Immanuel Kant: The Role of Emotions in Morality

    Critics of Kantian ethics have accused him of degrading emotions and placing too much emphasis on “duty.” At first glance this accusation seems to be a legitimate one, for what would the world be like if human emotion had less hold on us? The implications of such a world would be drastic, but those implications, be they negative or positive, are not fundamentally important to the allegation being made. A world in which human emotions are deemphasized would be different. This is a very important accusation to concede for Kant’s system if we consider that men and women constantly act from their emotions, as opposed to acting from a sense of duty. However, if we look closely at Kant’s conception of duty, we will find that he is not downplaying emotion at all. In fact, emotion plays a key role in acting from duty.

    A distinction must be made between acting from duty and acting in accordance with duty. Acting in accordance with duty might actually conform to an action done from duty, but has no moral value since the emotion is the basis for action, not duty. In other words, actions that correspond to moral axioms (even if only accidentally) but are motivated by non-moral motives do not have moral worth. This is contrasted from acting from duty when we look at what Kant means by duty. By “duty” Kant understands an acknowledgment of respect by us of moral law, and by “respect” Kant means the recognition of value in moral law as a means for action. An action is moral only when we act out of respect for moral law. This acting out of an acknowledgement of respect is our duty. Therefore, when we act duty we are acting out of respect for moral law. But when we act in accordance with duty, we are acting for some reason other than respect.

    So where does emotion come in? The importance of emotion comes onto play when we examine Kant’s dichotomy of respect. Kant makes it clear that there are two aspects of respect: the “practical” aspect and the “affective” aspect. The practical aspect of respect is understood as stated above. That is, the idea of respecting moral law as a worthy means for action is the practical aspect of respect. By contrast (yet still the same idea of respect), the affective aspect of respect is defined by the necessary feeling we get when moral law limits the strength of or outweighs the motivations of our desire. In other words, when our sovereign moral law checks our desires and thereby limits their influence on the will, we feel an emotion.