The Spelling Bee Hero

Consider an episode that took place some years ago at the national spelling bee in Washington. D.C. A thirteen-year-old boy was asked to spell echolalia, a word that means a tendency to repeat whatever one hears. Although he misspelled the word, the judges misheard him, told him he had spelled the word right, and allow him to advance. When the boy learned that he had misspelled the word, he went to the judges and told them. He was eliminated after all. Newspaper headlines the next day proclaimed the honest young man a “spelling bee hero,” and his photo appeared in The New York Times. “The judges said I had a lot of integrity,” the boy told reporters. He added that part of his motive was, “I didn’t want to feel like a slime.

When I read that quote from the spelling bee hero, I wondered what Kant would think. Not wanting to feel like a slime is an inclination, of course. So, if that was the boy’s motive for telling the truth, it would seem to undermine the moral worth of his act. But this seems too harsh. It would mean that only unfeeling people could ever perform morally worthy acts. I don’t think this is what Kant means.

If the only reason the boy told the truth was to avoid feeling guilty, or to avoid bad publicity should his error be discovered, then his truth-telling would lack moral worth. But if he told the truth because he knew it was the right thing to do, his act has moral worth regardless of the pleasure or satisfaction that might attend it. As long as he did the right thing for the right reason, feeling good about it doesn’t undermine its moral worth.

The same is true of Kant’s altruist. If he comes to aid of other people simply for the pleasure it gives him, then his action lacks moral worth. But if he recognizes a duty to help one’s fellow human beings and acts out of that duty, then the pleasure he derives from it is not morally disqualifying…

Sandel, J. Michael (2009) Justice: What’s the right thing to do? New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

What’s Moral? Look for the Motive

According to Kant, the moral worth of an action consists not in the consequences that flow from it, but in the intention from which the act is done. What matters is the motive, and the motive must be of a certain kind. What matters is doing the right thing because it’s right, not for some ulterior motive.

“A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes,” Kant writes. It is good in itself, whether or not it prevails. “Even if… this will is entirely lacking in power to carry out its intentions; if by its utmost effort it still accomplishes nothing… even then it would still shine like a jewel for its own sake as something which has its full value in itself.”

For any action to be morally good, “it is not enough that it should conform to the moral law – it must also be done for the sake of the moral law.” And the motive that confers moral worth on an action is the motive of duty, by which Kant means doing the right thing for the right reason.

In saying that only the motive of duty confers moral worth on an action, Kant is not yet saying what particular duties we have. He is not yet telling us what the supreme principle of morality commands. He’s simply observing that, when we assess the moral worth of an action, we assess the motive from which it’s done, not the consequences it produces.

If we act out of some motive other than duty, such as self-interest, for example, our action lacks moral worth. This is true, Kant maintains, not only for self-interest but for any and all attempts to satisfy our wants, desires, preferences, and appetites. Kant contrasts motives such as these – he calls them “motives of iinclination” – with the motive of duty. And he insists that only actions done out of the motive of duty have moral worth.

Sandel, J. Michael (2009) Justice: What’s the right thing to do? New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Persons and Things

It is 3:00 a.m., and your college roommate asks you why you are up late pondering moral dilemmas involving runaway trolleys.

“To write a good paper in Ethics 101,” you reply.

“But why write a good paper?” your roommate asks.

“To get a good grade.”

“But why care about grades?”

“To get a job in investment banking.”

“But why get a job in investment banking?”

“To become a hedge fund manager someday.”

“But why be a hedge fund manager?”

“To make a lot of money.”

“But why make a lot of money?”

“To eat lobster often, which I like. I am, after all, a sentient creature. That’s why I’m up late thinking about runaway trolleys!”

This is an example of what Kant would call heteronomous determination – doing something for the sake of something else, for the sake of something else, and so on. When we act heterogeneously, we act for the sake of ends given outside us. We are instruments, not authors, of the purpose we pursue.

Kant’s notion of autonomy stands in stark contrast to this. When we act autonomously, according to a law we give ourselves, we do something for its own sake, an end in itself. We cease to be instruments of purposes given outside us. This capacity to act autonomously is what gives human life its special dignity. It marks out the difference between persons and things….

Sandel, J. Michael (2009) Justice: What’s the right thing to do? New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.