kant argues validly for the conclusions
that the good will is the only thing that is good without limitation and
that the good will is necessary to make all other good things good, with
the addition of the previously mentioned supplied premises.
Reconstruction from Kant's Groundwork, Section
One
Objections to Kant's Argument in Groundwork,
Section One
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