The Concept of the Highest Good in Kant's Moral Theory

Abstract

Kant claims that the concept of the highest good, the idea of a state or condition in which happiness is proportioned to virtue, follows as a consequence from the moral law. But it is not clear how it follows, nor indeed whether it follows at all. How, it has often been asked, can a law that requires us to act morally regardless of whether our personal happiness follows as a consequence be the source of an obligation to promote a state in which moral conduct has as its necessary consequence precisely such personal happiness?1 And on the other hand, if it can be shown that happiness does in fact belong in the highest good, why should it be limited to the virtuous? Can the moral law really oblige or even entitle us to undertake the seemingly presumptuous task of adjusting others' happiness to the degree of virtue we deem them to have? It is true that Kant often characterizes virtue as the worthiness to be happy, and it would no doubt be good if happiness were secured for those worthy of it. But of course this provides no solution to the problem, but only new terms in which it can be expressed. What needs to be explained is why virtue should be identified as the worthiness to be happy. One reason for pursuing this question is that an answer to it should help determine what place and importance, if any, the concept of the highest good