The good will and the priority of the right in Kant's Groundwork I

Mudd, Alexandra (2017) The good will and the priority of the right in Kant's Groundwork I. In Proceedings of the 12th International Kant Congress : Nature and Freedom. Walter De Gruyter. 10 pp .

Abstract

In Groundwork I Kant seems to derive his conception of the moral law from a prior claim about the value of the good will, contrary to the argument he puts forward elsewhere to the effect that any conception of moral worth must be derived from an antecedent recognition of the law. This suggests to some interpreters that a moral conception of worth in fact underlies the Categorical Imperative, securing its validity and providing its content. In this paper I argue that, despite appearances to the contrary, Kant’s conception of the good will is not derived from an assumed moral value in Groundwork I, but rather follows analytically from the concept of a categorical imperative.

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