Blog 5

In the second section, Kant says,  “though much may be done that conforms with what duty commands, still it is always doubtful whether it is actually done from duty and thus has a moral worth”. Here, Kant is suggesting that it is difficult to determine the true motive of an action and therefore, it is challenging to discriminate between pure moral intention and “self-love” (selfish) intentions. Kant says that people “gladly flatter ourselves [themselves] with the false presumption of a nobler motive”.  I completely agree with this assertion. There are so many incidences where one can ask if a person did something because of moral duty or selfishness because they do not want to be negatively sanctioned by society. For example, does one not cheat on a test because of moral obligation (duty) or because they do not want to get caught and reprimanded? Kant is right, that there is no way to truly discriminate between intentions because selfish intentions can hide under the guise of moral obligation. Therefore, because one cannot identify incidences of pure morality with certainty in any situation, experience cannot be a reliable source of moral definition.  Kant says, “pure sincerity in friendship can no less be required of everyone even if up to now there had never been a sincere friend; because this duty as a duty as such, prior to all experience, lies in the idea of a reason determining the will by a priori grounds”. In lame man’s terms, this essentially means that you do not need to have a good friend in order to be a good friend.  Kant uses God as another example to make his point.  He says that God, our “ideal of moral perfection”, is did not originate from experience.