ABSTRACT
In theGroundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant considers a shopkeeper who regularly gives good change but only for his own advantage – say, to ensure that he is perceived as a fair trader, the sort of fellow who wouldn’t cheat a child. Such a shopkeeper, Kant thinks, might be rightly regarded as prudent and honest but his action lacks moral worth. For Kant, an action has moral worth only when produced by a good will – that is, when it is performed from duty and not from inclination or instinct. A recent variation of this thesis is offered by Barbara Herman who contends that “when we say that an action has moral worth, we mean to indicate (at the very least) that the agent acted dutifully from an interest in the rightness of his action: an interest that therefore makes its being a right action the non-accidental effect of the agent’s concern.”1
