On Immanuel Kant’s Concept of Duty

Kow Kwegya Amissah Abraham

http://dx.doi./org/10.4314/ujah.v20i2.2

Abstract
Central to the philosophical discourse on duty is its ontology, the
sanctioning entity, and what legitimises an act to assume the status
of duty. Kant conceives of duty to involve the recognition of, and
submission to the moral law. The focus of this work is to critically
interrogate the Kantian conception of duty normatively and the
veracity of its application when the conceptualisation assumes
practical posture. This is to understand as to whether acting from
duty on the one hand, and the universalizability of a moral law
according to which a moral agent ought to act on the other hand,
guarantees that one acts without any consideration, but for duty.
The import is to offer a pragmatic perspective to understanding
Kant’s conception and to realign his metaphysical
conceptualisation of duty within human capabilities. We do this
with the position that duty must be within the practical capabilities
of humans in moral decision-making.

Keywords: Deontology, Duty, Kantian, Moral Law.

Introduction
The concept of duty is seen as one of the pillars in Kant‟s ethics.
In fact, Kant‟s exposition on duty clearly defines why his ethics is
deontological. After carefully laying bare what he meant by the
good will which is conceived as the highest good in his
deontology, Kant moves to explain how this good will is to be
used in the light of what duty is. In his Groundwork of the

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Metaphysics of Morals (1998), Kant alludes to the view that since

under human conditions we struggle against unruly impulses and
desires, the only way a good will is manifested is in acting for the
sake of duty. Thus, to Kant a human action is morally good, not
because it is done from immediate inclination – still less because it
is done from self-interest – but because it is done for the sake of
duty (Kant, 1959).
The deontological position espoused by Kant
revolutionised the ethical discourse in his time, thus several
scholars added further analysis to his position. Lillie (1966) makes
an exposition on Kant‟s deontology with the claim that for a
practical estimate of the desirability of one action rather than
another to be achieved, there is the need to take into account, not
only the pleasantness of the consequences of the action, but also
the probability of these consequences actually occurring. He
argues further that Kant‟s dutyhas been conceptualised by some
philosophers as a duty of perfect obligation and its meaning is
mostly misconstrued. This is because when we refer to a duty of
perfect obligation we sometimes mean that it can be expressed in a
definite law like you ought to pay your debts. At other times, it is a
duty, which holds unconditionally in any, circumstances whatever,
such as the obligation to be honest. For Birsch (2002), Kant‟s
claim that moral laws are perceived as universal commands, the
basis upon which it becomes our duty, is not necessarily the case.
This is because such conception reneges to the problem of
descriptions for actions which relates to the procedure for creating
moral laws. By this a person must be able to identify an action and
then decide on the rule that guides the action without recourse to
instances when moral laws can conflict and so require exceptions
thereof. In a likely manner, Ozumba (2002) also offers a useful
insight into Kant‟s ethics, where he reiterated the point that Kant

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sees duty and obligation as the necessity for acting out of respect
for the moral law. He further asserted that, the motive of the will,
in Kant‟s ethics, is good only if this motive necessarily emanates
from acting from duty.
In his contribution, Cooke (1974) is of the view that an
exclusive concentration on the Groundwork or the Critique can
easily lead to a misunderstanding of the basic thrust of Kantian
deontology. This is because while it is certainly true that Kant
emphasised the categorical character of moral obligation as no one
had previously, still, Kantian ethics is in a fundamental sense, a
teleological ethic, concerned above all with ends of action, human
fulfilment and happiness. Cooke, thus, avers that;
While Kant held that moral effort is of supreme worth and
while he believed that particular duties were sometime
derivable from a purely formal principle, he always held
that the pursuit of morality would be senseless if it was not
aimed at the realisation of one‟s natural perfections in a
harmonious community. His main ethical concern was with
human fulfilment and the condition of its attainment
(Cooke, 1974:48).
Analysing Kant‟s ethics this way, Cooke (1974) stresses
that Kant‟s deontology has affinities with a natural law view of
morality. In principle, the arguments he puts across, directly
speaks with the position Kant espouses, we however think that
Kant‟s deontology will be more appealing if we look at it from the
perspective of the way humans behave and the influences of
human choices.
Field (1966) also argues that Kant‟s ethics started with
several assumptions about what is right or wrong. For instance,
there was the assumption that if there is a moral law at all then it

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must be absolute and universal. Again, if a thing is really good,

then, it must be good in itself. There also was the assumption that
the rightness or wrongness of an action can neither depend on
what we want nor the actual results of the action. Field (1966)
further makes the claim that Kant assumed that the essence of
goodness and the moral law are to be deduced from the notion that
whenever we act we must also have will that our action becomes a
universal law. Here, Field (1966) seems to have premised Kant‟s
position on a wrong proposition especially when Kant rather
proceeded with the idea that moral assessment ought to be
grounded in reason in order to make it less vulnerable to critiques.
On this bases, the Groundwork rests on the premise that only an a
priori theory of the foundations of morality can account for the
unrelenting normative force of moral principles (Kant, 1998).

The ontology of Kant’s concept of duty

An action is prescriptive when it requires or makes it imperative
that moral agents perform it. In our general daily parlance,
humans, in one way or the other, have actions which are our
requirement to perform. These actions could be prescribed by
either the society, a group of individuals or the individual herself.
Generally, every human actions is motivated by certain factors.
Thus no thought arises out of a vacuum. The motive behind every
human action can either be consequential motive or deontological.
It is thus not inconceivable to assess morality based on motive. We
establish that motive is not only the preserve of deontologists. The
point of departure between consequentialist and deontologists is
with the nature of motive, and further where to place moral praise
and blame when assessing an action that has a moral content.
In departing from the consequentialist approach to moral
assessment, Kant seeks to establish a criterion for moral

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assessment a priori. Indeed, when an action that has a moral

content is assessed based on the motive of duty, it can be
conceived that the moral agent can be held morally responsible,
and justifiably so, for his actions and inactions. This is because,
intent of duty is a priori, and it is a rational activity to which the
moral agent has control over. In other words, one becomes fully
responsible for actions that she chooses as a matter of full thought.
For instance, a mad person, clinically pronounced so after
committing a crime, is likely to escape punishment, rather be
detained in a psychiatric hospital where she should actually be
prior to the committal of the crime. This means that a moral
responsibility is anchored on the freedom of choice of the moral
agent. On this basis, since moral agents, to a very large extent,
have control over their intents than the end results of their action,
then moral assessment must be based on the content of their intent
therein.
In examining the content of the intent to which moral
assessment is made, Kant postulates that it be an intent of duty.
This is to conscript moral agents to performing those actions
which we do not want to perform. Thus fundamental to Kant‟s
deontology is the belief that morality is a matter of following
absolute rules. Absolute rules are rules that admit of no exceptions
and must be followed in all instances (Williams, 1972). Again,
they are maxims done out of duty and it is what carries moral
worth. Moral obligations, by contrast, do not depend on our
having particular desires. Moral requirements are categorical, that
is, they have the form “you ought to do such and such.” Thus so,
just as hypothetical „oughts‟ are possible because we have desires,
categorical „oughts‟ are binding on rational agents simply because
they are rational.

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In his analysis of Kant‟s position, Sandel (2010) observes

that the motive that confers moral worth on an action is the motive
of duty, by which Kant means doing the right thing for the right
reason. This means that when we assess the moral worth of an
action, we assess the motive from which it‟s done, not the
consequences it produces. In this vein, Kant contrasts “motives of
inclination” with the “motive of duty” and insists that only actions
performed out of the motive of duty have moral worth.
For Korsgaard (2009), Kant thinks that the motivation to
any action involves two factors, an incentive and a principle or
maxim. On this basis, moral agents are subject to an incentive
upon being aware of certain features that make an object attractive.
However, such appeals by the feature seldom make an action has a
moral content. Rather those actions which satisfy the principle and
pass the universalisability test. In the Groundwork for the
Metaphysics of Morals there are duties to the self and duties to
others as well as perfect or strict and imperfect or wide duties; and
they are mentioned first within the respective categories of strict
and wide duty (Kant, 1998). To illustrate the ontology duty, Kant
provides some examples such as duty to preserve one‟s life, be
beneficent or kind, etc, (Kant 1994).
Generally, Kant is seen to have made three propositions
about duty, the first one states that an action is not regarded as
morally good if it is done solely out of self-interest(Kant, 1998).
This is so even if the action accords with duty and is in that sense
right. To determine the moral worth of an action, it is important to
isolate the motives upon which the action is performed. Here, we
must first consider an action done solely out of impulse and desire
and not out of duty and those done out of duty and not out of
impulse or desire. By doing this, Kant believes that we are bound
to find out that an action done solely out of natural sympathy may

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be right and praiseworthy but that it has no distinctive moral

worth. Thus, the goodness shown in helping others is all the more
conspicuous if a man does this for the sake of duty at a time when
he is fully occupied with his own troubles and when he is not
impelled to do so by his natural inclination to some interest (von
Wright, 1963).
To this, Paton (1964) shares the view that Kant‟s doctrine
would be absurd if it meant that the presence of natural inclination
to good actions does not make that action morally worthy. He says
that a man shows moral worth if he does good, not from
inclination but from duty. Paton (1964) further believes that Kant
is here contrasting two motives taken in isolation in order to find
out which of them is the source of moral worth. Kant would have
avoided the ambiguity if he had said that a man shows moral
worth, not in doing good from inclination, but in doing it for the
sake of duty. The assumption that we see Kant carrying here is
that, if an action is to be morally good, the motive of duty must by
itself be sufficient to determine it. We, however, think that Kant
believes generous inclinations help in doing good actions and for
this reason it is our duty to cultivate them. This view is shared by
Paton (1964) when he observes of Kant that we have at least an
indirect duty to seek our own happiness.
The second proposition from Kant which is also called the
formal principle of duty states that an action done from duty has its
moral worth not from the results it attains or seeks to attain, but
from a formal principle or maxim – the principle of doing one‟s
duty whatever that duty may be (Kant, 1998). In this context it is
important to explain what is meant by „maxim‟. A maxim is a
personal principle upon which we act. Kant (1959) calls it a
subjective principle; this is because it is a principle on which
rational agents do act. For Kant, the maxim that carries a moral

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worth is that based on the principle of doing one‟s duty. Such a

maxim is not one that is aimed at satisfying particular desires or
attaining particular results. He calls such a maxim (that which
carries moral worth) a formal maxim (Louden, 2000). Thus, to act
for the sake of duty is to act on a formal maxim irrespective of all
external factors like desires. A man‟s actions are morally good
when he adopts or rejects material maxims of any proposed action
according as it harmonizes or conflicts with the formal maxim of
doing his duty for its own sake (Kempt, 1968).
The third proposition is that duty is the necessity to act out
of reverence for the law (Kant, 1959). The meaning we derive
from this proposition is that to act on the maxim of doing one‟s
duty for its own sake is to act out of reverence for the law. Further
explanation reveals another fact; Kant appears to hold that if a
maxim of a morally good action is a formal one, then, it must be a
maxim of acting reasonably. That is, it must be a maxim of acting
on a law valid for all rational beings and is independent of any
desires. Kant stresses on this because he naturally sees humans as
fallible and as such a law must appear to us as a law of duty and
such an imposed law must consequently incite a feeling of fear or
a feeling analogous to inclination and this complex feeling is what
Kant referred to as reverence. This means that so far as the motive
of a good action is to be found in feeling, we must say that a
morally good action is one which is done out of reverence for the
law and that is what gives it a unique and unconditional value
(Paton, 1964).
Kant (1994) also states that an action performed from duty
does not have its moral worth in the purpose for which it is to be
achieved, rather in the maxim by which it determines. That is, an
action has moral worth not because of the value of consequences
but mainly because of the principle involved. In other words, what

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actually results from an action is not morally significant since the

whole moral value of an action rests in the formal character of the
principle which determines the action. This implies that when the
will is itself determined by nothing but the moral law, it is a good
will, and when an act is determined by nothing but respect for
duty, it is also determined by respect for the moral law. He again
stresses the point that it is not the results of what is done that
affects the moral worth of an action, rather, the whole value of an
action is dependent upon respect for and deliberate obedience to
the moral law (Kant, 2013). Ross (1962)re-echoes Kant‟s position
with the assertion that our duty is not to perform those actions with
the aim of producing certain results.
Duty as an absolute rule
For Kant (1998), the concept of duty is embedded in the
concept of the good will; this is because acting out of the good will
is the true performance of our duty. In other words, it is our duty to
act out of the good will and not because of any end to be achieved.
So he further proposes that we consider only the special cases of
the good will. That is, cases where the good will must overcome
certain subjective limitations and hindrances (Kant, 1959). And
so,acting from duty is not a necessary condition for possessing a
good will, this is because a will can be good even when it does not
act from duty.
It is important at this point to make a distinction between
acting in conformity with duty and acting from duty. An action
conforms to duty just in case it is compatible with what duty
requires. In other words, for an action to conform to duty it is only
necessary that the action be compatible with the requirements of
duty no matter what the motive is for performing that action. For
instance, duty to be honest when selling conforms to duty even if
one is motivated to do so out of rational self-interest rather than

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respect for the moral law. This seems to be in line with the
ordinary conception of what duty is. Thus, in our ordinary moral
lives, there is no distinction between acting from duty and acting
in conformity with duty. We generally accept, sometimes
consciously, an action that merely conforms to duty. Kant (2013),
however, focuses on actions that emanate from duty and considers
only those ones as moral.
We can, however, readily distinguish whether an action
that agrees with duty is actually done from duty or from a selfish
view. It must be noted that there is always the difficulty in making
some of those distinctions when an action accords with duty. For
instance, to use Kant‟s own example, it is always a matter of duty
that a dealer should not over-charge an inexperienced purchaser
and whenever there is much commerce the prudent tradesman does
not overcharge but keeps a fixed price for everyone so that even a
child might be able to buy from him just like any other. The
implication is that people must be honestly served, but this is not
enough to make us believe that the tradesman has acted from duty
and from the principles of honesty. This is because his own
advantage required it and it would not be out of the question, in
this case, to suppose that he might, rather have a direct inclination
in favour of the buyers; so that from love he should give no
advantage to one over another. In this case, Kant (2013) would
say that the dealer did not act from duty or from inclination to act
from what duty requires but merely with a selfish interest.
In furtherance, Kant (2013) claims that only actions done
from duty have moral worth or moral content. The moral worth of
an action, however, goes beyond the value that would merit moral
approval.It is more than its compatibility with the requirements of
duty and also consists in its being motivated in the right sort of
way (Shirk, 1965). Specifically, an action only has moral worth if

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it is done from duty. We have a duty to cultivate other things such

as love, sympathy and other desires that make it easier to do our
duty, however, he denies that actions done from duty are done
with repugnance (Urmson: 1967). This is because he thinks that
when we act only in conformity to duty, it will reveal that we have
a hidden hatred for the law, which also contravenes our acting
from the good will. In other words, the moral worth of the action
does not depend upon the realization of the object of the action but
merely upon the principle of volition in accordance with which the
action is done. Here, Kant (1964) seems to claim that:
1. The moral worth of an action done from duty does not depend
on what it accomplishes.
2. The moral worth of an action done from duty depends merely
on its maxim (Zink, 1962).
A searchlight on moral duty reveals that one way or the
other, every rational individual experiences innate moral duty.
Whenever we violate a moral duty, our conscience and feelings of
guilt and shame tell us. For Kant, moral duty could be revealed to
us through reason in the objective sense (Kant, 1959). To act
morally is to perform one‟s duty and one‟s duty is to obey the
innate moral laws. These laws according to Kant are absolute in
every sense. Kant‟s concept of duty can therefore be summarized
as:
1. To act from duty is to necessarily act according as the moral
law stipulates and with reverence to such law.
2. For an action to have moral worth, that particular action must
be done from duty.
3. The Good will is responsible for making rational agents
perform actions out of duty.

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With the arguments so far adduced, can we say that when

an action is performed out of duty and then attains a moral worth
as Kant claims, that maxim becomes absolute? For instance, if an
individual‟s action fully satisfied the universalisability test and
was especially performed out of a moral duty, could we, by this,
claim that those actions do become an absolute rule?
Critically analysing the concept of duty, one finds some
difficulties that pertain even in our everyday life. Ross (1975)
outlines various duties that he calls prima facie and each of which
is to be given independent weight. They are fidelity, reparation,
gratitude, beneficence, non-maleficence and self-improvement
(Ross, 1975). He then claims that if an act falls under one and only
one of these duties, it ought to be performed. However, an act
might fall under two or more duties. For instance, I may owe a
debt of gratitude to someone who once helped me but beneficence
will be more useful at that particular moment if I helped others in
greater need. Here, Ross seeks to answer the question of what is
my duty with his list of prima facie duties since Kant was
criticized for not letting us know what constitutes our duty. Ross,
however, chose the word prima facie rather than absolute. This is
because he reasoned that each duty can be overridden if it conflicts
with a more stringent duty. Much as we may agree with Ross to
some extent, we also think that the duties that he outlined does not
capture all necessary actions in human endeavours and so not too
important. However, duties, whichever category they fall under
have the tendency to clash with other duties and it will not be
important for anyone to start looking through such criteria. All one
has to do is to consider those duties that have clashed with
reference to their anticipated consequences.
Miller (1995) thinks that, for Kant, only the unconditional
„ought‟ is the moral ought. This is because morality must be

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necessary and universal; that is, it must be absolutely binding on

everyone alike and so whatever situation one finds oneself, one
ought to act in accordance with the requirement of the law. The
implication is that moral acts are to be accomplished irrespective
of other considerations such as merit and reward. Thus, Miller
suggests that this morality must be "binding" and "universal"
(Miller, 1995), and that is the position of Kant. When one
understands the departure of a moral act from its consequences,
then, it becomes clear what Kant is attempting to convey in his
ethics.
For Bordum (2002), understanding Kant‟s conception of
duty is to distinguish it from the alternative uses of the concept
such as social, religious and the common usage of the concept.
Thus Kant‟s duty is an imperative which is a justification to a
rational will with a normative force as opposed to an empirical
force. So for Kant, there should be a formula that can validate
statement and moral laws that can be understood as valid for all
rational agents (Kant 1994). Again, Bordum (2002) further asserts
that Kant‟s conception of in terms of imperatives is narrow as a
result of the quest to elicit a concept that is universally accepted.
Additionally, Varden (2010) observes that the whole of Kant‟s
indicates that all moral actions must be based on a maxim that can
be universalised and that we must do the right thing because it is
our duty. An illustration is made of the case of the inquiring
murderer that emphasises the dilemma of lying to save a life.
Conceived this way then lying in the inquiring murderer case is
seen as accomplishing two goals: firstly, it seems to repeat how
one ought never to lie as the maxim of lying is not universalisable,
and secondly, it cashes out the implications of this moral principle
with regard to people‟s enforceable rights and duties against one
another.

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Timmermann (2013) duty renders any conflicting inclination-

based consideration, whether immediate or long-term, normatively
invalid. The obligatory act is objectively necessary; any other
action is rationally impossible. This means that if duty really
makes one action practically necessary one must consider all other
actions illegitimate, not just those that are grounded in the
sensuous side of human nature. Kant (2013) thus argues on
conceptual grounds that of two contradictory commands only one
can be one‟s duty. This then implies that duties cannot conflict.
However, this conceptualisation is problematic especially when
moral agents are clearly faced with some of the enumerated duties
Kant himself gives. For Kant, moral agents have duty to keep
promise and also duty to tell the truth. It will be normatively
inconceivable to believe that such duties cannot conflict. Unless
moral agents out to assume that acting in accordance with duty is a
first come first served phenomenon where the first conceivable
duty ought to be performed over any other which appears later.
This does not adequately further solve the problem of
conceptualisation as far as the impossibility of duties conflicting is
concerned.
Guyer (2002) on his part asserts that Kant's argument is
simply that since our conception of the moral worth of an action
from duty implies that the performance of such an action must be
independent of any and every impulse, immediate or mediate, that
might give one a reason for conforming to any law. We note
however that Kant (2013) recognizes that a rational agent even
without philosophical instruction has means available to determine
what ought to be done and stresses that what duty is, is plain of
itself to everyone.
In contributing to the discourse on the nature of duty,
Ackeren& Martin Sticker (2015) assert that the content of moral

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demands can be either stringent, or lenient. On that note, stringent

demand is that which requires great sacrifices. How stringent
morality is thus depends on how the moral perspective or the
moral point of view and its relation to interests is construed. In this
vein, absolute adherence to duty is a stringent demand which
admits of no exception for moral agents to find an escape routes to
create excuses as justifications.

Pragmatic Reflection on Kantian Duty

Kant‟s ethics is called deontological because of the insistence that
moral agents act for the sake of duty. Kant holds an absolute
conception of duty whereby duty admits of no exception. We act
on duty for the sake of duty. This conception is opposed to desires
and reward that are consequentialist concepts. This is because
Kant‟s deontology does not look at the role that desire and reward
play in moral actions. In fact, these concepts do not play any part
in action that has a moral content at all (Kant& Schneewind,
2002). However, we see areas of harmonization between these
concepts and Kant‟s concept of duty. We do this by modifying
Kant‟s concept of duty that it is not to be necessarily absolute in
the strictest sense. There are instances when duty admits
exception. Also, in the performance of our duty, human desire and
feeling play a major role. Thus there is the desire to perform one‟s
duty and a reward of satisfaction after the performance of that
duty.
For Larmore (1996) if the notion of right is replaced by
that of good at the foundations of ethics, then the moral ideal will
no longer be imperative, but rather attractive. His point was that
ethical value may be defined either as what is binding upon an
agent, whatever may be his wants or desires, or as what an agent
would in fact want if he were sufficiently informed about what he

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desires. In the first view, the notion of right is fundamental, in the

second the notion of good. We explicitly share Williams‟ (1981)
view that moral requirements give reasons for actions and since all
reasons are, to a large extent, internal and dependent on desires,
moral requirements are not wholly categorical but also dependent
on desires. We infer from Williams (1981) that whatever is a
motivation factor for a moral agent to act is what gives the agent
the reason to act. He therefore, observes that for reasons to be able
to motivate an action it must be able to implicate a desire or be
aided by a pre-existing desire. Generally, moral requirements give
reasons for us to act when the motivating factor is our desires.
Yang (2006), however, thinks otherwise, he believes that
there is a condition which the categorical imperative satisfies that
cannot make moral requirements be based on desires and this is
the intrinsic-end condition. The condition states that a categorical
imperative represents an action that is good in itself or good apart
from the relation to a further end (Yang, 2006). This view is
different from saying that a moral requirement is independent of
desires. Kant himself observed that “if an action is represented as
good in itself and therefore as necessary, then the imperative is
categorical” (Kant, 1956). Yang (2006) thinks this is different
because it is possible for a moral requirement to be independent of
desires but be good as a means. But we may assess whether it
cannot also be possible that an action that requires our feelings can
also have the intrinsic-end condition. The intrinsic-end condition is
a necessary condition for a duty but seldom analysed whether there
can be instances when the intrinsic-end can also apply to actions
emanating from our desires. Also, as to whether desire is not
responsible for directing us towards what has the intrinsic-end. We
wish to point out that intrinsic-end, sometimes, meets with desire
and duty. For instance, I have the desire to be educated. I pursue

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my education and pay my fees because I feel that it is my duty to

sponsor myself and also because, education for me is categorical,
good in-itself and conforms to a priori rational moral principle of
self-improvement. Again, I may want to be educated so that I will
be employable and get a higher standard of living. In both
instances, duty, intrinsic-end and the categorical have the tendency
of together motivating an action.
The ambition is not to deny the dutiful nature of moral
requirements. Even when it is denied that moral requirements are
not our duty, it seems difficult to deny that desires do not play any
major role in acting on what is moral. Imagine a world when one
does not desire anything, including the desire to act morally, such
a world would be a „dead‟ one. Morality is not always what our
duty to do is; moral agents sometimes need to apply our rational
ability of choice in deciding what is moral. According to Prichard
(2002), to distinguish between the good and the right in terms of
the directives they yield, the good attracts our desires while the
right tells us what we must do. Further, Gaus (2001), asserts that
right action is a function of the maxim on which it is based rather
than the results which it yields.
There seem to be an error that Kant (1959) did not pay
attention to and this is the over generalization view that he had on
desire. He seems to think or assume that all desire was desire for
pleasure; and in talking of pleasure he also saw pleasure in the
realm of sensual and bodily desires, to a large extent. He does not
seem to have considered intellectual satisfaction as well as
pleasures connected to the development of the mind in a positive
sense. In this sense, Hazlitt (1964) thinks that there is a
psychological basis for Kant‟s error. He thus says;
… when we perform a beneficent act out of love or
completely spontaneous benevolence we are not conscious

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of doing our duty. It is only when we have a disinclination

toward an act that nevertheless “force” ourselves to do it, in
the conviction that it is our duty, that we are conscious of
doing our duty … (Hazlitt, 1964:25)
Thus, Kant (1959) seems to have used this human
behaviour to have proposed that it is always our duty to do what is
right whether we like it or not. That is to say, it is always our duty
to do our duty. One can agree with Kant that it is, in fact, our duty
to do what is right, but seem to differ on the further proposition
that it is sometimes necessary to force ourselves to perform our
duties against other desires and such instances does not mean that
these are the only occasions that we act morally. We, in other
words, mean to say that we recognize the need to constantly
remind ourselves, sometimes, about what our duties are and, even,
sometimes perform them against our wish, but Kant (1959) seems
to hold that this is when our actions become moral. However, we
put across that it is not the only occasion that our actions become
moral. If we strictly side with Kant (1959), then, what will we say
of a man who spontaneously acts out of the good will towards
another man or who has developed the habit of acting out of duty
and morally from infancy. What will happen to such a person is
that he will act that way habitually and spontaneously, rather than
from a conscious sense of duty. What Kant (1959)should have
taken such instances into consideration and realized that moral
lives become complex by the day and so a seeming restrictive
thought might not be acceptable in all situations.
The question of reward in performing an action is, in fact,
part of the natural composition of man. In our daily affairs,
humans are driven by reward to even perform their duty
effectively. The idea of expecting a satisfactory return after an

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action is done is what we might term as a reward. In this working

definition of what a reward is, we realise that reward is not only
material returns of an action but even the level of understanding or
acceptance that an action produces. The import here is that, even,
when we perform our duty, we consciously or unconsciously look
out for a reward after the performance of that duty. A reward of
satisfaction that we have performed what is morally required of us
or that our duty has produced good consequences. For instance,
presenting a birthday gift to your partner in anticipation of the
happiness you derive from making your partner happy. This
situation, we believe, does not make an action immoral. Thus the
anticipation of a reward sometimes motivates us into acting
morally, in Kant‟s case, doing what duty requires.
Further analysis of Kant‟s work reveals other difficulties
with his position. His position tacitly asserts that moral agents
should act purely out of the motive of duty for such act to have a
moral content. This is because, in some human situations, we
seem to often perform some actions we might deem noble or self-
sacrificing out of love other than out of duty. As a result, we
naturally praise a father who performs what we deem is his duty,
namely; taking care of his children out of love. In this regard, we
blame a father who performs his duty to his children with
repugnance. However, humans are inclined to perform their duty
better when they see the joy, and develop the desire, to perform
such a duty. Indeed, it even makes the performance of duties in a
better manner. The desirable feeling that is developed towards the
performance of duty becomes a motivation to perform duty
without repugnance. This illustrates the role of desire in the
performance of duty. Also, an action that is motivated by both
duty and desire carry a moral worth, since it seems to be in line
with some human situations. Humans do not necessarily act out of

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the motive of duty alone at all times but sometimes act with the aid
of desire. Here, we ascribe the property of intrinsic value to some
forms of desires just as Kant (1959) ascribed to duty.
Duty in morality, therefore, is a matter of necessity. Moral
agents, so far as we are imperfect need to be compelled by reason
to act in accordance with the moral law. The question of what is
my duty and who sanctions duty gives a different form to the
argument. Duty is a moral demand which are sometimes
instinctively innate but sanctioned by society and the individual.
Its origin has been an issue of diverse views. For some moral
philosophers, it is a God-given command to act in a certain way,
an instinctive feeling embedded in man since the day of his birth.
Some, however, ascribe what counts as duty solely on what the
society commands as well as what the individual adheres to. It is
observed that, the use of conscience is a guiding principle to what
duty is. That is, when we fail to perform what duty requires, our
conscience sometimes becomes the best assessor of the morality or
otherwise of that action. This force drives men to perform their
duty in as far as they are rational.
We see of Kant (1959) that he was concerned with setting
up a framework that would operate against plurality of values and
maxims. This strict mission also accounts for the non-simplistic
and rigid interpretation of what is moral. We sometimes allow for
plurality of moral values that have the tendency of moral
praiseworthiness. There are duties like preservation of one‟s life,
development of one‟s talent, etc, which count as duty to oneself. A
possible inference is that there are instances when a person‟s duty
to develop his talent is a duty he has towards his family, friends
and society other than himself. But this view generally defeats the
critics‟ claim that Kant (1959)does not pay attention to the division
of duty to oneself and duty to others.

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A person has a duty to himself such as a duty to even keep

and promote his maxims. Thus, if it is acceptable that we have
duties to others, then, we also have duties to ourselves. Duty to
develop one‟s talent is a duty to family and society and not oneself
can be given a further interpretation. It is legitimate to claim that a
person has a duty to develop himself. However, society and family
come in when we consider the long and short-term effects of such
duties. Again, duties can be contractual and still hold applicability.
For instance, my duty to honour my parents depends on them
doing the right thing. If my father, for instance, decides to kill an
innocent person, I am not compelled to hide the truth just because
I must honour my parents or protect my family. Thus, to have a
duty towards someone, sometimes, assumes a contractual
character.
Kant claims that the ultimate end of every rational being is
to promote the happiness of others for the sake of their happiness.
Kant observes that humanity now could in no doubt subsist if
everybody contributed nothing to the happiness of others but at the
same time refrained from deliberately impairing their happiness.
This is however, merely to agree negatively and not positively
with humanity as an end in itself unless every one endeavours also,
so far as in him lies, to further the ends of others (Kant, 1956).This
supports the view that Kant sees the moral law as being altruistic
in nature. This allows for an integration of utilitarianism and Kant
since they all seem to share the view that man is a social animal
and as a result every action he takes one way or the other affects
others as well. Therefore humanised deontology opines that
altruism in morality is, indeed, an important aspect in determining
a morally commendable action. Thus, both Kant‟s deontology and
utilitarianism all proceed from one platform and complement each
other in this sense. If Kant accepts that ethics has an empirical

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dimension, then, he can be allowed to appreciate the role that

happiness plays. Our view is that ethics is both a priori and a
posteriori and it is important to develop a synthesis that blends the
two. In this sense, qualitative happiness can be categorical.

Conclusion
Kant‟s idea of acting in accordance with duty emanates from his
idea of the good will. He emphasises on the good will which
according to him must control every action. As a result we might
act in accordance with what duty requires but if it is not from the
good will, the action might not be moral. In this sense, the pivot of
Kant‟s deontological ethics is on duty and its reflection on the
good will. Thus, a moral act is one that is done in accordance with
the good will. The difficulty, then, arises when we ask how we
know an action arises out of the good will. It is possible for one to
act in a good way but not out of the good will, and we seldom can
know the motivating force behind the action. Kant talks about
acting on the good will out of duty and for no other reason.
The satisfaction of the reasoning or thinking side oh
humans is when our action is based on the good will and duty.
When the moral law applied in a legalistic and formalistic manner,
it satisfies the thinking and rational composition of humans. Kant
gave primacy to reason alone, negating the possibility of desires in
deciding what is moral, but we wish to say that desires play a role
in deciding what is good. We recognise the superiority of reason
when deciding which action is right, but desire‟s role is primary.
By man‟s nature we sometimes perform our moral duty out of the
desire to do so. We desire to be generous, honest, etc. This does
not rule out the fact that we also act out of duty for its own sake,
but even when acting out of duty, man does not neglect the role of
desire and consequences. Many people give alms out of pity for

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the sick, others look after their children out of love, some choose a
career and work dedicatedly out of interest, and people choose to
lecture because they feel the joy to do so. Practically, man acts,
chooses certain careers or takes certain decisions out of desire.
This does not leave out the role reason plays. Acceptance of
anchoring moral assessment on duty and as a result a priori does
not negate the additional recognition of desire or reward which can
be considered as a posteriori.

Kow Kwegya Amissah Abraham

Department of Classics and Philosophy
University of Cape Coast, Ghana
[email protected]

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