2 - Moral Worth

Summary

The right thing can be done for the wrong reason. An action might meet an obligation such as paying a debt when the agent’s doing of that, the act-token, is motivated purely by fear of reprisal and thereby fails to be morally creditworthy. The action might, in Kant’s parlance, lack moral worth. Much that we do is based on more than one motive, as where self-interest aligns with moral obligation. Can we, at will, control which of the aligned motives will determine why we do the thing in question? Does morality require that we try to see that moral motivation – or at least some unselfish motive – determines our actions toward others? And if we act for both a moral reason and a prudential one, to what extent, if at all, is the action morally creditworthy? This chapter explores these problems and sketches answers to these and related questions.