Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

formalising the expression of good will in the world. (It’s therefore a ‘constructivist’ approach, as well as being rational and deontological — that is, rules-based.)

All action, as we have seen, presumes our inherent belief that we act as agents. ‘Perfect duty’ is, for Kant, to not destroy the agency of either ourselves or others. Imperfect duty is not to undercut or compromise agency. The emphasis shifts from finding an objective moral good out there in the universe to finding objective moral reasons within ourselves for doing good. The problem (as Hume pointed out) is that we tend to act from desires rather than from rational motives, as Kant tried to insist. Note also it is just my good will and a belief in my own agency that seems to be the motive (although Kant tried to insist that it is good will in general). Therefore, what about other people’s agency? I should also add that Kant said it is our ‘noumenal’ self, that acts according to higher principles, whilst our ‘phenomenal’ self acts in accordance with our animal nature. So this makes Kant’s ethics somewhat difficult to untangle, but we will give it a go in Chapter 20.

Rights and entitlements seem to necessarily involve duties and obligations. Rights and duties suggest that society, by way of justice and the law, owes us something and expects things from us in return. Perhaps this could be taken as the essential interface between ethics (personal behaviour) and morality (public behaviour). We may, of course, quibble over whether society or the state has itself a right to expect anything from us, or whether the state is

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