The Inner Dilemma Of Theory Of Kant's Concept Of "happiness"

This paper intends to focus on the question of happiness in Kant’s ethics. Kant’s views about happiness are pretty complicated:Kant wants to establish a kind of motivation theory ethics which only takes account of people’s intentions and motives, rather than the consequences of their actions. To achieve this purpose, Kant systematically criticizes happiness theory ethics which regards happiness as the aim of life. Once the pure moral law has been established, however, Kant immediately tries to give happiness a new position in his ethics, which reflects that Kant retreats slightly from his motivation theory ethics. This paper will evaluate the validity of Kant’s these views about happiness. This paper includes three parts:Firstly, evaluation of the validity of Kant’ refutation of happiness theory ethics; secondly, evaluation of the validity of positive accounts of happiness included in the concept of highest good; thirdly, examination of the compatibility between happiness and moral law.