ABSTRACT
Kant’s elevation of the ineluctable goodness of good will to the role of reason’s end has consequences which go beyond the doctrine of the end of reason itself. The immanence which is characteristic of that end, conceived as Kant conceives it, is carried over, rather oddly, into the whole structure of the moral philosophy of the Groundwork. Duty’s conditioning of happiness may be seen, if one takes the view just adumbrated, as a limitation put upon the prima facie and natural end of practical reason. Happiness is “conditioned” in two separate, indeed in two disparate ways, and it is important to insist on the categorical difference between the two kinds of conditionality. Kant’s use of the expressions “conditioned” and “unconditioned” does not provide for this necessary distinction. The difference between moral value and other kinds of value, between moral good and other goods, cannot be denied, though it is more often flatly asserted than convincingly and carefully specified.
