"] Can we say, with
Kant, that the only good is the Good Will? It is not uncommon for
instrumental goods to come to receive a homage greater than that
which is paid to the ends they serve. It is notably and necessarily so
with the various aspects of the concept of morality; virtue, conscience,
goodness of character are actually more important for us to think about
and aim for than the happiness to which they ultimately minister. But this
apotheosis denial of its fundamentally instrumental value. As with
the miser who rates his bank notes more highly than the goods he could
purchase with them, an abstract moralist occasionally exalts the means
at the expense of the end. We are told that only goodness counts; that
its worth has nothing to do with its relation to happiness; that goodness
would command our allegiance even if it brought nothing but misery
in its train.
The best-known exponent of this blind worship of goodness is Kant.
He writes, "A Good Will is good, not because of what it performs or
effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end,
but simply by virtue of the volition; that is, it is good in itself
Its fruitfulness or fruitlessness can neither add nor take away
anything from this value ... Moral worth ... cannot lie anywhere but
in the principle of the Will, without regard to the ends which can
be attained by the action." [Footnote: The Metaphysic of Morality.
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