ABSTRACT
Utilitarian moralists have gone beyond almost all others in affirming that the motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much with the worth of the agent. James Harris has something to say on two important topics, self-denial and interest. The aim of the Groundwork is, as Kant says, “to examine the idea and the principles of a possible pure will”. Harris foresees that his cold, rational morality may seem scandalous, but he is confident that, even when he has stated it as boldly and provocatively as he may, he can remove the scandal. The rather languid Aristotelianism of Harris is an excellent background against which to examine Kant’s moral severities and his metaphysical flight into the absolute of unconditioned values and unconditioned laws. Kant’s great contribution to the eighteenth-century moral debate was that he found a determinate concept of, or rather a categorical form for determining concepts of, action.
