An Analysis Of Kant 's Concept Of "Good Will"

This paper attempts to search the the development train of the concept of good will from a historical perspective. The concept of good will is one of the characteristics of Kant’s philosophy,which forms itself in the long-term thinking process over ethical issues. Kant’s moral philosophy is gradually developed under the influence of two thoughts:Wolf-rationalism tradition and the British Emotionalist ethics. His considerations about the goodness, which is the core of moral,throughout his lifetime of growing and schooling, on which Kant Rousseau’s doctrine is of great inspiration to Kant. When setting up the rationalist position, Kant went to look for the law that how people "should be" and the basis of the moral good through reason, generating a bud on the doctrine of good will.Kant’s argument on the conception of good will,which is as the premise concept and basic concept of the theory deduction,mainly concentrates on the book"Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals".Although the importance of the concept have been paid attention to in previous studies, the intention and purpose of such a careful design in Kant’s thoughts is always ignored.By the analysis of the reason, the way and the necessity of the concept as clearly putting forward in Kant’s philosophy, we know that this concept has actually contained the seed of the basic idea of the whole work, and established the basic position of Kant’s Moral Philosophy--constructing a scientific moral metaphysics with the method of transcendental logic.What’s more, its significance far beyond the scope involved in this book,for it is also the highest pursuit of our reason and reveals moral ideal as summum bonumFrom the concept itself We can see the inevitable connection between the concept of good and good will,which lied in the fact that the good will makes up connection between the concept of good and the moral law. The good will Kant has described as good is of the intention.It is good in itself.It is the absolute, unconditional good, and also the highest good.Through the analysis on the goodness of the good will, we know that the good will is the premise for all good things as goodness,as the standard all moral evaluations and also inevitably trend to the purpose of reason; only start from the concept can we set the boundary of pure moral realm,seeking the real origin for goodness of the moral core;also to provide a support and guarantee for inevitability of the practice of the people’s moral actions in purpose.From the argument in "Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals",Kant thought himself about that he have successfully found the moral law,however,when it comes to the actuality and the reality of the moral law, the deductive final failed and trapped itself in a hidden cycle between freedom and the moral law. Subsequent Kant turns to a "double position" theory,which tries to unify the intellectual world and sensible world to connect the moral law and the real world,but the break between the moral law and the life still exist. In fact, the failure of the interpretation also contains another similar break that is,as the good will is a pure will which was determined a priori,the break also exists between the good will and the good behavior in our lives.