Kant was at a unique place in the history of thought. He understood the ancients and the validity that came from their thoughts. He could see the holes in their thinking in that one had to agree with their mythologies in order to fully accept their philosophies. He understood the Scholastics and may even have agreed with them on many things. Belief was still the basis for their system though. To Kant, all the thought systems, or worldviews, were always built upon a system of belief. With the rise of the Empiricists and the Sceptics, he saw the need to question and test things to the breaking point in order to test their validity. Kant wanted to find the things that he could be certain of before he built up his own system of belief. He did not want to claim a universal certainty that did not actually exist. This led him to question many of the popular beliefs of his time in order to give all people equal footing in the building of worldviews. He asked questions that would have been sacrilegious or heretical for his time. He put forth thoughts that were anti-theistic in order to give credence to all religions and beliefs. All of these challenges to the normal order were raised in order to allow a freedom of questioning thought in order to find truth. The challenge that this paper will focus upon is Kant’s conclusion upon the meaning of life as can be seen through a study of his views on morality, duty, virtue, happiness and life’s ultimate end. While he does base his conclusion upon some faith, he does remove as much faith as he can while also being up front about it so that it is clear how his system is built, with many of the assumptions clearly given so that one may pull and insert one’s own assumptions to take the place of his own.
In order to start where Kant began, one must look at his ideas on morality. His opinion on the subject is in the minority in that he saw morality as subjective. “It must be remarked here that this moral necessity is subjective, that is, it is a want, and not objective, that is, itself a duty, for there cannot be a duty to suppose the existence of anything (since this concerns only the theoretical employment of reason)” (345). He saw morality based upon the desires of an individual and because of this, it is subjective because not all people want the same thing. The desires of an individual within the realm of morality are based upon a belief in the existence of something or anything. This binding of morality based upon belief is in order to please the object believed in, whether that be a deity or an individual. Because of this basis upon belief, he judged that morality used theoretical reasoning because the starting point for one’s morality is faith. He further proves this subjectivity by referencing its spotty possession and development within an individual. “These are such moral qualities as, when a man does not possess them, he is not bound to acquire them. They are: the moral feeling, conscience, love of one’s neighbour, and respect for ourselves (self-esteem). There is no obligation to have these, since they are subjectiveconditions of susceptibility for the notion of duty, not objective conditions of morality” (374). If morality were to be a thing that is objective, all men would have it equally. Kant is making the point to say that all men do not have these qualities within themselves a priori, so they are not innate, making them objective standards within some person, yet not the people who do not have these standards. He goes even farther by saying that if a person does not have these qualities, he is “not bound to acquire them.” From this statement, Kant could be understood as saying that one is not responsible for developing one’s own morality but rather living with the standards given at birth. A person will change as they grow up, but it is not necessary that it is in a moral way.
Taking Kant at his word about the subjectivity of morality, it is very interesting to see where he takes the subject. While each person may have their own morality, he does see that whatever system that a person has within themselves is directing a person down a particular path. “The moral law commands me to make the highest possible good in a world the ultimate object of all my conduct” (347). This is an objective statement about a subjective matter. No matter the system of morality, it is going to have some things listed as bad and some as good. The point of whatever system is to aim for the greatest good, no matter what that is. Morality is not the end of means, but rather the means to the end. For, “morality is not properly the doctrine how we should make ourselves happy, but how we should become worthy of happiness” (347). Morality tells humans to aim higher. This statement says that morality is not the thing to make one happy, but rather the thing that makes a person available to the possibility of happiness. One has to be moral in order to have the potential to be happy. So how might a person prove that they are moral in order to become worthy of this privilege of happiness?
From the idea of morality comes the development of duty within the life of a person. “All duties are either duties of right, that is, juridical duties (officia juris), or duties of virtue, that is, ethical duties (officia virtutis s. ethica). Juridical duties are such as may be promulgated by external legislation; ethical duties are those for which such legislation is not possible” (383). As seen above, there are two main types of duties that a person has to consider. First, the duties of right that is legally binding on a person within a society that someone else enforces upon a person. When these duties are rightly done, this is what makes a person not a criminal. Second, the duties of virtue which are subjective within a person and are those that are unenforceable by a society because a person has to enforces the duties upon themselves. This individual enforcement is what takes a person from morality into being virtuous. Duty is the important bridge between these two things. Morality is the potential within a person while duty is the action that makes the potential thing into a reality. This works to tie duties back to morality: “The greatest moral perfection of man is to do his duty, and that from duty (that the law be not only the rule but also the spring of his actions)” (372). For a person to work to complete their duty, they would have to work out their morality completely, making their moral standard into a reality as virtues.
This leads to look at what virtue actually is to Kant. “Virtue signifies a moral strength of will” (377). Virtue is the power and ability to be doing the things that morals dictate. One may know the right thing to do through morals, but without the duty to work through to virtues, one could not do the moral things. While morals point one to the highest possible good, virtues are the ability to work towards that end. To take the thought farther, Kant said:
Virtue is the strength of the man’s maxim in his obedience to duty. All strength is known only by the obstacles that it can overcome; and in the case of virtue the obstacles are the natural inclinations which may come into conflict with the moral purpose; and as it is the man who himself puts these obstacles in the way of his maxims, hence virtue is not merely a self-constraint (for that might be an effort of one inclination to constrain another), but is also a constraint according to a principle of inward freedom, and therefore by the mere idea of duty, according to its formal law.
All duties involve a notion of necessitation by the law, and ethical duties involve a necessitation for which only an internal legislation is possible; juridical duties, on the other hand, one for which external legislation also is possible. Both, therefore, include the notion of constraint, either self-constraint or constraint by others. The moral power of the former is virtue, and the action springing from such a disposition (from reverence for the law) may be called a virtuous action (ethical), although the law expresses a juridical duty. For it is the doctrine of virtue that commands us to regard the rights of men as holy. (373)
Virtues make it possible for one to overcome the natural things in life that worked towards holding one back from doing what was morally right. Virtue is the quantity of work that a person can do in the field of morality. It is the amount of good moral weight that can be lifted by a person. This makes virtue not only the ability to not do evil, but to also respond in the positive way in doing what is good. Virtue is not only about what a person cannot do, but also what a person should be doing. Within the moral and virtue relationship, there are things that are necessary for a person to do in order to be called moral. These are the things that virtue allows one to do and it is man’s duty to do them. This led Kant to call virtue “the supreme condition of all that can appear to us desirable, and consequently of all our pursuit of happiness, and is therefore the supreme good” (338). Virtues make morals obtainable and thus desirable and allow one to seek out the things that bring one pleasure. This ability that virtue has in order to work towards completing a person is what elevates it to the supreme good and brings a person to be worthy of happiness.
This leads towards the aim of being moral, dutiful, and virtuous. For Kant, the aim is happiness. In his introduction of the topic of happiness, Kant analyzes two ancient systems of happiness on page 339. He does so two different times on the same page. First, “According to the Epicurean, the notion of virtue was already involved in the maxim: ‘To promote one’s own happiness’; according to the Stoics, on the other hand, the feeling of happiness was already contained in the consciousness of virtue.” Then he also says, “The Epicurean said: ‘To be conscious that one’s maxims lead to happiness is virtue’; the Stoic said: ‘To be conscious of one’s virtue is happiness.’ With the former, Prudence was equivalent to morality; with the latter, who chose a higher designation for virtue, morality alone was true wisdom.” In the first statement, Kant gives a very basic overview of both views in that the Epicureans did only look after and care for the individual happiness which eroded away into pleasure and the concept of hedonism. The Epicureans saw virtue as a way to make an individual happy. The individual’s happiness was enough for Epicureans. Virtue was the means to the end which was happiness. This was their idea of virtue. The Stoics say morality and virtue in itself was enough and is happiness itself, being of service to the greater good and the populace. Morality and virtues were the means to the end which was service to the greater good and happiness. He then looked deeper into the two views to give a few outcomes from them. For the Epicureans, a person would choose to be moral in order to find their own happiness. This was enough for them and what a person chose was labeled as virtue for that person. The Stoic found their virtue to be their happiness and within that, they also found their wisdom. The Epicureans sought to serve themselves through their virtues, while the Stoics sought to serve those around them through their virtue. While these two ancient forms are opposite to each other, Kant does seem to be trying to put them together. First, to blend his ideas with the Epicureans, “It is inevitable for human nature that a man should wish and seek for happiness, that is, satisfaction with his condition, with certainty of the continuance of this satisfaction” (370). Kant is saying that each man is going to look to seek happiness for himself. This is starting to show how he is going to connect them together. Kant goes further when he defined happiness as: “the condition of a rational being in the world with whom everything goes according to his wish and will; it rests, therefore, on the harmony of physical nature with his whole end and likewise with the essential determining principle of his will” (345). This again sounds like he is agreeing with the Epicureans and going with the pursuit of happiness for a life’s goal. A person who has things go according to their plan within the bounds, constraints, and movement of the physical world is the one who is happy. How Kant connects these two ideas is fascinating though:
From this solution of the antinomy of practical pure reason, it follows that in practical principles we may at least conceive as possible a natural and necessary connection between the consciousness of morality and the expectation of a proportionate happiness as its result, though it does not follow that we can know or perceive this connection; that, on the other hand, principles of the pursuit of happiness cannot possibly produce morality; that, therefore, morality is the supreme good (as the first condition of the summum bonum), while happiness constitutes its second element, but only in such a way that it is the morally conditioned, but necessary consequence of the former. Only with this subordination is the summum bonum the whole object of pure practical reason, which must necessarily conceive it as possible, since it commands us to contribute to the utmost of our power to its realization. (342)
Here, he is linking the ability to uphold one’s own moral system to the proportional level of happiness that one can achieve. With morality being subjective to Kant, this does allow some variability within one’s systems, but it is all about being consistent with oneself. Kant does see a cause and effect here. The pursuit of happiness does not lead to morality, yet a life aimed at morality can lead one to happiness. This causes morality to be the supreme good over happiness. This is connecting the Epicureans and Stoics by saying that life is meant for happiness, the path to happiness is through morality, yet it is pointing to a higher goal, something beyond. Morality and happiness do fall under and submit to the summum bonum which is the goal. The summum bonum is the goal for the life of man.
Consider this quote from Kant to see how he ties together the ideas of virtue, the outworking of morality, and happiness under the umbrella of summum bonum:
Now inasmuch as virtue and happiness together constitute the possession of the summum bonum in a person, and the distribution of happiness in exact proportion to morality (which is the worth of the person, and his worthiness to be happy) constitutes the summum bonum of a possible world; hence this summum bonum expresses the whole, the perfect good, in which, however, virtue as the condition is always the supreme good, since it has no condition above it; whereas happiness, while it is pleasant to the possessor of it, is not of itself absolutely and in all respects good, but always presupposes morally right behaviour as its condition.
When two elements are necessarily united in one concept, they must be connected as reason and consequence, and this either so that their unity is considered as analytical (logical connection), or as synthetical (real connection)—the former following the law of identity, the latter that of causality. (338-339)
Kant sees virtue/morality and happiness proportionally tied together in the life of a person. The summum bonum is the supreme good that a person is working together within their life. This is their end, their higher calling. One’s virtues and happiness are meant to be moving one towards this end. Virtue goes first and happiness is to follow down this path to one’s telos. To see this connected further consider that Kant said, “that morality should never be treated as a doctrine of happiness, that is, an instruction how to become happy; for it has to do simply with the rational condition (conditio sine qua non) of happiness, not with the means of attaining it” (347). While also saying that, “A man is worthy to possess a thing or a state when his possession of it is in harmony with the summum bonum” (347). Morality is the way that one is to become worthy of being happy while one is also worthy of the possession of happiness when it is consistent with his end for life. This is to live a life that is fully honest with oneself. This gives one a personal meaning to their life by working towards the end that they see as their good.
Kant saw the need to include a way for all walks of people to be able to analyze their lives in a meaningful way to allow them to each because the best versions of themselves within their cultures and their persons. There is morality that each person has, yet it may be different for another. Each person is responsible to work out their moral to the best of their ability by way of their duty in order to become virtuous and to fulfill their duty to themselves and society. This is the path to happiness. When one fulfills their life goal and end, they will experience a happiness that is worked out and satisfying, like after a hard day’s work. This is the kind of life that Kant was seeking to understand and then allow other people to grasp on and move forward. This would be a life well lived to Kant.
Works Cited
Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Pure Reason; The Critique of Practical Reason and Other Ethical Treatises; The Critique of Judgement. Great Books of the Western World. Ed. Mortimer J. Adler and Philip W. Goetz. Trans. Thomas Kingsmill Abbott. Second Edition. Vol. 39. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; Robert P. Gwinn, 1990. Print.