Analysing the Good Will: Kant's Argument in the First Section of the Groundwork

Abstract

This article contends that the first section of Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals provides a sophisticated and valid argument, and that commentators are therefore mistaken in dismissing this section as flawed. In particular, the article undertakes to show that in this section Kant argues from a conception of the goodness of a good will to two distinctive features of moral goodness, and from these features to his ‘formula of universal law’. The article reveals the sophistication and validity of this argument by considering it in the light of a number of criticisms that are commonly levelled at the section. In conclusion, the article proposes that this interpretation of the section also has significant implications for the understanding of Kant's method, his formulas and his basic conception of the ‘moral’.