Incentive and Propensity

Abstract

The problem before us is the impact of the moral law on actual human conduct. In terms of the incentives (Triebfedern) of pure practical reason, Kant attributed to the moral law the capacity to determine the will directly1. The moral law is an incentive, even though it is impossible for the human reason to discover how a law can be the direct determining ground of the will2. The moral law arouses respect: the idea of something as the determining ground of the will demands respect and the moral law is subjectively a cause of respect3. The feeling engendered by the moral law cannot be considered either enjoyment or pain. It can be described as an interest in obedience to the law, or as a moral interest. The capacity for taking an interest in the law or respect for the moral law is really the moral feeling (das moralische Gefuht)4. The notion of the incentives was an attempt to achieve two objectives simultaneously: Kant wanted to show that the formulated moral law, grounded as it is in reason, is not separate from human response. This is why he tries to show the transformation of the law into an incentive which gives rise to the human response of respect or interest. While the moral law is formulated on the level of reason, the response is bound to occur on the level of the human partner. The second objective is to show that reason transforms itself into response or feeling without becoming sensuous or pathological, in Kant’s terminology, as a result of the transformation.