Kant’s Moral Philosophy: Key Concepts Explained
**Good Will**
Kant’s concept of good will refers to a will that is good in itself. It is not good because of the actions it produces or the ends it achieves. Instead, it is good because it acts solely out of duty. Even if the subject’s intentions are thwarted, or the consequences are contrary to their happiness or the happiness of others, the good will remains. Good will intervenes when we want to do our duty. Duty is identified with good in itself, or with holiness.
**Understanding**
Understanding is the faculty of concepts and judgments. Thanks to this ability, we can conceptualize or use concepts to understand what perception gives us. Besides empirical concepts, Kant believed that understanding contains twelve pure concepts whose origin is not in experience. These concepts are called categories.
**Will**
Will is the faculty through which we can determine our conduct based on principles. It is the engine of action. Kant distinguishes two kinds of will:
- Holy Will: This is a will that can only be determined by reason. Inclination never influences it, as in the case of God. For this will, the law will have no moral imperative form since, given its constitution, it will inevitably fulfill the law.
- Human Will: This will can be determined by reason and inclination. Reason can motivate us to perform an action contrary to duty. In our case, the law has the form of a moral imperative.
**Duty**
Duty is the need for action with respect to the law. In Kant’s view, actions may be performed out of inclination (mediate or immediate) or out of duty. Actions are performed out of inclination when we find that by doing them, we can obtain something connected with our happiness. In the case of immediate inclination, the action itself is sought because satisfaction occurs immediately. In the case of mediate inclination, actions are performed to achieve a situation or circumstance that produces satisfaction or the absence of pain. However, actions performed out of duty are done independently of their relationship to our happiness or unhappiness, and regardless of the happiness or unhappiness of the people we love. We do them because our conscience dictates that they must be done.
**Reason**
In a general sense, reason is the power that formulates principles. Kant distinguished between theoretical and practical principles. There are not two different reasons, but two uses of the same reason. When these principles refer to the reality of things, we are using reason for knowledge of reality, which is theoretical reason. When these principles are aimed at directing conduct, reason has a practical use. In its theoretical use, it generates judgments. In its practical use, it generates imperatives or mandates.
**Categorical Imperative (Universal Law)**
This term refers to a universal principle that prescribes an action as necessary because it is an unconditioned good. It commands something for the goodness of the action itself, regardless of what can be achieved with it. It declares the action objectively necessary without reference to any intrinsic purpose. For Kant, only such a command is properly a moral imperative.
**End in Itself**
By end in itself, we mean the human being. We are ends and not means. Kant uses this terminology in one of the three formulations of the categorical imperative to say that we must act in such a way that we use ourselves and others as ends, as people, and not as means or tools to achieve something. As stated in another formulation, we should not use ourselves or others as means.