Kants Virtue Ethics PDF

Royal Institute of Philosophy
Kant's Virtue Ethics

Author(s): Robert B. Louden
Source: Philosophy, Vol. 61, No. 238 (Oct., 1986), pp. 473-489
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of Royal Institute of Philosophy
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3750390
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ROBERT B. LOUDEN
Among moral attributes true virtue alone is sublime.

... [I]t is only by means of this idea [of virtue] that any judgment as
to moral worth or its opposite is possible....
Everything good that is not based on a morally good disposi-
tion ... is nothing but pretence and glittering misery.1
In recent years we have heard much about the revival of virtue ethics, of
normative theories whose primary focus is on persons rather than
decision-making in problematic situations, agents and the sorts of lives
they lead rather than discrete acts and rules for making choices, charac-
ters and their morally relevant traits rather than laws of obligation.
Contemporary theorists are often motivated by a sense of the
impoverishment of modern moral traditions, for in placing primary
weight on the agent rather than the act (much less the act's conse-
quences), virtue theorists set themselves off against what are often
viewed as the two options in modern ethics-utilitarianism and deon-
tologism. The traditional whipping boy in the latter case is Kant, for he
is widely regarded as deontology personified, the first moral theorist to
place a non-derivative conception of duty at the centre of the
philosophical stage, the first to establish a non-consequentialist dec-
ision procedure through his universalizability test, etc. In addition,
virtue theorists also seem to have more historical reasons for disapprov-
ing of Kant. For the rise of quandary ethics is often associated with
Enlightenment efforts to escape from tradition and the pull of local
communities, and a consequent yearning for an ahistorical and univer-
salistic conception of morality. Kant, as spokesman for the Enlighten-
ment, is a natural target of criticism here.
For conceptual as well as historical reasons then, Kantian ethics has
suffered badly under the current revival of virtue campaign. Alasdair
MacIntyre writes: 'In Kant's moral writings we have reached a point at
1 The first quotation is from Kant's Observations on the Feeling of the

Beautiful and the Sublime, trans. John T. Goldthwait (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1965), 57; the second from the
Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (London: Macmillan,
1963), A 315/B 372; and the third from the essay, 'Idea for a Universal
History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View', in On History, Lewis White
Beck (ed.) (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963), 21, Ak. 26.
Philosophy 61 1986 473
Robert B. Louden
which the notion that morality is anything other than obedience to rules
has almost, if not quite, disappeared from sight'.2 Philippa Foot
chastises Kant as one of a select group of philosophers whose 'tacitly
accepted opinion was that a study of the topic [of the virtues and vices]
would form no part of the fundamental work of ethics ...'.3 On her
view, Kant should bear a sizable part of the responsibility for analytic
philosophy's neglect of virtue. And Bernard Williams is equally critical
in his insistent claims that Kantian moral theory treats persons in
abstraction from character, and thus stands guilty of misrepresenting
not only persons but morality and practical deliberation as well.4 The
underlying message is not simply that Kant is an illustrative represent-
ative of the deontological rule ethics perspective, but that his ethics is
the worst possible sort of deontological rule ethics, one which is pri-
marily responsible for the eclipse of agent-centred ethics.
Yet some readers of Kant feel that the conceptual shape of his ethical
theory has been distorted by defender and critic alike, that his ethics is
not rule ethics but virtue ethics. This reading of Kant has had its
defenders in the past (he did after all write The Doctrine of Virtue), but
Onora O'Neill has recently placed it in the context of the contemporary
virtue ethics debate. In 'Kant After Virtue' (a reply to MacIntyre's
book), she states confidently that 'what is not in doubt . . . is that Kant
offers primarily an ethic of virtue rather than an ethic of rules'.5 So
whose Kant is the real Kant-hers or the more familiar one of MacIn-
tyre & Co.?
The real Kant lies somewhere in between these two extremes. He
sought to build an ethical theory which could assess both the life plans
of moral agents and their discrete acts. This is to his credit, for an
adequate moral theory needs to do both.
The Shape of Virtue Ethics6

What qualifies an ethical theory as virtue ethics rather than rule ethics?
2 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre

Dame Press, 1981), 219. Cf. pp. 42, 112.
3 Philippa Foot, Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), 1.
4 Bernard Williams, Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973-1980
(Cambridge University Press, 1981), esp. pp. 14, 19.
Onora O'Neill, 'Kant After Virtue', Inquiry 26 (1984), 397. Cf. p. 396. For
an earlier interpretation which also stresses the prominence of virtue (but
in a less either/or manner), see Warner Wick, 'Kant's Moral Philosophy', in
Kant's Ethical Philosophy, trans. James Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett,
1983). (Originally published as the Introduction to The Metaphysical Princi-
ples of Virtue by Bobbs-Merrill in 1964.)
6 For a more detailed look at this issue, see my essay, 'On Some Vices of
Virtue Ethics', American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984), 227-236.
474
Agents v. Acts
One hallmark of virtue ethics is its strong agent orientation. For virtue
theorists, the primary object of moral evaluation is not the intentional
act or its consequences, but the agent. Utilitarians begin with a concept
of the good-here defined with reference to states of affairs rather than
persons. Duty, rights, and even virtue are all treated by utilitarians as
derivative categories of secondary importance, definable in terms of
utility maximization. Similarly, deontologists take duty as their
irreducible starting point, and reject any attempt to define this root
notion of being morally bound to do something in terms of good to be
achieved. The good is now a derivative category, definable in terms of
the right. The good that we are to promote is right action for its own
sake-duty for duty's sake. Virtue also is a derivative notion, definable
in terms of pro-attitudes towards one's duties. It is important, but only
because it helps us to do our duty.
Virtue ethics begins with a notion of the morally good person which
is primitive in the sense that it is not defined in terms of performing
obligatory acts ('the person who acts as duty requires') or end-states
('the agent who is disposed to maximize utility through his acts'). On
the contrary, right and wrong acts are now construed in terms of what
the good agent would or would not do; worthy and unworthy ends in
terms of what the good agent would or would not aim at. It is by means
of this conceptual shift that 'being' rather than 'doing' achieves prom-
inence in virtue ethics.
Decision Procedures v. Good Character
Agent-ethics and act-ethics also diverge in their overall conceptions of

practical reasoning. Act theorists, because they focus on discrete acts
and moral quandaries, are interested in formulating decision pro-
cedures for making practical choices. Because they have derivative and
relatively weak conceptions of character to lean on, the agent in a
practical choice situation does not appear to them to have many
resources upon which to draw. He or she needs a guide-hopefully a
decision procedure-for finding a way out of the quandary. Agent
ethics, because it focuses on long-term characteristic patterns of action,
downplays atomic acts and choice situations in the process. It is not as
concerned with portraying practical reason as a rule-governed
enterprise which can be applied on a case by case basis. Virtue theorists
do not view moral choice as unreasoned or irrational; the virtuous agent
is also seen as the practically wise agent. But one often finds divergent
portraits of practical reason in act and agent ethics.
475
Robert B. Louden
Motivation
A third general area where we are likely to see differences between agent
and act ethics is in their respective views on moral motivation. This
complex issue is particularly important in any reading of Kantian ethics
as virtue ethics. For the duty-based or deontological theorist, the
preferred motive is respect for the idea of duty itself, and the good man
is the one who does his duty for duty's sake. This does not entail that the
agent who does his duty for duty's sake does so grudgingly, or only in
spite of inclinations to the contrary, but simply that the determining
ground of the motive is respect for duty. For the goal-based or
utilitarian theorist, the preferred motive is a steady disposition to
maximize uti lity.
In virtue ethics the preferred motivation factor is not duty or utility
but the virtues themselves. The agent who acts from dispositions of
friendship, courage, or integrity is held higher than the person who
performs the same acts but from different motives. For instance, a
virtue theorist might call a man courageous only if, when in danger, it
was clear that the man did not even want to run away (and thus showed
signs of being 'directly moved' to act courageously), while the duty-
based theorist would only call a man courageous if he did not run away
out of sense of duty (but perhaps wanted to anyway-though the 'want'
is here irrelevant). As the example suggests, matters become trouble-
some when we bring in reason and inclination. I have not said that one
theory asserts we are motivated by reason, another by desire. However,
reason and inclination do enter into the motivation issue (particularly in
debates over Kant) in the following way. Virtue ethics, with its 'virtue
for virtue's sake' position on motivation, is also committed to the claim
that our natural inclinations play a necessary role in many types of
action done from virtue. Acting from the virtue of friendship, for
instance, would require that one possess and exhibit certain feelings
about friends. Kant, on the other hand, holds (from the Foundations
on) that the sole determining ground of the will must be respect
(Achtung)-a peculiarly non-empirical feeling produced by an intellec-
tual awareness of the moral law. Kant thus appears to deny natural
inclinations any positive role in moral motivation, whereas virtue ethics
requires it.
Virtue and the Good Will
Kant begins his ethical investigations with a powerful but cryptic

proclamation about the good will: 'Nothing in the world-indeed,
nothing even beyond the world-can possibly be conceived which
476
could be called good without qualification except a good will'.7 From

the perspective of virtue ethics, to what extent should Kant's position
on the good will be construed as evidence of an agent rather than an act-
centred ethics?
As Robert Paul Wolff remarks, it is 'noteworthy that the philosopher
most completely identified with the doctrine of stern duty should
begin, not with a statement about what we ought to do, but rather with
a judgment of what is unqualifiedly good'.8 And what is unqualifiedly
good, according to Kant, is not an end-state such as pleasure or the
performance of certain atomic acts in conformity to rules, but a state of
character which becomes the basis for all of one's actions. To answer
the question: 'Is my will good?' (a question which can never be
answered with certain knowledge, due to the opacity of our intentions),
we must look beyond atomic acts and decisions and inquire into how we
have lived. A man cannot be 'morally good in some ways and at the same
time morally evil in others'.9 Similarly, he cannot, on Kant's view,
exhibit a good will one moment and an evil one the next. Steadfastness
of character must be demonstrated.
So Kant's opening claim concerning the unqualified goodness of the
good will means that what is fundamentally important in his ethics is
not acts but agents. But what is the relationship between 'good will' and
virtue? Kant defines virtue (Tugend) in the Tugendlehre as 'fortitude in
relation to the forces opposing a moral attitude of will in us'.10 The
Kantian virtuous agent is thus one who, because of his 'fortitude', is
able to resist urges and inclinations opposed to the moral law. Kantian
fortitude is strength (Starke) or force (Kraft) of will, not in the sense of
being able to accomplish the goals one sets out to achieve, but rather in
the sense of mastery over one's inclinations and constancy of purpose. 1'
A good will is a will which steadily acts from the motive of respect for
the moral law. But human beings, because they are natural beings,
I Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Lewis White

Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959), 9, Ak. 393.
8 Robert Paul Wolff, The Anatomy of Reason (New York: Harper & Row,
1973), 56-57.
9 Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Theodore M.
Green and Hoyt H. Hudson (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960), 20.
10 Kant, The Doctrine of Virtue, trans. Mary J. Gregor (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1964), 38, Ak. 380.
11 On strength and virtue, see The Doctrine of Virtue, 49-50, Ak. 389,
54/393, 58/397, 66/404, 70-71/408-409. See also Anthropology from a
Pragmatic Point of View, trans. Mary J. Gregor (Netherlands: Nijhoff,
1974), 26-27, Ak. 147, and the Lectures on Ethics, trans. Louis Infeld (New
York: Harper Torchbooks, 1963), 73. On the accomplishment of goals, see
the Foundations, 10, Ak. 394.
477
Robert B. Louden
always possess inclinations which may lead them to act against reason.
Their wills are thus in a perpetual state of tension. Some wills are better
than others, but only a holy will (who has no wants that could run
counter to reason, and who can thus do no evil) possesses an absolutely
good will. This is why Kant holds that 'human morality in its highest
stages can still be nothing more than virtue'. 12 Virtue is only an approxi-
mation of the good will, because of the basic conflict or tension in
human wills. Kant's virtuous agent is a human approximation of a good
will who through strength of mind continually acts out of respect for the
moral law while still feeling the presence of natural inclinations which
could tempt him to act from other motives.
Now if virtue is the human approximation to the good will, and if the
good will is the only unqualified good, this does imply that moral
virtue, for Kant, is foundational, and not (as one would expect in a
deontological theory) a concept of derivative or secondary importance.
('Everything good that is not based on a morally good disposition ... is
nothing but pretence and glittering misery.') As Harbison notes: 'the
essence of [Kant's] moral philosophy is quite different from what it has
commonly been supposed to be, for on the basis of this enquiry one
must conclude that it is the concept of the good will that lies at its
foundation'. 13
But there remains a fundamental problem for this particular argu-
ment in favour of a virtue ethics reading of Kant. Both the good will and
virtue are defined in terms of obedience to moral law, for they are both
wills which are in conformity to moral law and which act out of respect
for it. Kant begins with the good will in order to uncover 'the supreme
principle of morality' -the categorical imperative. Since human virtue
is defined in terms of conformity to law and the categorical imperative,
it appears now that what is primary in Kantian ethics is not virtue for
virtue's sake but obedience to rules. Virtue is the heart of the ethical for
Kant, in the sense that it is the basis for all judgments of moral worth.
But Kantian virtue is itself defined in terms of the supreme principle of
morality. The conceptual commitment to agency and long-term char-
acteristic behaviour rather than atomic acts and decision procedures for
moral quandaries is evident here, as one would expect in virtue ethics.
But what Kant prizes most about moral agency is its ability to act
consistently from respect for law, not in the sense of following specific
rules for specific acts, but in the more fundamental sense of guiding
one's entire life by respect for rationally legislated and willed law.
12 Kant, The Doctrine of Virtue, 41, Ak. 382. See also the Critique of
Practical Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,
1956), 86-87, Ak. 84-85, and the Foundations, 30-31, Ak. 414.
13 Warren G. Harbison, 'The Good Will', Kant-Studien (1980), 59.
478
Kantian virtue therefore is subordinate to the moral law, and this

makes him look more like an obedience-to-rules theorist. However, it is
obedience to rules not in the narrow-minded pharisaic manner for
which rule ethics is usually chastised by virtue theorists, but in the
broader, classical sense of living a life according to reason. The two
perspectives of agent and rule are thus both clearly present in Kant's
account of the good will. The virtuous agent is one who consistently
'follows the rules' out of respect for the idea of rationally legislated law.
But 'the rules', while they do serve as action-guides, are intended most
fundamentally as life-guides.
Re-reading Maxims
A second argument for a virtue ethics interpretation of Kant comes

from a re-reading of what he means by a maxim. This strategy is
particularly prominent in some of the recent work of Onora O'Neill and
in a piece of Otfried Hoffe.14 Kant defines a maxim rather tersely as a
'subjective principle of volition',15 and from this one can infer that a
maxim is (among other things) a policy of action adopted by a particular
agent at a particular time and place. Because the principle is subjective
rather than objective, it must tie in with the agent's own intentions and
interests. So why not simply view Kantian maxims as the agent's
specific maxims for his discrete acts? This is a common understanding
of maxims, but it is also one that easily lends itself to a rule reading of
maxims, since here a maxim becomes, in effect, a rule which prescribes
or proscribes a specific act. O'Neill rejects the specific intention reading
and argues instead that 'it seems most convincing to understand by an
agent's maxim the underlying intention by which the agent orchestrates
his numerous more specific intentions'.16 Suppose I have invited a guest
to my house, and that my underlying intention is to make him feel
welcome. On most such occasions, I will have numerous specific inten-
tions by means of which I carry out the underlying intention: I may
offer him a beer, invite him to put a record on the stereo, show him my
vegetable garden, etc.
O'Neill offers two arguments in support of the underlying intention
interpretation of maxims. (1) Usually we are aware of our specific
14 Onora O'Neill, 'Kant After Virtue', and 'Consistency in Action', in New

Essays on Ethical Universalizability, N. Potter and M. Timmons (ed.)
(Dordrecht: Reidel, 1984), and Otfried Hdffe, 'Kants kategorischer
Imperativ als Kriterium des Sittlichen', in 0. Hoffe (ed.), Ethik und Politik
(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1979), esp. pp. 90-92.
15 Kant, Foundations, 17, Ak. 401, n. 1; 38/420, n. 8.
16 O'Neill, 'Kant After Virtue', 394.
479
Robert B. Louden
intentions for the future, yet Kant frequently asserts that we never
know the real morality of our actions. This suggests that maxims and
specific intentions are not the same. (2) Sometimes we act without a
specific intention (e.g. when we act absentmindedly), but Kant holds
that we always act on some maxim. All action is open to moral assess-
ment. This again suggests a difference between maxims and specific
intentions. i7
Now if Kantian maxims are best seen as underlying rather than as
specific intentions, we do have a strong argument for a virtue reading of
Kant's ethics. For our underlying intentions tie in directly with the
sorts of persons we are and with the sorts of lives we lead. And the sort
of person one is obviously depends upon what virtues and vices one
possesses. One's specific intentions, on the other hand, are not always
an accurate guide to the sort of person one is 'deep down inside'. This
connection between underlying intentions and being a certain sort of
person is stressed by both O'Neill and Hdffe.18 However, two basic
problems confront this interpretation. First, O'Neill's use of the phrase
'underlying intentions' is ambiguous. At one point, she states that
adopting maxims is a matter of 'leading a certain sort of life, or being a
certain sort of person'; elsewhere she asserts that maxims (or underly-
ing intentions) 'need not be longer-term intentions, for we remain free
to change them'.'9 This distinction between underlying and longer-
term intentions does not sit well with the asserted identification
between underlying intentions and being a certain sort of person. For
becoming a certain sort of person is a long-term process. One cannot
decide at noon on Monday to be courageous and saintly, and then
suddenly become so by Tuesday. And in what sense do we 'remain free
to change' the sort of person we have become? I believe there is a strong
sense in which such a change can be undertaken, but the effort and time
required to carry it out are certainly much greater than are the effort
and time required to change one's specific intentions at any given
moment. In short, the more 'underlying' intentions are untied from
'longer-term' intentions, the less plausible it becomes to assert that
maxims (in the sense of underlying intentions) have to do with leading
a certain sort of life and with virtue. For the latter are long-term
ventures. One does not initiate, abandon or change them on a daily
basis.
One reason for O'Neill's odd insistence on the underlying/long-term
intention distinction is perhaps traceable to Kantian texts. In several
places, Kant warns that we must not construe virtue as a 'mere aptitude
17 O'Neill, 'Kant After Virtue', 393-394.

18 O'Neill, 395; Hoffe, 91.
19 O'Neill, 394, 395.
480
(Fertigkeit) or ... a long-standing habit (Gewohnheit) of morally good

actions'.20 His point is that human virtue is an extremely precarious
achievement of pure practical reason which must constantly be on
guard against heteronomy and empirical inclinations. In making this
claim he is unfortunately led into some rhetorical skirmishes against
Aristotle which reflect a poor understanding of Aristotle's own analysis
of virtue.21 What Kant wants is a moral disposition 'armed for all
situations' and 'insured against changes that new temptations can bring
about'.22 As O'Neill suggests, Kant is aiming at a distinctively modern
conception of virtue here, one which is a response to the fragmentation
of modern life and the breakdown of communities and institutions.
Furthermore, behind his opposition to construing virtues as long-
standing habits lies an acute awareness of our powers of rationalization
and self-deception in repressing our sense of guilt. Kant might seem to
have read his Freud. But nothing in these texts implies that long-term
intentions must necessarily turn into mechanical habits, for we have
seen already that cultivating a good will is, on Kant's view, an achieve-
ment of pure practical reason. So O'Neill's reservations about long-
term intentions do not appear to be well-founded.
The second problem with the underlying intentions reading of
maxims is that it contradicts several of Kant's own examples of maxims.
What he sometimes means by maxims are not life plans or even underly-
ing intentions, but simply specific intentions for discrete acts. Further-
more, the testing of such maxims does not require that they be related
to the life plan or underlying intention of the agent. The maxim of the
agent who feels forced to borrow money but knows he can't repay it is
very specific, and applies only to restricted dire circumstances which
may never even arise. Similarly, the maxim which reveals a perfect duty
to refrain from suicide is again a specific intention which is not
necessarily related to a life plan.
For these two reasons then, the underlying intentions reading of
maxims must be taken with a large grain of salt. O'Neill's use of
'underlying' is ambiguous, vacillating between specific and long-term
intentions. Second, Kant's own examples of maxims indicate that what
he sometimes means by the term is specific intentions for atomic acts.
But because 'maxims' for Kant can mean both short as well as long-term
intentions, we see again that he possesses and employs the conceptual
20 Kant, The Doctrine of Virtue, 41-42, Ak. 383, 69/407. Cf. Anthropol-
ogy, 26-27, Ak. 153.
21 Kant to the contrary, Aristotelian virtue is not a mechanical habit but
rather a state of character determined by a rational principle (Nicomachean
Ethics 1107al).
22 Kant, The Doctrine of Virtue, 42, Ak. 383.
481
Robert B. Louden
tools to evaluate an agent's discrete acts as well as his or her course of

life. This is to Kant's credit, for both enterprises are essential for an
adequate ethical theory.
Self-perfection and the Doctrine of Morally Necessary Ends
Yet there is one fundamental use of 'maxims' in Kant's texts which

unequivocally concerns underlying intentions and the sort of life one
leads. This is what Kant calls maxims of ends rather than of dutiful
actions-maxims to pursue general, long-term goals (which allow for
many different ways of pursuing them), rather than maxims to perform
narrowly prescribed acts. The strongest argument for the prominence
of virtue in Kantian ethics is to be gleaned from his doctrine of morally
necessary ends as presented in the Tugendlehre.
Section 3 of the Introduction to the Tugendlehre is entitled: 'On the
Ground for Conceiving an End which is at the Same Time a Duty'. The
core of Kant's argument runs as follows: all acts have ends, for action
(by definition) is a goal-directed process. Ends, however, are objects of
free choice. We do of course have many desires, wants, and inclinations
which are biologically and/or culturally imposed, and nearly all ends
that we do eventually adopt are also objects of desires, wants, and
inclinations. But ultimately ends are chosen, for we cannot be forced to
make anything an end of action unless we ourselves choose to. People
can and do renounce even the biological desire for life in extreme
circumstances. The adoption of ends is a matter of free choice, and this
brings them under the purview of pure practical reason rather than of
inclination.
But why assert that ends (which are freely chosen) are also morally
necessary? Why claim that there exist ends which agents have a duty to
adopt? Isn't this merely a way of implying that all conceptions of the
good are not created equal, that reason can discriminate among ends as
well as among means-isn't it dangerously unmodern and illiberal?
Perhaps, but Kant's position is clear: we must assume that there are
morally necessary ends, for if we don't, 'this would do away with all
moral philosophy'.23 His reasoning is that if all ends are contingent,
then all imperatives become hypothetical. If we are free to accept or
reject any goal put before us whenever we are so inclined, then all
commands prescribing maxims for actions are likewise open to rejec-
tion once the goal is dismissed. In other words (by contraposition), if
there is a categorical imperative, there must be at least one morally
necessary end. We cannot accept the claim that reason categorically
482
requires us to do certain things unless we accept the companion claim

that reason categorically requires us to adopt certain ends.
As is well known, Kant goes on to argue in the Tugendlehre that there
are two ends which agents have a duty to adopt: their own perfection
and the happiness of others. The former, for Kant, is the more funda-
mental of the two, and its connection to moral character is also more
direct.
The duty which Kant asserts all agents have to promote their own
perfection includes as its most important component the obligation to
cultivate one's will 'to the purest attitude of virtue'.24 We saw earlier that
the good will is the only unqualified good in the world or beyond it, that
it in turn is the condition for the goodness of every other thing. Our
highest practical vocation as finite rational intelligences is to produce a
will good in itself as an unconditional end, for such a will is the supreme
good and ordering principle for all human activities. We saw also that
moral virtue, as Kant understands the concept, is a human approxima-
tion to the good will. Humans, because of their biological and cultural
make-ups, always have inclinations which may run counter to the moral
law.
The duty to develop an attitude of virtue is obviously a duty to
oneself rather than to others. And it is also an ethical rather than a legal
duty, that is, a duty in which the motive for action is the thought of the
law itself rather than threats of external compulsion. But what is most
important to note for our purposes is that the duty to develop one's
moral character is the linchpin of Kant's entire system of duties. As he
remarks in his discussion of duties to oneself: 'if there were no such
duties [viz. duties to oneself], then there would be no duties what-
soever, and so no external duties either. For I can recognize that I am
under obligation to others only in so far as I, at the same time, obligate
myself. '25
Without duties to oneself, no duties whatsoever. Why would Kant
make such a claim? His chief contention is that what is basic to all
duties-legal, moral, or otherwise-is the concept of binding oneself.
Take first the familiar notion of a legal duty to others, say, a loan taken
out with a lending institution to help pay for one's graduate education.
In one sense I am clearly bound to another party (the bank). But Kant's
view is that this is so only because I first choose to bind myself to the
laws of the government under which I am accountable to the terms of
24 Kant, The Doctrine of Virtue, 46, Ak. 386. Other components of the
duty of self-perfection include the cultivation of one's 'natural powers'-
powers of 'mind, soul, and body'.
25 Kant, The Doctrine of Virtue, 80, Ak. 416. Cf. 17/218: 'All duties,
merely because they are duties, belong to ethics'.
483
Robert B. Louden
the contract. If I don't first choose to view myself as being obligated to

obey my government's laws, it is not likely that I will consider myself to
have any duty toward the bank. Similarly, consider a moral duty to
others, e.g. the Kantian duty to promote others' welfare. Here I am not
even accountable to any specifiable others, as was the case in the
previous example, but only to my own conscience. We 'owe it to
ourselves' to do all we are capable of in fulfilling our moral duties to
others.
Once Kant's argument concerning morally necessary ends is con-
sidered, it becomes strikingly evident that virtue does indeed have a
pre-eminent position in his ethics. Our overriding practical vocation is
to realize a state of virtue in our own character as the basis of all action.
Without fulfilling such a duty to ourselves, other duties are not poss-
ible. Virtue is not only the heart of the ethical for Kant; it also has
priority in morals considered as a whole (that is, in Recht and Tugend
taken together). For if there were no ethical duties to oneself, there
would be no duties whatsoever.
But again virtue itself is posterior to the supreme principle of
morality. Virtue remains conceptually subordinate to the moral law.
Kant presents us with a virtue ethics in which the 'rule of law' neverthe-
less plays the lead role, and in which the theory is designed to assess not
only ways of life but discrete acts as well. However, as noted earlier, the
priority of the moral law in Kantian ethics does not entail the pharisaic
qualities which virtue critics have usually attributed to it. It does not
mean that what dominates Kantian ethics is the attempt to construct a
decision procedure for all acts, or even to devise determinate rules for a
limited set of specific acts. Yet such attempts are generally conceded to
be prominent in rule ethics approaches to practical reasoning. Instead,
what we do find in Kant's ethics is the categorical command of reason to
cultivate a way of life in which all of one's acts (whatever they may be)
are in complete harmony with the idea of lawfulness as such. The moral
will is subordinate to law in Kantian ethics and is defined in terms of it.
But the result is not a legalistic conformity-to-rules morality, current
interpretations to the contrary. It is a conception of a life lived accord-
ing to reason.
Virtue and Emotion
While virtue has far greater prominence in Kant's ethics than many of
his readers suppose, it is nevertheless overstating matters to assert
baldly that Kantian ethics is virtue ethics. Significant aspects of both
the agent and act perspectives are present in his ethical theory, though
the former does dominate. Kantian ethical theory seeks to assess not
484
only atomic acts but also agents' ways of life. And while the sort of
person one becomes (rather than the specific acts one may perform and
the short-term intentions one may adopt) is central in Kantian ethics,
his conception of moral personhood is defined in terms of obedience to
law. The Kantian agent commitment is inextricably fused to a law
conception of ethics. Each of the three arguments outlined earlier
points to these same conclusions, which is not surprising, since they are
closely related to begin with. The later material from the Tugendlehre
regarding morally necessary ends (of which the duty of moral self-
perfection is the most important) restates and deepens the earlier
material from the Grundlegung concerning the good will. The section
on maxims establishes that while not all Kantian maxims refer to
underlying intentions and agents' life plans, the most significant ones in
ethics (maxims of ends) do.
One notorious roadblock to a virtue interpretation of Kantian ethics
remains, and it requires an unconventional but (I believe) Kantian
reply. Virtue theorists part ways with their deontological and teleolog-
ical opponents over the issue of moral motivation. In virtue ethics agents
are expected to act for the sake of virtue; in deontology, for duty's sake;
in utilitarianism, for utility's sake. Now at first glance it would seem
impossible to argue that Kant espouses a virtue ethics position with
respect to motivation, since he holds that only action from duty can
have moral worth. However, as my earlier arguments indicate, Kant's
notion of action aus Pflicht means in the most fundamental sense not
that one performs a specific act for the sake of a specific rule which
prescribes it (and likewise for other specific acts one performs) but
rather that one strives for a way of life in which all of one's acts are a
manifestation of a character which is in harmony with moral law.
Action aus Pflicht is action motivated by virtue, albeit virtue in Kant's
sternly rationalist sense.
But it is precisely on the issue of rationalism and moral motivation
that Kant has come under such severe criticism. The motivation pro-
blem has been a favourite target of Kantian critics from Hegel onward,
and to cover all of its dimensions is far beyond the scope of this paper.
The following brief remarks focus instead on Kant's position regarding
the role of emotion in action from virtue.
It is generally acknowledged that, from a moral perspective, the most
praiseworthy acts are often those which agents truly want to perform.
As Foot remarks: 'Who shows most courage, the one who wants to run
away but does not, or the one who does not even want to run away? Who
shows most charity, the one who finds it easy to make the good of others
his object, or the one who finds it hard? ... The man who acts charit-
ably out of a sense of duty is not to be undervalued, but it is the other
ti.e. the one who is directly moved and who thus wants to act charit-
485
Robert B. Louden
ably] who shows most virtue and therefore to the other that most moral
worth is attributed.'26 The sense of 'wants' here needs to be clarified,
and I will attempt to do so in a moment. But first, a restatement of the
underlying anti-Kantian argument: acting from virtue is (at least some-
times) action motivated by altruistic emotion or desire. Kant, however,
holds that action aus Pflicht must be defined independently of all
natural emotions and desires. Therefore, there is no place in Kantian
ethics for acting from virtue.27
Now back to 'wants'. Does Foot's agent who does 'not even want to
run away' act this way by nature or because he knows (in addition,
perhaps, to being naturally inclined in this direction) that it is noble to
do so? In Aristotelian terminology, does he act courageously out of
'natural virtue' or from 'virtue in the strict sense', the latter of which
involves phronesis, a rational understanding of what one is doing?
Aristotle and Kant agree on this fundamental point: acting from virtue
in the strict sense means acting rationally. But Aristotle also holds that
practical choice is 'reason motivated by desire (orektikos nous) or desire
operating through reason (orexis dianoetike)'.28 Desire and reason are
both necessary factors in moral choice, but neither on its own is
sufficient. How about Kant? Does acting from virtue, as he under-
stands it, entail acting from desires (in addition to reason)?
Kant has so often been tagged as enemy-of-the-emotions that it may
seem foolish even to ask the question. On most interpretations, Kant
allows room for one (and only one) desire in his account of moral
choice-respect or reverence (Achtung)-a unique 'a prwio feeling',
generated by a pure judgment which acknowledges the claim of the
moral law, and then in turn acts as the phenomenal spring to action
from appreciation of that law. But the role of emotions and natural
inclinations in Kant's understanding or moral motivation is trickier
than is often assumed. On the one hand, he does assert unequivocally
that 'what is essential in the moral worth of actions is that the moral law
should directly determine the will'.29 This way of talking is often
construed as meaning that reason is not only a necessary but also a
sufficient ground for moral choice, and that natural emotions (with the
sole exception of Achtung, which again is an a priori feeling and thus not
natural) have no positive role to play whatsoever. But while determina-
26 Foot, Virtues and Vices, 10, 14.

27 Two recent examples of this view include Lawrence A. Blum, Friend-
ship, Altruism and Morality (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), and
Lawrence M. Hinman, 'On the Purity of Our Motives: A Critique of Kant's
Account of the Emotions and Acting for the Sake of Duty', Monist 66
(1983), 251-266.
28Nicomachean Ethics VI.13, 1139b4-5.
29 Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 74, Ak. 72.
486
tion of choice through reason is obviously necessary in Kantian ethics,

it is not sufficient for the attainment of virtue. There are a host of
phenomenal emotions (the most important of which are joy, sympathy,
and love) which, while not the direct Bestimmungsgrund of the will,
must be present in a virtuous disposition. These emotions are
phenomenal effects which, as Karl Ameriks puts it, have 'noumenal
backing', and find their ultimate source in a noumenal acceptance of
pure duty.30 In less Kantian but more Aristotelian terms, these emo-
tions are ones that have been trained by reason to work in harmony with
reason. They are secondary in importance to respect, but they are
nevertheless essential components in a morally virtuous life.
Granted, it is difficult to see this if one does not read past the
Grundlegung. In that work, Kant is engaging in a form of analysis
which he compares with a chemical experiment. He discriminates
elements in a compound by varying the circumstances, and wants to
break the compound into its base elements in the most effective man-
ner. His assumption there is simply that it is easier to determine
accurately whether an act was performed from duty if the agent had an
inclination to perform the 'opposite' act (e.g. feel antipathy rather than
sympathy towards the suffering of others) than it would be if the agent
were also inclined to perform the same act that duty requires. (Of
course, even when natural inclination seems to be ruled out as an
incentive, we still can't determine with certainty what ultimately moti-
vated the agent. Kant holds that our moral intentions remain opaque to
us.) In a similar vein, Kant states in the second Critique that it is 'risky'
to view altruistic emotions as 'co-operating' with the moral law in
motivating moral behaviour.31 The reason, again, is that it becomes all
the more difficult to ascertain the true motives of action when, in
addition to acting out of respect for the law, one also has a natural desire
to act in the same manner as duty requires. Nevertheless, while it may
indeed be risky to enlist the emotions, this does not rule out the
possibility that proper cultivation of them may still be necessary for
human beings who aspire to a truly virtuous life. And Kant explicitly
asserts that the emotions have a necessary and positive role to play in
moral motivation in his later writings. In the Ethical Ascetic of the
Tugendlehre (which deals with the cultivation of virtue), he writes:
'what we do cheerlessly and merely as a compulsory service has no
intrinsic value for us, and so also if we attend to our duty in this way;
30 Karl Ameriks, 'The Hegelian Critique of Kantian Morality', 11. (MS. read
at the 1984 American Philosophical Association Western Division
Meeting.)
31 Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 75, Ak. 73. Here I am following
Ameriks, 12.
487
Robert B. Louden
for we do not love it but rather shirk as much as we can the occasion
for practising it'.32 Here and elsewhere Kant addresses the need to culti-
vate an 'habitually cheerful heart', in order that the feeling of joy
accompanies (but does not constitute or determine) our virtue. A
parallel passage occurs near the beginning of the Religion: 'Now if one
asks, what is the aesthetic character, the temperament, so to speak, of
virtue, whether courageous and hence joyous or fear-ridden and
dejected, an answer is hardly necessary. This latter slavish frame of
mind can never occur without a hidden hatred of the law. And a heart
which is happy in the performance of its duty (not merely complacent
in the recognition thereof) is a mark of genuineness in the virtuous
disposition. ...'33
These and other related passages state explicitly that the enemy-
of -the-emotions reading of Kant favoured by so many is a gross misun-
derstanding. Kant's position is clear: pure practical reason needs to be
always 'in charge' of the emotions in a truly virtuous life. The Bestim-
mungsgrund of moral choice must be reason, not feeling. But an
integral part of moral discipline or what Kant calls 'ethical gymnastic' is
training the emotions so that they work with rather than against reason.
Acts in which empirical inclinations of any sort are the Bestim-
mungsgrund lack moral worth, but it doesn't follow that a harmonizing
sentiment must cancel all moral worth. On the contrary, Kant insists
that it is a good thing.
Kant then would agree with Foot's claim that the agent who does not
even want to run away shows more courage than the one who wants to
run away but does not, provided that the 'want' in question is a rational
want with which the agent's desires are trained to be in harmony. More
generally, acting from virtue, on Kant's view, does entail disciplining
the emotions through reason so that one comes to want to perform the
same external act that reason commands. But again, as Kant warns,
there is a risk, for in training the emotions in such a manner it becomes
more difficult to assess one's motives for action. One is perpetually
flirting with the possibility that one's conduct is not autonomously
willed but merely a product of heteronomy, but cultivation of virtue
requires that the risk be taken.
Kant's position on the emotions and their role in action from virtue is
not inconsistent with a virtue ethics view. It is remarkably close to
Aristotle's view, the major difference being that Kant was much more

33 Kant, Religion, 19, n.; cf. Anthropology, 147, Ak. 282, and Education,
trans. by Annette Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960),
120-121.
488
aware than Aristotle of the dangers of self-deception by emotional

enthusiasm pretending to be moral inspiration.4
University of Southern Maine
34 Earlier versions of this essay were presented at the Johns Hopkins

University in August 1983 (in conjunction with the Council for Philosophical
Studies Summer Institute-'Kantian Ethics: Historical and Contemporary
Perspectives'), and at the 1984 Northern New England Philosophy Associa-
tion meeting at Plymouth State College in New Hampshire. I would also like
to thank Marcia Baron, Ludwig Siep, Warner Wick, and the Editor of
Philosophy for valuable criticisms of earlier written drafts.
489

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Royal Institute of Philosophy

Kant's Virtue Ethics

Among moral attributes true virtue alone is sublime.

1 The first quotation is from Kant's Observations on the Feeling of the

Philosophy 61 1986 473

The Shape of Virtue Ethics6

2 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre

Decision Procedures v. Good Character

Agent-ethics and act-ethics also diverge in their overall conceptions of

Virtue and the Good Will

Kant begins his ethical investigations with a powerful but cryptic

could be called good without qualification except a good will'.7 From

I Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Lewis White

Kantian virtue therefore is subordinate to the moral law, and this

A second argument for a virtue ethics interpretation of Kant comes

14 Onora O'Neill, 'Kant After Virtue', and 'Consistency in Action', in New

17 O'Neill, 'Kant After Virtue', 393-394.

(Fertigkeit) or ... a long-standing habit (Gewohnheit) of morally good

tools to evaluate an agent's discrete acts as well as his or her course of

Self-perfection and the Doctrine of Morally Necessary Ends

Yet there is one fundamental use of 'maxims' in Kant's texts which

23 Kant, The Doctrine of Virtue, 43, Ak. 384.

requires us to do certain things unless we accept the companion claim

the contract. If I don't first choose to view myself as being obligated to

Virtue and Emotion

26 Foot, Virtues and Vices, 10, 14.

tion of choice through reason is obviously necessary in Kantian ethics,

32 Kant, The Doctrine of Virtue, 158, Ak. 484.

aware than Aristotle of the dangers of self-deception by emotional

University of Southern Maine

34 Earlier versions of this essay were presented at the Johns Hopkins

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