Immanuel Kant

The Good Will

     It is impossible to conceive anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except a good will.  Intelligence, wit, judgment, and any other talents of the mind we may care to name, or courage, resolution, and constancy of the mind we may care to name, or courage, resolution, and constancy of purpose, as qualities of temperament, are without doubt good and desirable in many respects; but they can also be extremely bad and hurtful when the will is not good which has to make use of these gifts of nature, and which for this reason has the term ‘character’ applied to its peculiar quality.  It is exactly the same with gifts of fortune.  Power, wealth, honor, even health and that complete well-being and contentment with one’s state which goes by the name of ‘happiness’, produce boldness, and as a consequence often over-boldness as well, unless a good will is present by which their influence on the mind—and so too the whole principle of action—may be corrected and adjusted to universal ends; not to mention that a rational and impartial spectator can never feel approval in contemplating the uninterrupted prosperity of a being graced by no touch of a pure and good will, and that consequently a good will seems to constitute the indispensable condition of our very worthiness to be happy.

     Some qualities are even helpful to this good will itself and can make its task very much easier.  They have none the less no inner unconditioned worth, but rather presuppose a good will which sets a limit to the esteem in which they are rightly held and does not permit us to regard them as absolutely good.  Moderation in affections and passions, self-control, and sober reflection are not only good in many respects: they may even seem to constitute part of the inner worth of a person.  Yet they are far from being properly described as good without qualification (however unconditionally they have been commended by the ancients).  For without the principles of a good will they may become exceedingly bad; and the very coolness of a scoundrel makes him, not merely more dangerous, but also immediately more abominable in our eyes than we should have taken him to be without it.

Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Trans. H. J. Paton (NY: Harper and Row, 1964)

a)

b)

c)

d)