Exploring Kant's Groundwork: An Analysis of Kantian Good Will

This essay provides an analysis of Immanuel Kant's concept of "good will" as presented in his work, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. It explores Kant's premise that a good will is the only thing that can be considered good without qualification, arguing that the morality of human actions should be based on moral laws yielded through goodwill and the categorical imperative. The essay discusses how qualified goods derive their value from something else and can be either beneficial or disastrous, emphasizing that all actions and resources should be evaluated based on their potential impact on society. It further examines the application of moral values to bring good to society, controlling human nature and resource usage to benefit others, and how moral values define human life and individual dignity. The essay concludes that goodwill is essential for peaceful coexistence and that humans should strive for the highest moral principles through the application of goodwill in all situations.

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Analysis of Kantian’s Good Will
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Analysis of Kantian’s Good Will
Kant suggests that will is the faculty of acting in humans that is based on the conception,
of law. This guides the acts of humans and what they intend to achieve beyond their control thus
making the morality of human outcomes not only dependent on the outcome but rather based on
different laws of morality that exist (Wood 2008, p. 8). This means that goodwill guides all the
activities that humans engage in. This essay analyses the premise "it is impossible to conceive
anything in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except
a good will" y highlighting the arguments of Kant based on the premise.
The groundwork is a foundation of moral theory that attempted to establish pure ethics to
develop the principle of moral law. The categorical imperative is the supreme sense of moral law
that are yielded through goodwill (Korsgaard 1983, p. 177). This is the moral law that defines
our duty through guiding people what they think is right and wrong. When coexisting with each
other, humans make daily decisions based on what they feel is right and beneficial to both their
needs and those of the society. Humans will thus satisfy an imperative that appeals to everyone
through observing the form of law that guides the society. According to Wood (2008, p. 15) all
goods are qualified except goodwill itself. Qualified goods produce their goods from something
else which can make them useful or disastrous in the society. The society should, therefore, look
at things based on the outcome that they will ring to the society rather than what they seek to
accomplish. With this conception, humans can co-exist since all their actions, abilities and
resources will be evaluate based on the goodwill to determine the impact that they have on the
society. Only the goods that bring benefits to the society should be allowed to be used in the
society.

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Good without qualification is the application of moral values to bring good to the society.
Kant calls for the use of moral values without qualification to approach situations by moderation
of affections and passions that make someone achieve self-control and stay sober (Wielenberg
1998, p. 97). The principles of goodwill thus control the nature of humans and how they use the
resources available to them to benefits and not harm others. Qualified goods can lead to bitter
outcomes if they are not used with morality (Jost & Wuerth 2011, p. 16). Therefore, Kant uses
the principles of goodwill to develop a way of approaching life without allowing other subjective
elements of life to control human judgment. This makes moral judgment a course and a necessity
that should guide all human actions to achieve the best coexistence between humans.
Values are used to define human life and individual’s dignity thus achieving the absolute
value from which the imperatives proceed. Unrestricted goodness is the objectivity of moral
values which is inseparable from people’s character of intrinsic value importance (Thorpe 2006,
p. 469). This means that moral values should lead to higher levels of goods from qualified goods.
Human life is morally relevant but is not as high as the moral goodness of the acts that allow
people to relate properly.
On the other hand, good without qualification is based on the belief that moral goodness
cannot be abused by people. Goods should exemplify their goodness and unconditionally speak
for themselves beyond what it is used for in itself. Thorough observing moral values, humans
can avoid moral evil and coexists rather than use the goods that they have to abuse others (Bailey
2010, p. 654). This makes goodwill the duty of humans that is used to develop a distinction
between acting in conformity and acting with duty. Good will does not always lead to doing the
right thing but rather guiding the motives of our actions to lead to the best intentions to people.

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Therefore, Kant presents a moral philosophy of the good will as the one that guides
morality and people’s actions. Qualification allows us to understand the good and benefit of an
activity or item based on what we expect from it and how it meets the needs of others (Korsgaard
1983, p. 171). Through the categorical imperative, humans makes choices that are guided by
both morality and the law. This article concludes that the goodwill leads to the good life which is
based on qualification of goods in the society to observe the defined moral laws that exist. For
peaceful coexistence, humans should strive to achieve the highest moral principles through
applying goodwill in all situations regardless of the outcome.

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References
Bailey, T., 2010. Analysing the Good Will: Kant's Argument in the First Section of the
Groundwork. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 18(4), p. 635–662.
Jost, L. & Wuerth, J., 2011. Perfecting Virtue: New Essays on Kantian Ethics and Virtue Ethics.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Korsgaard, C. M., 1983. Two Distinctions in Goodness. The Philosophical Review , 92(2), pp.
169-195.
Thorpe, L., 2006. The Point of Studying Ethics According to Kant. The Journal of Value
Inquiry, 40(4), pp. 461-474.
Wielenberg, E., 1998. Goodness without Qualification. The Journal of Value Inquiry, 32(1), p.
93–104.
Wood, A., 2008. Kantian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.