#good will

“Since it has pleased Providence to place me in this station, I shall do my utmost to fulfil my duty towards my country; I am very young and perhaps in many, though not in all things, inexperienced, but I am sure that very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what is fit and right than I have.” ~ HM Queen Victoria

Saying “it doesn’t matter what others think” can mean two different things structurally. One meaning that you are not dependent on approval or authority is healthy. The other meaning is more problematic, you exempt your reasoning from public test. Kant insists that moral reasoning must remain capable of being shared, justified, and understood by other rational agents. If a rule cannot be explained in a way others could in principle accept, it starts drifting back toward private preference disguised as principle.

Here Kant is separating two different systems inside human behavior. Inclination (what we feel like doing) and principle (what reason determines should be done). Moral value appears only when the second system determines the action.

Kant introduces also here the concept of duty that reveals the structure of a good will. Duty appears when we do something not because we feel like it, and not because it benefits us, but because we recognize that it is the right principle to follow. Kant analyzes several situations to show the difference between acting in accordance with duty and acting from duty. Take a merchant who charges fair prices. This looks honest. But if the merchant does this only to maintain reputation and profit, the action is practical self-interest, not moral duty. The behavior matches morality on the surface, but the motivation is strategic.