On the Value of Acting from the Motive of Duty

t has quite reasonably been a source of frustration to sympaI thetic readers that Kant seems to claim that a dutiful action can have moral worth only if it is done from the motive of duty alone. The apparent consequence of this view-that an action cannot have moral worth if there is supporting inclination or desire-is, at the least, troubling as it judges a grudging or resentfully performed dutiful act morally preferable to a similar act done from affection or with pleasure. In a recent article, 1 Richard Henson attempts to take the sting out of this view of Kant on moral worth by arguing (i) that attending to the phenomenon of the overdetermination of actions leads one to see that Kant might have had two distinct views of moral worth, only one of which requires the absence of cooperating inclinations, and (ii) that when Kant insists that there is moral worth only when an action is done from the motive of duty alone, he need not also hold that such a state of affairs is morally better, all things considered, than one where supporting inclination is present. Henson's proposals seem to me both serious and plausible. I do not think that either of his models, in the end, can take on the role Kant assigns to moral worth in the argument of the Groundwork. But seeing the ways Henson's account diverges from Kant's makes clearer what Kant intended in his discussion of those actions he credits with moral worth. Most of the traditional difficulties with Kant's views on moral worth come from not seeing the point of that discussion.