1. Introduction
With rising interest in virtue ethics, scholars have emphasized that Kant’s ethics contains a theory of virtue that is both substantial and complex.Footnote 1 One feature highlighted in recent scholarship is the fact that in Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue we find two distinct accounts of virtue. On the one hand, Kant defines virtue as ‘moral strength of will’ (MM, 6: 405), that is, ‘the strength of a human being’s maxim in fulfilling his duty’ (6: 394).Footnote 2 But Kant also repeatedly insists that there is not just one virtue but also ‘a multitude of virtues’. As he explains it, ‘with regard to perfection as a moral end, it is true that in its idea (objectively) there is only one virtue (as moral strength of one’s maxims); but in fact (subjectively) there is a multitude of virtues, made up of several different qualities’ (6: 447; see also 6: 383, 395).
Passages like these invite a number of questions. What are the Kantian virtues? And perhaps more importantly, what is the nature of a Kantian virtue? Are they like Aristotelian virtues? Do they entail having the right feelings and desires at the right times with regard to the right objects? And why does Kant’s theory include ‘a multitude of virtues’? What role do these virtues play in Kant’s ethics?
The primary thesis I aim to defend in this article is that understanding the role that the virtues of love play in Kant’s theory requires understanding not only the nature of the virtues themselves, but also the unique nature of wide ethical duties, such as the duty of beneficence. In the following section, I explicate the nature of the Kantian virtues of love, emphasizing that they contain an affective component. In section 3, I highlight the distinctions that Kant makes between negative duties, narrow positive duties and wide positive duties, arguing that latitude for doing more or less is the distinctive feature of the latter. In section 4, I demonstrate that this characteristic feature of wide ethical duties entails that moral considerations are generally not decisive where only such duties are concerned. Prudential considerations often and unavoidably play a role in deliberation about how we fulfil wide duties. In the fifth and final section, I argue that the virtues of love play an important moral role in shaping these prudential considerations.
I understand my project to be largely but not exclusively exegetical. I take as my starting point what Kant says about particular virtues and vices, as well as the features he attributes to wide ethical duties. The accounts I offer in sections 2, 3 and 4 are grounded in claims Kant makes in the Metaphysics of Morals. However, in section 5 I endeavour to tell a more complete story about the relationship between the virtues of love and the wide duty of beneficence, going beyond what Kant explicitly writes. I propose a way of thinking about the relationship between these particular virtues and the duty of beneficence that captures a key insight from Thomas E. Hill’s latitudinarian interpretation of wide Kantian duties, as well as insight from Jens Timmermann’s more rigoristic interpretation. My proposal thus dissolves at least some of the tension between these two views.
2. Kantian Virtues of Love
What can be said about the Kantian virtues of love? In particular, do these virtues entail an affective component, and if so, what is the nature of this component? One issue that looms in the literature, but is not often directly addressed, is whether or not possessing particular Kantian virtues requires possessing particular affective dispositions. I first explain how this issue emerges in the literature and then offer a modest resolution.
While it is now fairly common to acknowledge that Kant recognized a multitude of virtues in addition to virtue as strength of will, some commentators are reluctant to attribute an affective component to the particular virtues. Philip Stratton-Lake, for instance, writes that ‘For Kant, to have some specific virtue is to act in accordance with the relevant duty of virtue. So, for example, to be beneficent is to act in accordance with the imperfect duty of beneficence’ (Stratton-Lake Reference Stratton-Lake and Betzler2008: 111). To this Stratton-Lake adds a motivational component – ‘to have any of the specific virtues is to act in accordance with one of the various duties of virtue (from duty)’ – but makes no reference to any relevant feeling (114). Thomas E. Hill, Jr. also describes particular Kantian virtues without any explicit reference to an affective component. According to Hill, ‘We have the particular virtues of beneficence, gratitude, truthfulness, and so on, when we have a good and strong will to do what is right with respect to helping others, acknowledging our benefactors, communicating with others, and so on’ (Hill Reference Hill and Betzler2008: 54).Footnote 3 In a similar vein, Anne Margaret Baxley writes that ‘the love and respect that are Kantian virtues are not mere sensible tendencies that dispose us to feel a certain way, but are better characterized as volitional tendencies to adopt maxims to act as reason commands’ (Baxley Reference Baxley2010: 158).
This reluctance to explicitly attribute an affective component to particular Kantian virtues is both surprising and not surprising. It is surprising in light of the textual evidence that supports the view that the Kantian virtues of love do contain an affective element. In the Doctrine of Virtue, Kant identifies envy, ingratitude and malice as ‘vices of hatred for human beings directly opposed to love of them’ (MM, 6: 458). These vices all have affective dimensions which reference feelings of pleasure or pain. Envy is described as ‘a propensity to view the well-being of others with distress’. Ingratitude is ‘unappreciativeness’ and malice is the disposition which rejoices in and wishes for the misfortune of others (6: 458–60). Like many Aristotelian virtues, Kant’s vices of hatred seem to be fundamentally concerned with how an agent experiences pleasure and pain. The envious person finds the wrong things painful, while those with the vice of malice find the wrong things pleasurable (cf. L-Eth, 27: 692–6). If the vices of hatred have an affective component, then it is reasonable to expect their opposites, the opposing virtues of love, to have an affective component as well.
Benevolence, which Kant understands as the disposition that finds satisfaction in the happiness and well-being of others (MM, 6: 452), is a good candidate for the opposite of envy, the propensity to view the well-being of others with distress, and benevolence is clearly concerned with how an agent feels and not simply how she acts. The opposite of ingratitude is clearly gratitude, which Kant explicitly identifies as a virtue (6: 456). Notably, Kant recognizes two types of gratitude, agent-specific and agent-neutral, and both have affective dimensions. Agent-specific gratitude is directed towards one’s benefactor. ‘The feeling connected with this judgment’, Kant tells us, ‘is respect for the benefactor’ (6: 454; cf. 6: 458). Agent-neutral gratitude is directed towards those who have indirectly benefited us, such as our predecessors. Here the affective dimension is the feeling of appreciativeness.Footnote 4 Finally, Kant explicitly identifies sympathetic participation as the direct opposite of the vice of malice (6: 459). Sympathetic participation is a duty of love which directs us to make use of our natural receptivity to share in others’ feelings in order to cultivate moral sympathy (see Fahmy Reference Fahmy2009).
Additional textual support for attributing an affective component to the Kantian virtues of love is found in Kant’s introductory remarks to the sections devoted to our duties of virtue to others. There he claims that ‘Love and respect are the feelings that accompany the carrying out of these duties’ (MM, 6: 448). In more than one place Kant suggests that the feeling of love for others is something that we can and should deliberately cultivate in ourselves (cf. MM, 6: 402, 456; L-Eth, 27: 417–22). Though Kant does not explicitly call beneficence a virtue, we might reasonably include it among the Kantian virtues of love. Beneficence is the disposition to sacrifice part of our welfare to others without hope of return (MM, 6: 393). The vices opposing this virtue, if not its direct opposite, would be greedy and miserly avarice – acquiring and maintaining all the means to good living either with or without the intention of enjoyment (6: 432). The affective dimension of beneficence is the disposition which finds satisfaction in advancing others’ well-being (L-Eth, 27: 421–2).
Despite these passages from the Doctrine of Virtue, reluctance to attribute an explicitly affective component to particular Kantian virtues is not entirely surprising. The Aristotelian account of virtue maintains that to have a particular virtue one must actually have the right feelings, at the right times and in the right way (Aristotle Reference Irwin1999: 24: NE 1106b17–24). I will call this an affective success condition. An account of virtue that endorses an affective success condition maintains that in order to have a particular virtue like benevolence, one must possess a stable affective disposition to feel pleasure or satisfaction in response to the good fortune or well-being of others. This is one way in which a Kantian account of the virtues differs from an Aristotelian account. In a Kantian system where moral goodness is supposed to be a product of good willing, possession of a particular affective disposition cannot be a necessary condition for possessing a particular virtue.
Hill appears to be sensitive to this problem. Prior to presenting his account of the particular virtues he observes that ‘Kant argues that the freedom presupposed in moral agency entails that whether or not we have a good will is up to us, not empirically determined. By contrast, our desires, our feelings, and the effects of our actions are often beyond our control’ (Hill Reference Hill and Betzler2008: 36). Later he acknowledges that ‘Cultivating our kindly feelings towards others and trying to transform our tendencies to indifference and feelings of hostility are required for virtually anyone who takes seriously the moral requirement, or desirability, of promoting others’ happiness’ (56). But concern to avoid a success condition seems to linger in Hill’s mind and, I believe, accounts for his reluctance to associate these cultivated feelings with virtue. He concludes:
According to Kant, whether we have, or can develop, such [dispositions to appropriate feelings] depends as much on nature as it does on our good efforts. The mere possession of such traits, such as compassion, does not in itself make us worthy of moral esteem, but we can call them good traits of character to indicate that they are among the traits that, for moral reasons, we should strive to acquire.
(Hill Reference Hill and Betzler2008: 56)I share Hill’s concern to avoid attributing an affective success condition to particular Kantian virtues; however, an affective component need not take the form of a success condition. Baxley suggests just such a way of thinking about how this might look. She writes, ‘virtues are properly characterized as dispositions of the will, though of course they direct us to cultivate the feelings and inclinations that facilitate our ability to promote the ends and actions they direct us to bring about … morally supportive feelings, desires, and attitudes should be cultivated as part of the content of virtue’.Footnote 5 Agents can adopt maxims to cultivate the feelings that are indicative of the particular virtues of love, such as appreciativeness and satisfaction in the well-being of others. Endeavouring to cultivate particular affective dispositions is something we can will even though we cannot will to have particular feelings and are thus not entirely in control of our success. The reluctance to attribute an affective component to the Kantian virtues is ultimately not justified, and it is more consistent with textual evidence to acknowledge that cultivating the right feelings is constitutive of Kantian virtue.
A consequence of understanding the particular Kantian virtues in the manner described above is that an agent could possess the virtue of benevolence or gratitude even if she rarely felt kindly toward others or felt genuine appreciativeness. The interpretation of the Kantian virtues described above includes an affective component, but only at the level of volition or maxim. Having a particular virtue requires only that one be in possession of the right volitional disposition, not necessarily the particular affective disposition that one endeavours to cultivate.Footnote 6 This may be an atypical way of thinking about virtues.Footnote 7 Baxley appears to be less sensitive to the problem of an affective success condition than Hill. Though she maintains that for Kant, ‘virtues are properly characterized as dispositions of the will’, she nonetheless concludes that ‘On Kant’s view, the genuinely virtuous person … feels sympathy in response to the suffering of others and gratitude toward those who benefit her through their charity and kindness’ (Baxley Reference Baxley2010: 165–6). But we cannot have it both ways. If Baxley is right and Kantian virtues are ‘volitional tendencies to adopt maxims to act as reason commands’, and I think she is, then we must accept that a genuinely virtuous Kantian agent may not necessarily have the right feelings at the right times. Though some will find Kantian virtues lacking for this reason, understanding the affective component in volitional terms has the advantage of making possession of them less dependent on fortuitous circumstances.
I have argued that the Kantian virtues of love – benevolence, gratitude, sympathetic participation and beneficence – contain an affective component that is best understood as a volitional disposition to cultivate particular affective dispositions. I suspect that those who have been reluctant to attribute an affective component to the Kantian virtues would not object to this account. The question remains: What is the point of including these particular virtues in Kant’s ethics? What function do they serve that would not be better served by virtue understood as strength of will? Commentators have suggested that cultivated moral feelings play a number of roles in Kant’s theory. They remove affective obstacles to the performance of morally good or required actions, such as hostility, resentment and selfishness.Footnote 8 Cultivated feelings also play an efficacious role insofar as having certain feelings helps us to promote the obligatory end. For instance, I may be more likely to succeed in promoting the happiness of others if I can sympathize with them (cf. Allison Reference Allison1990: 166–7, Guyer Reference Guyer and Denis2010: 146–8). It has also been argued that our affective responses express and reveal what we care about and value. To have the right affective responses (benevolence, sympathy, etc.) is simply to be properly oriented vis-à-vis moral objects.Footnote 9 I find all of these suggestions to be plausible and important. In what follows, however, I argue that the virtues of love additionally play an important role in deliberation regarding wide ethical duties. These particular virtues might not be able to perform this role, or perform it as well, if they lacked an affective component. Understanding this function, however, requires appreciating how wide duties differ from other moral obligations.
3. Kantian Duties: Negative, Positive, Narrow, Wide
In Kant’s practical philosophy, we find several ways of classifying duties: ethical duties and juridical duties, duties to oneself and duties to others, perfect and imperfect duties. In this section, I will focus on the distinction between negative and positive duties and within the category of positive duties the distinction between wide and narrow duties. I aim to demonstrate that each type of duty corresponds to a unique deliberative process. This will lay the foundation for the argument I make in sections 4 and 5 that understanding the deliberative process distinctive of wide ethical duties illuminates an important role that the virtues of love play in Kant’s ethical theory.
Negative and Narrow Positive Duties
In the Groundwork, Kant tells us that duty is ‘the necessity of an action from respect for law’ (G, 4: 400). We find a very similar account of duty in the introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals. There Kant writes that ‘Obligation is the necessity of a free action under a categorical imperative of reason’ (MM, 6: 222). Kant recognizes that the moral law can command by either requiring action or prohibiting it:
A categorical imperative, because it asserts an obligation with respect to certain actions, is a morally practical law. But since obligation involves not merely practical necessity (such as a law in general asserts) but also necessitation, a categorical imperative is a law that either commands or prohibits, depending upon whether it represents as a duty the commission or omission of an action.
(MM, 6: 223)Footnote 10A duty of omission, or negative duty, is a duty to refrain from doing something that is forbidden.Footnote 11 Very generally, the duty to refrain from acting on any maxim that cannot be willed as a universal law is a negative duty (MM, 6: 389), for instance, a maxim of false promising (G, 4: 419, 422). A positive duty, on the other hand, involves commission. This commission can take different forms. It can involve the external performance of a particular action, such as honouring a contract (MM, 6: 220), or internal actions, such as acting from a particular incentive (6: 391) or adopting an obligatory end (6: 380–6).
In the Doctrine of Virtue, Kant explicitly recognizes a distinction between narrow and wide duties (MM, 6: 390, 411; cf. G, 4: 424). This distinction is notably absent from the introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals. For now it will suffice to say that the distinctive feature of a narrow positive duty is that the law represents the commission of some action as objectively necessary (MM, 6: 222). For instance, we have a narrow positive juridical duty to fulfil promises made in legitimate contracts (6: 220).
Deliberation Regarding Negative and Narrow Positive Duties
As indicated above, my aim in this section is to demonstrate that different types of duty correspond to differences in deliberation. The deliberative process I have in mind occurs after a moral judgement has been made. Moral judgement ascertains what one’s duty is in a particular situation. For instance, moral judgement is the faculty we employ when we attempt to determine whether a particular action treats another merely as means. It goes without saying that our moral judgement is not perfect, that we can be mistaken. However, once an agent has made a judgement that a particular action is morally forbidden or required she must deliberate in order to reach an all things considered decision about what she will do.
Both negative and narrow positive duties involve the necessitation of a free action, understood as either omission or commission (MM, 6: 222–3; cf. G, 4: 439, CPrR, 5: 32). Duty, Kant tells us, is the ‘practical unconditional necessity of action’ (G, 4: 425). In virtue of the unconditional (objective) necessity that accompanies negative and narrow positive duty, the deontic status of an action required by a narrow positive duty or prohibited by a negative duty provides an agent with decisive reason to act or refrain from acting. To say that a reason is decisive is to say that it provides the agent with a sufficient reason that renders all competing and supporting reasons rationally inconsequential. Thus, if I arrive at the judgement that action X is prohibited or action Y is obligatory, then I must understand myself to have an all things considered, decisive reason to perform action Y or refrain from doing X.Footnote 12 The deliberative process that follows the moral judgement that a particular action is prohibited or required need not involve extra-moral considerations.
Of course, extra-moral considerations may nonetheless make their way into the agent’s deliberation, given that we are imperfectly rational creatures. An agent may have prudential reasons not to perform the prohibited action, for instance, avoiding punishment or a bad reputation, and these reasons may play a role in the agent’s deliberation about what she will do. In these cases, however, refraining for moral reasons alone is indicative of the better moral character. The moral perfection we are to strive for consists, in part, in a disposition to duty such that ‘the law being by itself alone the incentive … without the admixture of aims derived from sensibility’ (MM, 6: 446). Recognizing that some action is morally required of me forces me to acknowledge that my personal desires and ends cannot add anything to the deliberative equation, for the deontic status of the action already provides me with decisive reason to act. If prudential reasons are needed in order to tip the deliberative scales, so to speak, this suggests that the agent is not committed to morality in the way that Kant believes she should be.Footnote 13
Alternatively, an agent may have prudential reasons to perform a forbidden action, for instance, she might have reason to think she can steal a wallet without getting caught. The prospect of gaining a desired object is a temptation to do what she knows to be wrong. In this instance, virtue (strength of will) is needed in order to subordinate the inclinations of self-love to respect for the moral law. Thus, with regard to negative and narrow positive duties, extra-moral considerations are not required to reach an all things considered deliberative conclusion, and it is morally preferable that agents regard them as not deliberatively pertinent.
That said, prudential considerations often unavoidably and thus quite appropriately play a role in decisions regarding how and when to fulfil a narrow positive duty. As others have observed, there may be multiple equally good ways of fulfilling a particular duty. For instance, I might pay my taxes on the day they are due or two months in advance. I can pay my taxes electronically or write a cheque or have money regularly withheld from my paycheque. Thus, even after I have arrived at the moral judgement that I am required to do X, as well as the deliberative conclusion that I will do X, I might still need to deliberate further about how and when to do X. Where there is more than one way to fulfil a narrow positive duty, practical and prudential considerations necessarily (and unobjectionably) play a role in the agent’s deliberation about how to satisfy the obligation, because moral considerations give us no reason to prefer one method of fulfilment over another.
Wide Positive Duties
Matters are more complicated when we turn our attention to the wide positive duties that are exclusive to ethics.Footnote 14 Based on the evidence presented below, I will argue that a duty is wide if the law can prescribe only a maxim of actions, not action itself, and this maxim of actions leaves latitude for judgement with regard to doing more or less. Though Kant’s exposition of different types of duties is not always as clear and precise as one might desire, the evidence suggests that the distinctive feature of wide duties is this type of latitude they permit.
The concept of an end that is also a duty is arguably the most profound contribution of Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue. An end that is also a duty is an end that the moral law represents as objectively necessary, that is, ‘an end that, as far as human beings are concerned, it is a duty to have’ (MM, 6: 380). Obligatory ends and their corresponding duties of virtue are distinguished from other types of duties by their distinctive form of lawgiving. Whereas juridical duties give laws for actions, ethics by contrast gives laws only for maxims of actions (6: 388). Kant explains, ‘Only the concept of an end that is also a duty, a concept that belongs exclusively to ethics, establishes a law for maxims of actions’ (6: 389). He continues:
if the law can prescribe only the maxim of actions, not actions themselves, this is a sign that it leaves a playroom (latitudo) for free choice in following (complying with) the law, that is, the law cannot specify precisely in what way one is to act and how much one is to do by the action for an end that is also a duty.
(MM, 6: 390)It is in this passage that we are first introduced to the characteristic feature of wide duties, namely, the latitude they permit in their execution.
Note that the latitude Kant describes above has two dimensions. The law cannot specify precisely ‘in what way one is to act’ and ‘how much one is to do’. As we have seen, the first form of latitude is common to at least some narrow positive duties. If there is more than one equally good way to honour one’s contract, then an agent may employ prudential considerations when deciding how to fulfil her duty. The second type of latitude – ‘how much one is to do by the action for an end that is also a duty’ – is distinctive of wide duties. We see this reiterated in section VII of the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue titled ‘Exposition of Duties of Virtue as Wide Duties’. In this section, Kant informs us that the duty of natural perfection is ‘a duty of wide obligation’ for ‘No rational principle prescribes specifically how far one should go in cultivating one’s capacities’ (MM, 6: 392; cf. 6: 446). Similarly, with regard to the duty to promote others’ happiness, Kant writes, ‘this duty is only a wide one; the duty has in it a latitude for doing more or less, and no specific limits can be assigned to what should be done’ (6: 393).Footnote 15 Notably, the only duties Kant mentions in this section are the two imperfect duties of self-perfection and the duty of beneficence. There is no reference to any perfect ethical duty or the duty of respect owed to others. I will return to this point shortly.
A final piece of evidence that supports the idea that the distinctive feature of wide positive duties is the latitude they permit regarding ‘how much one is to do’ is found in a lengthy note in the section devoted to the vice of avarice. There Kant again connects the concept of a wide duty to the latitude the duty permits:
Between truthfulness and lying (which are contradictorie oppositis) there is no mean; but there is indeed a mean between candor and reticence (which are contrarie oppositis), since one who declares his thoughts can say only what is true without telling the whole truth. Now it is quite natural to ask the teacher of virtue to point out this mean to me. But this he cannot do; for both duties of virtue have a latitude in their application (latitudinem), and judgment can decide what is to be done only in accordance with rules of prudence (pragmatic rules), not in accordance with rules of morality (moral rules). In other words, what is to be done cannot be decided after the manner of narrow duty (officium strictum), but after the manner of wide duty (officium latum).
(MM, 6: 433)The duty not to lie is strict and negative. It is a duty of omission which permits no latitude for doing more or less (MM, 6: 429). However, the duty to speak only truthfully does admit of latitude insofar as it is left to the judgement of the individual to determine what to reveal, to whom and when.Footnote 16 The difference between candour and reticence is a matter of how much is revealed. Thus, when Kant says that what is to be done can be decided only ‘after the manner of wide duty’, he means that discretion is left to the individual to decide how much of the truth to reveal (along with when, where and to whom). This ends my case for thinking that the distinctive feature of wide ethical duties is a latitude for doing more or less for the end that is also a duty.
Before moving on to consider the implications for deliberation regarding our wide ethical duties, I want to point out that Kant uses the designation ‘wide’ in at least two senses in the Doctrine of Virtue. All duties of virtue are wide in the sense that the law can prescribe only a maxim of actions, not actions themselves (cf. MM, 6: 388–92, 411). Some duties of virtue, however, are also duties of omission, such as perfect duties to ourselves (6: 419), and duties of respect to others (6: 462–8). In view of the fact that these duties of virtue are duties of omission, the prescribed maxims of action do not permit latitude for doing more or less. We must wholly avoid the vices associated with perfect duties to oneself and failure of respect for others. What the relevant maxims of actions prescribe is that we avoid these vices from the moral motive. Other ethical duties, like beneficence and self-perfection, are wide in the second sense of permitting latitude for doing more or less. This explains Kant’s claim that, although the duty of free respect toward others is ‘a mere duty of virtue, it is regarded as narrow in comparison with a duty of love, and it is the latter that is considered a wide duty’ (6: 450). Duties of love, unlike duties of respect, are wide in both senses. Because the designation duty of virtue already suggests wideness in the first sense (i.e. prescribes a maxim of actions rather than actions), I will use the term wide to designate only those ethical duties that allow latitude for doing more or less.
4. Deliberation Regarding Wide Positive Duties
The accounts of ‘duty’ and ‘obligation’ that we find in Kant’s published work prior to the Doctrine of Virtue almost exclusively reference discrete actions. In the Groundwork we are told that ‘duty is the necessity of an action from respect for law’ (G, 4: 400; cf. 4: 425, 439). Likewise in the second Critique duty is defined as ‘a necessitation … to an action’ (CPrR, 5: 32). And in the introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals Kant proclaims that ‘Obligation is the necessity of a free action under a categorical imperative of reason’ (MM, 6: 222). These accounts of duty do not anticipate Kant’s later proclamation that ‘ethics does not give laws for actions … but only for maxims of actions’ (6: 388), and that such a law ‘cannot specify precisely in what way one is to act and how much one is to do by the action for an end that is also a duty’ (6: 390).
One unfortunate consequence of Kant’s focus on discrete actions in his earlier work is that much of what he says about duty in general fails to do justice to duties of virtue.Footnote 17 For instance, in the introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals Kant offers the following three-fold deontic classification of actions: ‘An action that is neither commanded nor prohibited is merely permitted, since there is no law limiting one’s freedom (one’s authorization) with regard to it and so too no duty. Such an action is called morally indifferent …’ (MM, 6: 223, emphasis mine; cf. 6: 221). It is clear that actions proscribed by negative duties are prohibited, and actions prescribed by narrow positive duties are commanded (required). But where does this three-fold deontic classification leave us with regard to duties that prescribe only maxims of actions?
Actions that aim to promote obligatory ends are unquestionably morally good things to do, provided they do not entail transgressing other duties. To call such actions ‘morally indifferent’ seems highly inappropriate insofar as this designation ignores significance of an end that is also a duty and a law that prescribes maxims of action. That we promote these ends is required, not optional. At the same time, to classify actions that fall within the scope of a wide ethical duty as required would be to obliterate the distinction between narrow and wide duties. Wide ethical duties demand their own deontic category. In the Doctrine of Virtue, Kant uses the term ‘meritorious’ to describe actions that fulfil the duty of beneficence (MM, 6: 448; cf. 6: 390). I will follow Kant and use this term, despite the danger of confusing meritorious with supererogatory.Footnote 18 As I understand it, an action (or maxim) must satisfy two requirements in order to count as meritorious: it must aim to promote an obligatory end and it must not entail transgressing a more stringent duty. As a rule, in virtue of the latitude permitted by wide duties, failure to perform any particular action that is meritorious does not entail wrongdoing.Footnote 19
Commentators have had much to say about how we should understand the latitude permitted by wide duties.Footnote 20 Jens Timmermann is among those who have defended a rigoristic or strict interpretation. Timmermann’s account of the latitude permitted by wide duties is inspired by Kant’s warning that ‘a wide duty is not to be taken as permission to make exceptions to maxims of action but only as permission to limit one maxim of duty by another (e.g. love of one’s neighbor in general by love of one’s parents)’ (MM, 6: 390). According to Timmermann, ‘A related inclination may … at most determine the means, i.e. decide the question of how to comply with wide obligation in the absence of decisive moral considerations regarding means’ (Timmermann Reference Timmermann2005: 19). To illustrate this view, he provides the following example:
Listening to the radio news you hear about a particularly pressing emergency, such as a tidal wave. There can be little doubt that the people require your help. In fact, if you were in their situation you would expect the citizens of richer nations to come to your aid, and with good reason. You have £20 to spare; there is no equally or more worthy purpose for you to spend this money on … there are charitable organizations such as Oxfam and Brot für die Welt which will put your money to the best possible use … Kant can thus suggest that our dutiful actions be directed by inclination, other things being morally equal. You can discharge your duty by giving your money to Brot für die Welt on a visit to Germany or by sending a cheque to Oxfam. These actions are morally equivalent. They are equally good ways of doing one’s duty.
(Timmermann Reference Timmermann2005: 20–1)Moral considerations are not decisive when we are confronted with two or more equally good means or ways of doing one’s duty. Thus, according to Timmermann, inclination or prudential considerations are relevant to deliberation about wide duties in precisely the same manner that they are relevant to deliberation where narrow positive duties are concerned: they are permitted to enter into deliberation when one must choose between courses of action that are equally good means of fulfilling one’s duty. In his example, giving your £20 to Oxfam or Brot für die Welt are ‘morally equivalent’ actions, and thus your choice between the two may be directed by inclination. Though he does not say as much, Timmermann appears to draw the conclusion that the two courses of action are morally equivalent in virtue of the fact that they are empirically equivalent. Both can be reasonably expected to promote others’ happiness in the same way and to the same degree.
The simplicity of Timmermann’s example is misleading. The choices we must make in executing our wide ethical duties are rarely choices between empirically equivalent means of promoting the same end. The fundamental problem with Timmermann’s interpretation lies not in what it claims, but rather in its failure to acknowledge that moral considerations are nearly always indecisive where wide duties alone are concerned. The absence of decisive moral considerations is the rule, not the exception.
To illustrate this, consider the duty of beneficence. The scope of beneficence includes loved ones as well as neighbours and strangers and we are given no precise rules for how to negotiate the demands and needs from these different spheres. Should I take my mother out for a birthday dinner or donate the money to an organization that addresses food insecurity? Should I write a cheque to my niece on the occasion of her graduation from high school or use the money to fund a school trip for less privileged youth? Should I visit a sick friend in the hospital or donate blood? Are these courses of action morally equivalent or is one more worthy than the other? Kant’s ethics does not provide us with the resources to answer these questions and this is no defect. Wide ethical duties do not specify precisely how one is to act in every case because the ends that are also duties are to be embraced in a human life that necessarily involves the pursuit of one’s own happiness. Kant explicitly links the latitude permitted by wide duties to considerations of one’s own happiness:
I ought to sacrifice part of my welfare to others without hope for return … How far it should extend depends, in large part, on what each person’s true needs are in view of his sensibilities, and it must be left to each to decide this for himself. For a maxim of promoting others’ happiness at the sacrifice of one’s own happiness, one’s true needs, would conflict with itself if it were made a universal law.
(MM, 6: 393)Which of these natural perfections should take precedence, and in what proportion one against the other it may be a human being’s duty to himself to make these natural perfections his end, are matters left to him to choose in accordance with his own rational reflection about what sort of life he would like to lead and whether he has the powers necessary for it …
(MM, 6: 445)Though one’s own happiness is not an obligatory end, Kant is clear that our own happiness matters as well.Footnote 21 We are not obliged to maximally promote others’ happiness, for this would leave little to no room for the pursuit of one’s own happiness, as well as our natural perfection (cf. Baron Reference Baron1995: 88–107).
Actions that promote the happiness of others are meritorious, but so are actions that develop our natural talents. Here too we lack precise rules for how to distribute our resources between the two obligatory ends. Should I enrol in French classes or teach inmates at a local prison? Should I train for a marathon or deliver meals to homebound seniors? Again, Kant’s ethics does not contain the resources needed to compare these morally good courses of action and come to a definitive answer.Footnote 22 Such precision would lack the flexibility necessary to allow agents to pursue their own happiness while also embracing the obligatory ends. Finally, Kant insists that ‘Providing for oneself to the extent necessary just to find satisfaction in living (taking care of one’s body, but not to the point of effeminacy) belongs among duties to oneself’ (MM, 6: 452).Footnote 23 We may not neglect ourselves even in the pursuit of morally good ends. But just what we require in order to find satisfaction in living is not always obvious and will not be the same for everyone.
Wide duties are profound ethical duties, but they do not tell us precisely what we must do. I have shown that moral considerations regarding wide duties are not decisive in at least three different ways. First, moral considerations are not decisive with regard to how we promote a particular obligatory end and not just in cases where we must choose between empirically equal means to the same end. Second, moral considerations are typically not decisive with regard to which obligatory end we promote at any given time. And third, moral considerations are often not decisive when I must decide whether to take an opportunity to promote an obligatory end or engage in some nontrivial form of self-care. If moral considerations are generally not decisive where only wide duties are concerned, then they alone will not permit an agent to reach an all things considered judgement about what to do.
I think Timmermann is correct when he claims that inclination may decide the question of how to comply with wide obligation in the absence of decisive moral considerations regarding means; however, moral considerations are rarely decisive where wide duties alone are concerned. This is an important difference between narrow and wide positive duties. Prudential considerations play a rather ubiquitous role in deliberation about how to fulfil our wide positive duties.
Thomas Hill is among those who have resisted rigoristic interpretations of the latitude permitted by wide duties. According to Hill,
The basic principle of beneficence by itself, as I see it, typically lets a generally beneficent person pass up some opportunities to promote others’ happiness without specifying the range of permissible motives for doing so. Consideration of our own happiness, and so even ‘that it pleases us’ to do so, are acceptable motives so far as the principle itself tells us, as long as we have sincerely and wholeheartedly adopted the happiness of others as an end.
(Hill Reference Hill2002: 210, n. 25)I think Hill is correct when he says that the principle of beneficence by itself does not specify the range of permissible reasons for declining an opportunity to promote the obligatory end. To attempt to specify the permissible and impermissible reasons for declining an opportunity to promote others’ happiness or develop one’s talents is to force wide duties to be more like narrow positive and negative duties than they actually are. At the same time, a core idea at the heart of Timmermann’s rigoristic interpretation seems to be correct. Why one declines to perform an action that is meritorious seems to matter. The question is how these reasons matter. I do not think our reasons matter in terms of the deontic status of the agent’s choice (i.e. permissible or impermissible). Rather, an agent’s reason for accepting or declining an opportunity to perform an action that is meritorious reveals something about the agent’s character. Wide Kantian duties are aptly named duties of virtue because of their connection to particular virtues.
Hill’s latitudinarian insight is that the principle of beneficence does not specify the range of permissible motives for passing up an opportunity to promote others’ happiness. Timmermann’s rigoristic insight is that it matters morally why an agent declines an opportunity to promote the obligatory end. In the following section, I provide an account of the relationship between the wide duty of beneficence and the virtues of love that captures both of these insights.
5. The Wide Duty of Beneficence and the Virtues of Love
As we have seen, moral considerations are typically inconclusive when it comes to how and when we promote obligatory ends like others’ happiness or our natural perfection. In light of the latitude these duties permit, practical and prudential considerations will typically and unobjectionably play a role in the agent’s deliberation about whether to perform some particular action (or adopt some particular maxim) that is meritorious.Footnote 24 Practical considerations have to do with the efficacy of the means available to me. These include whether or not I am well positioned to promote the happiness of others in a particular way. For instance, if I have type O blood (universal donor), then I am especially well positioned to be a blood donor. Similarly, if I am a contractor, I can expect to make a greater contribution building houses for the homeless than I could to a local soup kitchen. Thinking practically, I might also consider whether I expect many or few others to address a particular need. Being committed to an end rationally requires a commitment to employing efficacious means in pursuit of the end.
Prudential considerations concern how performing a particular meritorious action would impact my well-being broadly construed. Would performing the action be inconvenient, costly or taxing? Just how inconvenient, costly or taxing? Would I enjoy performing the action? Do I anticipate that performing the action would leave me feeling satisfied or resentful? Would I feel guilty or ashamed if I failed to perform the action? Prudential considerations involve both the material conditions of my well-being, as well as the psychological or subjective conditions.
In virtue of the latitude they permit, wide duties are more vulnerable to dubious rationalization than a narrow duty would be.Footnote 25 The latitude invites me to come up with excuses for why it would be acceptable for me to decline certain opportunities to promote the obligatory end. I’m tired. I’ve already done this and that. I can’t give to every cause. I do more than most! This is why we must cultivate the appropriate character.
In Kantian Ethics Almost without Apology, Marcia Baron connects the wide duty of beneficence with the duty of moral perfection, arguing that ‘the full spirit of [the imperfect duty of making the ends of others one’s own] is not brought out until that duty is seen as shaped and “stiffened” by the duty to improve oneself morally’ (Baron Reference Baron1995: 100). I agree with Baron that the duty of beneficence is indeed shaped by the duty of moral perfection. What I am proposing is a connection between the duty of beneficence and a particular kind of moral self-improvement, the cultivation of the virtues of love. Specifically, I propose that the cultivation of benevolence, sympathetic participation, gratitude and beneficence shape the prudential considerations that are operative in the deliberative process that precedes a decision to perform (or not perform) a meritorious action. Rather than ‘stiffening’ the duty of beneficence, as Baron suggests, I propose that the virtues of love dissolve some of the tension between self-love and obligations of love.
Consider the virtue of benevolence. Possessing this virtue entails having the volitional disposition (or maxim) to cultivate the affective disposition that takes satisfaction in the happiness and well-being of others (cf. Fahmy Reference Fahmy2010). To the extent that one has been successful in cultivating this affective disposition, one can anticipate deriving satisfaction from helping others, especially in cases where one is able to see the impact one’s beneficence has made. The benevolent agent understands that promoting the happiness of others is obligatory; but she is more likely to regard this requirement as compatible with (or even complementary to) her own well-being rather than in opposition to it. This is the logic of a duty of virtue, which Barbara Herman describes in the follow manner:
the salutary effect of locating the argument for beneficence under an obligatory end is to transform the way concern for self is connected to concern for others so that judgment need not be about adjudicating between own- and others’-happiness by means of the weighing and balancing of kinds of interests and numbers of persons.
(Herman Reference Herman2002: 245)Associating others’ well-being with the feeling of satisfaction will make a difference when one deliberates about whether to pursue an opportunity to perform a beneficent action.
As mentioned earlier, the virtue of gratitude calls for the cultivation of two distinct affective dispositions. The agent-specific virtue of gratitude calls for the cultivation of the disposition to feel respect and appreciativeness toward our benefactors, as well as the volitional disposition to return beneficence. To the extent that one has been successful in cultivating agent-specific gratitude, she is less likely to be pained and threatened by her indebtedness to another, and more open to an opportunity to return a favour, rather than view it as a burden. Gratitude also operates on an agent-neutral level. As Kant observes, ‘As far as the extent of this gratitude is concerned, it reaches not only to one’s contemporaries but also to one’s predecessors, even to those one cannot identify with certainty’ (MM, 6: 455). Much of the good in the world that we enjoy is the product of others’ initiative, vision, planning, creativity and labour. From the basic infrastructure we rely on to works of art and literature that lift our spirits, we are beneficiaries in so many ways. Acknowledging and appreciating this fact about our place in the world is general gratitude or appreciativeness. Feeling grateful or appreciative triggers our natural inclination to reciprocity. To the extent that one has been successful in cultivating the affective disposition of appreciativeness, one will be more inclined to embrace an opportunity to assist others, especially others that will likely not be in a position to thank us directly or return the favour.Footnote 26
The agent who possesses the virtue of sympathetic participation is committed to the cultivation of the affective disposition to feel sympathetic joy and sadness that she can morally endorse. We should not share in the disappointment of a criminal whose future criminal plans have been thwarted, but we should share in the pain of those who are victims of natural disasters. Likewise, we should not share in pleasure derived from ridiculing others, but we should take pleasure in others’ good fortune. This will require, among other things, suppressing the tendencies to envy and resentment. Like the other virtues of love, sympathy narrows the gap between my own happiness and well-being and that of others. If another’s suffering provokes sympathetic pain in me, then I can anticipate that acting to relieve her suffering will also bring me some relief and this will influence my deliberation.
Thus we see that the degree to which some act of beneficence is taxing or burdensome is not a strictly objective matter. Much depends on the perception of the benefactor. To the extent that I have been successful in cultivating the affective dispositions prescribed by the virtues of love, sacrifices of time, money and attention will be perceived as less onerous and this perception will influence deliberation about how I go about fulfilling the duty of beneficence over the course of a lifetime.
This account of the relationship between the virtues of love and the wide duty of beneficence is compatible with Hill’s latitudinarian insight that the principle of a wide duty does not specify the range of permissible motives for passing up an opportunity to perform an action that is meritorious. The agent who passes up some opportunity to promote the happiness of others simply because she does not feel like it has not done something strictly impermissible. But by understanding the relationship between wide duties and specific virtues, we capture Timmermann’s rigoristic insight that it nonetheless matters morally why an agent elects to pass up some opportunity to perform some meritorious action. An agent who declines this sort of opportunity simply because ‘she does not feel like it’ is likely either lacking in one or more of the virtues of love or has been unsuccessful in cultivating the appropriate affective dispositions. While she is not guilty of wrongdoing, she is also not as good as she should be and should strive to be better.
6. Conclusion
In this article, I have endeavoured to elucidate the nature of the Kantian virtues of love, as well as the role they play in Kant’s ethical theory. I have argued that possessing these Kantian virtues entails possession of volitional dispositions to cultivate particular affective dispositions, as well as (in some cases) a volitional disposition to perform certain kinds of actions. I have further argued that understanding the role these virtues play in Kant’s theory requires understanding the unique nature of wide ethical duties. In light of the latitude these duties permit, moral considerations are typically not decisive where only wide duties are concerned. As a consequence, prudential considerations play a ubiquitous role in deliberation about how we fulfil these ethical duties. The virtues of love specifically shape the prudential considerations that are operative in deliberation regarding how we promote others’ happiness. Acknowledging the relationship between the wide duty of beneficence and particular virtues of love thus allows us to unite key insights from both latitudinarian and rigoristic interpretations of these uniquely Kantian duties, and to further demonstrate the significant role that virtue plays in Kant’s ethics.Footnote 27
