ABSTRACT
Kant and James Harris agree on a central idea; the notion of an ineluctable, “Self-derived”, “Accommodate, Complete”, infrangible and irrefragable good. They disagree about this good importantly in one respect only. Harris wants his Good eudaemonic: Kant does not particularly care about eudaimonia as an element of his “absolute” good, not in the Groundwork at any rate. Harris, looking towards Happiness as well as towards accommodateness and absoluteness, puts his doctrine very plainly. Happiness makes its appearance from time to time in the Groundwork, but it always vanishes again quickly, buried under talk about unconditionality and ‘the motive of duty’. Inferior Artists are the practitioners of those inferior arts whose canon is success. The Moral Art may, of course, aim at success and at happiness; and though these things are not to be commanded, they still remain the aims of rational action.
