ABSTRACT
Pre-eminent among motives of human conduct are the emotions. Benevolence, pity, sympathy, love impel to good actions. Repercussions upon the doer include self-satisfaction, self-esteem and a feeling of blissfulness, which appear as a purpose in life and constitute a stimulus to further conduct of the same nature. On superficial consideration, that conduct appears to man to be good which contributes to his feeling of bliss, to his inner happiness. But according to Kant, bliss is not the highest value or the true determinant of man. The conduct of a religious person is determined by the precepts and commandments of his religion, which confronts him with the prospect of eternal reward for obedience to them or punishment for disobedience. All the foregoing ethical conceptions were vigorously opposed by Kant. Ethical norms should not be determined by considerations of future bliss; these would be egoistical and therefore non-ethical ends.
