7 - Moral obligation: rights, duties, virtues

Summary

Terminology: morals – right – ethics

It is quite common to speak of “Kantian Ethics”. Kant himself uses this terminology in the Preface to the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) where he distinguishes between physics as the science of the laws of nature and ethics as the science of the laws of freedom (G 4:387). In the Groundwork, following the ancient philosophical tradition, Kant uses the terms “ethics” and “doctrine of morals” [Sittenlehre] synonymously.

But in The Metaphysics of Morals (1797) Kant abandons the long-standing terminological equivalence between “ethics” and “morals”. To prevent misunderstandings of his philosophical views, it is crucial to appreciate this shift in his terminology. At the beginning of the second part of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant explains:

In ancient times “ethics” signified the doctrine of morals (philosophia moralis) in general, which was also called the doctrine of duties. Later on it seemed better to reserve the name “ethics” for one part of moral philosophy, namely for the doctrine of those duties that do not come under external laws (it was thought appropriate to call this, in German, the doctrine of virtue). Accordingly, the system of the doctrine of duties in general is now divided into the system of the doctrine of right (ius), which deals with duties that can be given by external laws, and the system of the doctrine of virtue (Ethica), which treats of duties that cannot be so given; and this division may stand.

(MM 6:379)

In the terminology of 1797, “morals” is a general term referring to all “duties” or “obligations”, whether legal or ethical.